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Falco bit his lip and hesitated for a brief moment. Of course he was coming. He wouldn't stay behind where wolves and Big Folk could find him. But did he want to go? That was the reason for his pause. It was humiliating to be found hiding on top of a rock, when the others had been running here and there, trying to help. He had had no choice; his sore and achings legs would not have been any help to the others. But it was humiliating, and doubly so because it had been Sondo who had found him. Sondo who still thought ill of him.
And then there were his legs. Whether he wanted to go or not, whether he had to go or not, could his legs support him? Half a mile... half an agonising mile. How could he manage it? How could he think of managing it? He was shaking, and not from the fear of the wolves. His whole frame was trembling, on the verge of collapse. How could he go half a mile to the meeting place? And when they reached the meeting place, what then? They would go on, of course. How could he go on?
"Coming?" said Sondo again, but his tone was not an annoyed, impatient tone. There was a faint smile on his face, which, in the days before their adventures when they had schemed about some prank, would have instantly been called encouraging, by Falco at least. But now he thought of it as nothing but mocking.
He's laughing at me! Falco thought, with a start of resentment. He thinks it is positively ridiculous that I was hiding when everyone else was in the thick of danger, and he's thinking of how he can tease me about it later. And he thinks I'm scared now. He thinks I'd rather stay safely up on my rock. He's laughing at me!
That was not to be borne. Falco threw back his head and began to totter forward weakly, struggling hard not to totter, or at the very least not to totter weakly.
"Yes," he said. "I'm coming."
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