Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)

Chapter 4

The land cracks open, giant boulders marking the murky descent into Blackfoot forest. My knotted hair, crusted with ice whips against my face. My legs tremble and my dry throat hurts when I swallow.

I crouch down, cut a piece of snow with my knife to suck on, then check my position in relation to the Bright Star which resides faithfully over Jade Sword peak. From the direction the men have taken, my guess is they are returning to the river where they have set up camp. I shave off a second lump of snow and hold it to my swollen cheekbone and bruised temple. My arm throbs, but my head is worse. It pounds like I'm being struck over and over.

In my mind, I call up those last moments with Ma and Pa so that Kel knows Pa's alive and I'm coming. The mind-world ripples with his answer: running through the forest, hearing the startling bark of the wolf dog, peering down between snow-tipped pine needles while I racked my bow to shoot. I feel a small glimmer of relief. He is conscious and not wrapped so tight into himself with fear I cannot reach him.

I sheath my knife, telling myself I've gained enough on them now to carry on at a good walking pace. But the truth is I can't continue jogging. The adrenaline drained, fatigue has settled over me so that my muscles and bones ache.

Trees. Nothing but pine and spruce and fir. They grow taller, denser, blocking the starlight. I trip and stumble many times, unable to see the ground, and every time, it's harder to get up.

To fill the bleakness in my heart and the rolling blackness before my eyes, I consider whether Kel was trying to tell me something with his memories of the wolf dog. If the men have not given the hound nightshade to subdue its pain, nor killed it, my chances of cutting Kel free and the two of us escaping without waking the hunters are zero. And I cannot take on either of the men. Even uninjured it would be pure idiocy to try.

But if I cannot steal Kel from their camp, how long can I follow in the shadows? With my injured arm I cannot build shelter, or wield fire with my fire board. Besides, I could not risk them seeing the smoke.

I strain to make out the trees in the darkness. I am beginning to lose my sense of direction and time. The thick canopy of pine branches obliterates the sky, but even if the heavens could guide me, I wouldn't stop to look up - I would never get going again.

I reach for the soft, feathery shape of Kel's mind to orientate myself. Luminously bright and as gentle as blowballs. I have always loved the feel of it. Light and airy and bright. So bright! My wandering thoughts snap to attention. So bright because he has stopped moving and I am not far from him. So bright, because the bounty hunters' minds are sunless and dull in comparison, though I can sense them again. The effects of the mist berries wane.

They have reached their camp. It takes every fragment of will I possess not to collapse to my knees and rest for a few minutes. Sit down and you will fall asleep and freeze to death. Even bundled in my one fur, if I sleep without shelter or fire, I will die from the cold.

I slump against a tree, pack pressing into the muscle knots that riddle my shoulders. I am exhausted and I can't focus. My mind feels like dirty sludge. After a brief pause, I force my eyes open, shake off my pack carefully so as not to pull on my arm sling, and fumble inside for the skin with the chickweed and white root. I take a root and chew on it while thinking.

Staying outside all night, totally exposed is not an option. Nor is returning to Ma and Pa without Kel. Could I find my way back to our old camp? It must be less than an hours walk from here. Yesterday we dug banks from the snowdrifts which had formed in the clearing. I could burrow into one. But it would be too far to sense Kel's mind. And if the men woke and set off before me, I would lose them.