We Walk As Wolves

Chapter 6

Cass

Cass trudged along behind Redd, his hands bound in front of him by a thick cord of rope. The red moon followed them from above, sneaking in and out of the cluster of trees. It reminded him of the shriveled cats who prowled the backstreets of England, hissing if he drew too close.

Redd walked with a rooted grace one meter ahead of him, expertly avoiding holes and low hanging branches and finding it indecently amusing to not warn him about them until the last feasible moment. 

Eventually, Redd's relentless silence started to become irritating, and the world around him began to fight for his attention. 

He felt the fixed fever of eyes trailing him with each step, a watchful stare, but he wasn't entirely convinced it was only the moon's. The Lost Forest seemed to breathe as they skirted along the edge of it, inhaling their scents. The energy the woods emanated snaked through Cass, sinking into his body like fishhooks. It felt dark, a tangle of cryptic webbing in his veins. 

The edge of the forest was oddly straight, as if something had come through and sliced it directly down the middle, scraping away the remaining half of the thicket like the first layer on a birthday cake. Howls circled all around him, growing in intensity the further they walked. At first, he figured they were the calls of the wolves. But the more he listened, the lighter they became, less elongated. 

They sounded human. 

He tried to sneak a glance through the trees, but things beneath the brush began to rustle when he stared too long. 

"Don't gawk at the trees," Redd said, and he jumped at the order. "It's their job to watch you, not the other way around." 

Cass glanced briefly at the black barks of the trees, searching for anything that looked a little too close to eyes, then nearly plunged into another gap in the earth. "You seem to know a lot about this place," he grumbled, stepping around the hole hidden by dead leaves. They were starting to look less like nature's work and more like manmade traps. 

Redd ran a finger over the cord on her bow, stroking it like a guitar string. "I've been here for some time." 

"How long?" Cass asked, picking at the dirt on the leg of his pants. "You don't look much older than -" 

He smacked into her, bouncing off the thick hide of her coat. He fumbled for his footing, tied hands flailing uselessly in the air. 

She wrapped a firm palm around his shoulder, pulling him back to his feet, and glared him down. "You ask too many questions," she said, then tightened his bounds and turned away.

Cass followed after her, keeping his head down, and tried to remember what his mother had said about questioning a woman's age. 

**

Dells 

A boy with long silver blades lined in rows down his back watched the huntress and the stranger.

He had nestled deep into the brush that lined the edge of the Lost Forest, trailing the two like a star: he could watch the stranger, but was still far enough away so Redd couldn't sense him. The girl was remarkably perceptive, and the Grave Thief used her as his own personal watchdog. An arrow to the chest wasn't how Dells had planned to go out. 

"What's that?"

Dells crouched down as Redd turned toward the forest, but she had already lost interest in the stranger's discovery and continued on. "Looks like a ribcage." 

"What did that?"

He caught the glimpse of a tattered smile through the thick leaves. "I don't know. And if you start looking for it, you might find it. I've found its best to keep going and hope that the bones weren't human. Maybe the beasts want deer tonight."