Under A Wild Star

Chapters

Prologue: Burning Skies
Ch1: Long Fall
Ch 2: New Cycle's Eve
Ch 3: Ash in the Wind
Ch4. Licking Wounds
Ch. 5 Capture
Ch 6 Friends, Old and New
Ch 7 Sem'Eo
Ch. 8 Sonimitter

Prologue: Burning Skies

Panic, its hold always seems to drag out time, freeze every muscle in your body until you think nothing you do can fix the mess you’re in.

Silver Storm was going through that very feeling. She planted her hooves firmly in place and grasped the controls to her space shuttle with her talons. Hippogriffs were as mighty and free as a bird, but sturdy too like a draft horse. Panic sowed the seeds of her determination.

Her heart threatened to burst out of her chest. Thump-bump, thump-bump. Her forelimbs, the powerful talons of an eagle, clamped like a vice around her controls. Electronic assistance was damaged, hence the panic. If she was going to make a safe landing, it’d be by sheer force.

Eldyrea expanded into an endless wall. With all her body behind it, Silver Storm yanked up, forcing her shuttle to glide with the surface of the planet.

Beside her controls, a screen and speaker struggled to receive a signal from the main ship, the orbiting space station that she was supposed to remain attached to. The screen was cracked and all but unusable, but sound still crackled over the speaker.

“Approach Point New Hope,” said her commanding officer before cutting out for a few more seconds. “-fires are spreading--all units on Point-”

Silver Storm squawked, the landing chutes on her shuttle finally deployed and her beak slammed against the controls from the sudden drag. Her vision blurred for a second, but through the small windows of the shuttle, she spotted trails of fire careening past her. Other pilots, dragons and gryphons and kirin, were plummeting into Eldyrea’s surface.

“There you are,” she muttered, twisting her body against the controls, forcing the nose of the shuttle to align with the mountain ahead of her. She aimed down, hoping to match her descent with the slope of the mountainside.

As shuttle shot down through the clouds and the mountain came into view, the blue waves rippling across the planet’s surface became clearer and clearer. Against a backdrop of snow, large trees coated in dark-blue leaves shivered in the icy storm.

“This’ll be a welcomed gift,” Silver muttered, adjusting the course of her fast-burning metal ship. Fragments of material snapped off the surface, losing their structure from the rapid oxidation by high heat. But she was on the best course for a crash landing. Silver Storm braced, ready to accept defeat knowing she did everything she was trained to do.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

Fear, it’s a good motivator, driving the blood pressure up and sharpening the senses to any dangers around you.

Cinder Crest needed to make sure he kept it that way and didn’t let his fear paralyze him. The dragon stretched himself out, bursting through the doors of his smouldering shuttle. The metal pod was hardly big enough for an adult dragon. Now that it was bent and battered from the crash landing, he had to struggle just to slide out of the rear hatch.

“Sergeant Crest?” a voice on the shuttle’s speaker crackled through the loose wires and damaged circuits. “Sergeant, can you confirm a safe landing?”

The dragon puffed smoke out of his nose as he pressed a claw down on the speaker to reply. “Call that safe and you can call me a lizard,” he coughed. “I’m alive, but dragons swim in lava and eat gemstones. I’m not sure if anyone else made it..”

“Best we can hope-” the voice said before it cut out. “-others and establish--”

The speaker stuttered and broke down completely. The sergeant glanced around at the rest of the shuttle, watching the remaining emergency lights blink away. It was a total loss of power, meaning he was sitting in nothing but a hunk of useless metal.

He pulled himself out and surveyed the area. Blue trees and cold snow, Eldyrea looked exactly how the satellite images showed it. He grabbed what he could from the shuttle. Boxed rations and survival manuals were helpful, but the most important thing was the backup radio on the ship’s controls. The screen and speaker were broken, but as long as the radio could be repaired, there was still a chance to contact the orbiter.

Crest unplugged the device and grabbed everything else, packing them into a survival bag. It was a sizeable kit, but it was designed for gryphons and other smaller beings. On Sergeant Crest, it barely slowed him down.

He raised his eyes to the sky and watched as the last trails of fire shot through the clouds. There were dozens, at least, each carrying a pilot, soldier, or scientist for the Empire. The damage would be devastating. Nearly half of the entire orbiting station had broken down, forced to jettison its inhabitants far sooner than expected.

Crest hurried, eager to catch up with whoever was in the shuttle nearest to him. Most of the creatures here to colonize Eldyrea were limited in their training. Without full knowledge of how to survive, there’s be costly losses, and there was no way to go back to their home planet to collect reinforcements. If they were going to be the first to land on Eldyrea, they needed to work together and survive until the rest of their people came.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

Curiosity hit at the strangest of times and was a surprisingly strong motivator. Understanding meant control, and control was key to survival.

Iridescence grabbed her survival kit and pushed open the dented hatch on her shuttle. Eldyrea was uncharted territory, not a good place to be alone. Satellite scans, thermal imaging, those tests from the orbiter couldn’t compare to experiencing the planet first-hoof.

The young kirin gasped as she braced against the cold winds. The planet’s atmosphere was denser than she was used to, making it harder to breathe. Nitrogen and inert gases were more abundant on Eldyrea, according to the spectroscopy experiments.

It didn’t take more than a minute for Iridescence to realize she was out of her depth. The empire asked for scientists and technicians to realize its dream of colonizing Eldyrea, but she was never meant to set a hoof on the planet’s surface.

She hid back inside her shuttle, protecting her small frame from the blowing winds. Despite their distant relation to dragons, Kirins were far small and had no flame to heat themselves. A lion-like mane was the only thing they were blessed with, but this planet’s sharp cold was too harsh for her biology.

If she couldn’t find help, Iridescence decided on staying warm and conserving her energy until someone found her. She did land in a blazing ball of fire, it couldn’t be too hard. The single antler in the centre of her head glowed, powering a damaged radiator to warm the shuttle.

The survival kit had a week’s worth of rations, but if she stayed put and conserved her energy, Iridescence estimated there were enough calories to last up to three weeks. She divided her food up into smaller portions and set the bag aside. She took a small pot from the bag, collected snow from outside her shuttle, and heated up some powdered stew.

“This-” she started to complain to herself before she actually realized how she felt about it. Food, water, and shelter wasn’t a problem, and nearly half the station broke off during the accident. She knew there was help out there.

The setback was huge, of course. The lower decks of the station had all the research materials, months of work gathered on a single databank. There were backups, of course, but the newest data definitely hadn’t been stored yet.

She leaned against the cold metal wall of the shuttle. Iridescence figured she was to blame for not submitting her reports on time. Nevertheless, she was on the surface of the planet now. Hundreds of samples could be taken just by stepping outside of her shuttle.

The strange blue trees, the alien animals picked up by thermal imaging, even the soil itself, they all intrigued her. Maybe getting off the orbiting station wasn’t so bad. Maybe-

A clunking sound disrupted her thoughts just as her stew began to boil. Again and again, like stones being pelted against the metal hull. At first, she thought it was the storm. It brought heavy snow, so why not hail? The problem was, hail didn’t pick one spot to land on repeatedly.

Iridescence stood up and grabbed a flare from the survival kit. Eldyrea’s animals were bizarre, seeming almost like they were fusions of regular creatures. Deers with wings, misshapen bears, anything could’ve been outside her shuttle.

But, animals feared fire, or at least that’s what the survival guides all said. Iridescence held the flare tight in her mouth as she worked on the hatch, pushing her way out to confront the thing bashing on her shelter.

Before she could get a clear look at the thing, something sharp flew at her and narrowly grazed her cheek. Acting on reflect alone, she slammed the flare against the shuttle and threw the burning stick back at the thing that attacked her.

To her shock, the animal jumped on two legs and evaded the flare. Through the snowstorm, it was hard to get a good look at the creature, but it was clearly chimeric like the rest of Eldyrea’s animals. The way it walked, it clearly had hooves like a kirin or hippogriff, but its body was furless. It had wings, but no feathers or membrane across it, only bone.

“Hey!” she yelled at it, hoping the animal would be spooked by the noise. From what little she picked up from the soldiers’ survival training, sounding large and intimidating was another way to keep away wild animals. Though, she got a little more than she expected.

A second object came at her, but this time she got a good look at it. Being bipedal, the creature was free to raise a spear in one of its arms. Iridescence shrieked and stumbled back, managing to drop below the weapon’s trajectory as it flew over her head.

Magic surged to her horn and she acted in defence of her life. The leaves in the blue trees above them flailed in the wind, becoming heavier and harder until they shone like freshly-polished steel. Too heavy for the branches, the wind flung the metal leaves down into the snow, raining their thin edges against the creature.

It flinched, but seemed confused and annoyed by the storm of metal leaves rather than injured. Iridescence worried it only angered it, but before she decided to make a dash back into her shuttle, the creature turned tail and fled into the trees, its silhouette completely occluded by the falling snow.

Now Iridescence was sure about her feelings. “This really sucks.”

Ch1: Long Fall

A hunt could take days. Nisus checked the marks on her arms. Every chimaera had lines of glowing diamond-shaped scales that drew unique shapes on their bodies. The magic behind each mark was sacred, serving as both a tool and an identity for a chimaera.

She shook the snow off of her hooves, digging deep into the frozen surface of the mountain and using her slender tail to balance. Despite the snow, zoak trees continued to thrive, some even managing to bud zap-apple flowers. The multicoloured fruit was a delicacy, and in the middle of a freezing winter, Nisus welcomed even the memory of spring and its zap-apples.

A smell of deer-hawks filled Nisus’s nose. She stretched the wings on her back, imagining the thrill of chasing a deer-hawk after it took flight. An impossible dream. Every child wondered why they had wings if they couldn’t fly. Every parent told a different story to sate their minds.

In truth, no one knew why their wings were only bones without skin or feathers stretched across to catch the winds. Foretellers had a theory that their ancestors prefered ground prey, like wolf-hares or jackalopes, so the Elements didn’t see the need to give them wings.

Whatever the past may have been, she needed to focus on the now. Nisus tightened her claws, looking at her arm again. Her marking scales glowed like sapphires, a sharp contrast to the rest of her speckled sandy-rose scales. The scales traced an arrowhead, its point aiming down her arm to her claws.

Both arms were marked, always mirroring the other. The tip of her arrow marks were becoming dim. From experience, Nisus guessed she had enough magic for five or six more spells before she’d have to rest.

Down the cliff of the snowy mountain, a deer-hawk stuck its head out from under the cover of a spare copse of trees. Nisus snapped her head towards it like a falcon-owl, her eyes unable to shake their target.

Still, she wasn’t unaware of her surroundings. More snow-bearing clouds were rolling their way toward the mountain. Against their dark faces, the arrows of the Elements were sent down from the stars, great streaks of fire that fell from the heavens now and again. The mystical beings guarding their world were hunting as well.

Nisus simply wished their arrows weren’t such great balls of fire. She’d have to kill her prey before the aorosstan crashed into the forest and spooked the deer-hawk. Nisus reached behind her to the hunting kit she had laid on the snow, working fast. It was a long fall for a burning arrow, but it moved fast.

She drew a spear, the most basic tool of a hunter, and raised her arm to throw. She stood about fifty reaches above the deer-hawk. Measuring with the length of her arm, she imagined her claw reaching fifty times further away.

“Drogmos yege,” she whispered while pushing the blue hair from her fuzzy mane away from her face. Her mental image became real, at least to her eyes, and she was able to see the path her spear needed to take to hit the deer-hawk. The weapon launched from her claw, flying perfectly along its path and burying itself deep in the prey.

The hind leg of a deer-hawk, however, was not lethal, and prey dashed as it panicked. The hunting spear shook around in its hind leg, spreading blood in the snow as it ran. The forelimbs of the deer-hawk, however, were wide and powerful red-feathered wings.

The wings were sturdy enough to act like legs on the ground, but as it flapped the animal showed off its incredible power. Powdered snow whipped up around it as it soared up. Ten reaches, then thirty reaches.

“Save me, Elements,” complained Nisus as she grabbed her hunting kit. She jumped down the cliff, using the soft snow underneath to cushion her fall. Without taking another second, she drew a second spear and aimed it at the deer-hawk.

She guessed it was at least a hundred reaches up in the air. Panicking, Nisus didn’t bother trying to aim like before. “Hathiertan!” she shouted as she threw the spear. Fire grew out from the tip of the weapon, engulfing it fully just before it hit its mark.

The deer-hawk release a scratchy, high-pitched groan, but continued flying for its life. Nisus grabbed her kit, slung it over her shoulder, and then checked her mark again. Enough magic for three spells.

A hunt could take days. Nisus knew how sturdy deer-hawks could be, and with two months of winter left, this one was still filled up with its autumn fats. But her hits were clean and the trail of blood wouldn’t take more than an hour to follow in the white snow.

She found the dying beast further down the mountain. With breath light and slow, the deer-hawk struggled to stand up but continued kicking as it saw Nisus coming near.

“Easy there,” she hushed the frightened beast, circling around to its head to avoid its powerful legs. “You’ve had a good long time. Now it’s time to rest.”

Nisus drew a knife from her kit. The short blade was made of obsidian, a glassy black stone that had been carefully chipped away at its edge. She sunk the knife into the deer-hawk’s neck, cutting through its windpipe.

“Elements, bless this beast’s spirit on its journey home.” Nisus began the Hunter’s Prayer, as she removed the spears stuck inside the animal. “Bless it with honour, for it has served the duty of feeding hungry mouths. Bless it with liberty, for now it is free.”

Using the blood from her spear she made a copy of her mark on the animal’s hide. “Bless it with the hospitality of its fellow dead, for now it needs a home. Bless it with the will to inspire those it leaves behind, for its body will become great things. Bless it forever, Elements, with trust in its hunter’s necessity, for it has sacrificed for a worthy cause.”

Nisus hauled the animal over her shoulder, placing her hunting kit on top of it so that it could not get bloody. She thought about all the good her catch would bring to her village. The deer-hawk was twice her size, enough meat to make stew for her whole clan. Its sinews and horns would make new bows for other hunters. Its feathers were ideal for arrow fletchings.

A hunt could take days. This one did. Tracking down a deer-hawk wasn’t easy. But as new flakes of snow settled on Nisus’s head, all the effort seemed worth it.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

A dream of warmer days. Nisus awoke, disturbed by the buzzing of voices outside her tent. She grabbed her hunting kit and quickly hung it over her shoulders. If today was the day she thought it was, there was no time for preparation.

A quick look at her arm told her the time. The last scales of her arrow mark had yet to regain their glow, meaning she hadn’t slept a full night.

“They’re back early,” she said. Outside, the clan camp was alive with motion. The dirt beneath was cold and wet, but for the first time in months, Nisus could see the shoots of grass hiding under the snow.

The Melt, the last month of winter, was beginning. Children gathered outside the camp, forming a line at the edge of their mountain’s cliff. There, they could see patches of snow trickling away to the reservoirs below. Blue zoak trees showed their roots, still growing strong even under the thick layers of snow.

But children loved seeing one thing even more than the change of seasons. And though she had already had fourteen cycles, Nisus still wanted to stand among them and watch their elder hunters returning from the Grand Hunt.

Winter was harsh on the mountain, but there were hills and grasslands where it was warmer, huge herds of animals grazed on stubborn winter bushes. Ghending. Their clan specialized in hunting. And when the other clans came to their gates after a long, hungry winter, they would have to have enough cured meat to trade with all of them.

A long trail of chimaeras pushed up the mountain paths toward the camp, dragging behind them ox-bears on toboggans. The children, some so young they were Markless, rushed out of the camp to meet their parents on the path. They hung on the shoulders of tired adults, poking the prey and playing on the sleds.

The fun and games slowed the hunters, but having been separated from their children for months, none of them complained.

In all the joy, it was easy to miss the pain behind some faces. Not all animals could be prey, and during winter, predators were at their most desperate. The unmistakable shine of chimaera scales hung on the backs of comrades.

Losing a member of the clan was hard on everyone. Nisus walked over to where the path entered the camp and welcomed back the hunters, showing empathy to those who carried the fallen. There was comfort in remembering that the dead’s rawhide, scales and all, would continue to serve the clan.

But first, she needed to find August. Her cousin was ten cycles older than her, and one of the best Foretellers in the clan.

She scanned the hunters coming in. Like her, his scales had a sandy-rose colour and a blue straight-haired mane, though his mark glowed yellow instead of Nisus’s blue. She looked for his mark, two golden snakes circled around his eyes.

