Silas Nightwood's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

By morning the beast's blood trail led east, across the village fields. Silas cleaned his shoulder wound at the manor window and stared at that land. The mob still called him the killer. If they saw him crossing their fields, they would swarm him with pitchforks and rope. He would be cornered while the beast crawled away to heal. He needed to reach the trail before it went cold, and the only path ran straight through people who wanted him dead. Luna came up behind him. She had already made up her mind. "You can't walk it," she said. "They'd have you before you reached the far hedge. But they won't touch me." Silas turned. "You're not walking me through a mob." "I'm not walking you." She pulled a wagon key from her gown. "I'm driving you. My scent doesn't read as wolf to them. I can pass for one of their own. Nobody looks twice at a woman with a cart." He shook his head. "If they search it, they find us both." "Then we don't give them a reason to search." She touched his cheek. "You told me to hide behind iron so you could fight. Now let me hide you so you can hunt. It's the same trust, Silas. It just runs the other way." His own words, turned back on him. He had no answer for that. "Reluctantly," he said, and she almost smiled. They loaded the wagon in the yard. Silas climbed into the bed and lay flat. Luna piled blankets over him, then baskets of bread and dried apples on top, so the load looked like market goods. The weight pressed warm against his ribs. Through a gap he watched her work. Luna folded her white ears down flat against her hair. She pulled a fuzzy white cloak over her shoulders and raised the hood until her face sat in shadow. In the morning light she looked like any farm woman bound for the square. Nothing about her said wolf. "Stay still," she said. "Stay quiet. Whatever they say to me, don't move." The wagon rolled onto the fields. Silas heard voices soon after. Men called out. Boots crossed the dirt toward the cart. His hand curled into a fist under the blankets. "Morning," a man said. "Seen the Nightwood dog? He killed again, they say." "Not out here," Luna answered. Her voice stayed light, bored. "Just bread and a long road." A hand thumped the side of the wagon. An apple rolled off and struck the ground. Silas held his breath. The blanket lay one tug from his face. "Go on, then," the man said. The boots stepped back. The wheels turned again. Field gave way to trees. When the voices faded, Luna pushed the blankets off him. "We're through," she said. Silas sat up in the open woods. The beast's trail cut fresh into the mud ahead, close now. He had crossed the mob's land. Nothing stood between him and the hunt but the trees.