With the near-superhuman endurance Det had yet to find a limit to on Radiant’s small pillar, he covered the distance to the small grove in less than five minutes. Small, colored markers on the trees—or posts in the ground where there were no trees—every fifteen feet or so kept him on track the whole way. Too bad for him, when he got there, he was the only one there. Red flowers standing up to about his knee, each with three long petals, were all that greeted his arrival. Under the constant cloud of mist, the grove glistened in the fading light, almost like the flowers had some kind of internal light.

  Within the hour, the small clearing in the woods would take on a glow as if it were on fire, but Det wouldn’t be there to see it. Even with his snakes out scouring the pillar for Kels, he couldn’t simply stand around waiting. As their creator, they could find him no matter where he was. Too bad he couldn’t say the same for them.

  Something the academy training will help me figure out… if it’s even possible.

  That was a future-Det concern, though, and he turned his attention back to the problem at hand. If Kels wasn’t in the town, and she wasn’t here, where was she? What else would take her out of the town?

  She was always interested in the hang-mines on the far side of the pillar, especially the pulley systems the miners used to dangle over the edge of the cliffs. If Radiant wasn’t such a poor, small town, Det was sure Kels would’ve grown into an engineer. She just had such an interest and curiosity for the few mechanical devices around. There were also the pigment-stones the miners gathered in the process of looking for the ore that was only getting found ever-deeper in the mists now.

  The future of the mining operation wasn’t Det’s problem now—or ever—and even if Kels loved the colors from the chalk-like stone formed in the mist along the side of the pillar, there was no way she’d go that far. It was just too much of a distance for her on her own.

  What else could she…?

  Det sighed as he put the pieces together, and he was already running. Bivac probably hadn’t seen his daughter since the previous night, when they’d eaten. Knowing the man, it could likely barely be considered a meal. Kels was hungry. Simple as that. And, with Det out of the town—and not around to sneak her a snack—because he was trying to go home, she’d gone looking for food.

  And the one place she might be able to find something? The orchard on the far side of the livestock pens. It was late in the season for the fruit, but that just meant she was more likely to find something unclaimed by the workers from the town.

  “Bivac, I swear…” Det cursed under this breath, his rapid strides knifing him through the swirling mist. The orchard was on the opposite side of the town from the grove, and a solid four miles away, nestled right up against the edge of the pillar. He cursed a second time when he remembered old Goojie and his twin brother, Hoojie, talking about how the fencing along the edge had fallen away. If that little girl had fallen off the pillar…

  Thoughts of all the things Det would do to Bivac—none of them nice—occupied him until he reached the fence of the livestock pens, then turned sharply to speed along them. After nearly twenty minutes of flat-out running, he was definitely breathing a bit heavier, and the mist beaded along his skin with a slight sheen of sweat.

  In the distance to his right, somewhere hidden within the thick fog, the sharp barking of one of the dogs kept the herd in check. If one was making a ruckus, the other two wouldn’t be far behind, but Det was past before their noises could reach him. The orchard had to be close, then it would just be a matter of hoping…

  Det slowed to a jog, a six-foot-long scar of black emerging from the mist along the ground.

  “You found her,” Det said to the snake. “Lead the way.”

  Twisting on the spot, the snake sped off again, Det hot on its tail. With the snake leading the way, Det pushed his speed closer to his limit, his body leaving the mist swirling at his passing. Easily as fast as an Olympic sprinter, he devoured the distance, until the snake ahead of him began to slow. On his left—now that he took the time to look—the pine-like trees had disappeared within the mist, only to be replaced with the apple trees of the orchard.

  If it’s apples, I’ve got to be on the north side. Kels always did prefer apples…

  It only took a few more seconds before the large snake brought him to one particular tree, where it began to slither in a circle around the base of it. More importantly, around the small form huddled near the trunk.