“Nisus!” she heard behind her. She whirled around to see August already inside the camp. They met each other and clasped claws.

“Glad to see you’re alive,” she said, reaching high above herself to pat him on the head. He was tall, even for a jack, though he didn’t have the muscles to match. Jills from other chimaera clans thought he was too skinny around the arms and legs.

August laughed. “You should have joined us. I’d have someone to watch my back.”

“Who’d feed the clan if I went?” Nisus laughed, though some of the other young hunters who were waiting for their families cast critical frowns at her.

They turned and took a stroll around the camp, trading stories about they hunts they went on during the winter. Already, the cousins took to each other like brother and sister. As a clan, they were all family, but any chimaera would be lying if they said they didn’t have favourites.

August was one of the clan’s Foretellers. He was born strong with magic and used his talents to guide hunters when they left the camp. For all his scrawniness, there were few other jacks in the clan as respected.

When he wasn’t divining the meaning behind the stars, he was with the other Foretellers, teaching young jacks and jills how to discover their magical talents. They explained the meaning behind the glow in one’s marks, and taught how to measure one’s magic based on the glow.

They swung around the edge of the camp and headed back to Nisus’s tent. In the camp, every tent belonged to a family. Every chimaera inherited theirs from their parents and passed it down to their children when it came time.

Nisus turned her head and listened as two jills sat crying with their father. He was an old jack, Aldan or something was his name. He scolded his daughters, telling them to keep their eyes open. Stretched across a part of their tent’s wooden frame was a long piece of rawhide, still bearing the stubborn scales of the chimaera it belonged to.

Nisus turned away when Aldan produced a bone needle and a bowl of body ink. He was going to put scrawlings on the hide, runes that listed all the great deeds that their kin--the jills’ mother no doubt--had done. Such things were too personal for Nisus to see, even if they were in the same clan.

August knew what went through her mind. He felt it too. “You worked on any new magic?” he asked, eager to change the subject.

Nisus glanced at him. “I’m fine.”

“Then we need to start preparing,” August continued talking, keeping pace with Nisus as they walked through the camp’s densest section, where the tents of the largest families stood. “Traders will stop coming if we can’t keep up with demands.”

“Every year you say that, and every year we finish on time,” Nisus replied. “We’ve had a good collection of deer-hawk feathers this winter. We’ll have enough by the time the Melt clears out all the snow.”

“Sure hope so.” August trusted his cousin’s senses, they were usually right. But it was worrying to take their clan’s resources so lightly.

On the mountain, there were dozens of clans outside their own. Their clan lived close to the base of the mountain, where the game was plentiful, even during winter. When the Melt cleared the snow, paths to the clans higher above would open up and hundreds of Chimaeras would be coming down to trade for hunting supplies.

“I’m thinking of getting one of those metal knives from the Ironhearth clan,” Nisus said once they reached her tent. She produced her old knife from her kit. “I’ve knapped this one too much, if it gets any duller I don’t think I can use it.”

Flintknapping took flakes of stone with it. Eventually, even the best knives shrunk into stubs. August lifted it from her claws and took a look at it.

“You’ve been busy,” he noted. “Seven times in one winter. Have you been cutting bones?”

“You know I never make that mistake,” Nisus smirked. “I’m a better skinner than you. Like you said, I’ve just been busy.”

“Alright,” August returned the knife. “Go back to sleep, finish recharging your mark. We’ll talk later about the trading.”

The cousins separated, both with duties to the clan. Though the Melt was here, there was a month of winter left before the paths would open up. More hunts meant more hides to tan and more meat to smoke.

Nisus dropped back into her cot facing up. Her eyes rested on two swaths of Chimaera hides sewn into an old hole in the roof. “Elements, can they see me?”

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

Two weeks later, August had her stripping sinew from the kills made by the Grand Hunt. Ox-bears had especially thick sinews. The massive beast had heavy hind legs ending in hooves, large and strong enough to kill a chimaera with just one kick.

The front legs were no less dangerous. Their thick limbs filled with muscle had long cords of tough sinew. The claws on the front legs of an ox-bear were long and wide, effective for digging roots to eat or tearing apart prey.

Nisus stripped out the hooves and hide for boiling, a process that turned the resulting soup into a tough adhesive when dried. The sinew she simply cut with her claws, keeping her knife sharp for another day. The tough, stretchy tissue would be dried and rehydrated to build the backing for composite bows.

Come evening, when the day’s work was completed and the glue was left to boil overnight, children gathered around the clan’s fire in the centre of the camp. Foreteller Leodth, with fur puppets and his favourite flute, told the humourous story of how snakes descended from dragons and lost their legs.

“In the age of the Elements, those who guarded them, flew for them, heated them, was called by them the dragons. O, those heavenly heroes, haunted by duty under the Elements, played tricks on their brothers for time to pass.”

The old jack’s stories were classics, and though his scales were pale from old age, he still claimed mastery over the right timing for jokes. Nisus smirked, thinking back to the first time she laughed at how two dragons, brother and sister, managed to trick each other into cutting off their own tails, accidentally dropping them onto Eldyrea as the first male and female snake.

Unfortunately for Leodth, as his story finished, the applause could hardly be compared to the excitement over the following performance. Though he was the youngest Foreteller, August was a favourite among the children. When it was his turn to tell a story, even the parent’s ears seemed to focus on him.

“You all know the story of the Elements, don’t you?” he asked the children. Heads nodded and chattered excitedly.

August responded by waving his claws above the fire and lowering his voice. “Ah, but I don’t think you know what came before.”

Most of the young chimaeras laughed. “The stars! The stars!” they cheered. It was a story parents told their children on hot summer nights when the sky was clear and the heavens showed their face. Everyone knew the story. But to hear August tell it was another experience entirely.

“Oh ho!” he exclaimed. He whispered a spell to the campfire and seemed to breathe in its flames until the logs sputtered and died. “Perhaps I shouldn’t tell the story, since you all know it so well.”

“Aw, come on,” whined the children. He waited, drawing out their bated cries until the joke seemed like it was real.

August chuckled, knowing he had captured the children’s hearts. “Ongean bringan vur!” The fire returned, pouring from the snakes around his eyes into the fire pit. “Then listen close! This is the story of our people, of how the Elements chose Eldyrea as their home.”

He whispered another spell, so quiet Nisus couldn’t even hear it, and when he stared up at the stars, his own magic was projecting the lines that drew the constellations and scrawled their names out in runes. He pointed to the Landed Boat, a long river canoe whose nose pointed north, forever fixed in the night.

“The Elements once lived on a star, just like these. They once had a land full of creatures who lived together in peace.” August slowly shifted into a rhythm, speaking musically to the same pace as the reed-flutes played by the other Foretellers.

“They lazed in their rivers and laughed while they played, all thanks to their Princess of Day. Her palace, as tall as a mountain. Her wings carried blessings of health. And never did wonder nor question what brought all that great power and wealth.”

August whispered a spell, and the constellation shifted around. “Though gifted by the Elements she always sought more power for herself. Until one day the realm was dying and the Elements would not help. The Elements, perhaps, she wondered, could be testing us.”

The fire roared with August, light casting a forest of shadows on the camp. “But here is a riddle, don’t say if you know: what happened to the Elements’ home? They took up its creatures and all of its features and found a new realm as their own.”

“With dragons, unicorns, and griffons, they travelled through the stars. And what world would they find so perfect, except for-”

“Ours!” cheered every child, and some adults as well.

“Haha, yes!” August laughed with them. “And with the magic of nature, they use their creatures’ physiques, to craft a new host that would respect more than most of the laws they set for their peace.”

“So children,” he whispered as if sharing a secret, “respect all life’s magic and avoid all those tragic mistakes of the Princess. Honour the Elements every day, and only good things will come to pass.”

The fire died down to its original size, drawing the night closer around the camp. That rectangular piece of mountain, with nearly two hundred chimaeras inside it, seemed like the world to everyone at that moment. It was a spell that not even the other Foretellers could match: August’s voice and talent for stories glued the clan together and made them ready for the next cycle to come.

Ch 2: New Cycle's Eve

They climbed up the mountain paths surrounded by an enchanted world of greens and blues. Zoak trees, with their dark blue leaves, dripped cold dew down to the new grass and flowers that sprung from defrosted soil.

She had seen it fourteen times, but Nisus was still stunned by the mountain’s beauty. In a few more weeks, it will look as if winter had never even happened.

She and August were on the path to another clan’s camp. Tomorrow would be the day the Melt officially ended, and it was their duty to check if the mountain had fully cleared. They usually were, but once every ten cycles or so a Melt would be particularly slow at warming up.

Nisus dug her hooves into the craggy rocks and pushed higher up the path, cutting through more dangerous corners to make short the time.

“We’re in no rush,” August reminded her. There were dozens of clans within a day’s walking distance, but each team was responsible for only one path.

“I haven’t seen the Kerns in three cycles,” Nisus said, continuing without her cousin.

August chortled. “You have a special sweetheart waiting for you or something?”

Nisus snarled at her cousin, jerking her head toward her hunting kit. “They have more herbs for medicine than we do. Last time I got a cut from a hunt, I had to ice the wound for days.”

She tightened the leather strap of her kit around her shoulder and pressed forward. Though the Kern clan higher up the mountain, it was a sister clan to theirs, both being lowlanders who thrived off the bountiful hills surrounding the mountain during the warmer seasons.

With the Melt over, more and more creatures stirred in the forests. Nisus saw blaze snakes, slender and long reptiles with fangs as white as the snow they hibernated under. Warmed by the sun, the snakes rolled out of their tunnels in knotted bundles, spraying oils from their fangs that burned after being exposed to air for some time.

Adder-hares bounded about as well. Like most rabbit-like animals, their legs were lumpy with powerful muscles, but these hares were not fleeing from prey. Their heads were a lot like blaze snakes, though they used digestive venom to kill the field mice that scurried through the bushes.

The sun passed its zenith when August and Nisus rounded the mountain into Kern territory. They stopped at the Splitting Creek, a long stream of water that marked borders for a lot of clans. Its source came from the very top of the mountain, where ice could melt all cycle and never seem to shrink.

The cousins didn’t say a word to each other. They opened their hunting kits, found their water skins, and collected as much as they could from the creek.

Nisus put a cork in her waterskin and dumped her head into the water, drinking as much as she could without drowning.

August sat up and drew a sip from his waterskin. “I thought you were tougher than that,” he teased her desperate gulps. “A hunter should be able to make this hike without trouble.”

Though her mouth was still in the creek, he caught her glaring from the corner of her eyes. Sharp griffon-given pupils cast the same look that Nisus used whenever August boasted how he was so much better at magic.

She pulled her head up, gasping for air. “I don’t hide myself like a jack who thinks he has something to prove to the jills.” Nisus looked at the deep gulps August was taking from his waterskin. “Plus if I did, I’d do it better.”

After minutes of rest, the two of them turned their eyes across the creek. Rushing water covered a lot of noises, but the snapping of twigs was unmistakable. From behind a thick zoak tree, a tall chimaera with dark brown scales walked out.

The single horn in the middle of his forehead had white scales in a spiral pattern. A rare trait, among the clans of the mountains. Kerns were one of the few clans to grow horns. The hunter waved to them, pointing to stone outcroppings just slightly downstream. It was an invitation to cross into his clan’s land.

August didn’t hesitate to take the first step. His tall but thin frame gave his legs more than enough reach, and his bony wings stretched out to balance his upper body. Against the rocks, he needed only to dig his hooves into a groove and he was firmly in place to take the next leap.

Nisus followed, managing to jump across the creek at the same pace despite their differences. She was average in height but still shorter than August. It was her lean muscles, crafted from over a decade of hunting, that gave her a spring in her step that shot her quickly over the rocks.

“August!” the chimaera greeted them immediately when they had crossed. Coming closer, Nisus could see how big the hunter was. Her cousin may have been the same height as this Kern, but that was where the similarities stopped.

It looked as if he had swallowed August up when they embraced each other. As they squeezed their arms around, the Kern looked as if his scales would burst from his skin. The diamond-shaped scales stretched and strained, fighting against sharply defined muscles that looked like they had been forged from metal.

August’s long arms clapped the chimaera on the back. “Beran, old friend, it’s good to see you.”

Nisus looked at the two, a little confused. She had known August for as long as she knew herself. This “Beran” was a stranger.

“This is… your sister?” The brown giant looked at Nisus flashed a big grin, eyes lighting up with excitement through the curly orange mane that parted at his horn. “So you’re the hunter I’ve heard so much about!”

Without warning, he grabbed her arm and pulled her in for a meaty hug as well. If August had been swallowed up in Beran’s embrace, Nisus was definitely buried in it. She was both shorter and thinner, and could scarcely breathe under the weight of his welcome.

August laughed and tugged on his friend to relax. “She’s my cousin, Beran. Though the mistake is easy to make. We grew up together ever since,” August paused. “Well, our parents were close siblings, so were raised almost like siblings.”

“Did you tell me that before?” Beran let go of Nisus and patted her on the head. “Looks like you’ll have to help my memory, August, it’s been a while.”

The two jacks strolled further along the path, talking so much that Nisus wasn’t sure if she should be the one mistaken as a sibling, or Beran. She kept slightly behind them, listening as they talked to figure out how they knew each other.

It must’ve been six cycles ago when they met. The two friends kept reminding each other about a time they had spent in a ravine that had been hidden by ice, even though winter was over. The last time the Melt had taken longer was six cycles ago.

Nisus tried to think back. She was eight cycles old then, and the memory had blurred with other cycles, but she did recall a moment when August had gone missing.

“So, eleven winters of hunting, huh?” Beran asked, turning his head back and pointing his horn to Nisus. He slapped August on the back. “Hope this one wasn’t teaching you!”

She smirked alongside Beran’s booming laughter. “This would be my twelfth winter hunting,” Nisus added, “I’ll be fifteen cycles old come mid-spring.”

“It’s a shame the Elements made time so fleeting,” Bera said. His wide strides were already twice as long as Nisus, but he picked up his pace as if not to waste a second. “But I’m glad you came to check on the path. I was hoping I could ask a favour of your cousin, but I don’t think he’s a strong enough hunter for the task.”

“Hey,” August frowned, punching Beran in the shoulder. Nisus wasn’t sure if the giant even felt it.

“We had an attack last night,” Beran said, dropping his cheerful tone just a bit. “The beast took only food, but one of our Foretellers was injured trying to stop it.”

“Beast?” Nisus, suddenly interested, kept pace with Beran. “I’m guessing you didn’t get a good look at it.”

Beran shook his head. “That’s the thing, we did. No one in the clan knows what it was.”

That was strange. Nisus had heard about different animals that lived beyond the hills. Those distant lands might have been far away, but the clans weren’t ignorant about them. There were still hunters in living memory who had left the mountain, embarking on Life Hunts that could take years to accomplish.

Those who returned told stories of a body of water that could not be drained away by a thousand rivers. They said they saw soft hills that held no trees or grass, only coarse, dry sand. The animals they brought back from those hunts were as bizarre as the places they described. However, all of those strange creatures still had their hides displayed in at least one clan. For an animal in the mountain to be unidentifiable by an entire clan was, in Nisus’s mind, impossible.

“You’ll need to find it, then,” she ultimately said as they exited the forest, stepping onto higher ground where the soil was rockier and the trees were spaced apart, competing harder for nutrients. “Why not send some of your hunters?”

“And choose Kerns over Ghendings?” Beran barked a laugh. “Not when it comes to hunting. Your people have free reign over that skill. Besides, mine are still trying to gather the pieces of our home.”

“Not giving us much of a choice, then,” August said, catching the grin on his cousin’s face. Of course they were going to go on the hunt. Nisus couldn’t think of a better way to start the cycle than bringing down a mystery beast.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

That next day, Nisus packed her hunting kit with everything she could find in her tent. She really needed to tidy up. But that was a problem for later.

The bag that held her kit together had two loops of rawhide on its side, sewn into the thick leather to slip spears into them. Inside, a roll of twine and a few bone needles for sewing were wrapped up in a cloth made from ibex-sheepskin.

A box filled with an herbal poultice sat next to it. When chewed, the dried leaves turned into a thick paste that slowed bleeding and prevented infection. There were also waterskins, pieces of flint and pyrite, and her obsidian knife.

For all her preparations, Nisus still hesitated. She organized her cot, rolled up her blankets, and put everything to one side.

