It is going to be a long walk.
Axan starts us moving. The path narrows at the bend and we fall into formation without thinking—Axan at point, Melori and Kestria in the middle, me last. Kestria is saying something low to Melori. Something involving the word protein and then a small choked laugh. Melori makes a sound that might be a groan.
I keep my eye on the trail and my ear on the wind.
The bear has been dying for days. Every wolf on patrol has heard it. The pack agreed to stay off that side of the ridge until the thing finished—too close to the iron, too much risk of a second trap nobody's found yet. I've been routing patrols around it. I was going to route us around it today.
A quarter mile down, the wind shifts.
Melori stops walking.
"Wait." Her hand goes up. "Wait, do you hear that?"
I hear it. I heard it before she did. I was hoping it wouldn't carry this far.
"Hear what?" Kestria, careful.
"Something's crying."
The sound again. Low, ragged, broken up. Not close. Not far enough.
The smell hits next. Blood, old, and underneath it rotand infection and dying. And something else. Iron. Rust.
Axan catches it at the same time I do, his chin lifting, nostrils wide, eyes scanning left.
"Off the trail." Just for me. "Thirty paces. Maybe forty."
I nod, already adjusting our path—circle wide, give it space, keep moving.
"Bear." Axan's voice drops quieter. "Wounded. Days ago. Infected."
"How can you tell?"
"I can smell it." He pauses. "And iron. A trap."
Melori's face changes. "A trap."
"Leg trap. Human-made." Axan looks at me, the same thought on both of us—humans setting traps this deep in our territory. Not for bears.
"We go around," I tell her. "Trapped bears are worse than wounded ones. Pain and panic—"
"A trap." Her voice has gone hard. "Someone trapped it and left it there."
"Melori—"
"We're not—"
"In a trap. Alone. With its leg rotting."
I step in front of her, between her and the trees.
"A trapped bear kills you before you get close enough to help."
"Maybe."
"Not maybe. That is what will happen."
She looks up at me, and the height difference means she has to tip her chin. Her eyes are clear—certain.
