Page 14 of Moonless

It’s night.

A mountain rises beyond the trees, black against the stars. I don’t know it.

I press against the stones, trying to stand. My left arm gives, and I fall onto my side.

Cold gravel scrapes my bare stomach. I draw my knees up, reaching toward the rocks at the treeline with my good hand. There’s room behind them to get out of the wind.

I catch a stone and pull myself toward it. My feet drag clear of the water.

The rocks are still too far away. I reach again, but my fingers slip, and I put my cheek down to rest.

I can’t see them anymore.

Chapter 4

I catch the passage wall when my knee gives. Hitto.

The blood is still coming through the cracks. I wait until my leg holds. The cold lamp stays where I knelt.

My cloak hangs near the outer passage, beside the slab that stands open against the wall. I’ve never had a reason to close it. I take the cloak down and work through the narrow turns, ducking beneath the growth across the opening. Outside, I stop against the mountain and listen.

Water runs far below. A small animal moves through fallen leaves to my left, pausing when I move. Beyond it, the trees are quiet.

I draw the air through my nose again.

The blood comes from downriver, where the bank widens beneath the pines. I know the ground between here and there. Tonight I take the longer descent, keeping one hand against the rock.

Hunters used to wound animals and leave them within reach of our dens. A deer dragging a broken leg made an easy meal. Men waited beyond it with moonbright on their weapons.

And it’s come on the night they’d pick.

I stop at the first trees, my ears turning toward a scrape uphill. A branch settles against another, then again with the wind. I wait until I hear the same movement a third time.

The cloak catches on a low limb as I pass. I free it with a claw and keep below the ridge, where anyone watching would have to come down to see me.

My legs are shaking when I reach the lower trees.

I rest against a trunk while I listen to the water. Wolf scent is stronger here, and it comes from the blood, not from anything moving along the bank. The moonbright is bitter beneath it. Human blood comes with every breath.

Still one person.

I work along the bank under cover, looking past each opening. Silt has dried around a pool above the current. There’s a heron’s track at its edge, undisturbed, and nothing freshly broken in the brush.

Then I see her on the gravel.

She’s naked, curled on her right side with one arm stretched toward the trees. Her heels have dragged two shallow lines from the water. Blood darkens her left shoulder around a splintered length of wood.

On my side of the river.

I stay among the pines long enough to hear her breathe.

It’s a thin breath, too far behind the last.

I go to her and lower myself onto one knee. Gravel shifts beneath my foot, but she doesn’t stir. The cold in her wrist reaches my fingers when I lift it.

Her pulse is fast and weak. I lay the wrist back on the gravel and bend closer to the wound.

The bolt-head is buried, with barely enough shaft left to grip. Blood seeps around the wood, carrying moonbright and the same wrong mix of scents.