Dha'je-Khan's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Dha'je-Khan crouched over the deer carcass and knew he was wasting his time. The kill was three days old. Wolves had taken the belly. Something smaller had cracked the ribs. Nothing here matched the wound he carried in his memory — the clean split that had opened three of his brothers from throat to hip. He had come to this forest world to claim the skull of the beast that killed them, and to be sure it was the deadliest thing walking under this sky. Six local nights in, he had followed four rumors and found four ordinary predators. He rose and moved through the pines until he found the cottage he had marked the day before. Smoke still curled from the chimney. A woman lived alone inside with a small gray animal that followed her like a dog. He had watched her through the trees. She traded pelts at a trail-head twice a week and spoke to the animal in a low, steady voice. His cloak held him invisible against the bark. He did not want her. He wanted what she knew. Trappers learned a forest faster than warriors. He waited until she left with a basket, then stepped into her yard. The gray animal stayed on the porch. Pale lines traced its face in patterns he did not recognize — too neat for fur, too bright for scars. It watched him without fear. He held out a hand. It sniffed, then trotted past him and pawed at a flat stone near the woodpile. Beneath the stone lay a bundle of oiled cloth. Inside the cloth was a curved black tooth as long as his forearm, and a shard of shell like poured obsidian. He had seen that shell before, wet with his brother's blood. The animal sat and looked at him as if waiting to be paid. Dha'je-Khan closed his fist around the tooth. The trapper knew where the thing denned. The small creature with the strange markings knew where she hid her proof. He would not chase another rumor. He would wait in the trees until the woman returned, and he would make her show him the ground where she had found these pieces. His hunt had a direction now, and a witness who did not yet know she had been chosen.