Page 41 of His Human Believer

“Definitely,” she responds.

The search pattern expands. Forty beings go deeper into the quiet jungle.

And then my tablet flags something.

Audio. Low band.

Very low, near the floor of what the equipment bothers to record, at a frequency I have no reason to be interested in, because everything in the accounts describes something enormous and this reading is small. It’s thin and weak. My claw is actually moving to discard it, and then something in the back of my skull refuses to let me, and I stop walking. “Wait. There’s a sound coming through. At first I thought it was nothing, but this audio is familiar. I think I know what it might be. Let me check. I have a reference sample.”

I run the match. “That sound is not the creature.”

“What is it?”

“That is Dagr Hellstone.”

She gasps. “What?”

“He is producing a sound, deliberately. At a cadence and pitch for which I hold the verified sample I took in the yard, and it is registering on three separate audio positions along this line, which means…” My mind works furiously. “Which means I can triangulate. Two point four nanco inward. North-northeast of the second turn.” My claws will not stop moving. “He is alive, Margaret and producing a sound with his own throat to let us know where he is.”

“Vidar, wait.” She is looking up at me with her face lit silver-pink and the last of the shadows gone from around her eyes. “I don’t think that’s only for us. He’s not making that sound for our benefit. He’s doing it to warn the Skyggjar to stay away. He’s sending out an alert signal to try and save the Skyggjar.”

I do not answer for a moment. “You’re right, that boy is inside a preserve with a poacher who is here to kill the Skyggjar and he has worked out that he is bait.”

“We just need to remember that when we go in, because we’ve already learned that an armed being has taken him and we don’t want anyone accidentally shooting at either the real Skyggjar or even a presumed Skyggjar. Dagr wants to save it, so we will too.”

I put it over comms. “Coalstone to Cap. I have a location on the offspring.”

“Say again?”

“I have an acoustic fix on Dagr Hellstone. Two point four nanco inward, north-northeast of the second turn, confidence high.” I am already moving. “He is producing a low-frequency vocalization I have a reference sample for. Bearing follows.”

Bergelmir does not ask me how. He does not ask me whether I am certain. “All units,” he orders. “New tasking.”

Margaret is beside me with her hand on my forearm and I have the tablet in my other claw. I look up one last time before the canopy closes over us and note the moons touching during alignment.

Chapter Thirteen

Margaret

We come up on the clearing from three sides and stop at the tree line.

And I see the asshole who kidnapped Dagr and shot Skylo. His back is to us, and he doesn’t yet know he’s about to be arrested. Everything in me goes cold and still.

Because it’s Yorick Vail.

Of course it’s Vail. It has been him since a stranger walked out of the dark and called me human instead of using my name.

Vidar goes rigid and growls deep in his chest. “The poacher is Vail.”

“I know.”

He turns his head. “You know? Since when?”

“Since the moment I first met him.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t have firm evidence, only first impressions and suspicions.”