Cascade Wildheart's Arc

Chapter 3 of 7

Cascade stepped to the shed door. The hunter slept behind her, wound bound tight. The white fox lifted his head from the woman's boot. Cascade knelt and touched his cloud-soft fur. "I must find clean water," she whispered in soft clicks. "You guard her. I will not be long." The fox rose, ready to follow her out. Then the wind died. The trees went still. Cascade smelled it before she heard it. Deep musk, and old blood. A heavy shape moved through the brush across the clearing. Red eyes caught the last light. The bear stood taller than the door. One ear was gone, torn to a ragged stump. Scars crossed his snout. He was not hunting deer. He had smelled the hunter's blood on the wind. Cascade's chest tightened. She could not carry the woman fast enough. She could not fight a bear. The fox pressed against her leg and growled low. His fur shimmered, and cold drops of water beaded along his back. Cascade knew what he could do. She had seen it once, a summer storm called from a clear sky. "Can you turn him?" she asked. The fox stepped into the clearing. He faced the bear and lowered his head. The beads on his fur swelled into mist. The air grew heavy and cold. Above the shed, clouds churned from nothing. Wind rose and bent the trees. Thunder cracked. Rain fell hard and fast, blinding and loud. The bear roared and swiped the air. He hated the noise. He hated the sting of rain in his one good eye. But he did not run. He dropped his head and charged the fox through the downpour. The small fox held his ground and pushed the storm harder. Lightning split a tree at the clearing's edge. The trunk cracked and crashed down between them. Sparks hissed in the wet grass. The bear reared back from the falling wood. Fire and flood at once broke his nerve. He turned and crashed away into the dark trees. His roar faded. The fox sank to his belly, spent, his fur dull and flat. The rain thinned to a drizzle. The clouds pulled apart. A shadow dropped through the clearing sky. Thalia landed by the broken tree, golden feathers slick with rain. The old griffon's blue eyes swept the tree line. "He will not come back tonight," she said. "But he knows this shed now. And he knows blood sleeps inside." Cascade gathered the tired fox into her arms. The threat was gone for now. But the fox was too weak to guard the shed alone, and the bear would return once his fear cooled. Cascade looked at the sleeping hunter, then at the dark woods that held the healing stream. She could not leave the woman unguarded. She could not let the wound fester either. She turned to Thalia. "Then I need you to watch her," she said, "while I run for the water."