Brealoth Woodheart's Arc

Chapter 2 of 4

Brealoth was halfway to the deep hollow when the wood turned wrong. Birds burst from the canopy. A rabbit shot past his boots, then a doe, then a whole line of animals running the other way. He stopped and listened. The poachers' digging had spooked them. They were fleeing straight toward his home, into the belt of traps that ringed it. He turned back at a run. He reached the ground near the barn first. The living barn stood woven from bent branches and hanging vines, its doorways low and dark. Small creatures already huddled in its shelter. But between the barn and the treeline, the snares waited. A fox limped in a slow circle, one paw caught. Brealoth knelt and worked his river-forged knife under the cord. The old dark blade slid clean. He cut the fox free, and it bolted into the barn. The animals kept coming. He could not carry them past the traps. He had to clear the traps themselves. So he began. He moved from snare to snare on his knees. Each one he pinned and cut and sprung with the knife. His hands bled from the barbs. A tiny winged pixie darted ahead of him, glowing pink, and hovered over each hidden trap until he found it. She marked them faster than his eyes could. He worked the line she lit. A badger blundered into a snare he had not reached. Brealoth lunged and caught the cord before it drew tight. He freed the animal and moved on. Half the traps were clear when the golden wolf appeared. It stood at the treeline, the pack leader, coat bright even in the gray light. Behind it pressed a crowd of frightened animals, held back by its body. The wolf watched Brealoth cut. It would not lead them across until the ground was safe. Brealoth understood. He worked faster. Sweat stung his eyes. A cat with a coat like the night sky slipped between his hands, twinkling, and pawed at a cord he had missed near the roots. He cut that one too. The last snare sat by a ring of round river stones, where a spring bubbled up clear. He drove the knife under the cord and snapped it. He stood, chest heaving, and lifted his open hand toward the wolf. The golden wolf stepped onto the cleared ground. It crossed slow, testing. When nothing caught it, it broke into a lope. The whole crowd surged after, past Brealoth, into the barn and the brush beyond. They streamed by close enough to touch. None of them ran from him. When the last tail vanished, silence fell. The traps lay sprung and useless in the dirt. His home was safe. But he stood among the broken snares with bleeding hands, and he looked toward the deep hollow. The poachers were still digging. He had bought the animals time, not safety. Now he had to reach the men who had driven them here.