Luneshale Pass the colour of led

a cry rouses soto from patrol’s monotony. his first steps were light, yet the second cry has the segundo easing into an urgent gallop. 

he comes across the boy — cotton 
grass white and beamish — chewing on his own pelt. he looks first for an intruder, then blood. 

seeing neither, and feeling the hammer of his heart as delos’ cry brought to mind an earlier, wretched memory, soto sniffs roughly at the boy’s pelt, brow creasing in perplexity.