best.
Chapter Seventeen
Takish Gorge was as pristine as Sora and Daemon had left it.
Or, perhaps, a bit more pristine.
As they rode to the top of the canyon walls and peered down, they saw exactly what they’d expected to see the first time—a roaring waterfall, towering cypress trees, and a rocky floor through which various sharp-toothed creatures and their prey darted. What Sora and Daemon did not see was the camp, other than the log walls.
“Stars,” Sora swore, even though they knew the Paro Village taigas had reported nothing here but the remnants of a celebration.
“It’s been less than a week since we were here,” Daemon said. “Maybe we can still pick up their trail.”
Sora sighed. “Maybe. I suppose we should go down to the campsite to look for clues.”
They descended into the gorge. There weren’t paths here, so they had to make their own, pushing through spaces between boulders and steering their horses around trees downed by lightning.
Hours later, they reached the canyon floor. They were dusty and sweaty, and their legs ached from holding tight against their saddles during the climb down. Sora dismounted first, just outside the strange log walls. Most remained in place, but a twenty-foot length of it had been eased open like massive doors.
Sora ran her fingers between two of the logs until she reached the corner, where it hinged out from the rest of the fortifications. “There’s nothing holding them together. No mud or other daubing between the wood, and no notches to lock the logs into place. It’s as if they’re just . . . balanced on top of one another.”
“Magic?” Daemon asked.
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Daemon kneeled into the dirt. “Add something else to our list of this camp’s strangeness—there aren’t hoofprints or wheel ruts here. It looks like they opened the log wall in order to leave and then rolled out in something giant.”
Sora bent to examine the dried mud. The ground had, indeed, been flattened by something wider than a cart or carriage. “Or maybe they marched and rode out of here like normal but had something follow them to erase their footprints?”
“Why would that matter? We could still follow the path crushed by . . .” Daemon’s voice trailed off as he looked in the direction of the path. It disappeared just a stone’s throw away from the logs, as if no one had been here at all. “So much for that theory.” He chewed on his lip, puzzled.
“Let’s go through the camp to see if there are any other clues,” Sora said.
They walked slowly through the site. Where there had been crimson tents last time, now there was emptiness, not even a stray stake left unpacked. Despite the Paro Village taigas’ report, there was no trash left behind, besides some horse dung in the area that had been their stables. And other than a handful of tree trunks that had been sliced a bit too cleanly, as if a sword had glided through them rather than a saw, there was no indication that magic of any sort—green fire or otherwise—had been here.
Sora and Daemon stood in the middle of the campsite, completely flummoxed.
A howl sounded at the edge of the forest, too close to the campsite. Sora froze.
Another howl responded. Then another and another.
The wolves were surrounding the camp.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Sora whispered, drawing her sword and placing her back at his so they could fight attacks from both sides.
But Daemon hadn’t drawn his bo or any of his other weapons. Instead, he tilted his head up to the sky and belted out his own howl.
Sora whirled around, eyes wide. Her terror shivered through their gemina bond.
Daemon put a hand on her arm to calm her. “The wolves were issuing a warning to us.”
“I figured that out,” she said, “which is why I have my sword out. Why aren’t you armed? Why are you howling and letting the wolves know precisely where we are?” She shook her arm free from his grip and began to pace in an arc again, ready for an attack.
“Because they aren’t after us,” Daemon said. “They’re trying to warn us against the ones who were here before.”
She lowered her sword. Daemon often downplayed his ability to communicate with wolves—he called his language skills “rudimentary eating and fighting words,” since that’s pretty much all he remembered from his wolf cub days—but Sora thought he sold himself short. Other taiga apprentices might have been better at magic, but how many