Hunted

“Intriguing, yes.” She wanted nothing morethan to hop down from the roof, sprint into the forest, and findthat woman. “Any chance you’d like to delay our trip to Sebastian’sclaim to go check on that smoke and question this woman if she’sstill alive?”

Cedar gazed into the woods, not toward thesmoke, but upriver, toward the claims. With one of the Cudgel’sallies nearby, he must feel the pull of his quest more than ever.But someone who had staked a claim was not going anywhere any timesoon.

Perhaps the same thoughts spun through hishead, for he sighed and said, “Yes, we should check the wreckage.If the woman recovers, she may come after you again.”

“Me? Are you sure she’s not after you?Perhaps she’s some ex-lover you irritated, and she’s been planningfor years to take her revenge.”

“I don’t irritate my lovers.” He hopped offthe roof.

“Just business partners?” Kali climbed downafter him and gave him a smile to let him know she was joking.

Cedar did not return it. Helooked…glum.

“Maybe there’ll be a bounty on her head, andit’ll be worth the side trip,” Kali said.

Cedar grunted and pointed at the SAB. “Therewon’t be a trail to the crash site. Think that can maneuver throughthe forest?”

“It’d probably get stuck in the snow orundergrowth,” Kali admitted, feeling a twinge of envy for theflyer. If she had an air-based vehicle, she wouldn’t have to worryabout such pesky things. Someday, she promised herself, thinking ofher airship design, though she was already wondering if the flyermight inspire modifications.

“Let’s walk then.” Cedar shouldered hispacksack, and they set out.

A branch swung back and smacked Kali in theface. She grunted and scraped spruce needles out of her hair. They,along with twigs, leaves, and sap, already provided her braid withmore decorations than a totem pole.

“I know I mentioned this before,” Kali said,“But you could cut some of this undergrowth with yoursword.”

“One does not use a high quality, importedJapanese katana to whack weeds,” Cedar said.

“It came all the way from the Orient? Youmust have paid a fortune for it. Perhaps, to justify thatsubstantial investment, you should use it for more than slicingpeople’s heads off.”

He slanted her a dark look over his shoulder.“I got it from Jiro, one of my early mentors. We were hunting afellow who’d massacred a family in Florida when Jiro got shot inthe leg. He said I wasn’t experienced enough to go after the man onmy own; I was sixteen and figured I knew plenty. I left him to adoc and tracked the cutthroat all through the swamps. Nearly lost aleg to an alligator, but I got my man. Jiro said he’d been wrong,and I was ready to hunt on my own. He retired and gave me thekatana to put to good use.”

Kali knew Cedar had traveled, but she had notrealized how much. Even though a sane person would probably not beexcited by stories of swamps and alligators, her heart ached withlonging to see such places.

“Alligator tussle, huh?” she said. “Must haveleft a giant scar.”

“Yup.”

“Can I see it some time?”

“Reckon so.” Cedar glanced back, hisexpression lighter this time. A glint in his eyes suggested herinterest pleased him. Men always liked to show off war wounds.

Kali dodged another branch whipping back inthe wake of his passage and resolved to stay farther behind. Smokethickened the air, though, promising they were close. She had tosquash an urge to lean to the side or bounce up and down so shecould see around Cedar. At one point, she tried to slip past him,but he blocked her with a gentle nudge. Being protective, washe?

Flames came into view, licking bark andnibbling spruce needles high up in trees. Broken branches hung fromseveral trunks, but metal glinting on the forest floor drew Kali’sgaze downward.

She could not muster caution, and she dartedpast Cedar, this time evading his protective grasp.

Less wreckage than she expected scattered theforest floor. The vehicle’s wings drew her eye first. The fall hadmangled them, warping the framework and tearing holes in themembrane. Kali rubbed the unique mesh between her fingers. Thoughcool and sleek like metal, it had a lightweight, sinuous natureunlike any alloy she knew about. She wished she could talk to themaker, discover what exactly this was and how to make it. Already,she could think of dozens of uses for it.

She slipped her knife out and cut a sample totake home.

A shadow fell over her shoulder, and Kalijumped. But it was only Cedar, rifle at the ready, guarding herback.

Still crouching, she surveyed the rest of thewreckage. “Where’s the furnace, the boiler, and the entire bottomof the flyer?”

“Where’s the woman?” Cedar asked.

“Yes, that’s a useful question too. Maybe thebottom half broke off from the top and landed somewhere else?”

He left her side and scouted the crash site.Only a few seconds passed before he stopped, pointed at the ground,and said, “No.”

Kali joined him. A pair of long, thindepressions gouged the spruce needles, mud, and snow. They headedinland in a straight line.

“These are the same width and depth of thelines behind the hill outside Dawson,” Cedar said, “except thosewere short and didn’t continue into the forest.”

The smell of freshly cut wood mingled withthe smoke, and Kali spotted broken branches on either side of thetracks. Some had been snapped, but other larger ones were sawnoff.

“Brilliant,” Kali breathed. “The lower halfmust be a ground vehicle that can work without the top half.” Shehad a hard time tearing her gaze from the tracks. Even the hewnbranches impressed her-the vehicle must have some sort offast-working saw created for brush clearing. She hadn’t thought toadd that to her bicycle. “Cedar, I think I’m in love.”

“With the vehicle or the woman who wants tokill you?”

“The vehicle, one hundred percent. Thewoman… It depends on if she’s the person who made the vehicle ornot.”

“I doubt she’ll prove lovable if she worksfor one of the gangster’s trying to collect the secrets in yourhead.”

Kali sniffed. “Nobody like that would workfor a gangster.”

“You seem certain about a great number ofthings for someone so young and untraveled.”

“What great number of things?” sheasked, annoyed to be reminded she had been so few places. Thatwould change one day soon.

“The motives of villains. The fact thattracking is so easy a hound can do it.”

Ah, so that comment still rankled him. It hadbeen unfair of her, but she had trouble admitting when she waswrong. “That’s only two things.”

“If we mean to track her down before dark, wecan’t loiter.” Cedar strode up the center of the broad trail.

“What are you doing?” Kali blurted.

“Walking?”

“Up the middle of the trail? If I waswounded, and I thought someone was following me, I’d booby trap themost obvious route. We might get hurt if we presume it’s safe toamble up the hill after her.”

“You have an alternative proposition?” Histone held a struggling-for-patience edge.

He probably didn’t appreciate her telling himhow to track. But this person was dangerous, maybe far moredangerous than the usual thugs he hunted down. He might needher help.

“Maybe we can guess where she’s going andavoid the tracks.”

Cedar waited, arms folded over his chest.

“She may have transportation,” Kali said,“but clearing the undergrowth will slow her, and we did shoot her,so she’ll need to stop to tend that wound soon.”

“Likely.”