Thornwyn Mossbrook's Arc

Chapter 18 of 38

The chimera walked west through the drifts and Thornwyn slid. She caught the withers and pulled herself back up. Blood had soaked through the moss again. Her hands were slow. Her fingers would not close all the way. The trees ahead doubled and swam. She knew the sign. She had seen it in wounded hunters brought to her door. First the cold, then the doubling sight, then sleep. If she slept on the mount, she would fall. If she fell, she would not rise. She could not read the woods. The sun was hidden. She did not know which slope was west and which was north. The chimera knew. The chimera had carried the girl west at dawn and could find that trail again if she let it. She leaned forward and pressed her mouth into the fur behind its ear. "Find the piebald," she said. "Find the girl. Go." The chimera lifted its head. Its wolf jaw parted and it tasted the air. Then it turned two points south of the line she had been steering and broke into a heavy trot. The trot jarred her wound. She bit the inside of her cheek and tasted iron. She wrapped both arms around the thick neck and let her weight hang. She could not steer. She could only stay on. She tied herself. She pulled the strip of cloak from her waist and looped it under the chimera's throat and around her own wrist, twice, and knotted it with her teeth. If she went limp, the knot would hold her against the shoulder. It would not be pretty. It would keep her off the snow. The woods went by in pieces. A stand of black spruce. A frozen creek. A slope of stones. She lost the middle parts. She came back once to find her cheek pressed to fur and drool on her chin. She came back again to find the chimera standing still, ears forward. Ahead, between two firs, the piebald deer stood in the snow. Its side was bandaged. Its long tail flicked once. It had smelled her before it saw her. The piebald walked to the chimera's flank and pushed its nose against her hanging boot. Then it turned and started back the way it had come, slow, looking over its shoulder to be sure they followed. The chimera followed. Thornwyn let her eyes close. She had not chosen the path. The deer had. The deer was leading her in. She smelled woodsmoke before she saw the shelter. A small fire under a rock overhang. A dark shape rising from beside it. A smaller shape behind his leg, staring. The knot at her wrist gave when hands worked it. She felt herself lifted down. She felt the girl's hand close on two of her fingers and hold. She let go and slept.