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Oh, come on.

I try with my right hand alone, and one branch scrapes forward.

At the edge of the slope, her weight starts helping. Too much. The sled knocks into my calves, and I have to step aside and let it slide the last stretch to the gravel. A thin branch snaps underneath her when it stops.

It stops short of the water, where I spend several minutes swearing at it.

By the time I roll her into the current, my shirt’s stuck to my back. The water turns her onto her side and carries her around the rock.

I watch downstream until I can’t see her. Sorry.

Someone could still find her down there. Nothing I can do about that.

The empty branches are easier to pull uphill. I still have to stop halfway, leaning on the handles and sucking air.

Winded. I’m actually winded. I’ve run from dusk to dawn without stopping, and now some branches up a hill have me bent over wheezing. Humans live like this?

I try not to look at the two bodies waiting at the top. Two more of those.

The tawny wolf’s smaller, so I move that one next, then drink at the river. Upstream, of course, because I’m not an animal.

The gray male’s going to be a problem.

He’s too heavy for the handles. One tie slips as soon as I pull, scattering the branches under his middle. Ugh. I sit down beside the wreckage and stare at it.

Somebody could’ve come back and held the fucking branches.

I press my right hand to my shoulder until the ache eases, then cut another piece of cord.

It holds this time, but I have to stop every few steps. The sun’s gone right across the gap above the river by the time I get the gray wolf to the bank. And Rauk’s still not back.

He’s awkward to turn, and I end up shoving him with my hip, my bad arm held against my chest. Keer would have a fit.

The current takes him slowly. Go on, then. I sit on the gravel while the water pulls his fur flat and turns his body toward the bend.

My hands won’t stop shaking when I wash them. Stop it.

I stay there for a while, then go back up the bank with the empty sled. Its broken tips have cut two clear furrows through the dirt. The flattened plants between them point straight at the river.

Lovely. I’ve drawn a path for whoever comes looking.

I scatter the branches and sweep dirt over the furrows with a leafy end. The blood’s worse, soaked right into the moss and the bark. I throw dead leaves on it until I’m holding a fistful and it still looks like somebody died here.

Wolves will smell it anyway.

I could piss around the edge.

Oh, wonderful. Then they’ll smell blood and the woman who stood here pissing on it.

I drop the leaves and wipe my palm on my shirt.

My shoulder hurts when I bend over, and I still have to walk uphill.

I find the bow where I left it. There’s still one arrow in the trunk. That was this morning.

I work it free and bundle the others up with what’s left of the cord.

At the first turn, I look up and stop.