Raven bones's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

The sweet rot clung to Asher. Raven could cover his arm, but not the smell leaking from the bone. By midday it was worse. She smelled it on him even over the coat. The dog-thing had tracked by scent. More hunters would too. She pulled him under a low arch of fungus and waited, breathing shallow. Then a deer stepped out ahead of them. Its ribs showed white, fur hanging thin along its back. Flowers bloomed straight from its open chest. It didn't run. It looked at them, then walked. "It wants us to follow," Asher said. Raven hated trusting anything that smelled like the thing hunting them. But the deer moved against the wind, and the sweet stink didn't follow it. She went. The deer led them to a clearing packed with giant mushrooms. Their caps were painted in loud colors, swirled and spotted. Faces pushed through the stems, wide mouths frozen mid-word. A man sat among them. His coat was torn, his beard gray and wild. He was talking to the mushrooms like old friends. "Bob," he said, before Raven asked. He didn't look up. "You smell like the end of things." He tapped a mushroom cap. "They told me you'd come. They know everything. Ask them." Raven thought he was mad. Then one of the giant mushrooms spoke. The sound came from no mouth she could see, low and wet, filling the clearing. The painted caps swayed. She crouched by Bob. "Then tell me. The rot creature. The thing turning us to bone. How do I stop it?" She grabbed Asher's sleeve. "His arm's already going. It'll take all of him." Bob tilted his head, listening to something she couldn't hear. The mushrooms murmured together. He nodded slowly. "The golden spore tree," he said. "That's where it starts. That's where you end it." He pointed with a dirty finger at nothing. "They say go now. The smell on your friend calls the hunters. The tree doesn't wait." "Where is it?" Bob smiled with few teeth. "Not for me to lead. For them." The ground shifted at Raven's feet. Small mushroom people pushed up through the moss. Bright caps, round eyes, little grinning faces. A cluster of them, no taller than her knee. They waved tiny arms and started off, looking back to be sure she came. Asher watched the small creatures go. "You trust this?" "No." Raven stood. "But the smell on you won't stop. Standing still gets us killed." She pressed her palm flat on his cold bone arm. "The tree's the only answer we've got." The little ones led them out of the clearing. The sweet rot still trailed off Asher, thick and warm. Raven couldn't hide it anymore. So she stopped trying. She let it pull the hunters behind her, and walked toward the one place that might cut the infection at its root.