  “Of course you didn’t bring your jacket,” Det said under his breath to the little girl. At the same time he spoke, the snake gave one last look at him, its purpose fulfilled, then dissolved into nothingness. Not even a hint of the black ink remained, consumed in its entirety by his magic. “Kels, you okay?”

  She didn’t move at the sound of his voice.

  “Kels?” he said again. Nothing. That’s not good. In an instant he was beside the small girl, hand on her shoulder to roll her gently onto her back. His eyes widened as a very-inappropriate-around-small-children curse escaped his lips. Blood ran down her face from a nasty gash and swollen lump on her forehead. A finger to her face—the blood had started to turn tacky—then to her throat.

  Closing his eyes, Det let himself hope, and waited for the sensation under his…

  There! A pulse. She was still alive. A sigh of relief escaped his lips. “Kels?” he tried again, giving her shoulder a gentle shake. Still no response. At the motion, though, more blood burbled out of the ugly wound on her forehead. He… needed to do something about that.

  None of his remaining scrolls would help him in this situation, so his hands went with calm practice to his ink bottle and smallest brush. A flick of his thumb popped the bottle’s cork, and the tear-shaped bristles went in without even touching the sides. Barely wetting the tip, back out it came, then went to the small girl’s forehead.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He couldn’t do anything about healing the injury—that just wasn’t what his magic did—but he could do something about the bleeding. A dozen, precise strokes, and he was done. A spark of energy burned the excess ink from the brush, before he replaced it in his holster. At the same time another motion recapped the ink bottle, putting it back where it belonged as well, Det’s other hand went to the girl’s head.

  Another small surge of magic, barely a drop in the bucket compared to what he’d used back in the cave, brought his latest painting to life. This one, far simpler, wrapped thick bandages of black ink around her head. Immediately, red stained the ‘space’ between the black lines, the magic absorbing the blood as well as any cloth would.

  For now.

  Worse, this wasn’t a treatment in any way, and that wasn’t even considering the likely concussion she had. Det needed to get Kels back to the closest thing Radiant had to a doctor. Wellingdon was almost as much a drunk as Bivac was, but he had a steadier hand—and enough compassion—to make him the best chance for Kels.

  Scooping the small girls up in his arms, Det took a quick look at the tree she’d been huddled under—Did she try to climb it and fall?—then turned around and started back toward the village. He’d barely gone five steps before he changed his direction from how he’d come. He didn’t need to go back to the grove to get to Radiant, which meant cutting through the pens was the fastest way.

  Yes, maybe the dogs wouldn’t be too thrilled with him running across their territory, but a few good ear scratchies would soothe things over fast enough after the fact. Thirty seconds after picking Kels up—he had to move quite a bit slower so he didn’t jostle the girl much—he reached the fencing demarking the orchard from the pens, and got ready to jump it.

  Except… he didn’t need to, and he slowed instead. With four-foot posts every six-feet or so, and four lines of rails between them, the wooden fences were normally more than enough to keep the passive livestock to their area. Normally, if something hadn’t punched through those railings. Between two of the posts, each of the four cross-boards had been turned into little more than kindling.

  Had one of the animals gone into a rebellious phase and decided to make a run for it? No, that wasn’t it at all. The debris from the broken rails was inside the pens, not in the orchards. Something hadn’t broken out; something had broken in.

  Det’s eyes narrowed as he stared hard into the mist, but the failing sunlight—dusk was passing by even as he stood there—didn’t give any clues as to what could’ve done that. He could go back the way he’d come, bypassing the pens even if it took a few minutes longer. Then again, if it was a wolf, bear, or boar that had broken through, he couldn’t just let the animal have its way with their livestock.

  Sure, he would be leaving Radiant as soon as the mistship arrived, but the people on the pillar barely got by as is. If they lost the animals, it would be devastating. Det may be cold, but he wasn’t heartless. And, it wasn’t like helping preserve their livestock would hurt his chances to get home.

  “Sorry, Kels,” he said. “Need to take a small detour to make sure things are okay here.”