August swung by when the sky turned pink enough to cast a faint ray of light though the tent flap. “What’re you doing, sleeping in? Did you forget we have a beast to track?”

“Just a minute,” Nisus replied, wiping the dust off her claws. Her tent had never looked so clean. And empty.

She let her eyes finally drift over to the thing she had been avoiding. The bow hung on a rack made from ox-bear horns, unstrung. Nisus was glad August was here. He’d understand if she wasn’t able to pick it up.

She took her time eyeing the bow, feeling in her palms the sinews and deer-hawk antlers that encapsulated the wood core. Bows like this were hard to make. One could take months of work, or even a whole cycle if the chimaera was picky over little details.

At the centre, a diamond shape was carved into antlers and then dyed indigo using flower petal stains. It was the symbol of inspiration, her father had once told her. It was meant to inspire others and provide the materials to make more bows.

Nisus closed her eyes and forced herself to pick up the quiver lying on the floor below the bow. She slung it over the same shoulder as her kit. She grabbed her bow, produced a fine then, and then bent the bow back with her hoof, bringing the ends together to attack the new string.

“Ma, Pa, I’ll handle it. Just inspire me.” Nisus stepped outside her tent, pacing quickly ahead as to not draw attention. But, apparently, it couldn’t stop August’s prying eyes.

“You’re bringing their...” his voice trailed off. “That’s rare.”

“Not sure what kind of beast it’ll be,” she said, keeping a brisk pace, “but it escaped a clan camp. It can’t be easy to hunt down.”

They left the camp just as Foretellers and their kin from up the mountain came down with toboggans with goods to trade. Highlanders were always the first to show up. Living near the peak of the mountain was rough. Up there, snow fell for the whole cycle and ice never melted.

“Hold on,” Nisus said, making her cousin wait by the camp entrance. She brought her bow because a mysterious creature could be too much to handle with just a spear, but an old obsidian knife wasn’t in any shape to go hunting either.

She left August and walked by the highland tents. Each clan’s traders decorated themselves and their tents with unique items from their home. Some were understandable, like the Crystallers who showed off the gemstones they mined with embroidered furs. Other clans were bizarre, like the Crankcasters, who covered their tent with scrap metal from their spring-powered contraptions.

To Nisus, the Ironhearths fell in the latter category. They lived so high, trees were scarce and building with wood wasn’t an option. Hides and furs covered their tent, but the frame was built from tubes of metal instead of branches.

Nisus approached one of the traders. He wasn’t a hunter or a Foreteller. The Ironhearths had chimaeras dedicated to making tools. Metal was, by all accounts, a more difficult material to work with.

“Good morning,” she greeted him.

The middle-aged jack with short silver hair smiled, nodding and speaking with a heavy highland accent. “Gootaye, grele!” He slapped her on the back. “Dou winnaeby anadinou sey?”

Every word out of his mouth was another reason every clan needed its Foretellers. Dialects changed between clans, but there was no greater difference than between the highland and lowland clans. Only Foretellers had the time and experience to learn and memorize all the different ways of speaking.

She made a face at him, saying nothing and just picking up one of his steel spearheads. The barbed blade looked fit for cutting wide gashes and hooking onto skin. Similarly, other blades were made for specific purposes. Some were thin and long, covered in small hooks that would snag onto a creature’s fur. Horrifying multi-blade heads seemed as if they could tear whole pieces off of an animal.

“A knife,” she said to him. “I just need a knife.”

The Ironhearth, looking back at her with confused eyes. “Imufade melulanth isind vry goot.” He pointed to a quiver of arrows, and then to her bow. “Dou windis?”

Nisus covered her face. How does August do this? she asked herself, imagining his voice repeating all the highland words she was supposed to know.

“Nehf,” she said in more a question than a statement. To assert her point, she produced her obsidian knife from her kit. “Nehf. I want a nehf.”

The chimaera’s eyes widened with sudden understanding. Step by step, they traded words in a slow conversation, negotiating price and material quality, only to realize they both completely misunderstood each other. Nisus had thought the crafter said he had many knives to trade. He shook his head and repeated himself two more times to her. He didn’t have any knives to trade. Frustration washed over Nisus as she put away her knife with a shaky claw. If she wasn’t surrounded by guests, she would’ve screamed at the language barrier.

Instead, she gritted her teeth and thanked the crafter for his time in the best highland dialect she could manage.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

“Even the best of them have such a heavy accent!” Nisus threw her arms around in disbelief as they marched over the stream into Kern lands.

“Come on, their Foretellers speak the lowland dialects well enough,” August said in defence of the Ironhearths. “You must’ve lost patience too soon.”

“Five, August,” she grumbled. “I tried talking to five traders before we had to leave. The only Foreteller around was selling nets and wires with his hunters. No knives.”

“You could’ve asked him to translate for the other traders,” he said. “Or you could’ve brought me along.”

Nisus rolled her eyes. “I bet you speak highland as bad as they speak lowland.”

“Alright, then,” August sighed, stopping to pull out a flint knife from his kit. He handed it to Nisus. “If it’ll stop your whining, take mine. You’re better with it, anyhow.”

Nisus took the knife and inspected it. The flint couldn’t hold as sharp an edge as obsidian, but it was more durable and still sharp enough to skin an animal. She took some twine from her kit and wrapped up the blade to protect it from chipping.

“I’m not whining,” she folded her arms, storming in front of August. “I just wanted a good knife.”

“Whatever, cousin,” he rolled his eyes, keeping a distance behind.

Noon passed, and soon it was evening when they reached the Kern clan’s camp. Beran waited with them at the camp’s entrance, along with three other hunters almost as large as he was.

“Welcome back, friend!” He waved to August. “Glad to see the path wasn’t too slippery this time.” The goliath laughed at his own joke, though his voice was so deep and loud that Nisus thought it sounded more like a mountain cat’s roar.

Beran welcomed them both into the camp, providing two small bowls filled with a black soup from the clan’s lunch. Despite looking like dirt, the Kern clan’s thick herbal broths could make a hunter feel refreshed and energized even after a long day.

Nisus drank sparingly. It wasn’t right for a hunter to fill their belly before their prey was downed. Beran and his own hunters scooped bowls of the soup as well, picking out squares of chopped meat and roots to chew on.

While they ate, Nisus noticed August’s mark was glowing. Her cousin’s eyes seemed to ignore everything around them, focusing only on the trees around the camp.

Weg finden yege. Wayfinding magic, it was one of their clan’s unique spells. Foretellers used it to track animals that left behind few signs.

“What do you see?” Nisus asked. She followed his stare, over to a large hole in the camp’s walls. A spell wasn’t necessary to know that whatever caused that damage must’ve been huge. Clans in the lowlands, where timber was plenty, built with walls out of solid zoak logs, locked together by countless layers of twine and resin.

“I don’t know of any creature on these mountains that could’ve done that,” August muttered, leaving the soup cauldron to take a closer look.

Beran watched the two Ghendings run off as he scooped another bowl for himself. “Are we starting now? We haven’t even finished second lunch!” Reluctantly, he and the other Kern hunters emptied their bowls into their bellies and hurried to catch up with Nisus and August.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

The trail of snapped trees continued for about a mile from the Kern camp, continuing from rocky forests back down to the thicker woodlands. A good hiding spot for most animals.

Nisus let her cousin give the directions from behind her, but every chimaera in their group agreed to let her lead. Magic was useful, and August’s senses were surely supernatural while he used it, but Nisus had more experience hunting and fighting animals.

The Kerns were impressed. They tracked the beast through their clans territory, marching across rocky forests that the Ghendings weren’t native to, yet the two cousins took to the task like they had lived in the woods for cycles.

“That’s my keus-bhrater,” Beran boasted to Cerran, another Kern hunter. The charcoal-scaled chimaera smiled, but said little.

“Try to lower your voice,” Nisus hushed as she slowed her pace. “Something’s not right. Look ahead, the trail suddenly stops.”

“You mean you can’t track it?” Beran lowered his voice as much as he could.

Nisus shook her head. An ox-bear couldn’t hide its trail, she thought to herself, let alone whatever monster created this.

She stretched out her arm, aiming her claw to the trees. Her spell, drogomos yege, constructed an imaginary line across the path of destroyed trees. Nisus’s eyes widened when she compared it to her own arm. The beast was easily seven or eight reaches wide if it made this path. There couldn’t be too many places for it to hide.

August tapped Nisus on the shoulder. “Look,” he said, pointing up from where they stood. Leaves were torn off the tall zoak trees, but the path seemed wider above than it was below. Nisus looked over her shoulder, stretching out her own vestigial wings.

“Nothing that big can fly,” she finally said, gesturing to the path they stood in. “A deer-hawk doesn’t even come close.”

“It is still possible,” Beran said. His lighthearted cheer was still written across his face, but the furrow over his eyes told Nisus he was serious now. “It attacked our camp at night, after all. We wouldn’t have seen it if this is where it flew off.”

“Doesn’t matter if it did,” Nisus said, bending down to pick up a budding zap-apple flower from the zoak trees. “It flew low. The beast is heavy.”

She pointed to the broken tree path on the left, holding out the bud. It was a faint but wide trail, several reaches wide, of flower buds. Suddenly, the fear of the unknown washed out of Nisus. Hunting was put into her blood by the Elements. Big or small, grounded or flying, she’d find her prey.

Ch 3: Ash in the Wind

A few hours after they had followed the trail, the sun started to set. As good a hunter as she thought she was, Nisus didn’t want to encounter a predator in the night. She still remembered stories from Foreteller Gheluc about the time he chased a deer-hawk after dark and ended up fighting his way out of a blaze-snake pit. Did she believe it? Well, she saw the burn scars.

August and Beran chatted over the fire, sharing some soup Beran had packed in a waterskin. It was weird, seeing two chimaeras from different clans being so close, especially when other hunters were around.

Nisus stirred, joining the two other Kern hunters, Cerran and Thossa. Cerran had charcoal scales and a white mark on his back, shaped like a pair of hawk wings. Thossa, a little shorter than Cerran, was brown like Beran, though her mark took the form of a web-like net, splayed across her chest.

“I say we get eaten in the middle of the night,” Thossa said grimly, either not noticing or not caring that Nisus had joined them.

“Beran hasn’t let us down,” reassured Cerran, who was poking at the campfire with a long stick, maybe three times his reach. “I say we find the beast. Then we’ll die.”

Nisus snarled but kept it to herself. These were supposed to be hunters. Why were they acting as they had already failed? An unknown predator in a lowland was a threat to any of the clans, theirs especially considering the previous attack.

Instead of telling them to get the job done, Nisus calmed herself and tried to rationalize as her cousin would if he wasn’t so distracted by Beran. “You two saw the beast, right? August and I haven’t gotten a detailed description of it, so I’m curious.”

Thossa leaned in until her horn almost touched Nisus’s forehead. “I also saw the tail smashing through the roof of my tent. That “beast” destroyed generations of my decedent's hides. It would’ve crushed my sisters if it wasn’t in such a rush to escape.”

Nisus drew back, surprised Thossa was still standing here with them and not mourning back home. A family’s tent was one of the most sacred practices among chimaeras. As one generation passed away, their hides were dried and waxed to be added to the tent. Every tent was a symbol of one’s immediate family.

“All the more reason why we have to stop it,” Nisus said.

“Not saying we shouldn’t,” Cerran mumbled.

Nisus turned her head to the soft-spoken jack. “Didn’t sound like that a minute ago.”

“Yeah, well, you weren’t here a minute ago,” he grunted, looked down at her. “It’s just, we like to be more realistic about what might happen. It helps adults prepare for the worst.”

Nisus clenched her claws. She may have been the youngest, but at nearly fifteen cycles old, she had no less experience hunting than anyone else in their group. To prove her point, the young jill unslung her bow from her back and held it out in front of her.

“Bow belonged to my Ma and Pa,” she said, gently running one digit against the deer horn backing. “I’ve been using it since I was three cycles old. Wolf-hare, that was my first.”

Nisus pulled the bow halfway, testing the weight. She relaxed and set it on her lap. “No one is going to die on this hunt. Not while I have this bow.”

Thossa and Cerran looked at each other, surprised by her focus. But, they respected it and said little more on the subject, staying so quiet that the only thing the forest heard that night were the laughs between Beran and August.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

The next day, they had a wide tract of land to search. The trail of stirred flower buds grew into a massive span of land. Nisus guessed the beast had been here for a while, circling the area and knocking off even more leaves and flowers.

Searching the place would take hours, perhaps even a full day, if they were tracking any normal prey. But for a beast of this size, there weren’t many places it could hide.

“We’ll corner it,” Beran rejoiced, pointing his claw to a large cave in the mountainside. Though they were still in the Kern clan’s lower territory, where the zoak trees shaped a sea of leaves, a rocky cliff jutted up from the dirt, steeply ascending to the highlands of the mountain.

“Are you sure we should hunt it there?” asked August. “This cliff marks the border between you and the Wefan clan.”

“Ha!” Beran laughed mockingly, slapping his keus-bhrater on the back. “As if those weavers could stop us! Maybe they can make me a coat from the beast’s hide.”

They hiked up the mountain, the cave slowly came into full view. Nisus didn’t need a spell to know it was big enough for the beast. The mouth of the cave was twice as tall as it was wide. When they finally climbed up to the inside, Nisus guessed they could’ve marched twenty chimaeras shoulder to shoulder through the cave.

If this was where the beast was hiding, then it was more clever than most animals. It doubled back down the cliff in the forest, trying to shake its followers by going into the lowlands before coming back up to its hiding spot. A wolf-hare would have simply run in a straight line as fast as it could.

“What do you see?” she asked her cousin, turning back to focus on the hunt.

“Not much to see,” he said. “Even weg finden yege can’t see without light.”

Nisus produced a roll of twine from her hunting kit, rolling a piece of the cord into a ball. Focusing on the dry material, she whispered a spell into it. “Hathiertan.”

Flames grew from the core of the ball, turning into a bright orange flame. Though hot, every chimaera had thick scales that proofed their body against weaker fires. The twine burned slowly, the fire fueled by magic for as long as the spell lasted, which was about a minute.

“See anything now?”

“Yeah, scratches on the stone,” August pointed. He knelt to take a closer look. Beran and the others did the same, though there was little that they could see that August couldn’t.

“Something big and powerful has passed through here. Has to be the beast.”

Nisus carried her flame deeper into the cave. “Might not be at home,” she said. The cave huge, far bigger than what they were tracking. Still, it shouldn’t have been able to hide in a place like this. She climbed over a pile of rocks, tracing her claw over the wall of the cave.

The scratch marks were deeper here. It had to climb over the rocks too, Nisus thought to herself. But, as soon as she reached the top of the pile, she realized her guess was off. The cave didn’t continue. It ended in a rough patch of granite rock.

Nisus raised her fire to the stone. Light reflected off the stone, even shining in a few places. Crystals like quartz were found in granite, but this was different. The back wall almost looked like a pattern. And then she froze.

“Need help, little one?” Beran called.

The other four were still searching the cave. They couldn’t see the crack in the stone that slid open and revealed a massive black pit, circled by a sharp green iris. Nisus stared at it, and it stared back. The two of them, beast and hunter, understood what the other was thinking. Who would go first? Who would react? Will I be the faster one?

Nisus’s claw shot over her shoulder, grasping at a spear. But the beast simple shifted itself and the pile of rocks crumbled down, taking Nisus with it.

“It’s here!” Thossa warned, being the first to see the creature coming out of the shadow of the cave. She reached for one of her bolas, the standard hunting tool among the kerns. But it was too late. A tail swept across the cave, sending Thossa out and tumbling down the cliff.

The beast would have continued, were it not for Beran. The hulking chimaera proved he was no different from his namesake, a bear, and gripped the scaly tail with his claws. It was like a hatchling chimaera grabbing at a father’s claw, but for a moment the beast was stopped.

Cerran charged, unsheathing the knife that hung from his hunting kit. He strode up to stab the beast’s tail when a second shadow flew out of the cave. Nisus stood up when she felt it leap over her. By the time she dug through the rocks, however, Beran had grabbed the second beast and dragged it down the side of the cliff.

Her first instinct was to find August. Her brother was a Foreteller, a leader and symbol for her clan. Between killing the beast and getting keeping him safe, he took priority.

“We need to get out!” she shouted, hoping he could hear her. Slowly, more and more of the beast crawled out of the cave. She ducked to the side of a cave as she felt its wings start to spread. They were vast and leathery, and too big to stretch fully in the cave.

