Adventure of Young Dave. 1

Cold water and black mud. Young Dave. draws a ragged breath, and the creek bank snaps into focus around him.

A pale fire burns in the roots overhead, not from torch or moon, but from a thin seam of white light in the earth. The hunters are gone from the bank, yet their pressure still lingers like a held blade.

His wounds close all at once. Strength rushes back through his arms and chest, clean and sharp, as if something unseen has called his debt paid.

Kaelo crouches beside the stone marker, one hand on the exposed carving. His face is streaked with creek-mud, and he keeps looking toward the sealed root-tunnel.

From the dark notch in the bank comes a low pulse, like a door remembering how to open. The carved sign on the marker seems to answer it, faintly warm under the moss.

Young Dave. lunges from the mud, sword arcing for the Hunter Captain's leg. The blade bites only creek water and churned silt, but the rush carries him into range anyway.

The Hunter Captain turns the opening into a strike. A hard blow hammers Young Dave. down flat, the sword skidding from his grip as the white glow from the stone marker shivers across the bank.

Kaelo jerks toward him from the sealed root-tunnel, and the faintly lit carving under the moss pulses once, as if answering the captain's warning. Young Dave.'s vision narrows to mud, roots, and that cold seam of light.