Sterling Forge's Arc

Chapter 25 of 31

Sterling put his back to the warm square in the stone and Linny put hers beside his. The knife felt small in his hand. The damaged blade in hers was worse. He knew where the chip was. He knew the grain along the break. One clean stroke, maybe. Not two. The first shape broke from the frostwood at a run. Long body, low head, teeth set in a jaw too wide for its face. Sterling stepped in front of Linny before he thought about it. He met the thing with the knife and felt it slide across bone. It knocked him sideways into the snow. He came up swinging the hammer with his off hand and caught it above the eye. It fell and did not get up. The second one came from her side. Linny cut. He heard the blade break. He heard her cry out. He turned and saw her down in the snow with the ruined blade snapped at the hilt and the creature on top of her, its claws through her coat and into her side. He did not remember crossing the ground. He drove the knife into the base of its skull and kept driving until it stopped moving. Then he dragged it off her. Blood came through her coat fast. Too fast. The chipmunk was under her hat, shaking. A third shape paced at the tree line, deciding. "Get up," he said. "Can't." He scooped her against his chest and ran, not toward the door, which was cold now, but along the slope, downhill, where the frostwood thinned. The third one followed but did not close. It had seen the other two. He ran until his legs failed. He went down on his knees in a low pocket between two rises. The snow there was gone. Under it, grass. Soft, fine, warm to the touch. It should not have been there. He did not stop to ask. He laid her down on it. Her coat was black where it should have been dry. He pressed his palm over the deepest cut and leaned his weight in. She made a sound he would carry the rest of his life. "Stay," he said. "Stay with me." "Painting," she said. He pulled the board from inside his coat and pushed it under her hand. Her fingers closed on the edge. The third creature stepped into the pocket. Sterling stood up over her. He had the hammer. Nothing else. He set his feet. It lunged. He swung. The hammer took its jaw. Its claws took his thigh, then his forearm, then the side of his ribs before he brought the hammer down again on its skull and heard it crack. He fell beside her on the warm grass. His blood ran into hers. The pocket held them both. Above the ridge, the sky went black.