Page 77 of A Scar in the Bone
We settled upon thick, sturdy limbs, our backs resting against the broad trunk as the howling cacophony of wolves continued. We held ourselves still, unable to do anything except listen to the mournful cries and wait.
I WOKE WITHa jolt in dappled sunlight.
I looked around wildly, orienting myself, my gaze locking on Kerstin, and I remembered. We were in a tree together. We’d fallen asleep in our perch, waiting out—
Wolves.
I sat upright and peered down through the creaking branches and rustle of leaves to make certain the beasts had not tracked us. There were no wolves in sight. There was that at least. No wolves, but …
We weren’t alone. I stilled, eyes flaring wide.
Dragons.
Not in dragon form, but dragons just the same. The scent of them punched me in the face. They smelled like wind and fog and earth and woods … like the dragons I knew, like me, andnot. There was something different there. Something more than the earthy musk of them. Another layer draped over all that was familiar. The stink of sweat and blood. Of fury and death.
I had never seen them before, notthesedragons, but I recognized them as I recognized myself. I knew who they were.
They were that other side of the coin I had not yet experienced. The other side of me. They were what I could be if I surrendered to the wild. If I let my feral nature take me.
Kerstin and I exchanged looks. Her eyes alert, scared, her whole body rigid. Her hand reached across the space between us, closing around mine. I squeezed her fingers tightly, reassuring her. Together, we looked down, watching, peering through the gaps and hollows in the leaves and branches, catching glimpses of them below.
They were dressed much in the manner we were—heavy wool and fur. Their fetid odor reached my nostrils and stung my eyes. Sour as ripe onions. They either didn’t bathe or had been traveling hard for a while now. They looked wild as any animal of the Crags with hair that trailed long down their backs in matted snarls.
Almost all of them possessed black hair, the purple glint signaling they were onyxes. The strongest, the brawniest—the most common, the foot soldiers of every pride with their incredible size and strength.
The way Kerstin’s hand trembled around mine, I knew she was afraid and that told me everything I needed to know about them. There was a reason to be afraid. Truce or no.
The skelm.
My insides clenched. Suddenly I wished for wolves. Wolves were simple. They hunted. They killed. They fed. They did not torture. They did not scheme or conceive of torments and inflict them upon each other. No, only dragons did that. And humans. Perhaps witches, too.
I scanned the unkempt group. They carried the pelts of multiple wolves, the large furs draped over wood pallets dragging behind them. They weren’t here because they were huntingus, at least. It was merely an unfortunate coincidence they were here beneath us. They’d been after wolves—the wolves we heard last night—for their furandto take down the predators that would hunt dragonkind. Such was the way of the world in the Crags: hunt or be hunted.
We continued to watch and wait and wish ourselves invisible.
There was nothing else to do except hold as still as possible until they moved on.
I knew exactly whatthesedragons were capable of doing if they discovered us—what they had done to Fell served as a grave warning.
I eased my breathing, careful not to make a sound. Air ceased to pull from my lungs. The wind fell flat—thankfully. We did not need our scent carrying to those on the ground below.
They settled down upon patches of rock jutting from the snow and pulled out their flasks, taking long pulls of drink as they talked among themselves. They looked comfortable—like they were going to stay awhile. A few even pulled out food and ate.
Kerstin and I exchanged worried looks. How long would they linger here?
After a while, my muscles began to quiver from the strain of holding so still, but there was no hope for it. I would hang on as long as necessary.
Perspiration dotted Kerstin’s upper lip despite the frigid air. Her grip tightened around mine when one of the skelm—a great, burly figure with equal amounts of black hair on his face as on his head, dragged a slight, cloaked body to the shade of the tree we occupied.I hadn’t even noticed this diminutive shape among them while they ate and drank.
The shrouded individual was small. Possibly a child. The hood hung low, shadowing the face. Not an inch of skin was exposed anywhere. I peered through the gaps between leaves and branches and that was when I noticed the glove-encased wrists and fingers, delicate as the stems on wineglasses. Around those dainty wrists a rope was bound tightly, cutting deeply into the blue fabric of gloves. My breath snagged in my chest. A captive, then—and not someone inclined to struggle. She was limp as a ragdoll as he plopped her down at the base of the tree and turned away. His rough action tossed the hood back to reveal a shock of sun-gold hair. A portion of her face was visible then. Wan skin. Sunken cheeks. Shadows like bruises beneath her eyes. She lifted her chin as though hungry for the feeble sunlight filtering down through the tree. It wasn’t to be, however.
The brute glanced back at her and made a harsh sound at what he saw. Whirling around, he backhanded her with such ferocity that I flinched. Any small sound I made was covered up by her cry. He grabbed her hood with both hands and yanked it back down over her head, admonishing her in a voice that carried up to us. “You know better! Hide yer face from the light!”
I glanced at Kerstin. She flattened her lips into a line and gave her head a single hard shake—as though she feared I might call out or do something. As though I was foolish enough to make a sound.
The brute rejoined his brethren, ignoring the girl, offering her no food, no drink. I supposed captives weren’t given such basic courtesies.
I stared down at the little hooded head, wondering who she was and how she came to be with them.