Nisus pulled out her spear, but the beast had ignored her. It seemed focused only on leaving.. Every inch of its body was covered in granite-coloured scales. Standing behind it, Nisus could see the powerful legs, large enough to crush a tent. It stood its front up with equally powerful arms, and raised its head so high, she didn’t think ten Berans could match its height.

Like a drawn bow, the beast’s legs exploded, ripping chunks of stone from the cliffside as it launched itself into the air. Nisus covered her face, shielding herself from the dust and rocks.

“How can such a thing exist?” August asked her, running from some hidden corner of the cave. Cerran caught up as well, his dark scales perfectly blending with the stone.

“It doesn’t matter, my kin are down there,” he said. “We have to help them.”

Nisus tightened her grip on her spear. “It’s like I said. I’m not going to let anyone die this time. Go help them, buy time. The spell we need to skill that thing is going to take some time.”

Cerran nodded and sprinted to help his clan folk. August quickly pulled a thin square of obsidian from his hunting kit, using the stone’s reflective quality to check the marks around his eyes.

“Can you cast it?” Nisus asked, trusting that her cousin knew what she had in mind.

August looked up at the clouded sky and nodded. “But I won’t be much use after. It’s too hard to do with just one spell. I probably won’t be able to cast anything else.”

Nisus slid her spear back into its strap and put her bow in her right claw. “Are you kidding?” she laughed in spite of the danger as she picked up the arrows that had fallen from her quiver, “I’m doing the hard part.”

She left the rest to him, following Cerran’s hoof steps down the cliff. The young Foreteller stepped out of the cave, looking up at the sky. The Melt had passed, but spring’s skies were still full of clouds as tall as mountains and as wide the plains.

He raised his arms, whispering a quick prayer to the Elements, and began chanting. “Meiscua. Meiscua. Meiscua.” The snake marks that wrapped around his eyes began to glow and soon crackled with short jolts of light. The white clouds around the mountain darkened, pooling into one point on top of them. Mimicking their summoner, they shook the trees with booming cries of thunder.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

Nisus followed the sound of Beran’s roars. The larger beast was surprisingly fast, and hard to track once it started to fly. But from the sounds of it, the smaller creature was still grounded. A child of beast, perhaps? She didn’t know what animal it was, but all living things cared for their young. It was a simple law of survival.

“Reipbhendh!” Nisus heard Thossa cry out. She followed the sound to find the huntress hurling her bola at the creature Beran had captured.

It was no child of the beast. It looked like some kind of bird-horse, not unlike a deer-hawk. It snapped at Beran with its pointed beak and raked at his scales, but the chimaera’s bulky arms continued to constrict the bird-horse.

Thossa’s bola tightened, commanding the rope to bind to itself so the creature could not cut loose. But its front legs were razor-sharp talons, and with no effort, it managed to tear the twine apart.

Beran howled and twisted his body, throwing the creature onto the ground. “Thurnin,” he grunted, his mark around his horn glowing and turning his scales into hardened thorns. “Elements, grant me honour to take this beast down!”

The creature screeched like a falcon, slashing Beran across the face and forcing him to let go. His spell wore off seconds later.

“Where is the other one?” he shouted to Nisus as she closed in. Above them, the sky darkened and thundered. She couldn’t quite hear him over the rolling storm but could guess what he meant from his lips.

Nisus shot an arrow into the bird-horse’s back and circled around so that the three of them surrounded it. “Can it fly?” she asked Thossa.

The response was an optimistic head shake. She pointed to the wings on the creature’s back. One looked healthy, full of feathers and fighting to flappling at the chimaeras, the other wrapped up in some kind of cloth.

That, and the way it broke from the bola, was even stranger to Nisus than the creature’s strange body. Weightless drops of rain began to flutter down from the swirling mass of grey above them. Soon, it’d be a downpour. A roar as loud as the storm’s thunder soared over them, shooting through the air like an arrow.

Nisus launched two more arrows at the bird-horse, though this time it managed to dodge both. Thossa threw a net from her kit. The orange net marking on her chest flared with light as she shouted “Gewiht!”

The creature collapsed on the ground as if the net was as heavy as a boulder. Beran whooped, punching his claw into the rain.

“Find that big one!” he cheered to Nisus, but his voice was soon overtaken by the combined roars of the storm and the scaly monster landing on top of them.

They all dashed, leaping out of the way. The forest dirt, still soft from winter’s melted snow, had turned muddy in the storm. Two sharp snaps rang in Nisus’s ears.

When she looked up, Cerran was facing the scaled beast with a sling, snapping out stones at the beast. As soon as it shifted its attention to him, his mark began to glow brightly.

“Berstan,” he grunted, firing a heavy rock from his sling. The stone exploded against the beast’s hide, but it did little. Nevertheless, the white mark across Cerran’s back continued to dim as he fired a second charged shot.

Nisus bolted up and pulled the chimaera out of the way when the beast reared its head to bite. “Focus!” she scolded him. She turned him with his horn, flipping him around and checking his back. “You’ve got one or two spells left, don’t you?”

He said nothing but nodded.

“Sell your life dearly,” she said. “Don’t jump at the beast for nothing.”

As if to dared her to make the same foolhardy mistake, the scaly monster turned its head around the tree they hid behind. Nisus quickly glanced up at the storm her cousin had made. Lightning crackled, but it still had not reached maturity.

“Hatheirthan!” she cast again, picking up a dead branch and waving it at the beast. Fire ate the wood from top to bottom, sizzling the rain that poured against it. Nisus slapped the burning stick at the beast.

“All animals fear fire,” she smirked, putting herself between it and Cerran. “Even predators-”

The beast slapped the branch from her claw using its tail. Rearing its head over the two chimaeras, it swung open its jaw. Nisus was ready for the bite, but she tensed when she saw a white-hot glow building up in its throat.

“Run!” she screamed. Cerran didn’t need to hear it twice, and they both bolted away from the beast. They barely escaped when a firestorm erupted from the beast’s mouth, instantly reducing full-grown zoak trees to thin columns of charcoal.

Nisus’s mind shifted away from stalling the beast. She slipped around on the muddy ground but charged on to find Beran or Thossa. She found both of them only just getting up from the beast’s crash landing. The other creature was still firmly in its net, though Nisus wasn’t sure how much longer the weight spell Thossa used would last. She hurriedly shook both hunters awake while Cerran acted as a distraction.

“I know what we’re tracking!” she shouted, pulling on Beran’s head by his horn.

“Wha?” Beran huffed, waiting for his senses to come back. But there wasn’t time. Nisus splashed mud in his face and slapped him awake.

Nisus retold the story in her head. The beasts that guarded the Elements, flew for them, heated them, they were called by them as…

She ran to Thossa and pulled the jill onto her hooves. “Dragon!”

Thossa shot out of her daze, scanning around to see what had happened. Beran got up too, but the cut on his face from the bird-horse’s talons had opened up even more from his fall. He wiped his face, but his eyes continued to be covered by fresh blood.

“Keep him safe and the other creature down,” Nisus sputtered, hastily pushing them out of the way of the dragon’s second wave of flames. Lightning finally began arcing out of the clouds, striking at the highest trees. “I have a plan, but I can’t promise I can keep both of you safe if you stay.”

Cerran again tried drawing the dragon’s attention. “Berstan!” he screamed, his voice having a greater effect on the dragon than his shots. Two more explosions. Nisus took a quick mental note. He was likely out of spells.

Thossa looked at him, her face flushed with worry. However distant their relationship, they were still kin. She nodded. “Keep him safe too.”

She ran over to Beran, grabbing him by the claw. “Think you can do something for me big guy?” She produced another rope from her kit and wrapped it around the bird-horse.

“Reipbhendh!” The rope immediately tightened, causing the creature to start screeching again. Thossa shoved the other end of the rope into Beran’s grip. “I’ll guide, you pull.” Despite his injury, the jack was still an incredible mass of muscle, and he managed to keep pace with Thossa as they ran from the battleground.

The dragon’s attention immediately turned on the two chimaeras, and Nisus knew she had to start working. She looked down at her mark. After two spells of fire, she counted on having five for spells to use. Enough to work with, not enough for mistakes.

She found her balance in the watery mud and shouted to the dragon. She watched its eyes, making sure it saw her aim an arrow at its friend. “Think you can stop an arrow?” she taunted.

The dragon stopped and whipped its tail around. Nisus heard the snapping of the trees and fell to the ground, letting the dragon’s strike hit the air. She got up and watched it rear its head, charging another shot of fire.

“Thunor!”

Lightning followed the magic in the shot, and together, arrow and crackling thunder struck the dragon. The arrow reflected off the dragon’s scales, but it wailed against the lighting.

Nisus hoped that was all she needed, and for a moment, that seemed the case. Cerran whooped from behind the dragon, waving his arms in the rain with relief. Not a second later, the dragon’s eyes opened again and its hungry teeth snapped out at Nisus. She ran, keeping a number of trees between her and the dragon.

Thunor was a simple enough spell to cast, but hard to make useful. Nisus couldn’t just call the strike down onto the dragon. She needed to be able to put her magic into something for the lightning to follow, a rock or knife or an arrow. The dragon spread a circle of fire around itself, but the storm left everything too soaked to catch.

“Element of liberty, please let us be free of this thing.” She seized the dragon’s brief moment of confusion and launched two more arrows.

“Thunor,” she heaved, aiming for any soft spot she could find. The arrows landed in the leathery membrane of the dragon’s wings, followed by deafening bursts of thunder.

Trees splintered from the force, and hearing had seemingly abandoned Nisus’s left ear. Her spell definitely damaged the dragon. Its scales glowed red, overheated by the repeated lightning bolts. But still, it limped on, determined to hunt down the chimaeras that had taken the other creature.

“Give me a break,” Nisus pleaded to the elements. That was three lightning spells. She looked up at the sky. August’s storm spell would last at least a half-hour, but even if she used all that time to land the perfect shots, Nisus wasn’t sure if that would take down the dragon.

Cerran crawled out from under a burned tree that had collapsed and ran to her. “How much can that thing take?”

Nisus shook her head in disbelief. “I need its head,” she breathed heavily. “Only thing I haven’t hit yet.”

“Can you?” The followed the dragon behind some trees. Both watched as the dragon’s head swayed, blanketing the forest with wave after wave of fire.

“Not like that,” Nisus said.

Cerran produced a rope from his bag. “Will this help?” She looked, thinking of how Thossa captured the other creature. But it wouldn’t work. The mark on his back had completely faded.

“You’re out of magic, and I don’t know any knot spells.”

“I learned to tie knots before I learned the spell from Foreteller Muniko.”

Nisus opened her mouth to say some kind of protest, but she couldn’t think of another option that would dissuade him. She was out of ideas, and even with its limp, the dragon would catch up to Beran and Thossa soon.

“Fine, but get out of there if you think you can’t do it,” Nisus gave in, though she didn’t expect he’d listen to the last part if it came to that.

The charcoal chimaera, being either crazy, brave, or both, smiled and grasped his rope in both claws. “Ho!Ha!” he shouted, leaping out of the trees.

Nisus kept the dragon in the corner of her eye but hurried to find the best spot to shot from. The only chance Cerran had of holding the dragon still was if he didn’t seem that much of a threat. She guessed if the dragon realized it was going to get shot again, it’d fight harder than the two of them could handle.

The ground was slippery with mud, but Nisus dug her hooves in and found a solid mound of dirt where she could shoot from. Cerran was already ahead of the dragon, whooping and swing his rope at its face. The dragon was so big it could have easily ignored the chimaera, but once he started throwing mud in its eyes to blind it, the dragon struck back.

Nisus was impressed. Her clan raised better hunters, but she didn’t think any in the Ghendings knew their way around a knot the way Cerran did. The dragon raked at him with its meaty claws, but he deftly ducked under it and tightened the rope around its wrist.

He yanked it taut, daring the dragon to cut the line with its teeth. It fell for the taunt, and when its head had lowered enough, he let the rope go loose and whipped it around the dragon’s snout. He leapt on it, and for that moment the dragon was still.

Nisus drew her arrow back, prepared the spell on lips, and waited for Cerran to jump off. She waited. The thumb claw holding the drawstring ached, and still, Cerran did not get off. Only with a second look did she see why.

The dragon’s size was its own kind of defence. Never having hunted a beast so big, the rope simply wasn’t long enough to go around the head. But he still hung on.

“Nisus! Take the shot!” he shouted. With those words, she knew Cerran had guessed why she hesitated. But to stop a dragon from taking more lives, he was willing to give everything. Nisus cursed her luck.

“Thunor!”

Ch4. Licking Wounds

August didn’t come down from the cave until the storm had dispersed, leaving behind only cold and sharp spring air. His hooves sloshed in the mud, slowing him down some. He hoped that didn’t get the way of the hunt.

He followed the path of devastation. He saw what the dragon did and still couldn’t believe it. The stories said that dragons were once the defenders of the Elements. Every Foreteller he knew from ever clan he had met knew the same stories about them. He supposed it was no surprise, then, that this one destroyed so much of the Kern’s hunting ground.

Wolf-hares and deer-hawks would not return to the burned forest for years. Zoak trees needed a long time to grow, and light vegetation wouldn’t be enough for the clan. August shook his mind clear from the distraction. What was he doing?

He needed to find Nisus. He picked up his pace, heading toward the last lightning strike he saw. He had to keep the storm going, so he wasn’t sure how long the fight lasted after that. But the fact that Nisus hadn’t come back to him was a bad sign.

The burned trees eventually came to an end, and a little further down, he saw Nisus kneeling on the ground.

“Thank the Elements!” he cried, rushing over to his little cousin. He clutched her in his arms. “Are you alright?” he demanded, looking over her scales. “What happened, where’s the dragon?”

Seeing her eyes, he slowed his questions and calmed down. Mud was everywhere on her face, save for the streaks where tears had cleansed away the dirt. She slowly hugged August, sobbing as she gently pointed to Cerran, sitting still against the stump of a burned tree.

His breathing was weak but steady, and he had minor burns on his scales from the dragon’s fire. A bad state, but not unrecoverable.

“Where’s the dragon?” he asked.

Cerran turned his head toward August’s voice, but his eyes stared as if no one was there. “Thought I was dead. It’s good to hear your voice.”

August kneeled beside him, examining his eyes. He hardly had any magic left, but he managed to produce a small flame from his thumb. He passed the burning claw across the chimaera’s blank stare, producing no reaction from the eyes.

Cerran furrowed his brow. “Uh, what are you doing?”

August sighed. At least he was taking it well. Still, he didn’t know what to say. He turned around and sat down by Nisus, this time his voice actually relaxed. He just wanted to help his cousin. “What happened?”

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

“Thunor!”

Thunder blasted from the centre of the arrow, lightning striking and blowing the branches off the trees. Nisus realized too late, however, that she had missed. Panic and tension overpowered her trained claw and she shot the arrow too high.

The flash of lighting was so bright that Nisus was dazed by it, even though she shut her eyes and looked away. But she couldn’t let her mistake build on itself. The spell missed but still should have left the dragon startled. Nisus grabbed her spear and rushed the dragon.

It clamped its jaws towards her, but Nisus stopped short, making short thrusts at the dragon’s nostrils. It flared with rage and blew a ball of fire, so she jumped to the side and thrust hard. The hit was solid, but it bounced off the scales around the dragon’s eye.

They traded ineffective blows at each other until Nisus noticed that the dragon was missing by a larger and larger margin. She barely had to move to avoid its strikes, and every attack from the dragon only came after she had agitated it.

Nisus backed off slowly circling the dragon. It kept its head in her direction, tracking either by scent or by sound. She counted her spells, then checked her marks. One spell remaining. It was her last chance to make it right. Her eyes slowly drifted onto Cerran, who fell off the dragon when the lightning struck her arrow.

If he was alive, he was surely blind as well. Suddenly, a wave of guilt crashed into Nisus, and the only thing that held her up was the dragon’s intimidating glare. It was blind, but could still kill her if she wasn’t careful. But, if it couldn’t see her, there was one thing she hadn’t tried.

Nisus charged, dropping to the ground when the dragon tried to bite her and clinging to the chin. She focused her magic on the dragon’s jawbone instead of an arrow, but the spell was the same, nevertheless. She shut her eyes cast her last spell.

“Thunor!”

She let go, her back slapping into the mud, as she took the full force of the thunder exploding out of the dragon’s head. This time, the beast staggered and crumpled onto its side, a fountain of blood gushing from the centre.

