Krayzor's Arc

Chapter 12 of 16

The smoke climbed straight as a spear shaft. Krayzor stood and watched it rise above the rim of the bowl, gray against pale dawn. The kitsune slept inside his cloak, breath steady at last. He had bought her the night and sold himself the day. Trackers would read that column from a half day's ride. He had until the sun cleared the ridge to make it lie. He pulled the curved shield from the sled and drove its rim into the dirt beside the fire, angling the polished face over the flames like a tilted lid. Loose stones braced the foot. He stacked more rocks on the lee side and packed wet moss between them, building a crude hood that forced the smoke sideways along the rock wall. The column broke. Thin gray threads crawled low along the bowl and vanished into the steam off the pools. From any distance, the fire was gone. That was not enough. A tracker who lost a signal would cast wide and find them anyway. He needed them looking somewhere else. Krayzor checked the kitsune once, tucked the cloak tighter, and climbed out of the bowl with an ember wrapped in bark. Half a mile downwind he found what he wanted: a long slope of dead brush and frost-killed scrub, dry as old bone. He dragged a fallen branch through it, scattered the ember, and blew. The brush caught with a soft roar. Flames leapt up the slope and threw a tall black column into the brightening sky, taller and louder than anything he had made by the pools. He backed away as the heat pushed at his face. Any tracker within miles would turn toward that smoke now, not his. He was halfway back when he heard it. A low, rolling thud rolled across the stone, then another, spaced like a slow heartbeat. War drums. Not close yet, but closer than yesterday. They were calling more hunters in, fanning a wider net. He counted the beats between strikes and judged the distance. By full dawn they would be at the burning slope. By midday they would know it was a trick. He had bought hours, not a day. Krayzor slid back down into the bowl. The hooded fire breathed sideways. The kitsune's eyes were open, watching him. He knelt by the sled and met her gaze without smiling. "They're coming," he said. "But not here. Not yet." He picked up the sled ropes. The smoke above the pools stayed low and broken, and somewhere beyond the ridge a false fire roared in his place.