Renni Ashfire's Arc

Chapter 9 of 12

Renni walked until the trees opened into a small clearing ringed by old trunks, sky bright above the broken canopy. This was the place. She would not run further. If the beast meant to keep her, she would make herself a door it could not resist, and stand in it. She chose her ground in the open dirt and set the runed blade flat across her thighs, edge out, gems catching the pale light like a small fire. The hilt she kept loose under her palm. Across the clearing a tall stack of weathered stone rose above the brush, the only high seat for a long way. That was where it would come to look. She faced it square, throat bare, hands open, breathing slow. Bait has to look like bait. It came at midday. No sound, only a shadow shifting on the rock, then weight moving down through the brush. She did not turn her head. She watched the line of trees in the corner of her eye and counted its steps. Close. Closer. She felt its breath before she saw it, hot on her crown. One flinch and it would take her throat. She did not flinch. She let it lower its head to her shoulder, let it smell her, let it believe. Then she drove the blade up under its jaw with both hands. The beast screamed and tore back, the runed steel ripping free in a spray of dark blood. It crashed through the brush and was gone, leaving a wide trail painted on the leaves. Renni stood shaking in the empty clearing, blade red to the grip, alive. She had cut it deep this time, deeper than before. But it had run, and she knew now where wounded things went in these woods. She wiped the blade on her sleeve and started after the blood.