“Whoo!” she shouted, hopping in the mud. It didn’t feel quite right, however. Nisus put her claws over her ears, taking them on and off over and over. That’s the cost, she supposed. She limped over to Cerran, her legs numb from terror more than it was from exhaustion or injury.

She looked for his heartbeat, using her claw to feel it rather than listening for it.

She knew there were healing spells that could perform miracles, but whether or not it could bring her hearing back remained to be seen. It was a heavy price, but they had to pay it. It couldn’t be helped. The dragon was too strong.

Far too strong. With blood spurting from its skull, it slowly rose from its beaten state. Nisus couldn’t hear its weak and worn breathing, but she felt the low rumbling in her chest all the same. Her eyes darted down to her arms to read her mark, even though she knew she was out of spells. For a moment, the dragon seemed focused on her, and blood drained from her face from paralyzing fear.

It huffed, raised its head as if it sensed something in the distance, and crawled away. Nisus forced herself up, thinking only of Beran and Thossa trying to contend with the dragon themselves. It was clearly hurt, but the dragon was still dozens of times bigger than even Beran. Nisus pushed forward, and forward, and then even more. But she herself quickly collapsing down into the mud.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

August listened intensely as Nisus told him everything she could remember. He saved all his questions until she was done speaking and asked them slowly so she could read his lips.

After snapping at her ears, it seemed some of her hearing had recovered. “It’s like listening with my head underwater,” she tried to explain, “all muffled and distorted.”

“We need to get you two back to camp,” he said, helping Cerran up to his hooves.

Snapping twigs gave August a small scare, he thought for a moment the dragon had returned to finish the fight, but instead, it was Beran and Thossa limping together.

“You okay, friend?” he said, still holding onto Cerran and Nisus.

Beran smiled, his face was blood-soaked from the slash but other than that he stood strong. “Sent that dragon running!” he laughed. “It did break Thossa’s leg and flew off with the other creature, though.” Nisus couldn’t hear it, but she saw her cousin’s eyes widen with disbelief.

“It caught up with you?” he asked. “And managed to fly?”

Thossa nodded. “It was slower than before, blood all over its face too. First, we were worried it got you two,” she gestured her head at Nisus and Cerran, “but then we saw the crack in the skull.”

“Too tough for us, though” Beran shook his head. “Once its tail hit Thossa leg and knocked me over, we knew we couldn’t catch it.” He gently touched his claw to the wound over his face. “The fall open up the cut again. I couldn’t see past the blood without Thossa.”

“And I wasn’t going anywhere without him.” Thossa winced as she showed off her leg, which was held together by a crude splint made from a tree branch and some rope.

“No choice then,” August said. “Let’s go back. We’ll have to warn the clans that the beast was a dragon, and it had another unknown creature with it.”

Nisus read his lips carefully, stopping him before he could start walking. She guided everyone’s gaze, except Cerran’s over to the cave. “It was blocking the back,” she said, speaking slowly to listen to her own muffled voice. “They’re intelligent, and they’re hiding something. The bird-horse had wraps over its wings. Animals don’t do that.”

“Did you hit your head too?” Beran asked though Nisus didn’t hear it.

August frowned at his friend. “If you think it’s important, I’ll take a look,” he assured Nisus. “But only after we get you all back to the camp. No arguments, okay?”

Nisus watched him closely and nodded. Her limbs still felt heavy, and everyone else didn’t seem better off than she was. She didn’t like to leave a hunt unfinished, but they couldn’t afford to press on any harder.

They hiked and camped their way back to the Kern’s home for three days, letting Thossa and Cerran rest. Thossa’s leg slowed them down, and Cerran found himself bruised from constant tripping, even with August as a shoulder to lean on.

During those days, Nisus found one ear was improving better than the other, though both could barely hear anything softer than a shout. One side of her must’ve been closer to the thunder, she guessed. It made her wonder if the dragon suffered any other losses. Perhaps it was as deaf as she was.

Nisus frowned. Not likely. The dragon was undoubtedly strong, but even it couldn’t have tracked down Beran and Thossa without sight or sound.

The Kern’s camp looked much better when they arrived. New logs had been put up where the dragon had smashed it, and chimaeras were working together to preserve the wood in layers of resin. But, even though the camp looked almost like its former self, the atmosphere had changed.

Dozens of old chimaeras stormed around the camp, arguing with each other. They weren’t Kerns, they had no horns, but they barked around as if they owned the place. Most of their outcries were too muffled to make any sense, though, as they limped past a few squabbling jacks Nisus caught the tail end of a conversation, heavy with insults to each other’s families.

“Ignore it,” August spoke into her ear. “Rest is the only thing we should be concerned about.”

Beran led them to the medicine hut, unlike most of the other tents, the medicine tent belonged to the whole clan, and it was built from the hides of hunted animals rather than ancestors. Inside, an old Foreteller and her apprentices worked hard to tend to the sick and injured.

Not that there were many. Two old jacks stared arrows at each other with heavy bruises all over their bodies, and on the other side of the tent, a young jill winced as an apprentice pulled painful sting bush seed pods from her scales.

“Beran!” the Foreteller’s eyes flashed with familiarity as they walked in. She wasn’t as old as most Foretellers, but Nisus still guessed she had several decades over August. She clasped the massive chimaera firmly, staring grimly at the scars across his face and clicked her tongue.

Though he was easily twice her size, the middle-aged jill pulled Beran like a child onto one of the healing beds. “Sit, you foolish boy,” she scolded, “just because I’m not training you anymore doesn’t mean you can run off on ridiculous adventures.”

She held him steady by the horn. He winced as she dabbed a stinging liquid over his face. “Valpurgia,” he groaned, pushing the jill’s arms away. “Sterewian or Helen can take care of it. Thossa’s leg needs to be set and Cerran was blinded.”

She turned, looking at the other chimaeras in her tent. The Foreteller had a hard look on her face, and she looked back at Beran as if she was going to explode. But she inhaled through her nostrils and went to work, hastily barking orders to a young apprentice, a jill about Nisus’s age, to handle Beran.

August approached her. “My cousin was deafened during the hunt as well,” he told her. “We were using-”

“Thunor, yes,” she waved him away, pulling Nisus over to another bed. “I imagine every clan on this side of the lowlands heard what you were up to.”

Thossa groaned as Helen, the older of the two apprentices, lifted her leg onto the bed. It was high up, away from the dirt which could cause infection. Hanging from wooden hooks were dozens of different dried herbs, half of which August barely knew the uses for.

“The eyes are difficult, Foreteller,” Valpurgia said as she picked a number of herbs for her mortar and pestle. “I hope you don’t mind, but I’ll have to start with Cerran before I can help your cousin.”

August nodded, a little surprised that she could tell he was a Foreteller. They wore no markings to show their leadership status since most Foretellers showed it with their age.

He couldn’t help but ask. “How do you know I’m-”

“Ghending, tall but skinny, snake marks around the eyes,” she quickly said. “As his keus-bhrater, you must know that Beran was once a candidate to be a Foreteller.”

Vaguely. It was a sore spot for the big brown jack, and August didn’t pry too much. He knew something happened that ended his apprenticeship. A bad failure that Beran refused to talk about. August simply nodded.

“Well, I might not be training him anymore, but it’s importance for a student to talk to their mentor about their lives.”

August’s eyes widened. “You were his mentor? Then I should be helping. He’s my keus-bhrater, that means we’re like family.”

“Ha!” the Foreteller laughed. “You barely know me, and I doubt you have the experience to blindness. No. I appreciate the offer but I need to focus now.”

Seeing as there wasn’t much he knew how to do in the medicine tent, he begrudgingly left the Kerns to treat his cousin. Outside, the sounds of arguing was only growing louder. If he couldn’t help Nisus, the least he could do was find out why the Kern camp had such a tense atmosphere.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

“We want answers, now, Muniko!”

Nisus woke with ringing in her ears. Well, one ear. Her left, the one that had weakened more than her right, played a sharp buzzing sound into her head. The last thing she remembered was one of the Foreteller’s apprentices giving her an herbal mixture. After that, she only remembered wanting to sleep.

She looked around. By her bed, a portable table had been set up with thin pieces of animal skins on them. Stains were drawn all over them, showing detailed images of the inner ear. Nisus reflexively reached up to her head.

“Careful,” Valpurgia said as Nisus went to feel her ear. “You don’t want to damage all my work, do you?”

“Wha-” she paused, realizing she could hear in both ears again. She looked at the pictures again, and the small tools that had been left on the table. “What did you do?”

Valpurgia smirked. “Clan secrets. But your hearing should start working better.”

Nisus tilted her head, comparing the sound from one ear to the other. Her right felt the same as before, but the other left felt as if she were hearing things a second slower.

“It’s not quite right, is it?” Valpurgia said. She waved her hands muttering a spell under her breath. Nisus noticed her mark, magenta hearts on the palms of her claws, started to glow, sending a soft stream of light toward her ear.

“How’s that?”

Nisus nodded. “Getting better.”

“Then this should do it.” Valpurgia continued the spell, turning her wrists to the humming of magic, slowly tuning Nisus’s hearing until the sound in both ears were aligned. “Say something.”

“Something.” Nisus was amazed. The sound was the same on both sides, clear and crisp as if she had just gotten new ears. “Elements have blessed you with inspiration. How did you do that?”

Valpurgia turned to put away her notes and tools. “Our ears have many tiny components, hard and soft,” she said. “You were lucky with your right ear, only a soft outer layer of tissue was damaged. It would’ve healed by itself anyway, but I used a spell to speed it along.”

“And the left?” Nisus asked.

“As I said, clan secrets,” Valpurgia smiled. “Though, I suppose you should know what’s in your body, at least.” She picked up a small crystal that was lying with the other tools on the table.

“The shockwave from thunor damaged the harder parts of your ear,” explained, “tiny bones that vibrate, transmitting sound into your head. Yours were beyond repair, so I had to replace them with crystals.”

“Replaced?” Nisus digested the information, but couldn’t imagine a piece of her body becoming crystal.

Valpurgia nodded. “It was easy enough, your left’s soft tissue was also damaged, so going through it was no problem. Just had to heal it closed afterwards.”

“But,” Nisus’s brow furrowed, “you’re still able to adjust my hearing? You just did that, didn’t you?”

“Of course,” the Foreteller beamed, “it’s just a simple spell for manipulating small items.”

Nisus was surprised by how simple she made the process sound. Replacing pieces of a body, that sounded like a miracle. Could it really be done with some simple magic?

“No one in my clan could have done this,” Nisus admitted as she took a tentative step off her bed. “How’d you learn so much about the ear?”

Foreteller Valpurgia rolled up the diagrams she had laid out. “I’m sure there are secrets your own clan keeps from outsiders. Your cousin, August, he might know a few things I don’t. The Elements left us with more than just stories, you know.”

Nisus wanted to pry for more answers, but she was reminded by Valpurgia of more pressing matters. Stories. The stories of dragons, chimaeras needed to know they weren’t just stories anymore.

“Where’s my cousin?” Nisus asked.

Valpurgia simply pointed outside her tent. “Follow the sound of old jacks yelling at each other. You’ll probably find him there.”

The moon was high above her as Nisus stepped outside the medicine tent. Its white glow was not the brightest thing that night, however. Through the entrance of the camp, Nisus saw dozens of pitched tents and campfires. The air was heavy with the smell of other clans.

Most were lowlanders, Wefans, Skaiths, Gadurons and Apelgadurons, though she also noticed the distinct slate-coloured hunting kits of the Wildclaw clan. Whenever more than one highland clan needed its interests represented, the Wildclaws were called on.

“You can’t stall forever, Muniko,” one Foreteller hollered at the Kerns’ bonfire. Nisus hurried, hoping August could tell her why half the mountain had gathered in one place.

The one raising his voice was a Wildclaw, old even for a Foreteller. Other chimaeras stood behind him, grunting in agreement.

“We will talk when we have convened with our own and repaired our camp,” Muniko, a grey chimaera who looked in his late seventies, stood firmly. The Kerns stood fast with their elder, facing the highlanders. Nisus spotted Beran among them. He had a piece of cloth wrapped over his hair and half his face, only showing one eye and his horn.

She pushed through a crowd of children who were watching from the sidelines until she spotted August standing far behind the crowd of Kern hunters.

“You’re okay!” August said as she pushed her way over to him.

She nodded. “That Foreteller can work miracles I never imagined were possible.”

“Well, I’m glad that’s the case,” August said, “a gathering of clans this large hasn’t happened in living memory.”

“What’s going on?” Nisus asked.

August kept his eyes forward on the Wildclaw. “We’ll talk about it soon.”

Nisus watched as well, the highlanders simmering with frustration at the Kern’s Foreteller. But, they were guests, and couldn’t make too demanding requests. The Wildclaw Foreteller backed off, waving an arm to the highlanders to return to their tents.

“You had better sort this out, Muniko,” the old jack growled before they left. “You have until morning to answer for what’s happening.”

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

With the highlanders returning to their tents, the lowland clans idled by the bonfire. There wasn't any animosity between them, but lowlands weren’t a united force either. August guided Nisus by the arm and brought her over to Beran and Muniko, who were trading words around a circle of other Foretellers.

“Thank the Elements you recovered,” Beran said, breaking his conversation with the sour-faced Muniko. Nisus picked up whispers from the other clans, a reassuring sign that Valpurgia had done her work perfectly. “My friends, we’ve been losing our minds over this disaster.”

Nisus raised a brow. “Why are the highlanders here over the dragon?”

One by one, silence cut through the chimaeras. She caught incredulous looks from the Wefans, and envious eyes from the Skaith clan’s hunters. There must’ve been a hundred onlookers, waiting for their Foretellers to come to some conclusion.

“What did she just say?” Muniko’s eyes stared arrows at Beran. “What would any of you children know about dragons?”

Beran strode up to the old jack, raising his shoulders to stand at his full height as he talked. “The beast attacked us before we found out it was a dragon.”

“No chimaera alive or dead has seen a dragon,” replied the Foreteller. “Not a single story passed down has any record of what they look like.”

“But we know they flew and breathed fire,” Beran said. “That’s exactly what the dragon did.”

Muniko stayed silent. There was something else between them, anger than neither jack could push aside. Nisus thought the two Kerns were about to lock horns. But, there wasn’t time for their personal troubles to slow down the hunt. She brushed August’s grip off her wrist and stepped into the circle.

“A creature of the heavens,” she said, “there’s nothing else I could say to describe a beast that can take five lightning strikes and still walk away. And it wasn’t alone.”

“Two dragons?” gasped the Wefan’s representative, a jack who looked twice Muniko’s age.

Nisus shook her head. “Something else, a bird-horse kind of creature. It was like a deer-hawk, but it could walk on all four legs and its wings were on its back.”

“Such a creature doesn’t exist,” scoffed the Skaith Foreteller.

“I thought the same,” Beran said, pointing to his face. “That creature taught me to reconsider.” The Skaith quieted down, looking to the other Foretellers. None of them spoke up to question Beran’s word.

“So, an unknown creature and a dragon,” Muniko said, “the dragon obviously being responsible for the attack. Care to share what any other details?”

In front of the whole audience, Nisus and Beran took turns telling everyone what happened. The cave, the size of the dragon, and the wing wrapping Nisus had noticed on the other creature. The more she spoke on how the dragon survived their spells, the grimmer the clans became.

Finally, Muniko had enough. He held his claw, interrupting Nisus as she told them how she lost her hearing. “I’m very thankful for your help, Ghending. Cerran’s a good student of mine.” He turned to Beran. ‘But you, boy, are a brazen fool! We had one chance to surprise that beast and take it down, but instead of calling for the rest of the clan when you suspected the cave, you hunted it yourself!”

Beran’s claws clenched, and Nisus thought he was about to wallop the old jack, but August intervened and held his keus-bhrater back. “We all made the mistake of underestimating it, Foreteller, but in all fairness, my cousin and I had no reason to suspect it could beat our spells.”

“Blame someone later, Muniko” snapped the Skaith Foreteller. “We’re all here for the same thing as those highlanders. Now all those attacks are starting to make sense.”

“You mean there were more?” Nisus hastily asked.

“Yes, all at about the same time,” the Skaith said, with agreeing murmurs trickling in from the surrounding chimaeras. “Giant shadows stealing food in the night, trails of broken trees. Though, you’ll be happy to know that our clans were the only ones avoided.”

She tilted her head. They may have been rivals, but she couldn’t deny what the Skaiths were good at. Avoiding the only two clans purely dedicated to tracking and killing, Nisus couldn’t believe that was a coincidence.

