Redtail Rise XLI

@Relic @Ancelin @Lilia @Redd @Ashlar @Masquerade @Redsky @Mulherin @Saturdays Sunrise @Saturdays Sunset

it was unlike red woman to not return as her pups were still young.

the younger hunters jostled.

the tension filled the rise.

augur scented the air and kept his patrols, but red woman did not come back. he kept his vigil, trusting that she would, though he did not sleep.

the night passed. the morning came. the huntleader chuffed to @New Snow and went out, following what was left of a trail gone too far from the rise.

onward, onward, the blood from her cheek already lifted by the industrious work of insects in that first hot june afternoon.

once, twice, he lost his way, knowing how it went only for he knew her.

and in the dampness of wet earth the track ended, swallowed, with no further sign, almost a days' worth of time between her departure and augur's own.

he spent an hour rooting through the swamp like a grim boar, searching for blood, for a print, for a single tuft of brilliant red fur.

but it was in emptiness he returned to the rise, and in the heat of the second noonday, his call rode the electricity of their ranks: red woman is gone.

and when they came, he would be still; he would let them draw the truth from the scents upon his fur, the fetid mud caking his limbs, of where he had traveled and what he had not found.

eyes mournful, augur cried another long dirge that fell in cowling sorrow.