“Right.” Raaze moved closer, and Kraath caught the slight narrowing of his eyes. “Because we’re definitely following the same tracks as the ferals who grabbed her. Not some completely different group that happens to be more interesting.”
Kraath didn’t respond and moved forward along the trail. His joints protested the movement more than they should have, a deep ache radiating from his knees up through his hips.
The degradation was advancing.
This body should have lasted at least another decade, maybe two with careful maintenance. Instead, he felt the breakdown progressing by the day, sometimes by the hour. The timeline was incorrect.
“Strange tracks, these,” Raaze continued, falling into step beside him. “That print there, see the weight distribution? Shorter stride length, narrower heel strike. Almost like?—”
“Like a younger male. Adolescents sometimes display different gait patterns.”
Raaze made a low sound, somewhere between a grunt and a laugh. “Sure, commander. Adolescent males who somehow walk with their weight balanced completely wrong for their bone structure.” He shrugged. “Must be a growth spurt thing.”
They'd been tracking for three hours, staying back far enough to avoid being spotted. The group ahead moved like they knew where they were going… at least twelve of them, maybe more. No random wandering, no blood-mad chaos. They had scouts ranging ahead, others watching their flanks, and what looked like a protected position in the center of their formation.
“You know what’s really interesting?” Raaze asked, pausing to examine a print. “How you don’t want to talk about what I’m actually seeing in these tracks.”
“We already covered this. They aren’t female tracks, they can’t be. There are no female ferals.”
Kraath’s hand trembled. He clenched his fist, the weakness in his grip a sickening confirmation. He forced his expression to remain neutral, his focus narrowing on the truth etched in the mud.
Because the tracks did show evidence of females.
It was right there for anyone with Raaze’s skill, and probably obvious to anyone who bothered to really look. The narrower bone structure, the different weight distribution, the protective formation around specific individuals… it all pointed to the impossible.
Even though he’d run simulations on what would have happened if female lathar had been infected with blood rage and sent here, there were no female ferals on Parac’Norr.
There couldn’t be. He would have known about it, seen them arrive. Wouldn’t he? He frowned. Records from one of his previous incarnations were missing. He’d always wondered why?—
“Interesting weather we’re having,” Raaze said suddenly. “Storm came out of nowhere, really.”
“Storms happen.” But Kraath’s attention sharpened on the tracker.
“They do,” Raaze agreed.
The silence stretched between them. He could practically hear the wheels turning in the tracker’s head.
“We should keep moving.”
“Of course we should.” Raaze’s smile was sharp as a blade. “Wouldn’t want to lose these completely uninteresting, definitely normal feral tracks that you’re absolutely not obsessed with following.”
They walked in silence, tension thick between them as the trail led deeper into territory Kraath knew well. Years of erosion had changed the details—moved rocks, shifted the treeline—but the bones of the landscape were the same.
This canyon system had been restricted since the early settlement days. Geological instability, the official reports claimed. Prone to flooding. One reason why the ferals had been exiled here under his guard.
“Getting tired, commander?” Raaze asked.
Kraath hadn’t realized his respiratory rate had increased, another sign of the breakdown gaining speed. His cells were burning through energy faster than they should, his body consuming itself in a race toward failure he couldn’t stop.
“The elevation.”
“Right. The elevation that’s actually lower than the garrison.” Raaze shrugged. “Must be all that heavy thinking you’re doing.”
The worst part was that he couldn’t simply eliminate the tracker. Raaze was too well-known at the garrison and his disappearance would raise too many questions.
The trail curved around a massive boulder, and Kraath recognized the formation immediately. The stone had fallen from the cliff above centuries ago, creating a natural checkpoint for anyone moving through the canyon. Beyond it, the path split three ways, each branch leading to different sections of the restricted zone.
The ferals had taken the middle path.