  Again, at his words, the girl didn’t stir. She hadn’t moved at all under her own power, and Det shifted slightly to hold her upper half against him while he reached down to his right holster. Feeling the scroll-ends for the patterns he’d etched into them, he found the one he was looking for, and popped it out of its case.

  Using another prepared scroll before the academy wasn’t high on Det’s list of things he wanted to do, and it might be a waste if he was misreading the situation. On the other hand, if there was a bear—flying or not—in the pens, he didn’t want to risk Kels because he was being stingy.

  He only hesitated for a second with this thumb on the quick-release binding he’d set up before he snapped it out to his side. This scroll, only a third the length of the one that had held the snakes, flashed with power as he pushed his magic into it. Two seconds, as usual, and a full-size wolf of black ink leapt from the paper. Cinders filled the air where the scroll had been, while the wolf hit the ground, padded a few steps, then lifted its nose to the air like it smelled something.

  Trouble, probably.

  “Protect Kels,” Det said as he lifted the girl into his arms again. Without a command, the wolf would default to protecting Det. That wasn’t what he needed this time. In front of him, the wolf nodded at its purpose, its own head turning in a line beyond the broken fence. Inky hackles rose across the animal’s back, a rumbling growl reverberating from its chest. “Wonderful,” Det muttered, but he’d already made his decision, and started at a brisk jog. At this side, the wolf paced him easily, its head facing straight ahead. It hadn’t stopped growling either.

  Unlike in the woods, the shepherds didn’t use colored posts to mark locations, and instead relied on colored stones. The animals tended to ignore them more, and were less likely to chew on them. Using those to guide him, Det and his ink-wolf passed red stone after red stone. Keeping those on his left, he’d reach the village in short order. They also just-so-happened to follow the same straight line of the broken fence.

  Det’s eyes went down to Kels in his arms. Had she really fallen from a tree? Or, had something else happened to the girl?

  Shaking off the question, he glanced again to make sure the red stones were still on his left, careful not to go off the trail. The edge wasn’t more than a hundred feet or so away from him, and while it would also be fenced off—two sets of fences, actually—the last thing he needed was to find another break and jog right off the side of the pillar.

  He could cut a bit to the right, to the yellow or green trails, which would take him more directly to the village, but his ink-wolf’s head was still fixed firmly forward. He’d stay on the red path—a stone on his left confirming he was there—until he got to the shepherds’ hut. Then he’d…

  Det’s head snapped at the red stone to his left as his feet slowed. Ahead of him, the sharp barking of one of the sheepdogs told him he wasn’t far from the herd, but that wasn’t what caught his attention. The stones should be—at minimum—fifteen feet apart, though they were often set at thirty-foot intervals. Even in the worst fog, if somebody moved slowly, they’d be able to find another marker before they went too far off-track.

  This stone, though, hadn’t been more than eight feet from the last he’d seen. Turning, he looked back to where he’d passed the previous one, the red of it still barely visible in the twisting fog from his passing. Something about the red… wasn’t right. It was deeper than the marker at his feet.

  Beside him, the ink-wolf’s growl deepened, while the sheepdog’s barking increased in intensity. Det was no shepherd, but that didn’t sound like the dog talking to the sheep. That was something else. He was just about to turn away from looking at the oddly colored marker when the fog twisted away from it, and he realized the stone was looking back at him.

  Because it wasn’t a stone. No, it was a sheep’s head, the back half of it stained crimson where it had been ripped—spine and all—away from the rest of the sheep, which lay four feet distant, connected only by a gory line of crimson.

  At the same time his brain processed what he was looking at, the sheepdog’s barking changed to a sudden, brutal yelp, and then went quiet.

  As if it was a sign, a breeze blew in from the edge of the pillar, shifting the mist with the last dregs of refracted light from the setting sun, to reveal the bloody bodies of a dozen more dead sheep.