Free Threading the Needle by Joshua Palmatier Page A

rolled down through his chest. Something about the plaza, the statue, tugged at his memory. As if he knew this place, this person, the meaning deeper than simply a checkpoint on his patrol or a feature of the pack’s hunting ground. A flare of sunlight in his mind brought the sound of a crowded bazaar, a girl’s childish laughter, the touch of a woman, the scent of roasted meats and pungent ale.
    His mind grasped for the images . . .
    But he couldn’t dredge them up from the depths, and the illusory sensations slipped away. His growl faded. He sniffed the air, the scents of
now
prickling his nose in layers. Dust and stone, dried wood, a dampness that remained from the rain two days before. The musk of his fellow pack mates who’d passed this way recently. Rat shit and urine, the tang of rabbit and vole, the dry slickness of snake.
    Wind gusted, plucked at his fur, and he turned his nose into it, breathed in deep—
    And slid instantly into a low crouch, neck fur bristling, ears pricked forward, as the scent of humans slammed into him. Many of them, their reek individual, distinct, and close. He pinpointed the direction and scrambled across the openness of the plaza, slinking around the statue that disturbed him with its dark familiarity and hints of lost memories and into the streets beyond. He prowled through the shadows, the noise of his claws against the stone suddenly too loud.
    Two blocks further on, he slowed, the scent of humans—and horse—stronger now, almost overpowering. Reaching an intersection, he paused, searched both directions, but saw nothing. He trotted out into the street, nose to the ground, weaving back and forth, circling, picking out six, seven, no, a dozen distinct scents, maybe more if the group had scouts, plus the horses. Metal as well. A wagon, its wheels scraping the stone cobbles.
    And one of those scents tickled another memory, more recent than the statue, more permanent.
    He snuffled along the track, trying to place it—
    Then images exploded across his vision and he jerked to attention, his lips drawing back from his teeth, an angry growl uncurling from deep inside: a frantic chase through debris-cluttered streets, a leap from one building to the next, and then a burst of pain as he slammed into the side of the distortion, followed by seething rage at the prey’s escape.
    The alpha had been furious, had punished them all severely.
    The alpha had ordered them to warn him if the scent of the man were picked up again.
    Drayden’s anger banked like a fire and, still snarling, he backed away from the direction the man had taken before twisting around and racing toward the den.
    The alpha would want to know immediately that the man who had escaped them so recently had returned.

    At dusk, Allan, Kara, Dylan, two of the Dogs, and Cutter headed out. Those left behind were to gather the wagon and move to another of Allan’s safe houses closer to the distortion, while the main group investigated the shard Allan had discovered the last time he’d been in Erenthrall. Kara wanted to see if it could be healed. She’d brought Dylan in case she needed help.
    In the odd half-light of falling twilight and the backwash from the distortion, they edged to the end of an alley, Allan searching the street beyond before motioning Cutter out before them. The tracker sprinted across the street and vanished in the deepening shadows of the buildings. Allan waited to give him a lead and then followed.
    They dashed across the street, Kara feeling more exposed now than she had the day before. But no one leaped out of the vacant windows of the buildings and no howl rose from the Wolves. She relaxed once she ducked into the doorway of the far building, tracking Allan by his footprints in the dust and the scrapes and rustlings of his movements ahead. He led them out the back of the building, through a series of rear gardens already ragged and wild, then into another