Tomas Edel's Arc

Chapter 5 of 17

The baying had stopped. Tomas stood on the road and read the silence. The dog was dead. The wendigo had found the false trail's end. Soon it would circle back and catch his real scent where he stood now. Regan waited beside him. Her silver stake caught the last light. "How long?" she asked. Tomas held up one hand, fingers spread. Minutes. Not more. A boy stepped out of the mist ahead of them. Black leather jacket, ripped jeans, brown hair pushed flat by damp air. He blocked the road with his boots planted wide. Tomas had never seen him. The jacket hung too big on his shoulders, like it had been cut for someone else. He stared at Regan's bloody uniform, then at Tomas's broken arm strapped to his chest. "You came from the woods," the boy said. "People go in there. They don't come out. A kid from my town went in." His jaw tightened. "Nobody looked long enough." Tomas opened his mouth. The word sat in his throat like a stone. Wendigo. He could not push it out. Instead he pointed at the tree line, then dragged his good hand flat across his own chest, once, hard. "He can't walk home," Regan said. "It follows his scent. If he leads it into Duskwood, it kills the whole street." She said it flat, like reading a list. Hunter's blue eyes went from her to the trees. "So he needs a way in that isn't his own path." Tomas nodded fast. His breath came short. The boy pulled a folded paper from his jacket. Not his, Tomas saw. A patrol log, water-stained, pages half filled in another man's hand. "Found this on the ground by the wall," Hunter said. "Dropped in the dirt. There's a marked trail on it. A ranger's cut path. Goes around the back of the village. Comes up through the old chapel by the road." Tomas took the log with his good hand. He knew the writing. It was his own, from a patrol he never finished. The marked route ran clear of every house. It ended at the chapel where Regan slept. "Wind blows the wrong way for the beast there," Regan said. "Scent won't carry to the doors." Tomas met the boy's eyes. He mouthed a single word. Come. Hunter looked back at the black trees, then at the two of them. He shoved his hands in the jacket and fell in step. They ran the cut path. Brambles tore Tomas's sleeve. Behind them, far off, a howl split the dark. The wendigo had the scent again. But the path curved wide of the sleeping houses. Ahead, the chapel bell hung still against the mist. Tomas reached the chapel door before the howl came again. He had a safe way in. He had not warned the village yet. And a boy who had lost someone now ran beside him, wanting the same dark answer Tomas still could not speak.