Sterling Forge's Arc

Chapter 10 of 31

The fire burned down to coals. Sterling fed it a splinter and blinked hard. His eyes stung. He had promised himself he would wake Linny at the second watch, but every time he looked at her face he found a new reason to wait. An hour. Another hour. The dark outside the pine wall stayed quiet, and quiet felt like a thing he could hold onto if he just did not move. His chin dipped. He caught it. Dipped again. The chipmunk moved first. It sat up in Linny's lap, ears pricked, tail stiff. Its small body faced the gap in the boughs where Sterling had left a sight-line. It made no sound. It stared. Sterling followed its eyes. Between two trunks, low to the snow, something breathed. He saw the breath before he saw the shape. Two pale plumes, steady, close to the ground. Whatever it was, it was crouched. He reached for the blade across his knees. His hand was slow. He watched his own fingers close on the grip like they belonged to another man. Cold had settled in his shoulders while he sat. His arms felt packed with wet sand. The shape shifted. A long head lifted above the snow line. Yellow eyes. Not fae. A wolf-thing, lean, ribs showing, drawn in by the smell of warmth. Sterling knew he would not get the blade up in time if it came. The chipmunk leapt off Linny's lap onto her collar and bit her ear. Linny came awake with a hiss. She did not speak. She saw Sterling's face, then the gap, then the eyes. Her hand went inside her coat and came out with the ash jar. She was on her knees before Sterling had shifted his weight. "Left of the fire," she whispered. "Get up." He got up. His knees cracked. The wolf-thing came through the boughs low and fast, and Linny threw the jar at its face. Ash burst white. The animal jerked back, blinded, snapping at nothing. Sterling brought the blade down two-handed on the base of its neck. The steel went through. The body dropped across the fire pit and killed the coals in a hiss of steam. They stood in the dark, breathing. Linny found his sleeve. "You were asleep." "Almost." "You should have woken me." "I know." She did not say the rest. She did not have to. He had promised her father and he had come within a chipmunk's tooth of breaking it. He dragged the carcass out into the snow. The shelter was ruined, the fire dead, the coats spotted with blood and ash. Dawn was still hours off, and now the smell of a fresh kill would carry. "We walk," Linny said. He nodded. He gave her the blade to hold while he pulled the coats free. From here on, she kept watch too.