that I ignored, then swore outrageously in frustration.
Ahead of me, miles away in the falling darkness, I
sensed a presence moving. It wasn’t really smell, and my
night-awakened senses couldn’t tell me who my killer was,
but I knew WHERE he was, exactly where.
If I hurried, maybe he and I could chat.
*****
We walked for the entire night over lightly forested
plains and across shallow streams. Orun kept up the pace
beside me until he puffed like a horse, his chain-mail
armor jingling rapidly as he moved. “Tired yet?” he asked
once, but I never responded. The killer was ahead of us by
a long distance.
“Doing okay myself,” Orun said, sometime later. “Did
this durin’ the war. Marched two days once and never
stopped.” His words were almost lost as his breath gave
out for a moment. “Fought an army o’ hobs with my
brothers right after that. Whipped ’em in one hour. Ran
’em right off into a canyon. Good day, you bet.”
I said nothing. I was straining to see what else I could
detect about my killer. I let my mind be open to
everything.
“Like I said, I’m from Kaolyn,” Orun went on,
between his panting. “You know Kaolyn – up in the
Garnets, nice place. I tell you that? Came out to see the
world and fight in the war, been here and there ever since.
You been to Kaolyn? Gotta see it sometime.” I heard Orun
pull free of a briar that caught his cloak. His armor clinked
like a background song. “Real pretty in the spring.”
The dwarf was silent before he asked, in a different
tone, “Smell your killer man?”
I said nothing.
“Too damn nosy, that’s me,” he said with a sigh as he
trotted along. “That’s what they always said back at
Kaolyn. Too damn nosy. I – ”
“Yes,” I told him, watching the dark fields ahead.
“Oh,” Orun said, now haughty. “Well, now, I’m hardly
as nosy as some people.”
“Yes,” I repeated, louder and more distinctly, “I can
SEE my killer.”
“Oh,” Orun grunted, then said, “was told you smelled
‘im.” We traveled in silence for hours after that.
As the horizon in the east grew brighter, something
began to slip out of my head. The clarity of mind I’d felt
before ebbed away, and my sense of my killer’s
whereabouts grew elusive, foggy.
“Gettin’ tired?” Orun asked, shortly before dawn. The
sky was still overcast, and no rain had fallen.
“Tired?” Orun repeated a little later. I turned and saw
rivers of sweat dripping from his face and beard.
“No,” I said, not stopping. I could continue at this
pace forever, but I’d noticed that my prey was slowing
down. Was he tired already? He’d soon regret every pause
for breath. “You?” I asked, wondering if Orun would
make it.
“Haven’t died yet,” he said, then coughed and grew
quiet for several minutes in embarrassment. He had eased
the distance between us down to six feet during the night;
he didn’t increase it again. He seemed to be getting quite
used to me.
The killer I was tracking continued to slow down as
the cloud-hidden dawn approached. When the sun arose
behind the thick morning clouds, my inner sense of the
killer’s location faded within moments. Some of my
supernatural energy seemed to dissipate as well, but I was
able to keep moving at a steady walking pace. Maybe the
energy loss at dawn was part of being a revenant. Maybe I
drew some of my sustenance from darkness. Since this
was my first mom-ing as a dead man, perhaps my
ignorance could be forgiven.
By now I knew where the killer was headed. I knew
the way to Twisting Creek blindfolded, having hunted
across these plains only months before. It was nearly noon
when we crossed an abandoned cart road and entered a
small forest, beyond which lay the ruins of a pre-
Cataclysm farmhouse. Only the stone foundation remained
of the structure, and young trees lifted their branches
where ground-floor rooms had once been. A brook ran
through the trees nearby.
“Whoa,” Orun huffed. “Hold there. Stop for a bit.” He