Sterling Forge's Arc

Chapter 6 of 31

The pines thinned above the goat path. Sterling could see the ridge's gray face rising ahead, snow crusted along its ledges. Behind and below, voices carried up through the trees. Hild's men had climbed faster than he'd guessed. Boots crunched maybe three hundred paces down the slope. Someone whistled a signal. Another whistle answered from the east. "They fanned out," Sterling said. He pulled Linny down behind a fallen trunk. "They know we came this way." Linny wiped snow from her knees. "We keep climbing, they see us against the rock." "We stop climbing, they walk right into us." She pointed at a seam of dark stone that cut sideways across the ridge. Snow had drifted deep along its base. "There. We go flat instead of up. Stay under the ledge till the trees pick back up on the far side." "That's an hour on our bellies." "Then it's an hour." He was about to argue when her coat pocket moved. Not shifted. Moved. A small head pushed out from under the flap. Round eyes. Pale pink ears shaped like petals. Snow dust on its fur. A chipmunk, no bigger than his fist, blinked at him. Sterling stared. "Why did you bring that thing." "I didn't." "It's in your pocket." "It climbed in at the tree line. I felt it and left it." She looked down at the animal. It looked back at her. "It's Lena’s." "Linny. It's a chipmunk." "It's the same one." A branch snapped downslope. Closer now. Sterling flattened against the trunk. The chipmunk slipped out of her pocket, hopped onto the log, and ran along it away from the ridge. Ten paces on, it stopped and looked back. Then it ran again, along a line that cut down and across, not up. "It wants us to follow," Linny said. "It wants seeds." "It's leading us off the slope." She was already moving. "Away from the voices." Sterling swore under his breath and followed. The chipmunk kept ten paces ahead, tail flicking, always looking back. The path it picked stayed under the low pine branches where the snow was thin and their tracks would not show. Twice Sterling heard men pass above them, close enough to hear the creak of a belt. The chipmunk froze each time, then moved on. After what felt like a mile, the ground dropped into a narrow cut between two shoulders of rock. The voices were gone. The chipmunk sat at the mouth of the cut and washed its face. Sterling knelt in the snow, breathing hard. His shoulder burned. "Alright," he said. "Alright." Linny crouched and held out her hand. The chipmunk climbed back into her pocket. "Snowcrest is that way," she said, pointing up the cut. "We're past them." Sterling looked at the pocket. Then at her. He said nothing and started walking.