Page 6 of Moon Guardian
Charlie…
Sniffing the air again, I licked my finger and held it up.
Downwind.
The subtle breeze working its way through the forest was in my favor, moving south toward my village. If there were any wolves, they’d be coming from their city. I didn’t trust my mud mask to truly cover my scent, but with the breeze also in my favor perhaps I had a chance.
Maybe I could get to Charlie before the wolf.
Taking another look at the forest floor, I thought back to what Charlie had taught me about tracking.
The path will be clear once you know what you’re looking for. It’ll be subtle. A disturbance that shouldn’t naturally be there.
Venturing as silently as I could through the underbrush, I paused at a bush. One of the branches bent at the wrong angle and a leaf twitched in the wing, close to breaking.
Gotcha.
Moving in the direction of the broken branch, I found more evidence of something, or someone, having traveled through the forest.
Kneeling, I touched the damp ground where grooves worked into the dirt.
Some sort of tracks… but are these boots, or obscured animal tracks?
While I could hunt, I wasn’t a tracker. Charlie was the best among us for that task and I took care of the killing.
He’d always berated me for not taking more of an interest in tracking. Now was not the time for a lesson. My heart thundered in my ears as I struggled on, hoping I’d find Charlie smiling at me at the end of this path.
A twig snapped and I crouched low to the ground, holding my breath before a deer launched through the trees.
Cursing on a sharp exhale, I dove out of the way before I earned a hoof in the face.
I hadn’t been following the wrong tracks, though. I spotted Charlie a few trees down, his eyes wide in the darkness. He noticed me a moment later and pressed a finger to his lips.
Something’s here.
Frantically I searched the shadows for any sign of danger. The scent of sandalwood and spice had faded, but it didn’t mean the wolf wasn’t nearby. The wind could have shifted, or my uncanny ability to scent the creature had faded momentarily.
Thunder cracked overhead, startling me as the moonlight wavered, darkness descending as a storm moved in.
The overpowering scent washed over me a moment later.
Metal and death.
It didn’t make any sense. We were in wolf territory. Their magic seemed to omit the wolves and leave them unharmed in the wake of the terrible corruption that rained down from the skies, making anything it touched weaken and die.
Maybe the death of their alphas had changed more than we realized.
There was no time for victory. Charlie rummaged in his bag and produced one of the Moon Blossoms, proving that he had indeed found more of the decadent blooms while evading me. He crammed it into his mouth and his skin took on a silver glow.
It would protect him from the corruption, but that move was a mistake.
“Charlie!” I hissed, but it was too late.
He’d turned himself into a literal beacon.
By the look on his face, he knew exactly what he was doing. He mouthed the word, making a chill shoot up my spine.
Run.
