Kristofer's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

By noon Kristofer stood at the edge of the sealed woods, steel on his hip and his pack on his back. He had drilled for a duel his whole life. A duel meant a marked ground and a clear foe who faced you. This was different. The trees grew close and dark, and the ground gave no path. He did not know where the beast was, or how to find it. He walked in anyway. Branches scratched his sleeves. Roots caught his boots. He looked for the beast the way he looked for an opponent, straight ahead, waiting for it to step out and fight. Nothing came. An hour passed. Then another. He circled the same fallen log twice before he knew it was the same log. He stopped and dropped his pack against a tree. His hands were empty of any plan. Ten years of footwork meant nothing here. He could not duel a forest. A soft weight pressed his leg. His calico had followed him from the cottage. She wound past his boots, then trotted a few steps into the brush. She stopped and looked back at him. When he did not move, she flicked her tail and went on. Kristofer almost called her back. Instead he watched where she stepped. She did not push through the tangle. She followed a thin gap in the ferns, a low channel worn in the dirt. He knelt and put his hand flat on it. The soil was pressed down, smooth, wider than any deer trail. Something heavy used this path. He had walked past it three times without seeing it. He crouched and looked closer. A tuft of coarse gray hair clung to a broken branch at knee height. Ahead, the ferns lay bent all one way. He could not track a beast, but the beast had made its own track. It had cut a road through the woods for him to follow. Kristofer swung his pack back on. He drew a knife and scored a mark in the bark, so he could find his way out. Then he stepped onto the pressed trail and walked where it led. The cat kept ahead, ears forward, sure of the way. The trail climbed a low rise and turned. The trees thinned. At the top Kristofer smelled it before he saw it, a thick reek of blood and wet fur. Below him lay a clearing torn open. Ripped branches. Dark stains on the grass. Bones. He crouched behind a trunk and made himself breathe slow. He had found the den. He knew now where the beast slept. He also knew, from the size of the bones, that it was far bigger than he had let himself believe.