Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)

Chapter 2

A lean silhouette leaps through the undergrowth with determination and speed. He is backlit by the setting sun, vanishing and reappearing between trees. I recognise my father's mind at once. Distracted by the men and the wolf dog, I hadn't sensed him approaching. He must have come looking for us because he heard the hound's barking. And we have returned by our outbound tracks, making us easy to find. 

'Pa!' Kel shouts. My brother jumps from his hideout, not caring anymore about twisting his ankle or hurting himself. Not caring about anything but getting himself into our father's arms.

Pa scans the forest, blue eyes bright and keen in his rugged face. He takes in the injured dog, the cut on Kel's cheek, the state of me breathless from all the jogging and carrying and shooting. He cannot sense the mind-world but he understands what has happened. I hold up two fingers, showing him "two men". He nods, then hoists his bow onto his shoulder and lifts Kel into his arms, pulls him tight to his chest, one hand stroking the back of my brother's head.

Side by side, with their slim faces, grey-blue eyes and long noses, it is easy to see they are father and son. Kel looks like Pa, and with all that blonde hair and warm yellowy-pink skin, he takes after my mother too. I don't resemble either of my parents. My wide-set oval eyes and flat-bridged snub nose are typical of the Uru Ana. I resemble my mother's mother, who passed down the sight to Kel and I, even though it skipped Ma . 

We abandon the wolf dog and jog back to camp, Kel on Pa's back. My father says nothing as we move swiftly, the air growing chillier with the parting daylight. I can't tell if he's angry, worried or focused on what lies ahead. The next couple of hours - how quickly we can pack up and how far we can get without leaving obvious tracks - are crucial.

I wonder if we should have put the hound out of its misery and what the men will do when they find it injured. My father did not take his knife to the creature and I couldn't bring myself to finish the job. My arrow had pierced its front leg. With proper care it will have a good chance of healing. That was what made me hesitate. And there wasn't time for such indecision, so I had left it.

There is a break in the thicket, a downward slope where our camp nestles behind the high banks of snow we dug out yesterday. Smoke curls towards the sky, suspended in frosty air that preserves footprints, skinned pelt and bone remnants long after those who left them have gone. As the wooden tent poles come into view, pictures shimmer in the mind-world.

Bare feet on warm stone floors. Hot water baths. She lathers oil that smells of summer and hope over her slim, sixteen-year-old calves.

It is the year before my mother met my father. Ma's reminiscing has this annoying way of echoing whatever age I am. Her thoughts break off as she hears our boot steps in the compacted snow. The smell of warm oats hits me and my stomach grumbles. Ma rises from her place by the fire, hairbrush dangling from her wrist. Pa puts Kel down.

'Get your clothes together,' he tells my brother. Kel crosses the clearing towards our sleeping tents. Ma intercepts him with a quick hug, while her eyes watch Pa and I anxiously. My father picks up a large copper pan, scoops snow and douses the fire. The flames suffocate with barely any smoke.

Once Kel has moved inside the skin tent where he and I sleep, Pa turns to me.

'Are they bounty hunters?'

'I don't know.' But if they set eyes on Kel it won't matter. They'll want him.

'How far behind the dog?'

Ma's eyes flit left and right with panic. 

'Ten minutes. Maybe a little more.'

'We leave here in five,' he says.