Brille Covella's Arc

Chapter 6 of 13

They made camp where the road bent past a shallow creek. Brille helped unsaddle the horses and watched the treeline while she worked. Something had been pacing them since noon. She had caught it twice: a shape too low for a deer, too heavy for a wolf, sliding between trunks whenever the wind moved the branches. No one else had said a word. She caught whiffs of a rare clay smell in the breeze as well, if that smell was what she thought it was, it could mean real trouble. She was the newest. She had to be sure before she spoke. Siobhan Brightscar crouched by the fire ring, striking flint. The red-haired woman with the W-shaped scar had recruited Brille at the inn under the east bridge, and had not spoken to her since the ride began. Brille went to her anyway. "Something's tracking us," Brille said. "West side. Low to the ground. Big." Siobhan did not look up. "How long?" "Since the last stream crossing." "Then you've got until dark to name it." She struck a spark into the tinder. Her green eyes lifted. "Guess wrong and we waste arrows. Guess right and we sleep. Go." Brille took her bow and moved upwind along the treeline. Cassian fell in behind her without asking, lizard riding their shoulder, one hand on the knife at his belt. She did not send him away. She owed him twice already. A third debt could wait. "Track first," Cassian said. "Shoot second." "I know." She found the print at the base of a birch. Four toes, claws forward, wider than her spread hand. A tuft of green-and-black striped fur clung to the bark above it, at the height of her chest. She pulled the fur free and rolled it between her fingers, sniffed it. Coarse. Recent. Weller’s rust clay. Her blood ran cold. Rhyme Threebloods came up on her other side, quiet for a man his size. The bouncer from the inn had ridden out with them, sword slung across his back. He looked at the print and the fur and his jovial face went flat. "Clayhorn," he said. "Old scars, fresh hunger. A horn like a spear and a hide arrows can't finish." He glanced at her. "You saw it first. Well done, lass." "Clayhorns are arrow proof…" "No, they Slow it. If you get the eye… that’s the only soft part worth the shot. Small targets on a moving beast twice your size.” Brille went back to camp with the tuft of fur in her fist. Siobhan took it, sniffed it, and stood. "Clayhorn prowler," Brille said. "West treeline. One, I think. Big." Siobhan nodded once, the same nod she had given at the stable. She turned to the others and started giving orders: fire built higher, horses moved to the creek side, watches doubled. Cassian pulled a coil of wire from his pack. Rhyme drew his blade and tested the edge with his thumb. "Brille, you’re on the first watch with me," Siobhan said to Brille. "You spotted it. You help me kill it." Brille strung her bow. The camp was no longer sleeping tonight. But she had earned a place at the fire, and the woman with the scar had said her name like it belonged there.