Page 114 of A Curse Carved in Bone
“Then we hunt.” I adjusted my grip on my short blade. “Do you want to go first or shallI?”
“You, I think. You’re braver.” Bjorn grinned and started into thewoods, following the trail of blood. I rolled my eyes and kept to his heels, my eyes on the shadows for any sign of motion.
The woods were strangely silent, all the animals who normally filled the night with their calls seeming to be holding their breath. I didn’t blame them. Too easily could I call to mind Harald’s wolf form, bigger than any I’d ever seen. Yet it was the mind behind the teeth that I feared, for Harald was clever.
“Where did you hit him?” I asked, noting the irregularity of the wolf’s tracks. “He’s running on only three legs but there is little blood.”
“Shoulder.” Bjorn bent to examine a drop of crimson. “But the fire will have cauterized it to some extent, which might explain the lack of blood.”
His eyes flicked to mine, suggesting another alternative, which was that Harald was not injured nearly as badly as the tracks indicated.
My pulse escalated, my hand icy yet slick with sweat around the seax’s hilt. Because there was a possibility we were not the hunters.
But the prey.
“Do you think he can see in the dark?” Every shadow seemed to be moving. “And hear with the skill of a true wolf?”
“Likely,” Bjorn replied. “But given that you are glowing and keep asking questions, I’m quite confident he knows where we are, Born-in-Fire.”
My cheeks warmed, but his teasing eased my fear. “Should we extinguish the magic, then? For the sake of stealth?”
“Let’s try silence, first.”
I drew in a steadying breath and stepped carefully through the woods, watching to the sides and behind, but with my magic covering my hand, there was nothing but blackness beyond the pool of light.
A snapping branch echoed to my left, and I jerked in that direction, heart in my throat. Certain I heard panting breath, I held my own, but silence once again reigned over the forest, and Bjorn pressedon.
Only to draw to a stop a dozen paces later. “Trail ends.”
I moved next to him, noting that the trail of paw prints and bloodhad vanished, almost as though he’d taken flight. Catching Bjorn’s eye, I flapped my arms like a bird only for him to shake his head and gesture to his shoulder. No flying, then.
Yet how did we hunt a man who could become any creature, take on any living shape? In the songs, Loki himself took on the shape of a fly, and how did one hunt something so small in the darkness? I did not know the rules his kind were bound to, and frustration began to take hold.
Then a drop of something warm splattered against my cheek.
I yanked my arm upward, magic illuminating a large shadow falling, all fangs and teeth. No longer a wolf but a giant cat. A scream tore from my throat, death seeming certain, but the shadow struck my magic and flipped through the air. It slammed into Bjorn with a feline shriek of rage.
A gasp of pain filled my ears.
The sizzle of burning fur.
Then it was gone into the night.
“Oh gods,” I breathed, seeing claw marks forming crimson rows down Bjorn’s chest, blood already dampening the waistband of his trousers. “This is madness. We need to get Geir and the others to help us hunt.”
“By the time we find them and return, he’ll be long gone.” Bjorn lifted his axe, moving in the direction the cat had gone. “We kill him now.”
He broke into a run, weaving through the trees. I could not see what trail he followed or how he knew which way Harald had gone, but I had no choice but to chase after him.
I tripped and stumbled over deadfall and roots, nearly sprawling more times than I could count. “Bjorn!”
“I can see him. I can see him running and I’m going to fucking kill him!”
“Bjorn!”
No sooner did his name leave my lips did Bjorn disappear fromsight, and I only barely managed to slide to a stop, teetering at the edge of a pit.
An old game trap, hastily covered by Harald. From its depths Bjorn looked up at me. “Are you all right?” I demanded. “Are you hurt?”
