The Three Feathers - The Magnificent Journey of Joshua Aylong Read Online Free PDF Page B

through a densely wooded forest where the branches built a thick roof above their heads. They rested by small streams where they stilled their thirst. Grey caught a few large fish and there was more than plenty of food for Krieg and Joshua. And all the while, they shared with each other their stories and their lives as they remembered them. They shared their fears and joys, their shortcomings and their triumphs. But most of all they came to know what each of them longed for. Krieg’s deep wish for peace, Grey’s longing for the love of his dead companion and Joshua’s powerful dream that he felt he could no longer live without. On the end of the fourth day they knew of each other what seldom is known except in long and deep friendships.
    As they walked, the weather changed. They left behind the snowy hills and reached an area where the sun lay on fields of grass that was just about to spring up through the frozen soil. Soon the first blossoms would be visible, pushing through the darkness towards the sunlight. The three friends felt that the spring around them that was about to meet the last days of winter, mirrored their own journey, their own leaving behind their past and venturing toward something bigger, still unknown but no longer completely hidden from them. Then the howling began.
    They had just settled down for the night when they heard it. First it came from one direction. Then another and yet another.
    “Wolves?” Was Joshua’s first thought.
    “No,” Krieg answered. “Those wolves I encountered a long time ago were bred for the war, starved by their masters to feed on the fear of the survivors. I have not encountered them since.
    “Krieg is right,” Grey thought. “Those aren’t wolves. I would know. What I do know is that whatever it is, it has by now completely surrounded us.
    “What shall we do?” Joshua asked.
    “Jump on my back,” the horse thought to Joshua.
    Before Joshua could follow Krieg’s thought, he saw an image of a pack of Hyenas in his mind coming from the wolf.
    “A dozen of them. Maybe two. I can take four, maybe five, but a dozen? I have no chance against them. We have to run.”
    “Jump!” The horse thought to Joshua. As Joshua jumped, wings fluttering, onto the warhorses back, the wolf charged in the opposite direction.
    “I’ll divert them,” he thought. “I can outrun them easily.” And he was gone—a gray shadow disappearing into the dark of night.
    Three of the hyenas appeared and charged toward Joshua and Krieg who went on his hind legs and jumped forward. The hyenas changed direction to cut off their escape path. As they came closer, Joshua saw their large fangs and powerful jaws snapping at the horse’s legs.
    “Hold on tight!” Krieg’s thought reached him just at the moment when the horse changed direction as well and went straight into the path of the two hyenas to his right. He trampled them, his powerful hooves crushing them and pushing them into the ground. The third one evaded the hooves, but barely. It held its distance knowing that the rest of the pack would catch up soon.
    “Can you outrun them?” Joshua asked Krieg.
    “I don’t know but we’ll find out very soon,” he thought.
    The howling now came from ahead of them as well. The eerie cries of the hyenas made Joshua’s skin crawl.
    “Don’t be afraid,” Krieg thought to him. “They will feed on your fear and that fear will come back to you twice as strong. It will make you weak.”
    “I can’t help it,” Joshua thought. “There seem to be so many!”
    As they galloped through the night, yellow eyes watching them from all directions and the cries from the hyenas coming ever closer, it dawned on Joshua that they might not make it.
    “Follow me!” Grey was suddenly next to them. He turned to the right. Krieg changed direction and followed the wolf’s lead.
    Through the pounding of the hooves and the eerie cries of the hyenas, Joshua suddenly heard something else. Something loud and