M&K Tracking by Kate Danley

Author:Kate Danley [Danley, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-03-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

My head was pounding. We had been traipsed through the woods for hours along trails I couldn't even see. My mind was cloudy. It felt I had woken up with a Nyquil hangover. Killian and I had fallen into silence. He was right that after awhile, you just sort of run out of things to say. I tried to start up a game of slug-bug whenever we saw a beetle, but Killian won too much and I told him I needed to protect my staking arm.

The suns rose up to their highest points and then began their fall back towards the horizon and finally Killian piped up to say, "We should set up camp before darkness."

I swatted away a big spider web and wiped it off my hand on a rock. "Yes!" I replied, dropping my pack, absolutely frickin' thrilled not to be walking anymore. My feet hurt. I smelled. I was completely powerless in this place. I was so done with this entire goddamned elfin nature business.

"Not here, Maggie," he said.

I looked at him. "What? Do you have a campsite close by with cable hook-ups or something?" I seriously did not want to walk one more step further.

"Not here," he reiterated.

I groaned and picked up my pack. "Who cares?! We are in the middle of the flippin’ forest. Far as I can tell, we aren't even on any kind of a path. We've just been marching our way through random riverbeds and glens for the past eight hours."

Killian led us about fifty-feet away.

"Oh. Good," I said. "This is sooo much better."

"You do not know what creatures will travel down that path at night," Killian said, putting down his things.

"That was not a path."

"Yes, Maggie, it was."

"Listen, I am a tracker, which means I track things, and there was no sign of any footsteps or creatures or anything that would even remotely suggest that this was anything other than us wandering lost through the woods."

Killian put his hand to my forehead. "Are you feeling well?"

"What?! Of course I am," I said, slapping his hand aside.

"You do not feel the magic?" he replied slowly, peering into my eyes.

"Uh... did I stutter? There is no magic to be felt."

He shook his head and looked around. "This forest is infused with it. You should be feeling it in every crevice and nook."

"Well, if it's everywhere," I said, trying not to let him know I was lying through my teeth, "maybe it is kind of like a nose which has been worn out. Maybe I'm just overwhelmed with all of the magic you say is here."

"Perhaps," he said, still looking at me like a doctor trying to figure out a problem patient.

"Don't look at me like that," I said.

"Like what?"

"You know what I mean."

"I have no idea."

"Don't make me cranky, elf."

"You are already cranky."

"Details, details. Now can we pitch camp before we lose light and find ourselves shit out of luck?"

He opened up his pack and began pulling things out. I started gathering

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