Chapter 11: An Unlikely Savior

His scent wavered at the river. Willow bent down, digging her hands into the mud, and lifted it to his face. Thankfully, he had decided to not cross. It would have surely killed him. These were glacial fed rivers, numbing the skin within seconds of contact.

He went west. She rinsed her hand and quickly dried it on her pants, stuffing it back inside the gloves she had grabbed as she left her house. This was a furious storm. Thunder echoed miles away, crashing against the mountains that separated them from the next valley. The river was rising, swollen and angry. Torrents of rain continued falling down.

She could barely make out his footprints along a drier patch of mud that was slightly sheltered by an overhang of shale. She paused her herself, breathing in his deep, woody scent. He had trailed his hand along here, keeping himself steady. Her heart thrummed. She would find him alive. He had to be.

The next part of this trail was the worst, it hugged the side of the cliff with no r