Aldric Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 4 of 11

The tall man lowered his flute and stared at the trees behind the shrine. His hands shook. Aldric held the sealed jar tight against his chest. The wolf pressed hard into his leg, then harder. Whatever walked toward them was close. "Go," the tall man said. "You have what you came for." "You played the door for me," Aldric said. "I don't leave you here." "She took my name once. She will take more this time." The tall man looked at the jar. "Your sister has days. I have minutes. Run." Aldric weighed it. Four days to his sister. One musician who had opened the lake for a stranger. He thought of his oldest daughter's knife left in the dirt at his camp. He thought of the coin in his pocket. He had walked away from a scene once and spent two months paying for it. "Behind me," Aldric said. He drew his bow. He set the jar down between his boots and nocked an arrow. The wolf turned toward the trail and lowered her head. A branch snapped. Then the ferns near the shrine parted, and a small figure stepped through instead. Orange hair. Wide spotted cap. Bare feet. The mushroom girl he had met on the path east. She was breathing hard. "She is coming up the shore trail," she said. "I saw it in the spores an hour ago. I ran." She looked at the tall man, and something soft moved across her face. "I owe you a guide back. Follow me." "Where," Aldric said. "A hollow under the falls. My grove sits above it. The smiling woman cannot cross the firebreak." She held up her blackened fingertip. "I paid for that line. It still holds." The tall man hesitated. The girl took his sleeve, careful with her bad hand. He let her. They moved. The wolf ran point. Aldric kept the jar wrapped against his ribs and the bow in his free hand. Behind them, a woman's voice called the tall man's name in a light, pleased tone. He flinched but did not turn. The girl pulled him faster. They reached a shallow cut in the ground where the earth was scorched black in a clean ring. The girl stepped over it first. The tall man followed. Aldric crossed last and felt the air change, dryer, quieter, as if a door had shut behind him. The voice on the trail stopped calling. Inside the ring, the girl set the tall man down against a stump. He was pale. His flute hung loose in his fingers. "He will remember more here," she said. "Slowly. Safely." She looked at Aldric. "Your skiff waits at the pebbled beach. Go now. The lake is quiet only until dawn." Aldric knelt. He put a hand on the tall man's shoulder once. Then he ran for the shore, the wolf at his heel, the sealed jar heavy against his heart.