Sierra Ashwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 8

Smoke pushed Sierra to the top of the crest. She turned to climb higher, but the wolves had climbed first. The fire had driven them up too. Now the whole pack crowded the narrow crest, black coats and yellow eyes, cut off from their slope. She stood between the flames below and the wolves ahead. There was no room left to run. She pulled her knife and backed against the rock. The lead wolf lowered its head. It knew her torch trick, and there was no torch left anyway. She was out of moves. Then a bark cut through the smoke. A brown dog trotted from behind the rocks, sturdy, a red collar at its neck. It planted itself between Sierra and the pack and barked again, sharp and sure. Behind it came a man in a wide hat, scar down one cheek, moving like he had walked this ground before. Marcus Thorn. He had given her the torch a week ago and said little then. He said little now. "Follow the dog," he said. "There's a way through the rock." The hound turned and ran toward a dark gap in the stone. Sierra saw it then, a low cave mouth she had missed, half hidden by a lean of granite. Marcus threw her the end of a braided rope. "Tie in. It drops steep inside." She caught it and knotted it at her waist. The wolves crept closer, pressed by the heat behind them. One lunged. The dog met it, snarling, and the wolf flinched back. "Go," Marcus said. Sierra ducked into the cave. Cold air hit her face. The floor fell away fast, and the rope caught her weight as she slid down the black slope. Stones rattled past her boots. She could not see the bottom. She only felt the rope and the wall. Marcus came behind her, then the dog, its nails scraping stone. The wolves did not follow into the dark. Their howls faded above. The passage leveled. Sierra's boots found flat ground. A gray light showed ahead. She stumbled out the far side and stopped. She stood on the valley floor. The fire still burned high on the ridge behind her, but here the ground was green and untouched. The cave had cut clean through the mountain, past the wolves, past the flames, down to the very country she came to map. Sierra pulled her maps from her pack with shaking hands. This route was on nothing she owned. No trail atlas held it. She had it now. Marcus stepped out beside her and looked at the burning ridge. "Fire's still coming down," he said. "You've got till it reaches the river." Sierra looked at the valley, then at the smoke sliding down the far slope toward the water. She had found her way in. Now she had to chart it before the flames did.