Sable Vorn's Arc

Chapter 6 of 8

The sky went gray at the water's edge. Sable smelled it before she saw it. The sour cattail reek on her sleeve had thinned to nothing. She lifted her arm. The glow shone bright green through the wet cloth, no longer buried. Dawn had come, and the mask was gone. Somewhere back in the reeds, the wolf's nose would find the trail again. Gandalf leaned on his staff, breathing hard. "We've no more of the stalks," he muttered, low and doubled. "None grew north of the tower." His eyes moved to her wrist, then away. Sable pulled her map from her satchel. She had inked this stretch from the tower top. Reeds, water, a scatter of dry ground. No cattail marked anywhere. Her hands shook. "Then I need a wall," she said. "Stone kills the glow. The tower proved it. There has to be another." Therisia crouched by the channel, cleaning mud from her shoe with a leaf. She had cheated Sable once, years back, and now held a signed day of Sable's map work. She looked up, smile too wide. "There is. Second shelter. Two nights on your hidden layer." She tapped the satchel. "Read it yourself. I don't guess." Sable unrolled the map and pressed her glowing wrist to the paper. The hidden marks woke under the light. A small square, stone, north along the bend. Two nights, Therisia had said. Sable had hours. "That's too far," she said. "The wolf will reach us by midday." "Then don't walk the water." Therisia rose. "Walk the channel bed. Wade in it. Running water breaks scent. It won't hold the glow, but it buys you distance the beast can't cross fast." Sable weighed it. Wading was slow. But the wolf tracked by scent drawn to the glow, and moving water would scatter the smell across the whole bend. It might confuse the trail long enough. She stepped down into the cold. The current pulled at her boots. They waded through the morning. Sable kept her marked arm low, near the surface, letting the water take the reek away as it formed. By noon a howl rose behind them, far off, circling. It did not come closer. The wolf had lost the straight line. At dusk the second shelter stood ahead. Squat stone, half sunk in reeds, one dark door. Sable climbed the bank and slipped inside. The moment the walls closed around her, the glow dimmed. The stone drank the light. Her wrist went nearly dark. She sat against the cold wall and breathed. Safe, for now. Then she pressed her arm to the map one last time. Beyond this shelter the hidden marks stopped. The paper held nothing further. The glow had climbed past her elbow toward her shoulder, and the path ahead was blank. She had reached the last place the map could take her.