The Coming Storm Read Online Free PDF Page A

leaves on the trees hadn’t yet lost the new-leaf brightness. Colath appreciated the beauty of this wild place. If not for the growing tension it should have been a pleasant ride.
    The sun lowered. The shadows of the mountains fell far behind them when they stopped. Both Mortan and Jalila. They slid off their horses to examine a mark in the dirt.
    Jalila looked up, her eyes showing puzzlement.
    “Alic, Iric, stand guard,” Colath said and swung off his horse to crouch near them.
    Looking at the print in the dirt, he understood their confusion.
    “What is it, Colath?” Mortan asked. “I’ve never seen the like.”
    “Nor I,” Jalila added.
    He shook his head.
    Mortan had spread his hand over the track to gauge its size. For a man he didn’t have small hands. The track was two of his handspans wide, plus a little more. There was weight as well, the front of the track pressed deeply into the dirt more so than the back.
    “Like a cat’s somewhat,” Jalila commented, her head tilted and almost in the grass. “It was chasing something. Or running.”
    Mortan stalked across the grass, his head down and eyes intent. “A boar from the looks of these tracks.”
    Trotting over to join him, she nodded. “A good-sized one as well. I wonder that it stayed when all else fled.”
    “Too old, or sick?” Colath asked.
    “Not the way it’s moving by these tracks,” Mortan said.
    Jalila nodded. “It’s big. So it’s old and canny. Perhaps it had its den deep enough it felt safe until now.”
    “These look fairly new.”
    Colath looked up at the sky.
    They had another hour of two of daylight left, plus some of twilight. The men wouldn’t see so well but the Elves would have no problem.
    He considered it. An unknown dweller of the borderlands. Big. Catlike.
    “We follow.”
    “I’ll track it on the ground,” Jalila said, “it will be easier to cut trail.”
    She was experienced enough not to get too far ahead, beyond the cover of their arrows and her own bow was in hand, an arrow nocked and ready for quick flight.
    He nodded.
    Moving off, she settled into the steady trot their folk could maintain for miles or even days, if necessary. Her eyes were on the ground. Every now and then she bent a little to better see the track, slowing only by a fraction.
    They followed, arrows notched loosely in bow strings and the horses at an easy jog.
    By size and weight, that which they followed was too big for them to risk being caught unawares.
    The sun was getting lower and Colath was becoming concerned. Time grew short, they would need to find a good camp soon. With something like this stalking the countryside he didn’t want to be out in the open but under some kind of cover. He’d seen the claw marks of the thing and the way its feet were set. Those weren’t promising.
    Jalila slowed and raised a hand, then lowered it. A signal. Slow and quiet. The horses were nervous suddenly, hides twitching just a little, as if they smelled something or sensed something they didn’t understand but knew was unsettling.
    Ahead was a tumble of rocks, part of a small ridge that dropped off beyond them. Jalila trotted toward it cautiously and then pointed them toward it.
    Setting the others to guard the horses, Colath followed Jalila’s sign as she came to join him near the rocks. Using hand signals only, she indicated that the chase had gone around the rocks. A good-sized boar wouldn’t have fit between them and his small, hard hooves wouldn’t have had good purchase. A tall, slim Elf, however, would have no difficulty. They eeled their way among the boulders, keeping low until they had a good view of the slope below.
    The chase had ended there.
    The boar was still alive. Hamstrung but still alive, its front hooves clawing and digging at the earth. It squealed weakly as it thrashed. It wouldn’t live long but it would have a terrible death.
    Most natural predators preferred fresh meat freshly dead from a severed spine or crushed throat.