Serafina and the Twisted Staff (The Serafina Series) Read Free Page B

drew its nose out again, its mouth gaped open. Its teeth were bared and chattering, dripping with saliva. The dog
began to growl. Then the second dog and the third nosed the dark cloth, until all five had taken the scent. The wicked, snarling malevolence of the hounds stabbed her stomach with fear. Her only
hope was that the trail of the cloth’s scent would take them in the opposite direction.
    The man looked down at his pack of hounds. ‘Our quarry is near,’ he told them, his voice filled with menacing command. ‘Follow the scent! Find the Black One!’
    Suddenly, the dogs howled, savage like wolves. All five of them burst from their haunches and lunged into the forest. Serafina jumped despite herself. Her legs wanted to run so bad that she
could barely keep herself still. But she had to stay hidden. It was her only chance of survival. But to her horror, the hounds were running straight towards her.
    She couldn’t understand it. Should she keep hiding? Should she fight? Should she run? The dogs were going to tear her to pieces.
    Just when she knew she had to run, she realised it was too late. She didn’t have a chance. Her chest seized. Her legs locked. She froze in terror.
    No! No! No! Don’t do it! You’re not a rat! You’re not a chipmunk! You’ve got to move!
    Faced with certain death, she did what any sensible creature of the forest would do: she leapt ten feet straight up into a tree. She landed on a branch, then scurried along its length and hurled
herself like a flying squirrel in a desperate leap to the next tree. From there, she bounded to the ground and ran like the dickens.
    With howls of outrage, the hounds gave chase, running and snapping at her. They coursed her like a pack of wolves on a deer. But they were
wolfhounds
, so they weren’t born and bred
to chase down and kill anything as small as a deer. They were born and bred to chase down and kill
wolves
.
    As she ran, Serafina glanced back over her shoulder towards the road. The craggy-faced man looked up at the owl as the haunting creature came circling back round. Then, to Serafina’s
astonishment, he threw his walking stick up into the sky. It tumbled end over end towards the owl. But it did not strike the bird. It seemed to blur and then disappear into the darkness, just as
the owl flew into the cover of the trees. Serafina had no idea who the man was or what she had seen, but it didn’t matter now. She had to run for her life.
    Fighting off a single jumping, biting, snapping, snarling wolfhound was bad enough, but fighting five was impossible. She sprinted through the forest as fast as she could, her muscles punched
with the power of fear. She wasn’t going to let these growling beasts defeat her. The cold forest air shot into her pumping lungs, every sense in her body exploding with a lightning bolt of
panic. Coming up behind her, the first hound reached out its ragged neck, opened its toothy maw and bit the back of her leg. She spun and struck the dog, screaming in anger and searing pain as the
dog’s fangs punctured her flesh. The smell of the blood excited the other hounds into even more of a frenzy. The second dog leapt upon her and bit her shoulder, tearing into her with growling
determination as she slammed her fist into its face. The third clamped its teeth onto her wrist as she tried to pull it away. The three of them pulled her down and dragged her across the ground.
Then the other two dogs came in for the kill, their fangs bared as they lunged straight for her throat.

A s the wolfhound charged in, Serafina threw her arm across her neck. Instead of tearing through her throat, the dog’s fangs chomped down on
her forearm, shooting spikes of pain through her bone as she screamed. The second dog pressed in for the killing bite, but a fist-sized stone slammed into its head, knocking it back. Then another
stone hit one of the other dogs, and it whirled to defend itself.
    ‘Haaaa!’ came a violent shout out of the