Chapter 39 - Horse Killer

Mantilo caught sight of the house in the distance sometime later.

After jogging in the night beside his sons, chasing shadows and in hailing the putrid scent of dead moose flesh for hours he was glad to be within steps of his bed. His legs and arms burned from the multitude of bite he had sustained, now that he had visited the mosses graveyard three times in the last few hours and in the back of his head he still felt the rage burning. A rage that had come over him and refused to die, when he realized that his sons were under attack, that two of them were hurt.

He controlled it, but the drying blood on Nate's face, and the obvious way that his youngest son was favoring his uninjured shoulder ate at Mantilo.

He should have sensed the unique threat sooner. Put the pieces together faster. And even now, when he didn't completely believe what his gut was telling him about the moose killer, he believed that he should have done more to protect his family.