Forged Destiny [Book 3: Ch. 2]

Well… we'd found one of the trade caravans.

It was upturned and clearly wrecked. It looked like something that had been pulled by one or two horses, but those were nowhere to be seen, likely having fled or been eaten by the Grimm. Of the driver, I had to assume the same sorry fate. It was half-buried in the mud, some vegetation already claiming it.

"How did we not see the tracks of this leaving the road?" I asked.

"It must have been one of the early ones." Ruby stepped carefully over to it, running a hand across the rotted wood. "If it was two, maybe three weeks old, then the foliage could have grown back."

"It looks like something spooked it off the road," I said. While I was no expert on woodwork, I knew enough to glean some little information from it. Dad had worked on fittings for wagons before, and brought me along to learn some valuable lessons. "The axle snapped," I said, knelt down beside it. "The wheel must have hit a pothole, or just a knoll. It kicked up and snapped off." I pointed to the left, Ruby following my gaze to see the top half of a wooden wheel some ten feet away. "The driver would have lost control at that point, and since it's the left wheel, it would have toppled in that direction."

Ruby stared at me. "You could figure all that out from this?" She smiled. "That's pretty impressive."

—Forged Destiny [Book 3: Ch. 2]