An hour was enough to disappear from ordinary hunters.
My mates were no longer ordinary.
I ran north until the inn vanished behind hills and pine trees. Frost shattered beneath my paws while the cold sharpened every scent carried through the forest.
The first stream appeared less than twenty minutes into my head start.
I entered without slowing.
Freezing water closed around my legs as I followed the current east. After half a mile, I climbed onto a shelf of black stone where my paws left no prints. I doubled back above the stream, crossed a fallen tree, and leaped into the western brush.
Any hunter relying upon scent would continue east.
Asterion would recognize the deception.
So I prepared another.
I scraped false claw marks into the bark of three northern trees, then loosened st