The Skaith’s Foreteller read her face and agreed. “They fear us. Skaiths more than Ghendings most likely, but that isn’t important.”

Nisus ignored her last remark. There were more nods, more eager eyes looking to her and August for answers since they had faced the dragon, and lived. But Nisus wasn’t sure if she had an answer. Their clan was good at hunting, and their prey had escaped. And the problem of simultaneous attacks, it was like they were the prey now, and she had no answers for it.

But apparently, her cousin was. He rallied them together simply with the sound of his voice. “So far we know only two things. First, they’re hostile. We’ve never seen them before. We can then reason that we’ve never hunted them, or done anything else to provoke them.”

“Aye,” most of the chimaeras agreed.

August nodded and continued. “We also know they’re intelligent. The attacks were coordinated, picking targets that were less equipped to defend themselves after the Melt. That makes them more dangerous than any animal.”

That made them uneasy. But none of the clans was willing to look weak in front of the others, so their Foretellers faced the truth with bold, hard eyes.

“In that case, we’ll need information,” August finished. “Starting with the cave we found.”

Nisus looked around the camp. Unease slowly morphed itself into fear among some of the hunters. While she was glad that August had taken her seriously, the other chimaeras looked at him as if he was crazy. The thought of the dragon returning had crossed her mind, but Nisus didn’t think it was likely after the beat they gave it.

“And if there’s nothing there?” The Wefan’s Foreteller asked.

“Then we keep looking, in your lands,” August said, pushing even more tension through the crowd. Nisus knew he must have sensed it too, his face firm but his claws rattled and fidgetted around.

“Not even a dragon can be in two camps at once, and the cave we found wasn’t big enough for the numbers it would have taken to attack all of us. They must be scattered in their own hiding places. One of them must have an answer to why they’re here.”

Beran was the first to break the silence. “Wise, as a Foreteller should be!” he said, firmly gripping his keus-bhrater around the shoulder. The other Foretellers bristled, upstaged by youth, but kept their faces calm. “If no one else can-”

“The Ghendings should return home,” said the Skaith Foreteller, “they need to tell their clan. The Skaiths are more than capable lend help.”

“Anyone who wants to go should go,” Muniko cut in, taking back control of his camp. “The hunting party can gather in a day. We’ll let the Wildclaw know our plan and give them time to help if they wish. Please, the moon is getting high. Return to your tents for the night.”

Foretellers and hunters alike grumbled, but Nisus spotted a few in the back leave the crowd. Wefans and Gadurons, clans with few hunters, retreated from the debate first. The Skaiths, of course, were the last to leave. The hunters who had come with their Foreteller stared arrows at Nisus and August. But not even the night hunters dared to breach the Kern’s hospitality and stay unwelcomed.

They left, and the camp was soon quiet with the sounds of crackling wood. August sat down, holding his claws together to steady himself. Nisus believed that was it for the night, and she wanted to find Cerran. If her hearing could be healed, she wondered what Valpurgia had managed to do about his eyes. But before she could talk to her cousin, Muniko descended on Beran with a tirade of shouts.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

Muniko’s voice grated like chalk against a tree. “You will not be joining their search.”

The argument moved from the bonfire to the largest tent in camp, a meeting place for Foretellers only. Like the medicine tent, it was covered in animal hides, though no wall of furs and rawhide could muffle Beran’s voice.

“You can’t stop me from standing by my keus-bhrater,” Nisus heard him say. She and August waited just outside the tent, prepared to jump into the situation if either chimaera grew too heated.

“I held my tongue because of our guests, Beran, but I have had enough of your brazen attitude toward our clan.”

“Held your tongue?” Beran’s voice pitched up. “You called me a fool in front of half of the entire mountain.”

“Aiye! You bet I did, child,” Muniko snapped. “Because that was necessary. They had to know that our family’s more than a camp of reckless oafs.”

“Is that what you call the Element of Honour?” Beran retaliated, his shadow flickering around the tent as he passed by the torches. “The camp was destroyed, we needed to keep that dragon away from our home.”

Muniko didn’t sound convinced. “Risking the lives of kith and kin is no Honour, Beran!”

Something made the hulking chimaera, who Nisus had seen to be full of friendship and kindness, snap into a fit. Dirt flew from under the tent flaps as Beran kicked about.

“We may be kin, but I’d hardly call it our family,” he growled.

Muniko’s tone, previously frustrated but measured, now rose to match Beran’s. “You have never treated this clan with respect. We raised you, fed you, and after all, that you’re still ungrateful as ever. We were right to stop your Foreteller training.”

The old jack stormed out of the tent, pushing past Nisus and August without a second thought. Beran chased after, but the two Ghendings stopped their friend from charging down a clan elder.

Beran roared, but he didn’t follow him. “That’s in the past, you old jack. Just try and stop me from searching that cave!”

“Your attitude remains the same,” Muniko said without turning his head back. “We are still living in the past.”

When he was out of sight, they let Beran go. They returned to the bonfire without a word to each other, letting Beran simmer off his feelings. August helped his friend change the wrappings around his face, and for the first time, Nisus saw the consequences of their hunt.

Long pinkish tissue stretched from his forehead to the bottom of his lips. The talons of the bird-horse had left four claw marks that arched under his horn, narrowly missing the eye but taking a piece of his nose and lip. He might have been slightly handsome before, definitely bearing strong, brutish features that some jills liked. But now he was painfully disfigured.

Nisus glanced down. Muniko blamed Beran, but she blamed herself. All she could think about was how she froze when the massive eye of the dragon opened on her. She could have saved them the trouble if she had warned them earlier.

“You don’t have to get involved with this one, keus-bhrater,” August told Beran once they had secured new clean bandages on his head. “We can handle a cave.”

Beran gave August a questioning look. “You agree with him? You know how the dragon came for us, it was impossible to get the clan to help.”

“I’m not in agreement,” August said, “but this is your clan. Strange creatures could be coming from anywhere to attack us. You need to get along with your clan to fight through this.”

Once Beran had settled down and the spectacle of the argument was over, the camp finally grew silent. Only the moon bugs, chirping from the trees and glowing white, disturbed the village with their chatter. But the swarm of chirping songs was just a constant drone, easily forgotten after a few short moments.

Cerran was resting in his family’s tent, Nisus found out from Beran. She asked if he was okay, if she’d be allowed to see him.

“I’m sure you can see him just fine,” Beran answered, “though I’m not sure how well he’ll see you back.”

Nisus frowned, but didn’t take the joke too seriously. It seemed she couldn’t think too much about this chimaera, there was a lot she didn’t know about him. She let her cousin keep Beran company while she went to find Cerran.

The Kern camp was laid out a lot like hers. The largest family tents were gathered together at one side. Nisus imagined the place in the day, the hoof paths between the tents would be filled with cousins and siblings chasing each other around, playing at hunting or doing chores for their parents.

Though she was looking for Cerran, it was Thossa who ran into her halfway through the camp. Nisus was surprised to be up and walking so soon.

“Foreteller Valpurgia said I need to exercise it,” Thossa answered when Nisus asked her why she was moving so soon. “Besides, there’s a hole in my tent, remember? I can’t look at it without thinking about the dragon.”

And how it escaped. Nisus dropped her gaze. “Do you know how Cerran’s doing?”

Thossa shook her head. “He was still getting worked on when my leg healed up. Seemed like it was more than just a healing spell, though.”

Nisus nodded, and then pointed to her ear. “Same with me. Replaced something in my ear with a crystal piece.” Thossa raised a brow, surprised to hear about such a miracle.

“Is something wrong?” Nisus asked.

She shook her head. “Nothing, it’s just that the last time Vlapurgia healed someone like that was years before I was born. Wasn’t sure if it was real or not.”

“So, it’s that much of a clan secret?”

Thossa shrugged. “We tell the story enough, it’s not much of a secret. But I don’t think half of the clan would understand how to do it if they had all the details. I don’t, for sure.”

They talked a little longer, Nisus helping Thossa keep an eye on her gait, making sure she wasn’t limping. The other clans and their opinions didn’t seem to bother Thossa as much as it did Beran.

“Let them say whatever they want,” she scoffed when Nisus asked if she regretted joining them on the hunt. “We proved that the dragons can be hurt, and that the other creatures can be caught like any other animal.”

Nisus wasn’t so sure, but felt relieved that there was one less chimaera to feel guilty about. It didn’t seem to get to her, the arguments between the other Foretellers.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

Cerran’s tent was in the middle of the others, not massive, but Nisus could still tell he had a big family. She touched her bow gently with the tip of a claw and breathed. A charcoal-black jack greeted her the moment she knocked on the door.

“Chill Wind,” he called back into the tent after Nisus introduced herself, “see if Cerran’s awake.”

He was, but just barely. “Sorry,” he apologized for how he appeared, “Valpurgia’s said I can’t expose my eyes to bright light for a while.” A thin cloth was wrapped around his horn and face. Nisus could make out the outline of his eyes, but couldn’t see anything else. She imagined everything else looked equally blurry for him.

Cerran’s mother, Chill Wind, helped her son sit down at the dining table. She was beautiful, her white scales as clean and lustrous as fresh snow. Her mane was white like her son’s, and rolled down her neck and passed her shoulders.

They sat in a traditional arrangement, a low frame of wood with thick layers of hardened rawhide stretched across it, covered in resin to keep it sturdy. His father, Gual, brought bowls of vegetable stew in a light-brown fish broth and set it down for everyone. They all sat on pads of ox-bear furs and whispered personal prayers to the Elements before eating.

Nisus spotted two pairs of peeking eyes from the children’s room at the back of the tent. Cerran’s siblings, she guessed, who were supposed to be asleep at this late hour. She locked her eyes on them for only a moment, and then winked at them. Hurriedly, but silently, the little bodies scurried back under their covers.

“Thank you for the supper,” she said, cleaning her mouth with her tongue. “To be honest, I didn’t know what I’d do when I came here.” She turned to Cerran and bowed her head. “I missed my shot when you trapped the dragon because I was worried you wouldn’t let go. You were blinded because of me.”

Cerran’s parents traded looks with each other, but let their son give his own response. He sat for a moment, drinking from his bowl, and then smiled. “Small price to pay,” he said, gesturing to his parents. “Got an earful from them when I told the story. If you hit that dragon while I was on it, we might not be talking about it right now.”

Nisus looked up. “You’re not mad?”

Cerran laughed. “I threw myself onto a dragon. I’m happy to be alive, honestly.”

“Thank you for protecting him,” his mother said, her voice still lightly accented with a highland dialect. Her smile toward Nisus quickly twisted to a frown when she looked back to her son. “Sometimes he just doesn’t think about the ones who need him.”

Cerran sighed and looked down, his mother’s glare still affecting him despite his wrappings. “Sorry, ma.”

Nisus decided changing the subject was a good idea. “Seems like some hunters will be headed to the dragon cave,” she said. “How much did you hear at the gathering?”

“Not much,” he said. “Came home right after Valpurgia was done with me.”

Nisus nodded. She said her piece, telling him everything that was said about their hunt, and Beran. Colour seemed to drain from the parents’ faces when they heard that other clans suffered the same attacks. Cerran took it better, or maybe it was just the wrapping around his face that masked the fear.

He touched his face. “Don’t think I’ll be much help. Supposed to keep this on for a few days.”

“Beran’s out, too,” Nisus said, “if he ends up listening to my cousin.”

Cerran shrugged at that, lowering his head with a sigh. “Folks listen to Muniko more than Beran would like. Any hunter under forty cycles, he trained.”

The bowls of soup steadily drained, refilled, and then drained again until there was nothing left. Once they shifted away from the grim events of tonight, Cerran’s family had a lot of questions. Some were about trade, like when the Ghending would have new bows to exchange.

Other questions were more personal. “You’re growing up to be a strong jill,” Cerran’s mother said. “Thinking about a clan to settle down with?”

Nisus froze, completely caught off guard, while Cerran choked and sputtered the last of his soup. “Ma!” he glared sharply, but she completely ignored his discomfort.

“N-no,” Nisus flustered, putting down her bowl. She looked at Cerran’s father, who looked just as surprised by the question as she was. “I’m not even fifteen cycles old yet.”

“Oh, well of course that all sounds far away,” Chill Wind laughed, “but I was about your age when I started visiting other clans.” She laid her claw on her husband’s shoulder. “Remember that one jack, the one who approached me when you and I were still courting?”

Gual shifted uncomfortably, but managed a smile anyway. “Ghendings might take it a little slower,” he suggested. “Fifteen cycles is still quite young.”

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “You’re no fun.”

Nisus gathered her bow and hunting kit and stood up. “It’s late, and we’ll probably be going to the cave first thing tomorrow.” She looked at Cerran, who was covering his face with his claws even though his wrappings hid his shame well enough already. “I should probably get some sleep.”

She left quickly and started making her way back to the bonfire. The padded ground there was good enough to spend one night. Though prying, Nisus was glad Cerran’s family had happiness in them. She expected they’d hate her, or at least be wary of her, for getting their son into danger with a reckless spell.

For tomorrow, she promised herself to keep a steadier head and an even steadier claw.

Ch. 5 Capture

By morning, the hunters who wanted to take a look in the cave had gathered outside the camp. They were gone well before the sun peeked over the mountain, leaving before the Highland clans swarmed the camp again for answers.

August joined, of course, but there was no sign of Cerran or Beran. The only other face Nisus recognized was Thossa, who seemed eager to leave. “Couldn’t stand my parents worrying over my leg,” she said when Nisus asked about it. She cocked her head back to the other hunters with them. “Plus, I can’t let them take the credit after everything we risked.”

There were three more hunters, two Skaith sisters and an old jack from the Gaduron clan. Nisus expected to see Skaiths, they practically lived to challenge her clan. She found it funny, a clan that hunted under the cover of night expect to have the same reputation as the Ghending.

It was the Gaduron, Tregor, who surprised her. They were a clan of gatherers and farmers at the very bottom of the Lowlands, where the soil was fertile and easier to build farms on. The green mane that had grown down to his neck made him look in his forties, which made him the oldest hunter out of the group. Despite that, she questioned if he had enough experience to even come close to the other hunters.

“Move quietly once we start climbing up,” August said when they finally neared the cliff. “There’s no guarantee that the dragon’s gone, or that new creatures haven’t made it their new home.”

The sun was still low, rays cutting through the spring fog and sparking off the cold morning dew. It was an odd beauty among the scorched trees and barren soil. Only a strip of land by the cliff had any life to it. Distanced from the dragon’s flames, the zoak trees still rustled with their dark blue leaves and prickly green bushes still clung to the dirt.

Amorwen and Fahanin, the twins, both paused at the mouth of the cave. Hearing about the dragon was one thing, but seeing the trail of charcoal and wood ash gave them a different perspective. Looking down, it was like a scar across the mountain’s blue forests.

“How can one creature do all that?” the Tregor watched with them, taking deep breaths to keep himself calm.

“It’s a dragon, straight from our legends,” Fahanin said.

“Not a normal creature we can hunt,” her sister finished.

“Voices low,” Nisus cut them off, drawing their focus to the back of the cave. This time, she didn’t waste a spell on making fire.

Using a piece of pyrite, a common metal found near quartz and obsidian veins throughout the mountain, she scraped the floor of the cave to create sparks for her tinder. August produce a water-skin filled with oils, dousing a fistful of twine with it and wrapping it around a branch. He handed it over and she filled the cave with the flickering orange light.

“Naeht yege,” The sisters both whispered. The marks on their waists glowed, appearing like constellations against their night-blue scales.

“Not necessary,” one of the Skaiths smirked at the torch.

Nisus looked at them and saw her torch’s light reflected in their eyes like a mountain cat’s. Night eyes, a spell used only by the Skaiths. She wanted to scold them for wasting a spell, but she knew it’d fall on deaf ears. Her left ear started to tingle as if responding to that irony.

Besides, she couldn’t fault them completely. Their spell gave them much better sight in the dark than a torch.

“Stay close to the front, then,” she told them. “If you see anything we can’t, say so.”

The stones near the back of the cave looked untouched since the dragon. They climbed slowly, cautious of anything that might lurk in the dark. Even with their spell, the Skaiths looked on edge. Boulders and piles of stones offered plenty of corners to hide behind.

They crossed the stones. Nisus’s hooves slowed to a crawl. She remembered where the eye had been, where the dragon laid in wait and sprung its strike against her. The light from her torch illuminated the narrowing cave, but it did little to alleviate her nerves.

