Mason Crafton's Arc

Chapter 5 of 15

Mason stood up from the log and felt the ground tilt. The torn arm had gone hot under the sleeve. Blood had dried into the cloth and cracked when they moved. New blood ran down to the wrist. Dawn was hours away, and the birdbath at the forest's edge was a long walk through the deep woods and down the slope. Mason would not make it. Not like this. They needed to stop the bleeding and rest, or they would fall in the leaves and be found by whatever came next. Mason walked because sitting meant sleeping and sleeping meant dying. They kept the good hand pressed against the tear. After a while the trees opened onto a slab of rock, and under the slab was a hollow just deep enough for a body. Someone had used it before. Folded blankets sat inside. A leather satchel leaned against the wall. A bundle of sticks lay ready by a ring of stones. Mason did not care whose it was. They crawled in. The satchel held a clay jar of honey, a strip of dried meat, and a roll of clean linen. Mason understood then. This was one of the prince's stops, laid out for him or for the princess when they crossed the ridge. Mason poured honey into the wound and clenched their teeth until the shaking stopped. Then they wrapped the arm tight in the linen. The bleeding slowed. The hot feeling stayed but stopped climbing. Mason ate the meat and lit the sticks with a flint from the satchel. Heat came back into their fingers. Through the mouth of the hollow, Mason could see the shape of the princess's tower on the ridge above the trees, its rope railings pale against the sky. A lamp burned in the top room. She was watching. Below the tower, farther down the slope, something taller than a tree stood among the pines and did not move. Mason stared until they were sure. Metal shoulders. A blank face plate. An old guardian, left by someone long before the prince, planted at the tower's foot like a fence post. It had not stirred at Mason's fire. Mason understood the shape of the next problem. To reach the birdbath before dawn, they had to pass under the tower's sightline and under whatever the metal thing was set to watch for. But they would reach it. The arm was closed. The fever had a lid on it. On the wall of the hollow, someone had scratched a crude bear with red-painted eyes, a marker for the stop. Mason touched it once for luck they did not believe in and lay back on the folded blankets to sleep one hour, no more. When Mason woke, the fire was low and the sky above the ridge had begun to gray. The arm held. Mason stood up and started down toward the forest's edge.