Thwei'kha Bhu'ja's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

Skar'khan's word hung in the room. Thwei'kha crossed to the window in two steps. The mechanical raccoon shifted on the sill to let him look. In the last light he saw the prints in the soft ground by the woodpile. Long feet. Narrow toes. A drag mark from a heavy tail. Not the beast he had killed. Something else had come while he worked, drawn by the wet smell of clean bone. He lifted the oiled bundle at his belt and understood. The skull on his hip still gave off the sharp scent of hot water and salt and fresh marrow. It carried through the pine walls the way smoke carries. Whatever this new thing was, it had followed the smell to the door. "Put out the lamp," he told Mara. She snuffed the wick with her fingers. The cottage went black except for the stove seam. Thwei'kha unwrapped the skull and pressed a fresh handful of salt into every joint. He rolled it tight in two more layers of oiled cloth and shoved the bundle into her iron flour bin. He clamped the lid. The sharp smell dropped to almost nothing. "It's still on the table," Skar'khan whispered. He was right. Black blood had soaked into the wood. Thwei'kha poured the bucket of tongue and brain scraps onto a scrap of hide. He tied the corners. He looked at Mara. "Your machine. Can it drag this east and leave it?" Mara knelt by the raccoon and touched two points on its neck. Its blue eyes flared. "Half a mile," she said. "Then it comes back the long way." Thwei'kha lashed the hide bundle to the raccoon's harness. He cracked the door. The raccoon slipped out low and fast and was gone into the trees, dragging the stink behind it. They waited. Thwei'kha crouched at the window with his spear across his knees. Skar'khan stood by the stove with the club. Mara held a skinning knife in a steady hand. A branch snapped near the woodpile. Something long and pale-ridged moved between two trunks, then stopped. Its head turned toward the door. It sniffed once. Its head turned again, east, toward the raccoon's trail. It went after the scraps in three quiet bounds and was gone. Thwei'kha let out the breath he had been holding. The skull was safe in the bin. The cottage still stood. But he had seen the shape of it now, the ridged skull, the long tail, the wrong colors under the bark. Not the beast he had hunted. Not its mate. Something the first one had been running from, or hunting with. His arc goal had been one skull. Now the ground under it had shifted. He turned to Mara. "How many tracks did your machine find, before?" She met his eyes. "More than one set."