Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty Page 0,31
rotted and fallen over in the last storm, but take a look.…”
The stump of the tree didn’t appear rotted, and it didn’t have the fibrous appearance of a trunk that had been snapped by high winds. It was difficult to tell, but it almost appeared as if it had been gnawed by giant teeth or cut down with an ax.
“Look at the angle here,” Braeden said, gesturing at the side of the stump in anger and confusion. “Someone purposely felled this tree so that it would block the road.”
Gidean barked and made Serafina jump a mile. As the dog kept barking, Braeden knelt at his side and put his hands on the dog’s back. “What’s wrong, boy? What do you smell?”
“If it’s all right with you,” Mr. Crankshod said gruffly, “we’re not gonna wait around to find out.”
Spooked by the dog and apparently convinced that he’d cut through enough of the trunk, Mr. Crankshod dropped the ax, braced his heavy boots against the earth, and grabbed hold of the branches. He tried to drag the tree off the road, but it was far too large for him to budge.
Braeden and Nolan ran forward and tried to help. The whole time, Gidean just kept barking.
“Somebody hit that dog and shut it up!” Mr. Crankshod shouted, spittle flying from his mouth.
“Mr. Crankshod, I think we should turn the carriage around and go back the other way,” Braeden said sharply, obviously perturbed by his comment about the dog.
Mr. Crankshod agreed, but at that moment, a loud cracking sound filled the forest air. Serafina crouched, prepared to spring. A great shattering of wood erupted into an explosive crash as a large tree fell across the road behind them.
The horses squealed in panic and went up rearing and striking, pulling on their leather harnesses and dragging the carriage across the ground even though the brake was engaged and the wheels wouldn’t turn. Their instinct was to run, whether they were free of the harnesses or not.
Braeden ran forward to help them.
“No, Braeden!” Serafina cried as she reached to stop him. The boy seemed determined to get himself killed by a horse kick.
Braeden leapt in front of the horses. He was able to calm them with a few soft words and quickly got them under control. Seeing that he was safe, Serafina scanned the forest in the direction of the fallen tree. That’s when she realized that the worst had happened: the carriage, its four horses, the four humans, and the dog were now trapped on a section of road between two trees.
Mr. Crankshod, gripping the ax, stomped to the back of the carriage and shouted furiously into the darkness, “Who’s out there? Show yourselves, you rotten, filthy swine!”
Serafina looked into the darkness waiting for an answer to come, but Mr. Crankshod’s words drifted out into the black nothingness without reply.
“Mr. Crankshod,” Braeden said firmly, “we need to go back to cutting the tree in front of us. The safest course now is to press on to Asheville.”
“I just hope we can get there,” Mr. Crankshod carped beneath his breath, stomping back.
As Mr. Crankshod, Braeden, and Nolan worked on the tree, Serafina couldn’t help but look behind the carriage where the most recent tree had fallen. Gidean was looking in that direction as well, his eyes black in the starlight.
“What do you think, boy?” she whispered as she crouched beside him and peered into the darkness. “Is there something out there?” She and the dog were on the same side now.
She wondered about the second fallen tree. It couldn’t be a coincidence. Someone was deliberately blocking them in so that they could not escape.
She scanned the forest. She had good senses, but she knew she couldn’t smell nearly as well as Gidean, and he seemed to smell something right now. He wasn’t barking anymore, but was staring intently into the forest, waiting for something to appear. For all his faults as a dog, he was a brave defender.
But she hated this: the looking, the waiting, feeling like a trap was slowly surrounding them. She couldn’t stand it. She didn’t know how to defend; she knew how to hunt. And right now, it felt like they were the ones being hunted, and she didn’t like the feeling one bit.
She took a few steps forward into the trees to see how it felt. Her skin crawled with equal parts fear and excitement. She was drawn into the forest. Her instinct was telling her to go deeper.