Kael Thornwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Kael Thornwood spread his father's map across the table and stabbed a knife into the center of the Singing Thicket. The forest hummed all summer, and the season for a killing hunt was short. He needed one beast. Not any beast. The one whose hide would name him the greatest hunter the Thicket had ever known. He had six weeks before the frost sealed the trails. He had no idea which beast to chase. He left the wattle cottage before the fire was cold and walked to the old hunter's shack at the edge of the trees. Garrick Thornhide was outside sharpening a skinning knife on a stone. Kael did not sit. He listed what he had seen in the last month. A stag with a rack wider than a doorway. A pale wolf that killed three sheep and left them. Tracks near the north creek that no one could name. He asked which one would crown him. Garrick set the knife down. "The stag is old. Kill it and you're a butcher." He picked up a strip of leather and flexed it. "The wolf is thin. Someone starved it once. Leave it alone." Kael waited. Garrick looked at him for a long moment. "The tracks by the creek. Six toes. That's a thicket-cat. Only one left. Kill that, and they'll sing your name at every hearth from here to Vessen." Kael grinned. Garrick did not. "I won't go with you," the old man said. "I have my own hunt. A cub was taken thirty years ago. I sold it. I mean to find what's left." He pulled a folded page from his vest and tucked it back. "You go alone or you don't go." Kael nodded. He had wanted a name he could carry alone. Now he had one. He walked home through the pines. A red deer stag stepped onto the path and watched him pass, antlers steady, unafraid. Kael did not raise his bow. The stag was not his prey anymore. At the cottage door his grandmother, Mirella Duskwhisper, waited on the step with her staff across her knees. Her white eyes tracked him without seeing. "Six toes," she said, before he spoke. "You'll need more than arrows for that one." Kael stopped on the path. He had told no one. He tightened the strap on his quiver and stepped inside to pack.