Page 91 of Moon Chosen

“Now you’re thinking!” Nik said.

“I’d say the same about the tracks going north,” Davis said.

“How so?” Nik asked.

“We found a lot of very concentrated signs around the area of the attack, and then—zip—gone. Nothing at all. Following your supposition, I’d say from the signs that two women were attacked and a pup was with them. They returned and tried to confuse the trail, and us, but they didn’t count on Cammy’s nose.” Davis patted the little blond Terrier fondly. “So when that nose tells us that the trail led north and west, and even south after it returned to the creek—I’d say that those are three directions we shouldn’t be searching.”

“Even though we have been searching those directions for the past two weeks,” O’Bryan said.

Nik smiled. “I like the way you two are thinking. That leaves east. The one area we found no sign at all. And no need to run a circle pattern. We’ve already done that. Let’s just go out past the eastern edge of our search area and then start zigzagging.”

“We’ll need to do this quickly, Nik. We can’t get caught out here anywhere near dusk. Not with whatever’s going on with the Scratchers,” Davis said.

“Agreed,” Nik said. “Then let’s move and move fast.”

They finished their rolls as they headed east, going through a section of the forest so filled with maidenhair ferns that Nik thought it looked like it had been covered with the delicate lace the artisans crocheted from sheep penned on Farm Island, but lovingly tended only by members of the Tribe.

“I never cared much for Scratcher territory,” Davis said. “The pines aren’t mighty enough, and there’s too much mud and scrub and rot. But this section is pretty. We should pull up some of these ferns on the way back. If they’re planted near one of our waterways they might take and spread like they do here.”

“It’s damn wet. That’s why the maidenhairs grow so well here in this mess,” O’Bryan said, grimacing as he knocked sticky black muck off his boot. “Scratchers love these lowlands, though I don’t know why.”

“I do,” Nik said. “They love them because we hate them.”

“Guess that does make sense,” Davis said. “As far as I’m concerned they can have them. Do you smell that? Something really stinks.”

“Probably the damned mud.” O’Bryan sounded unusually grumbly. “Cuz, I love you and all, but you’re going to owe me a new pair of boots after this.”

“Done,” Nik said. “But that doesn’t smell like mud.”

“Cammy’s on it,” Davis said, pointing at the Terrier’s blond butt as it disappeared into the ferns.

The men jogged after the little canine. Coming over the crest of a ridge in the lowlands, they peered down at a stream, running through a cedar grove. The breeze shifted and increased, wafting up to them an odor so thick and fetid it almost made Nik gag. Excited barking also drifted up to them.

“Cammy, hold!” Davis shouted the Terrier’s command, jogging down into the grove with Nik and O’Bryan close behind.

All three men piled to a halt as they reached the center of the grove and the Terrier, who was sitting under the desecrated carcass, barking an alert.

“Good job, Cammy. Well done,” Davis praised his Companion as they stared up at the thing hanging from the boughs of the cedar.

“I don’t understand this waste. Deer are rare, precious. It’s been left to rot. All of that meat. All of that hide and gut. All ruined,” Nik said. “Cut it down. Let the forest absorb it.”

O’Bryan found the end of the rope that held the carcass in place. With a quick chop of his knife, the body was free, falling with a sickening thud to the forest floor.

“The heart and liver are gone, and all of the flesh from the deer’s flank, chest, and neck. But that’s it. That’s all they’ve eaten,” Davis said.

“And why the hell would they eat such thin strips of flesh and leave the rest,” O’Bryan said.

“Look at the throat,” Davis said.

Holding his sleeve to his nose, Nik crouched beside the deer. “I don’t see any arrow or knife marks on it at all. Its head has been bashed in, and its throat and belly torn open by what look like bite wounds.”

“Those aren’t animal bites,” Davis said.

“No. They’re human,” Nik said grimly. “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all. I hate to say it, but this reminds me of Skin Stealers.”

“Skin Stealers! Cuz, no! They never leave Port City,” O’Bryan said.

“I know, but there’s no denying that part of this deer has been flayed.” Nik paused, looking more closely at the body before adding, “—possibly while it was still alive.”