Krayzor's Arc

Chapter 9 of 16

The shields cut a long scar through the dirt behind him. Krayzor leaned into the strap and pulled. The sun touched the trees. Then he heard it — far back, a single bark, then four more, then the deep grunt of something heavier crashing through brush. Hounds. And behind the hounds, the snorting weight of a Boar clan tracker beast. He stopped at the mouth of a narrow canyon. Steep walls rose on both sides, red and rough. The dragged trail behind him was a bright, broken line any pup could follow. Her blood had soaked through the cloak. He could not outrun them pulling her. He could not leave her. He had one move left. Krayzor unhooked the strap and pushed the sled deep into a side cleft in the canyon wall. He stacked loose stone in front of it until only a dark slit remained. The kitsune watched him with wide eyes. He pressed the golden scale at her throat with one finger. "Quiet. I come back." He pulled the spear from the sled rig and tore a strip from his bloody palm-wrap. He smeared it along his own arms, his chest, his thighs. He walked back out into the open canyon floor, dragging the empty cloak behind him. The barking grew louder. He ran, slow and loud, leaving a fresh wet trail straight up the gorge and away from her cleft. The hounds came around the bend in a brown wave. Behind them the tracker beast lowered its head and charged, tusks scraping stone. Krayzor turned at the narrow throat of the canyon and braced the spear against a boulder. The first hound hit the point and died on it. The second he kicked. The third he caught across the skull with the haft. The tracker came last and he stepped aside at the final breath and let it drive itself snout-first into the wall. It dropped, stunned, bleeding from the nose. He stood in the quiet, shaking, and listened. No more barks. No second pack behind. He limped back to the cleft and pulled the stones away. She was still there. He hooked the strap across his raw chest and started dragging again, slower now, the sun gone, the trees black against a bruised sky. The hunt was broken. But somewhere behind him, a Boar clan rider would find dead hounds and a living tracker, and they would know exactly who had done it, and where the trail led next.