Sterling Forge's Arc

Chapter 8 of 31

They walked west through the frostwood cluster until the sun climbed past the branches. The trees here grew close, fine icy limbs tangled overhead into a low ceiling. Snow slid off in soft clumps when Sterling's shoulder brushed a trunk. He kept one hand near the blade at his hip. Linny walked ahead, her painted coat bright against the white. An hour in, the cluster thickened. Every stand of pines looked like the last. Sterling stopped counting the ones they passed. "We came by that split trunk already," he said. "No." "The bark's the same. The lean is the same." "They all lean the same here." She did not turn. "The creek is south. We keep it on our left shoulder. We're fine." He could not hear a creek. He could hear his own breath and the knock of the pack against his back. He stopped. "Linny." She turned. "I can't read this ground," he said. "I don't know south from north under these branches. If you're wrong, we walk in circles until something finds us." She watched him. Her cheeks were pink from the cold. The hat sat crooked from the wind. "I'm not wrong." "You could be." "I could be." She took a step closer. "But I'm what you have. You picked that when you crossed the ridge." He looked at the trees. He wanted a landmark. He wanted a road. He wanted the forge and the anvil and the metal that did what he told it. He had none of that. He had a woman he had once told to stop dreaming, and her memory of a place he had said did not exist. "Say it out loud," she said. "Then I'll walk." "Say what." "That you trust me to bring us out." His jaw worked. The wind moved through the icy branches with a soft rattling sound. "I trust you," he said. "Lead." She nodded once and turned. She did not smile. She did not soften. But her shoulders dropped a small measure, and she stepped off faster than before. Sterling followed. He watched her hand rise now and then to touch a trunk, a stone, a low branch, as if the woods were a page she had drawn once and was reading back. After a long stretch, the ground tipped downward. He heard water under ice. The creek. On their left. Something moved in his coat pocket. The little chipmunk climbed out onto his collar, pink tail curled, petal ears twitching. It sniffed the air west and chirped once, sharp. Linny looked back at him. "That way." "That way," he agreed. They walked.