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“They are only doing what they’re supposed to do,” he said. “Looking for food.”
“I think they’re looking for food in a happy way, though,” she told him, her eyes back on the funny, foxlike creatures. “There’s no reason they can’t take joy in doing exactly what they’re supposed to do.”
He didn’t reply, but he nuzzled her hair, sending needy shivers down her spine with his hot breath.
After a time, the convoy moved on across the tundra.
The snow was melting as the morning drifted by, but there were still circles of the pale dusting here and there.
Kinsley realized that the land was taking on more contour the further they traveled north. From the ridge where they were running now, Kinsley could see down to a valley below to the right and past that to an expanse of white.
To the left, there was an even higher ridge, still topped with a shimmering mantle of snow.
She was about to ask Kian about the changing topography when the silence was broken by desperate shouts and the terrified barks and screams of the sheriff’s dogs.
14
KIAN
Kian cursed under his breath and launched himself from the sled before it had fully come to a stop.
“Stay there,” he screamed to Kinsley over his shoulder, wondering what the chances were that she would listen.
Just ahead, the sheriff’s whole dog team had disappeared into a pit of some sort. The sled had nearly followed them in, and now sat angled precariously over the edge.
This was an obvious trap, and whoever had set it was dead serious about their work. Digging a pit deep enough to trap a sled in the frozen ground spoke of desperation.
These would be the same bandits as last night.
He reached the sled at the same time as the Grummish sisters.
The deputy had the sheriff by the shoulders, trying to stop him from leaping out of the sled.
It was the right instinct. If they weren’t careful they could launch the sled right onto the team below, maiming or even killing the dogs.
“Stay put,” Lyslee called to them both. “We’ll pull you out. But you have to stay perfectly still.”
She ran back toward the tundra-bear, while her sister planted herself by the sled, roping the blades and body in preparation to pull it out.
Kian glanced up and saw that Cloud-on-the-Mountaintop had caught up to them from his position as the rear guard, and was already sprinting ahead, gesturing toward the ridge on the left.
Sure enough, three archers on the ridge above were preparing their bows.
Kian cursed under his breath, moving to Avril.
“Do you have bows?” he asked her.
“Sure,” she panted, tugging at a rope.
“Get them,” he told her. “I’ll take over here.”
Her eyes widened.
“Up on the ridge,” he said. “This was a trap. A crappy one, but it could get some of us killed.”
“Rings of the outer wreck,” Avril grumbled, handing over the ropes as she ran with a speed he didn’t know she had toward her own sled.
“What’s in the cargo, Sheriff?” Kian called down as he secured the ropes and began to formulate a plan.
