The Fur Trader by Sam Ferguson

Author:Sam Ferguson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Dragon Scale Publishing
Published: 2016-07-04T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

Garrin ducked into the stone cabin for a few moments, just long enough to grab his heavy outer coat, and then he made his way into the forest. Rux and Kiska had tracks that mirrored those of the horses, though the split-tails had kept off to the side. Garrin followed the split-tail prints in the snow, wondering why they hadn’t simply struck the intruders down and brought the horses back.

The white, glistening snow crunched beneath his feet while a cold wind swept through the forest, blowing dust from tree branches and forcing Garrin to turn his head to the side to keep from being dusted with the chilling bits of frost. He followed the trail for several miles, winding into the lower foothills and across a frozen creek.

That was where he found a bit of blood.

A small amount of spatter was spread across the snow upon the ground, and droplets also went up the nearby tree trunk. Garrin bent down low to the stain. The warmth had long escaped from the spilt blood, for the red liquid had sunk into the snow and the steam one would expect to see from a fresh spill was not to be found.

The only question was whether the blood was human or animal.

Other than the blood, there was no obvious sign of a struggle. The split-tail prints in the snow did not change from their orderly cadence into a chaotic mess as one would expect had there been a battle. Nor did the horse tracks on the right seem to deviate from their course either.

Garrin frowned and turned around, surveying the area around him. Finally, he looked up into the trees. He studied the tree on his left, which had blood on the trunk and stood just a few inches from where the splatter had fallen upon the snow, but he couldn’t see any other blood upon it. Then, a new idea came to him. He had been assuming that the Treewalkers had taken the horses, but what if he was wrong? What if there were two groups. Garrin moved ten yards to his right and studied the horse tracks closer. There were not two sets of prints, but three.

How had he missed that before?

Treewalkers might have ridden the horses back, but why would they bring one to begin with?

Garrin moved into the hoof prints and then looked to his left, back toward the blood spatter. He lifted his left arm as though he had a bow in hand. He drew back on the imaginary string with his right and looked up, imagining that he was being trailed by a Treewalker. The trapper smiled wide when he saw it.

A single Treewalker was pinned to the center of a very large pine. One arrow had gone through his shoulder, and would easily explain the blood spatter only a few yards behind that spot on the ground. The second arrow had struck the man in the chest and pinned him to the tree. Garrin had

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