Dha'je-Khan's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Dha'je-Khan moved through the woods with the map burned into his mind. A stream. A ridge. A split rock shaped like a tooth. He kept the shard in his fist and the trapper's cottage at his back. The moon rose thin above the pines. He found the stream where she had drawn it and followed it north until the ground began to climb. The ridge came where it should. He crossed it and looked for the split rock on the far slope. He did not find it. He found instead a second ridge the trapper had not drawn, and below that a stand of black pines that all looked the same in the dark. He worked from one landmark to the next and each one refused to match. He climbed a tree to sight the ground and saw only more trees. He had turned somewhere. He did not know where. He smelled it before he saw the sign. A wrong smell, sharp and wet, like metal left in rain. He drew his blade and stood still. The trees around him were scored to the heartwood, long clean gouges at the height of his chest. He was not near the den. The den was somewhere behind him. This was hunting ground. Something moved above him in the branches, a shape too long and too quiet, and he saw the glossy curve of a black skull and a tail that hung and coiled without sound. He pressed his back to the trunk and killed the light on his mask. The creature crossed above him and did not stop. It was moving toward the stream. Toward the cottage. A small weight brushed his boot. He looked down. The gray animal from the trapper's porch stood in the leaves, circuit lines faint on its fur, pale eyes fixed on his. It had followed him. It turned and went three steps and looked back. Then three more. He remembered the door of the pine cottage and the animal walking to it and looking back the same way. He sheathed the blade and went after it. The animal moved fast and sure through ground he had lost himself in. It led him down off the wrong ridge, across a shallow cut in the stones, and put him on a game trail he had not seen. He did not know yet if it was leading him to the den or away from the thing in the trees. He knew only that he was moving again, and that the creature was ahead of him now instead of behind, and that it was hunting toward the woman who had drawn him the map.