“Something’s on the ground there,” one of the Skaiths said. Nisus turned, struggling to find their silhouette in the darkness. Both sisters had dark blue scales and shaved black manes that blended with the cave walls.

“Fahanin,” the Amorwen said to her sister, “bring them over.”

Nisus felt a claw on her back gently push her over to the left end of the cave where the Skaith was. August and Tregor followed behind her.

“What is that?” asked the Gaduron, as Nisus cast her torch’s light over the materials scattered around the ground.

The light reflected off small metal tools. Some were knives, but far too small to make anything other than shallow cuts. Other tools looked meant for holding and controlling. One of the sisters, Fahanin, picked up something that looked like two small metal claws.

“It pinches,” she said, poking her sister with it.

The other Skaith slapped her sister’s claw away. “Quit it. We don’t know what any of this can do.”

August walked past Nisus and picked up a roll of cloth from the ground. The fabric was thin, but as he unravelled it, the material clung to itself like magic.

“What kind of spell is that?” Nisus asked.

“Not a spell,” August shook his head, taking a closer look. “The cloth’s so fine that the fibres naturally cling to each other. It’s probably easy to wrap up wounds with this kind of material.”

“Never heard of something like that,” Tregor frowned, “and I thought the Wefans knew how to weave anything.

August nodded, wrapping up all the tools with a piece of fur and storing it in his kit. Then, they continued searching, turning over rocks and checking behind stalagmites.

It didn’t take long. The creature that attacked them didn’t seem to have had enough time to hide its equipment. Under a pile of stones, there was a box of some sort. August and Tregor worked together, pulling the stones away to expose the contraption.

“Ever seen anything like it?” he asked August.

The Foreteller shook his head. “No, but it’s metal and has moving parts.” He fiddled with the knobs on the front of the box. “Perhaps the Ironhearths or Crankcasters can figure out what it does.”

Nisus took a look for herself. She wasn’t sure, it didn’t look like a spring-powered trap, and it definitely wasn’t a tool. The metal looked too flat. Ironhearths hammered their iron the way Lowlanders flaked stone. The process shaped the metal, but left behind marks as well. This metal box was smooth and flat on every edge.

“Amorwen,” Fahanin called out to her sister, “bring the Foreteller over here.”

August turned his head and made a disgruntled face, even though he couldn’t see the Skaith. “The Foreteller can hear you just fine. What is it?”

“We found scrawlings,” Amorwen said, dragging August out of the torch’s light. Nisus watched her step, keeping close to her cousin.

Fahanin shook her head. “Well, we found ‘something.’ They’re symbols of some kind, but I’ve never seen them before..”

Amorwen shrugged. “Dragon scrawlings.”

Nisus bumped past the sisters and gave her cousin room to take a look at what they found. It was a block bound in leather that flipped open on one side. Even the material the symbols were scrawled on was completely unheard of before.

“Feel it,” August said, giving it to Nisus.

She put her claw on it, turning the thin pieces. They were smooth, but she could still feel the plant fibres on it. It was like inking scrawlings onto strips of tree bark, accept the material was so thin and light that the leather binding held hundreds of separate pieces.

“You taught me how to read,” Nisus said, handing it back to her cousin. “If any of us are going to make sense of it, it’s you.”

August inspected it, making sure to keep the fragile sheets away from the fire. If it was made from plant fibres, he didn’t need to guess what would happen if a spark caught it. After a moment, he should his head.

“Can’t make sense of any of it right away. We’ll have to head back to camp. The other Foretellers and I can take our time reading it in the light.”

Nisus looked at the torch, which was beginning to dim as the oil and twine withered away. “You’re right, let’s go for now. We have some clues, at least enough to keep the clans busy until we can think of a next step.”

She picked up the other contraption, the strange metal box August was playing with, and put it in her hunting kit. All together a successful find. They didn’t know what any of what they found meant, but Nisus thought of it as a good sign. They already didn’t know anything about the dragon. More questions could only lead to more answers.

“Really, that’s it?” One of the twins said. Nisus was having a harder and harder time telling the twins apart, she had already forgotten who had which mark.

“That’s a good thing,” Tregor frowned. “You saw the burns outside. I’m glad the dragon wasn’t waiting here for us.”

“We’re not asking for a dragon,” the twin with the fang marks on the sides of her waist. Amorwen, Nisus struggled to remember.

Her sister Fahanin had white suns on the same spot. “We just thought there’d be something cooler here. Dragon scales, maybe. Or a giant spear that a dragon could use.”

They double-checked on their way out for anything they missed, but the cave seemed empty now that they had gone through it. Despite the success, Nisus kept alert. There was a chance the dragon or bird-horse creature would return as they were leaving, and she didn’t think either would be happy to see their possessions getting stolen.

As soon as they climbed over the pile of stones, and the sunlight finally reached their eyes again, both the Skaith twins winced and clutched their eyes.

“Are you two alright?” August said, putting his claw on one of them, the twin with the fang marks.

“Are you here to be our gallant hunter?” Amorwen smirked at August and pushed him aside. “We just need some time. Naeht yege stops working when it sees sunlight, but it takes a minute. Until then, everything’s too bright.”

“Just asking,” he muttered, climbing down the stone pile.

Nisus traded a look with him, raising a brow. She was free to dislike Skaiths, she was just a hunter. But Foretellers had to do negotiations and trades. It was his job to get along with them. August stuck his tongue out at his cousin’s taunting. Her childishness was one of the few things that could lower his veil of maturity. Even Tregor smiled.

The group’s attention snapped back to the Skaith twins when one of them shouted. “I saw something move!” The twins slid down the stones quickly, still covering their eyes from the sunlight, but eager to put distance between them and the thing they had witnessed.

“Where?” August rushed over to them, the snake markings around his eyes immediately beginning to glow, preparing to cast a spell.

“Behind some boulders.” Fahanin pulled her spear from her kit and aimed it to the left side of the pile of stones. “I saw the glint of an eye behind them.”

Nisus and Tregor ran up behind them, looking with the remaining torchlight. Nothing reflected back, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. With their oversensitive eyes, Nisus had to admit that they were probably better equipped to see smaller details.

“Is it still there?” Nisus asked.

Fahanin shook her head. “Still has to be back there. The shadows behind the rocks, they’re not right.”

“Close enough for me.” Nisus nocked an arrow and pulled back the bowstring, whispering a spell as she aimed along with Fahanin’s spear.

“Gandthuru.” She whispered, and her arrow loosed, propelled by a ray of blue light. The arrow punched into the largest boulder Nisus could see, cracking the stone as it popped out the other side and produced a scream.

Everyone staggered back at the sound. Nisus especially, she didn’t expect to hit anything in the dark. She simply wanted to flush out the creature, see what it was. But something was definitely back there, and now they knew they hurt it.

There was a scrambling that sounded like bumping hooves, not dissimilar to a deer-hawk trying to fight its way out of a net. August turned to Nisus and pulled the torch from her claw.

“Hathiertan,” he said into the stick, igniting the whole wood in a bright blaze. August stepped forward, shifting his weight and tossing the fire toward the sound of the struggling. More sounds emerged, and soon the body they belonged to clamoured out of the stones, patting the fire on its mane out.

Nisus’s eyelids blew up for a moment, and she almost rushed to help the creature. From a certain angle, it almost looked like a chimaera. Its back was scaled, its mane long and wrapped thick around its horned head, and it definitely had hooves. Four of them.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

“What kind of creature is that?” Tregor’s wings shot up in surprise, and suddenly he was clutching a flint hatchet.

From the front, it was clearly another bizarre creature. It had scales on its back, but most of its body was coated in short fur. On its head was a horn, though it looked much more like a deer’s antlers than the pointed kind that Kerns or Frostcorns had.

Nisus watched the Skaiths back up from the shock, but her cousin stood and stared. Both curiosity and fear were in his eyes, and it seemed he wasn’t sure which to side with. She reached above her head and pulled him back by the shoulder.

“Easy, everyone,” Nisus warned them, “I know a scared animal when I see one.”

As much as they stared at it, it stared back at them. The creature limped from side to side, bleeding from one shoulder but still trying to find a way out. But the five of them surrounded the creature, pinning it to the pile of rocks, which was too elevated to climb with an arrow in the leg.

Nisus took one step closer, the creature took one step back. “We need this one alive,” she said, casting a wary eye at the twins. “It has to be connected to the other creatures somehow.”

“Hooves, scales, and a horn,” Amorwen snarked, “are you sure it’s not a Kern?”

She let the Skaith have her joke. The creature in front of them was thinking, she could see it in the way the eyes moved from one chimaera to the other. It wasn’t just looking for a way out, it was following their conversation and observing them.

Nisus sharpened her focus and swapped her bow for a spear. The wide flint blade was a daunting piece of work, perfectly made to leave wide gashes in muscle and fat. The creature bellowed a pitiful sound from its mouth, a series of noises somewhere between grunting and bleating.

“What on Eldyrea is that sound?” Fahanin lowered her spear. “Sounds like it’s already dead.”

“Whatever it is, I’ll try to take out a leg. Shouldn’t be hard to capture it after that.” Nisus raised her spear, taking aim. The creature burst into a panic, turning to clamour up the pile of rocks while screaming its head off.

“You should aim for the throat for all that noise it’s making!” Amorwen covered her ears.

“We need it alive,” Nisus reminded her, throwing the spear. The flint spearhead barely hit, slicing by and cracking against stone. It left only a shallow cut on the creature’s flailing limbs.

She snarled, reaching for her bow instead. Nisus was ready to nock her arrow when August stood by her and pushed her arms down. She looked at her cousin, confused by his expression. She’d never seen him glare the way he did before, as if something had possessed him.

“Say that again,” he said.

Nisus cocked her head. “Alive?”

“No, not you.” He pushed Nisus back a step and began slowly walking toward the creature, who was still struggling to lift itself over a boulder. When it saw him approach, it redoubled its efforts, managing to hop up about one reach higher.

As soon as August began speaking, Nisus recognized the Highland dialect. His accent was off, but he spoke slowly and clearly, which helped her hear the few words she did understand. Out of all the words he tried, “friend” was the clearest thing he said.

Whatever else he spoke, Nisus wasn’t sure she understood, but the creature did. Enough of it at least to freeze and turn to look at August. Its bleating sounds were barely intelligible. “Frejund?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” he chuckled at the creature. “You understand that, right?”

August looked at his cousin with a big dumb grin. “There’s a pattern to the words. It’s not a Highlander dialect, but I think they might understand us. Don’t attack it yet, I can-” he paused and looked over Nisus’s shoulder.

Nisus felt it too, her experience from years of hunting, warning her that something was not right. She whipped around, powering back the string of her bow. A shadow cast itself into the cave, catching the hunters off guard.

Their ambusher, throwing wide feathered wings into the air with a threatening screech, reared onto its hind legs and towered over every chimaera. Nisus loosed one arrow, then another. But the bird-horse clearly expected it, dodging long before the arrows whizzed past its head.

“Don’t let the other one escape!” Nisus barked at Tregor.

As soon as her attention was back on the bird-horse, the Skaiths had already jumped into action. They charged at it, spears levelled with the ground. No sooner did they step into its reach than the creature swiped its talons. Amorwen ducked to the ground, but her sister caught the end of the strike on her shoulder. There was no time to juggle two tasks at once. Nisus trusted Tregor and August to handle the other creature.

Nisus looked at her mark, the tip of the arrow marks along her arm only barely dimming at the tip. Six spells to go.

“Come on!” she taunted it, whooping and screaming to get its attention off the twins. When it ignored her, she drew an arrow and engulfed it in fire.

“Hathierthan!”

The arrow shot against something metal on the creature’s wing and bounced off, but not before the fire caught the ends of a few feathers. Nisus ran closer, taking a better aim. She estimated where its heart would be and fired another arrow.

This time, she hit hard. The creature recoiled, in pain but not injured. With its attention, Nisus started to reach for her second spear. But she didn’t expect to find August flying through the air and crashing on top of her.

“Argh!” her cousin grunted, rolling to his side. “Magic-” he coughed, “it has magic.”

Nisus turned to see Tregor, howling like a wolf-lion against a wall of clear blue light. The horned creature repelled the jack with a bright wall of light. The magic he cast magic on himself that hardened his scales into wood-like armour was useless.

Nisus didn’t hesitate to loose an arrow at the creature’s horn. Her aim was perfect, knocking aside its concentration. Tregor immediately fell forward, rushing the creature and wrapping his arms around it.

“Help him,” she pulled up August before rushing back to the bird-horse.

Fahanin lay on the ground, clutching her ribs. Her sister clung onto the neck of the beast, wrapping her legs around it. Without Beran, Nisus realized just how much bigger the bird-horse was compared to chimaeras. It reared its head and kicked around, throwing Amorwen off.

Its singed feathers still smoked as it flapped, but the flames from her spell weren’t enough to catch on. Nisus drew her bow and shot two arrows at once, covering them in a single spell of fire. The bird-horse moved to intercept, deflecting the arrows with a metal contraption on its wing.

Nisus remembered the injured creature from before. That gave her an idea. She ran forward, firing arrow after arrow, each deflected against the creature’s metal wing. Once she closed the distance, she produced her other spear..

“Gandthuru!” she yelled, propelling her weapon into the metal. .

The spell formed a piercing point around her spear, cracking through a piece of the metal frame. The creature squawked, reaching a talon out for Nisus’s leg. She stepped back, but its speed was surprising and it pulled her balance from under her.

A burst of pain shot through her arm when she hit the ground. The bird-horse had her in its beak, carrying her up the way a wolf-hare carried its young in its teeth. Nisus landed a flurry of blows against its beak, even raking it with her claws, but the bite just came down harder.

“Hathiertan!” she screamed as the creature threatened to break her arm. With nothing to cling to, the fire wrapped around her claw. She battered its face, tossing sparks of fire all over its feathers. But it managed to ignore the burn, rushing forward toward August.

“Hold it!” Nisus heard her cousin shouting. She looked down and saw a bundle of twine in his claw, trying to tie a loop around the other creature’s hooves. Tregor shouted to warn August, but he was too slow. The bird-horse swatted August aside, picking up the creature and throwing it on its back.

“Nisus!” August shouted, seeing his cousin in trouble. He picked the spear she threw earlier and raised it over his head. “Drop her now!”

But the bird-horse was fast, its talon flashing out and grabbing the spear. August yanked on it, using all his weight, but the thin Foreteller could not wrestle the weapon back.

But he had magic. “Thurnin!”

August’s scales turned into painful barbs. The bird-horse recoiled, dripping blood from its talon. Nisus flopped around in its beak, the bird-horse whipping its head around to find it was being surrounded by chimaeras.

The fight would be over soon if it stayed. Though her vision was blurring from the pain in her arm, Nisus could still see the bird-horse’s eyes. They bounced around its socket, shifting glances from one hunter to another. Amorwen and Fahanin were hurt, but their spears were still sharp.

The fight would be over soon, unless the bird-horse ran. And, as they had already guessed, these creatures were not simple-minded. With Nisus clutched in its beak, the creature bolted out the cave.

“No!” August yelled, launching the spear. “Gandthuru!” The spear shot forward with magic, punching a gash through the creature’s leg. Its steps stuttered, but by the time it felt the pain, it was already at the mouth of the cave.

The upper body of a bird and the powerful rear legs of a horse, with great, wide wings on its back, the creature did not let itself be stopped. Its right wing sparked, the metal contraption that Nisus had damaged wheezed and whirled, struggling to open the wing.

August stared, half hopeful and half terrified, as the beast leapt off the mouth of the cave and began gliding over the sea of blue zoak leaves.

Ch 6 Friends, Old and New

The wind sweeping around Nisus flung her around in the creature’s beak. With her and the other creature weighing down the bird-horse, gliding quickly turned to falling. Nisus wished chimaeras had not grown vestigial wings. But falling or gliding, they were moving fast, and the cave quickly started to fade behind blue zoak trees.

The bird-horse barely slowed once they touched the ground. It moved in a long gallop, using all four of its powerful legs to tear across the dirt and grass. Nisus spat as zoak branches snagged themselves on her face and her mane.

She tried extending her hooves, which were just barely scraping the ground but not touching it. Catching even the smallest hold could yank the creature off course. But every time she came closer to the ground, she was pulled back up. Nisus punched the creature as much as she could, every strike seeming to hurt her more than it did the bird-horse.

