Rowan Hartley's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Past the bridge, the trail climbed into open country. Rowan pulled the sledge through fresh snow until her shoulders burned. She stopped to rest and looked back at her own tracks. Something was wrong. A second set of prints ran beside hers, then circled, then crossed her path again in a tight loop. Whatever made them had been pacing her for hours. She crouched low and followed the loop with her eyes. The prints were heavy, deep, half-melted at the edges. A few steps off the trail, dark red drops sat frozen on the pale stone. A thin line of them led into the trees. Not an animal hunting her. A wounded thing, bleeding, watching, deciding. Rowan did not run. She pulled the sledge off the path and packed snow into a low dome, wide enough for her body and a small fire hole. She cut a narrow tunnel for the entrance and faced it toward the blood trail. If something came in the night, it would have to come through her sight line. She set the rope as a tripline and laid her knife across her knees. She waited. Wind moved. Nothing else did. Near dawn she crawled out and followed the red drops a short way into the trees. A man lay against a trunk, pale, one hand pressed to his side. His eyes opened when her boot crunched. He did not reach for a weapon. He only looked at her, and waited for what she would do next.