Skywing's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

Skywing knelt by the hearth and pressed cloth to the split in Rose's forearm. The wolf did not move off Rose's legs. He watched Skywing's hands. Rose said the bleeding had slowed an hour ago. Then boots hit the porch boards, hard and fast, and a man's voice called through the door. His daughter had gone up the ridge trail at noon and had not come back. Sixteen. Dog with her. He had walked the low loop twice and found nothing. The sun was already low behind the cedars. Skywing stood. Rose pushed the wolf off her legs and reached for her boots. "You fly," Rose said. "I'll take the low trail with him." Skywing looked at the wolf. The wolf looked at Rose. He stayed at Rose's knee. Outside, Skywing climbed hard above the lantern posts. The ridgeline she had scouted two days ago spread below her in gold and black. She flew the trail's line first, then swept wider. Dense pine choked the slope on the north side. She could not drop into it. Her horns would catch on the low branches and hold her there. She stayed above the canopy and looked for color, movement, smoke, anything. She found the dog first. A golden retriever sat on a bare shelf of rock above the tree line, ears flat, refusing to move. Skywing banked and came down on the shelf. The dog did not growl. He looked once at her wings, then back down the slope into the pines. She followed his line of sight and called. A voice answered from below the rocks. Skywing worked down the shelf on foot, wings folded tight. A girl sat wedged between two boulders, one boot off, ankle already dark and swollen. Elf-pointed ears. A walking stick beside her with a glass ball fixed to the top, the light inside it faint now. "I'm Alice," the girl said. "I stepped wrong. Biscuit wouldn't leave." She did not cry. She looked at Skywing's horns and said, "You can't carry me through those trees." "No," Skywing said. "But I can carry you straight up." Alice nodded once. "Do it before dark." Skywing braced under the girl's arms and lifted her clear of the rocks. The dog scrambled up the shelf on his own. Skywing whistled twice, sharp, the signal she and Rose had used as children on the mountain. Far below, an answering whistle came off the low trail. Skywing carried Alice above the pines and set her down at the trailhead where Rose stood waiting with the wolf at her heel. The father took his daughter's weight and wept into her hair. Alice met Skywing's eyes over his shoulder. "Thank you," she said. Then, quieter, "Your horns would have killed you in there." Skywing looked at Rose. Rose was already looking at the wolf, who had not left her side once.