“Nisus!” The voices were faint, but it gave her relief that she could still hear August. The creatures didn’t make an effort to cover their tracks. As far as they could run, Nisus was sure her cousin could track. She just had to find a way to slow down her captors.

Fire engulfed her claw again and she forced herself through the pain, hitting the feathers and the eyes of the bird-horse. The even stranger creature, the scaly-maned deer-thing, yelled incomprehensibly at her and prodded Nisus in the face with its horn.

Nisus could barely hear the other chimaeras at the pace they were going at, but August’s voice still murmured something from afar. Seconds later, a spear surrounded by magic cut through the trees, piercing whole tree trunks in an attempt to hit the creatures.

The spear almost found its mark, but at the last moment, the bird-horse pivoted, changing its path smoothly without slowing down. It loosened its bite on Nisus’s arm, barely, and grunted something. Nisus followed its eyes, and it seemed like it was having a conversation with the other creature.

The deer-thing responded, raising its voice. Nisus had no idea what it was saying, but she could hear its distress. After an unintelligible conversation between the two, the deer-thing seemed like it lost. Nisus’s vision was blurring from the bone-crushing force on her arm, but she was sure of what she saw.

The deer pulled something out from its ear, a small black object the size of a pebble, and spoke into it. By some magic, the object lit up like Nisus’s marks and projected a face into the air. It looked just like one of August’s spells, lights slithering out of the object to paint a picture in the air.

The deer-thing spoke to it, and sounds played back. Nisus stared, forcing her eyes open to see more. But no matter how much she tried, her vision darkened. She checked the mark on her free arm.

The blue scales that formed her mark still glowed at the base of the arrowhead shape. One or two more spells left. Nisus opened her mouth, struggling to form the words to a spell. She didn’t want to lose a fight without using everything she could. But soon after her vision left, her other senses followed close behind.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

August flung another spear through the trees. “Ganfthuru!”

Before it was done flying through the air, he ripped the last spear from Amorwen’s claws and aimed it again. He sprinted ahead, followed the trail of snapped branches. His breath was heavy, but rage filled his legs with the energy to push forward.

“Come back and fight us!” he screamed at the trees.

The Skaith grabbed her spear and yanked it back, cancelling August’s spell. “We can’t-” she heaved, “keep this pace.”

Her sister Fahanin dropped to her knees. “At this rate, even if we find them, we’ll be in no shape to get her back.”

Far behind them Tregor jogged, fighting his age to keep up with the adolescents. “They’re right, Foreteller. She’s your kin, but we can’t charge at them like this.”

“Shut up!” He kicked the dirt. The markings around his eyes flared with magic, but they were already draining. The exact number wasn’t clear, but the others could tell August was already reaching half his limit of spells.

“We don’t have time to track them down. She’s hurt. I’m not leaving her life to chance!”

“There’s no choice,” Tregor grabbed August’s shoulder, pulling the young Foreteller back before he could start sprinting again. August wanted to slap the jack’s claw away, but after having a moment to catch his breath, the ground began to feel as if it were slipping beneath his hooves.

August stumbled for a second, but caught himself against the trunk of a tree. “We go after them, now. As soon as the get an opportunity to hide, they’ll take it. We have to seize our chance now, when they’re still panicking.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t panic like them,” Fahanin suggested. “They have a dragon, remember? How will we save her when we’re burned alive.”

The Foreteller growled, but knew she was right. He was acting quickly, but rashly. He could guess from the lack of blood that his spells missed his targets. So now they had no weapons, and no way of catching up to Nisus’s kidnappers.

The thought of Beran couldn’t escape his mind. Were his keus-bhrater here with them, he might have grabbed the bird-horse and stopped it from ever leaving the cave.

“Let’s just think of how we’re going to do this, then,” he calmed himself with slow breaths. “I won’t leave my cousin.”

August bit back his words and clenched his shaking claw. He looked at the twin Skaiths. “Nisus needs me,” he said to them, knowing they’d understand. “I promised her I’d help take care of her.”

And then the ground greeted August, soil cushioning his fall. Fear glazed his eyes and exhaustion tugged on this legs. He knew they all saw it. He didn’t care.

Words quivered on the edge of his lips. “It’s a promise I have to keep. I have to keep her safe. She hasn’t even seen her fifteenth winter yet. So come on, we need a plan. A plan! I can’t just- I’m not- I’m-”

Tregor hesitated to hold the Ghending, but Amorwen was on him in a heartbeat. His shaking claws were immediately held fast in her tight grip.

“Hey, hey!” she whispered harshly in his face, her eyes wide and staring into August’s terror at the thought of losing his cousin. “Look at me. Look at Fahanin, okay? There’s not a thing in Eldyrea I wouldn’t do for my sister. Understand me?”

Her biting voice shook August out of his state for a moment. He looked around. Tregor stood back, the middle-aged Gaduron had little to say. The only solace was the guilt on his face.

“We know your heart, Foreteller,” Fahanin cut in, speaking while Amorwen gripped August’s shoulders. “But if we go after them, like this, we’ll die before we help her.”

“Like this...” August, murmured, rising to his hooves.

Fahanin took a look at him, then at her sister. “I can’t tell. Did you get through to him or not?”

August raised his claw, and the other chimaeras paused. Again, he thought of Beran. Muniko punished Beran for the fight with the dragon, but this was different. The clans had agreed to scout the cave and now the responsibility was on all of them.

“No normal animal would take a prisoner,” he said. “That horned creature, when I spoke to it with the highlander dialect, I think it understood. They’re thinking beings, just like us. Exactly like us. They’d never take Nisus unless they wanted her alive.”

Amorwen stood up, leaning on her last spear. “So, you’re back to your old self? Got a plan for us, wise Foreteller?”

August nodded, sucking back the tears on the edge of streaking down his face. “I have to talk to Beran and his clan, get them to help us. With that new creature, it seems we can’t predict what might come for us next. We’ll need help and information.”

“Then you go get the help,” Amorwen eyed August, her gaze holding a determined spark. “My sister and I will keep tracking.”

Fahanin gawked back at her sister. “We will? I didn’t agree to that.”

Amorwen snapped a look of silence. “It’ll be night by the time you get back. In the dark, we’re the only ones who can move quickly enough to scout out where the creatures are hiding.”

“It’ll be dangerous,” August warned her.

She snarked back. “More dangerous than a Ghending bumbling around in the dark? Hah! Typical, you have no idea what we’re capable of.”

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

Hot smoke flooded Nisus’s lungs and forced her awake, gasping. Instantly, the pain in her arm shot through her body. She remembered being dragged through the air, but not much after that.

She looked around, a campfire as the only lightsource. Above, the cold clouds blocked even the moon’s light. The Melt ended winter, but spring was a long way from being warm. She tried to move, to stand up and find her hunting kit and deal with the wound, but her arm felt like it was on fire from the pain.

She relaxed, breathing slowly like she did before sinking a spear into a deer-hawk. The pain was incredible, but from what she remembered, it could be worse. Her injured arm was wrapped up in a thick and soft fabric. Spots on it were dark and hardened. Her own dried blood, by the looks of it.

Something metal clacked around her claws and hooves. Nisus tugged, testing them. Both her legs and arms were chained up. Even her tail was bound to the side of her leg. She tried thinking of ways to break even on link, but her arm throbbed with pain at the site where the bird-horse had crushed her thoughts.

Nisus shook her dishevelled mane out of her face and laid there, soaking up the heat of the campfire. She wracked her mind with spells that could break the chains. It was said that Ironhearths could turn their scales to metal. A Deruweid Foreteller could probably turn their arms and legs to roots and slip out. Each clan had their own secrets of magic. Nisus twisted against the metal.

There were common spells too. “Thurnin,” she whispered. The blue arrowhead marks on her arms glowed with magic, hardening her sandy-rose scales into thorns. Even her wings stiffened, the bony appendages fighting to spread open. The chains creaked, bending out of the way of her scales, though the metal did not break.

The spell wore off in seconds, but Nisus had little to show for it except crooked chains. They were looser, but not enough to slide off.

“Elements,” she whispered, “why didn’t I listen to August’s lessons?” She could picture her cousin shaking his head at her, telling her she should’ve studied more spells during the winter.

She waited and listened around her. Crackling fire drove off most animals, but the glinting eyes of some curious foxcoons. They stood at the edge of the firelight, and Nisus could see the foxcoons’ red bands coming into its fur. They stayed white most of winter, until their mating season began in the spring.

“What are you doing so high up?” Nisus frowned at the critter. Foxcoons mainly lived at the base of the mountain, as well as on the hills.

She eventually stopped fooling herself. She was the one far from home. Nisus started to look around. If she couldn’t escape, she’d learn what she could. Behind her, the mouth of a cave came into view. The light of the fire reflected off the outcroppings of quartz in the stone. The creatures weren’t around, but more of their tools were. Signs of their activity were everywhere.

Metal tools and bloody bandages dirtied a sleeping bag on one end of the cave. On the opposite side, Nisus recognized another metal contraption. It was one of their metal boxes, like the one they took from the other cave, only bigger. She listened. Unlike before, this one seemed to hum with some energy.

It sounded like the chattering of crickets and songbirds, jumbled together in an incomprehensible buzz. What its purpose was, she could only guess. The box wasn’t alone. Metal wires connected the box to a number of other contraptions: a flat plate of glass, a disk made of metal with a rod in its centre. They were building something.

Before she could make a good guess of what it was for, a series of footsteps started snapping twigs from the forest. The foxcoons scampered off as the crunching came closer. Hurriedly, Nisus held still and narrowed her eyes until she could barely see.

Slowly, a purple light crept out of the trees. Two sets of hooves battered their way through the branches. One, ruffled with fur, followed behind the light. The two talked back and forth, but it was useless to translate.

More wood was added to the fire, though the damp branches only dimmed the light. Did they just grab the first branches they could find? The wet branches were suffocating the flames, not feeding it. Nisus had to fight the urge to wriggle around and see them under the dimmer light.

All she could tell was one of the creatures gawked at their metal contraption before touching its knobs and buttons to stop the buzzing noise.

Then she felt one of them nudge her. The two swapped words again, this time flaring up their voices. It sounded like an argument to Nisus, even if she couldn’t tell what they were saying. She focused so hard on their voices that she almost shouted when one of them splashed water on her face.

By reflex, Nisus opened her eyes. She saw the same face as before, the horned creature from the cave, staring back. Beside her, sitting among the metal tools, a similar creature worked on stitching up a wound. Nisus blinked, hit with memories of her clan’s stories.

The unicorn was exactly how the Foretellers described them. A long, pointed horn rested on the crown of a four-hoofed beast. It noticed Nisus watching, and grunted something to the maned creature before revealing a cut on its leg. A thread and needle from the pile of equipment seemed to move by themselves, but the concentrated look on the unicorn’s face clearly spelt out that it was using magic.

Nisus wanted to open her mouth to speak, but she didn’t know what to say. She remembered August’s stories. It was said by the Foretellers that unicorns were once natives of the Element’s home. But they were banished for taking all their blessings for granted. Were they here now, as a punishment from the Elements? Or maybe they were just jealous.

Words passed between the unicorn and other creature. The maned creature simply looked at Nisus and offered a shrug. It raised its horn, arched and forked like a deer’s antlers, and swung a pulse of magic in a wide arc. Slowly, roots and moss grew over the cave, hiding it from anything, or anyone, outside.

“Unicorns once listened to the Elements,” Nisus finally growled. “What do you want from us?”

Both creatures turned to each other and then back at Nisus. The unicorn spoke quickly, crudely finishing up its stitches and quickly marching over to Nisus. But, the other creature jumped in front of its friend, whispering softer words to calm it down.

Slowly, the creature turned to face Nisus, watching her with a smile full of wide eyes. With a quick gesture with its horn, it pointed to its friend. “Ywmikern,” it said.

Then, to itself. “Kyin.”

The unicorn said something, giving what sounded like a scoff towards its friend. Nisus looked confusedly between them. What did this thing expect from her?

The creature rubbed its head, muttering. “Yun-eh-karn,” it tried to say, pointing to its companion once again. And then it pointed to itself, waiting for a reply.

Slowly, Nisus tried repeating the other word she heard. “Kirin?”

A look of recognition lit up in its eyes. It cried out with a laugh, practicing Nisus’s pronounciation rather than its own. “Kaer-en! Karan!” It repeated itself, slowing down and adjusting its voice for Nisus to hear. The unicorn watched silently, this time with no indignant scoffing. The “kirin” hopped over the campfire, pointing at the flame with its horn. It looked eagerly at Nisus. She waited patiently, trying to sense the kirin’s intentions. She wondered what could have said that made it so excited, or why it seemed a lot happier now.

She wondered if happiness even meant the same thing between them. No chimaera had ever seen a dragon or unicorn, even though they were part of their stories. If this “kirin” was another creature from the Elements’ realm, then she knew even less about it than she knew about the unicorns. Perhaps this was actually some kind of outburst of rage.

After a dragged-out moment of silence, Nisus realized she was overthinking things. It was just happy, and that made her even more uncomfortable. Its wide, expectant eyes blinked at her, continuing to aim its horn at the fire. The longer Nisus waited, the more confused the kirin started to look.

“Fire,” she quickly blurted, hoping another word would keep it happy.

The kirin released a sigh, sitting down with its back to the wall of roots and moss it had created. It pointed to Nisus and repeated the word.

“Vur,” it repeated after Nisus before pointing to itself. “Fey-ar.”

Nisus furrowed her brows. “Feyr?”

Again, the creature beamed. Nisus didn’t want to assume, but it seemed as interested in words as August was. Was it some kind of Foreteller? Their own version, perhaps. Though, after the fight with the bird-horse, she was having a hard time believing these new creatures wanted to do anything else except rip her apart.

But a few words was a good start. Nisus nodded knowingly to the kirin, and then eyed the unicorn. It seemed a lot more upset than its friend, but it eventually grunted at the kirin and returned to fixing its own stitches.

That’s right, she sneered at the unicorn in her head, take your seat. This mountain is my home.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

Some time passed before they managed to form a basic system of communication. It mainly consisted of them repeating their words for basic items around the camp. Food. Water. Sit. Sleep. The kirin did the talking, though the unicorn listened in whenever Nisus said something.

When they got used to her, they sat her up and carefully readjusted her chains so that she could sit comfortably. They let her tail and wings move freely, but kept her legs and arms bound. Once they were sure she couldn’t move, the kirin reached behind a rock and produced a bag they had kept hidden.

A simple metal tray was produced, along with a wrapped bundle of dried food. The kirin motioned to Nisus, moving its hoof to its mouth. “Food?” it asked in barely passable Lowlander.

Nisus eyed the bundle suspiciously. She wasn’t sure if the two of them could even eat the same food. One thing was certain, however. The dried mix of vegetables that the kirin unbundled looked incredibly unappetizing.

The unicorn muttered something to the kirin that made it raise an eyebrow with curiosity. They exchanged a quick conversation until the kirin finally gave up and tossed the bag to the unicorn. It caught it with a spell, a ball of light that wrapped around the strap to hold it in the air.

This time, a packet of gemstones was produced from the bag and laid out in front of Nisus. The unicorn gestured with its horn. “Food?” it asked, in its own language.

Nisus’s face twisted with incredulity, her confusion almost making the kirin laugh. What kind of creature could mistake gemstones for food? Maybe the unicorn was an idiot.

Nisus reflexively reached up and touched her left ear, the side with a crystal replacement. Perhaps they had more magic, more spells Nisus had never heard of. Still, she wasn’t eager to try eating gemstones.

Instead she pointed to the bag in the unicorn’s grasp. “Kit,” she said slowly. “Where is my kit?”

The kirin jumped at the question, rushing around almost in a fury. “Yes! Kit!” it repeated, already understanding what she meant. From underneath the metal contraption that was being built in the cave, the kirin pulled out Nisus’s equipment. Her weapons were wrapped up in a tube of cloth, seperate from her hunting kit.

The unicorn yapped, quickly ripping the weapons out of the kirin’s grasp with its own magical grip, shoving the tools back behind the metal fixtures.

Nisus clenched her jaw at the rough motion. Spears were replaceable, but somewhere underneath that cloth was her bow. She spent as many hours caring for it as her father had when she made it. Seeing it mistreated somehow made the pain in her arm even worse, as if all those hours of polishing cried out within her.

The kirin put on a sour look, but voiced no protest. It searched through the kit, pulling out rope, herbs, pyrite and tinder, and her knife.

“Stop that!” