Strawberry Shroomy's Arc

Chapter 5 of 9

The hound stopped growling and pressed close to Shroomy's leg. She knelt and fastened the soft bark collar around its neck. The thorns flattened under her hand. Its yellow eyes softened. For the first time, the beast was hers to lead. She walked it along the hedge at the field's edge, scanning the soil for any new bulge or crack. The morning light slid across the rows. Nothing stirred beneath the strawberries. But beyond the hedge, the ground turned soft and dark, and the hound stopped cold. Shroomy pushed through the brush and froze. Two huge paw prints sat deep in the mud. They were wider than her own hands spread flat. Claws had punched clean through the wet earth. Whatever made them was bigger than the hound, bigger than the beetle she had just driven down. She followed the prints with her eyes. A second pair waited past the first. Then a third, heading straight back toward her field from the outside. Shroomy turned and ran for the woods. The hound loped beside her. She needed the beastmaster again, and she needed him now. The old man's clinic sat in a clearing of moss-covered stone, ivy hanging from the carved arch. Thorn stood outside, sorting dried roots on a low bench, as if he had been waiting. She held out the prints she had pressed into a wax sheet. Thorn studied them for one long breath. "Not from the field," he said. "Something is hunting what hunts you." He set down the roots and reached for his pack. The hound was no longer enough. The threat had doubled, and it was already at her hedge.