Aldric Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 4 of 9

Aldric sat against the signpost and listened. Blood ran down his sleeve where the creature's claw had caught him. The cane lay across his knees, split up the shaft. He tried to close his hand on it and could not make a proper fist. If the thing came back before Ephrat did, he would not stand up in time. He heard footsteps from the wrong direction. Not the cemetery path. Somewhere further off, quick and light. A boy's stride. Aldric turned his head against the post and waited to see who broke the nettles first. Ephrat came out of the brush at a run. Blue hair stuck to his forehead under the red headband. He had the cloth bundle held tight against his chest with both hands. He saw Aldric on the ground and stopped short. His eyes went to the blood, then to the cracked cane, then to the dark mouth of the den across the clearing. "You moved," Ephrat said. "I had to." "The flower's whole." He knelt and set the bundle in Aldric's lap. He did not ask about the wound yet. He looked at the cane instead. "It broke." "It held long enough." Ephrat pulled Aldric's sleeve back and looked at the gash. He tore a strip from his own shirt and bound it tight above the cut. His hands were steady. He had done this before, or watched someone do it, and copied the way. "Can you stand?" Ephrat asked. "Not far." "You don't have to go far. Just off the trail." He got a shoulder under Aldric's arm and lifted. Aldric was heavier than the boy, but Ephrat set his feet and took the weight without a word. The cane went under Aldric's other hand. The split wood groaned but held. They moved ten paces into the brush behind the signpost, where a fallen log made a low wall. Ephrat lowered him against it and crouched beside him. He drew a short knife Aldric had not seen before and laid it across his knee, watching the den. "It's wounded," Aldric said. "One eye. One leg." "Good." "It may still come." "Then I'll be here." Aldric looked at the boy's face. Ephrat did not look back. He was watching the clearing the way a hunter watches a snare. Aldric had told him at the stump to go home. He had told him at the village gate not to follow. The boy had ignored every word, and now Aldric was alive because of it. He unfolded the cloth in his lap. The fairyvander bloom lay inside, pale blue, unbruised. The offering for the hooded lady at the shrine past the black stones. The next step of the path he had come three days to walk. "We go to the shrine at first light," Aldric said. Ephrat nodded once and kept his eyes on the den.