Sierra Blackwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Sierra Blackwood knelt in the mud and pressed her fingers into a paw print wider than her hand. For three years she had hunted the creature the campers of Antremeda only whispered about. This track was fresh. She could still smell the animal on the wet air. Then thunder cracked the sky, and the first rain hit the print like a fist. She stood fast. The storm rolled down the mountain in a gray wall. Wind bent the pines flat. Sierra knew what rain did to tracks. Ten more minutes and the trail would wash away, along with any hope of following it today. Her flashlight and axe hung from her pack, but neither could keep her dry, and her gear would soak through in minutes. She scanned the slope. No overhang. No cave. Just trees whipping in the wind. Rain drove into her eyes and blurred the path ahead. She marked the paw print's direction in her memory, then turned and ran uphill, away from the trail, looking for cover. A flash of purple stopped her. A spread of wisteria vines climbed an old dead trunk, blossoms shaking in the storm. She had seen those vines before, in a story an old trapper once told her by a fire. He said they grew beside a shelter left by the first hunters of this land. She pushed through the hanging flowers. Behind them stood a log cabin. It was large and low, its shingled roof dark with rain, its timbers gray with age. A green door sat under the porch. Sierra ran to it and shoved. The door held. She threw her shoulder against it twice. On the third try the latch gave, and she stumbled inside as the sky opened. Rain hammered the roof. Sierra dropped her pack and caught her breath. The cabin was dry. A stone hearth stood cold against one wall. She had shelter. Her gear was safe. But she had left the fresh trail behind her, and outside the rain was scrubbing it clean. She wiped her face and looked around the room for anything useful. On the mantel above the hearth lay a small brass compass, green with age. She picked it up and turned it in her hand. The back was worn smooth, but she could still read the letters scratched there. They spelled her grandfather's name. Sierra's breath caught. Her grandfather had vanished in these mountains chasing the same creature she now tracked. No one had ever found him. She had thought this cabin belonged to strangers. She turned the compass over again to be sure. The needle swung, then settled, pointing steady toward the storm and the trail she had lost.