Crooked Tree knew the boy he sought lived east, far east of this valley, and running through the center was a river he could not hope to cross. He had traversed the river before, when he was a boy, but that was when he was human and not afraid of the consequences of submerging his body in rushing water. He picked his way south along the riverbank as he considered his problem. The big river ran as far north and south as he had ever ventured, and although he knew there must be headwaters somewhere, he couldn’t gauge how far that would take him astray from his quarry.
Hundreds of paces south from where he drank, Crooked Tree climbed a small hill and found a location where the river narrowed to squeeze between walls of rock. He estimated the distance and backed away from the edge, preparing to make the leap. Just as he prepared to run, a grinding, hissing sound caught his attention to the south. Dropping to a crouch and focusing all his senses towards the sound, Crooked Tree discovered something completely unexpected. A light flickered, moving through the woods faster than a human could run. But he sensed a human associated with the light. The sound, light, and person moved from left to right and he tracked the presence until it disappeared to the west.
He stalked towards the spot where the thing had passed. As he neared the trail of the thing, he detected its odor—the same foul-smelling mixture he had whiffed earlier. He ascended a mound of gravel and found himself on a hard, gray surface, etched with countless black streaks, and bisected with both a solid and a dashed yellow line. It was clearly the hard-packed path of a huge entity. Crooked Tree guessed immediately that the trail had been formed to provide a path for a human conveyance, and he marveled at the work it must have taken to create such a trail. He was pleasantly surprised to see that the trail continued unbroken over the river he had been following.
He moved tentatively on to the bridge, bouncing to ensure its stability before committing his weight to the span. Dropping to all fours, ready to pounce for the opposite shore, he stalked across the bridge. When he had reached the other side, he heard the same hissing behind him. The lights followed almost immediately. The thing moved at a blinding speed. Crooked Tree whipped his head around and leapt into the boughs of an overhanging tree just as the lights swept over his position.
Crooked Tree held his breath as he watched the giant thing streak past on the trail below. The smell it left on the wind was disgusting, but Crooked Tree had become accustomed enough to refrain from coughing. Once it passed he dropped back to the hard surface and laid his hand on the tracks. He could feel the vibrations of the thing moving away, and felt no more smelly things coming his way. He decided to keep to the hard-packed trail. It was nearly straight, and provided enough headroom for him to run comfortably.
He covered several miles, stopping only to creep off into the woods occasionally to find his bearings. Once away from the occasional interruption of the fast-moving things, he could meditate and pinpoint the boy’s location to be sure he was moving in the right direction. Soon, his path was joined with a high strand, stretched from pole to pole. Crooked Tree’s mouth hung open as he regarded these bizarre artifacts created during his long slumber.
Eventually, his trail was broken by another similar trail, running perpendicular. Crooked Tree evaluated the merits of the new possibilities, but decided to continue straight. The landscape changed as his path wound down a hill and the trees on either side opened up to patches of grassland. He slowed to a walk and considered the animals trapped behind sharp wire fences, draped from post to post. Crooked Tree slowed even more at the first dwelling he encountered. Reaching out with his senses he established that the inhabitants were fast asleep. His ability to be surprised was quickly waning. By the third encampment he passed, Crooked Tree moved casually. He ignored the foreign sights and smells and kept his focus on the boy.
As he approached a nearby cluster of people, Crooked Tree found it difficult to maintain his focus on the boy’s distant mind. He sensed grave, infectious diseases, and suboptimal lineage in the people around him and wondered why they survived in this world. He managed to ignore them while they were still in the distance, but once he was surrounded by distractions, he found it impossible to continue his hunt.
To the north, a burning infection called to him. He knew that if he could just snuff this beckoning, he would have a better chance of resuming his quest. He took a deep breath, confirming that the person was in his vicinity, and changed his direction to seek and eliminate the abomination which clouded his senses.
Off the hard-packed trail, over a fence, and on the other side of a small hill, Crooked Tree found a two-story dwelling, dark beneath tall oak trees. The swift-moving animals, like giant deer, penned inside the fence were unfamiliar to Crooked Tree, but he disregarded them as they sprinted off into the night. He stepped easily over another fence and found himself in a small yard adjacent to the house. Creeping slowly to the nearest window, he knelt down to peer inside. Strange angles met his eyes, but he recognized these new things as works of man. Circling the building, navigating over fences and around bushes, he surveyed the lower floor completely, but saw no sign of inhabitants. The windows of the second floor were just out of range of his curiosity.
Finding no obvious entrance, Crooked Tree laid his palm across several mullioned panes and pressed. The window creaked and buckled under his pressure, shooting a jagged crack from top to bottom of the glass. Its snap startled Crooked Tree. He removed his hand and studied the transparent surface. To his left, a small porch led to the kitchen door. He lowered his face to the boards and studied the wear of thousands of tracks. He deduced the purpose of the door and pressed his hand against the worn brass door-handle.
The wood snapped and splintered, swinging the heavy door inward and revealing a rectangular portal into the house. Crooked Tree nodded to himself, absorbing these new details as easily as he had rehydrated earlier. He hunched into a crouch and moved inside the house, experiencing the new sights and smells as the floor bowed under his weight. As he made his way down the center hallway, shoulders brushing the walls on either side, he heard labored breathing from the second floor.
His mind locked on the disease that had drawn him to this place, but another sound suddenly overshadowed the heavy wheezing—tiny claws chattered across a hard floor above him, padded down the upstairs hall, and revealed diminutive, yipping dog at the top of the stairs. Crooked Tree smiled at the miniature hunter, bouncing and barking above him.
When the dog saw that Crooked Tree refused to flee, it bounded down the stairs. Before it could begin its futile attack, Crooked Tree reached out and swatted it, sending the dog flying towards the banister uprights. The dog flopped down the stairs, rolling and squealing, its front paws waving frantically while its hind legs stretched taught, but useless. The dog’s back had broken.
Crooked Tree silenced the dog’s screams with his foot as he ascended. The staircase, two hundred years old but thousands of years younger than the giant who climbed them, groaned and sagged with his weight. At the top of the stairs, Crooked Tree sat on his heels, uncomfortably crowded by the low farmhouse ceilings. He turned his head and located his target. With a few sliding steps he reached the half-open door of the inhabitant.