Moonspear dealing with danger

I’m ahead, I’m ahead, he kept thinking, like a mantra, in his neck-breaking run. Not a chance of looking back to know just how far ahead he was either, all Altair needed to know was that he hadn’t been caught yet. It gave him confidence and finesse however gangly the latter was, and if it kept him ahead until he had exhausted his pursuer then it was all for the better.

Even if it meant he’d get his rear snatched later for being disobedient.

His steps slowed ever so slightly, feeling more sure of himself and his lead.

Yet almost immediately thereafter that confidence was rattled a bit when he felt something snag at the hairs at his hide; the pulling of loose tufts and unrelenting wintry coat made his flank smart. It gave him another start, but she didn’t have him just yet either. It was with another burst of speed that made his muscles burn that he aimed to put space between them again, breaking through the cover of the forest for a rocky, open expanse along the lowland slope.

To a surveying eye of hawk overhead, they were nothing more than two dark streaks against the autumn pelage.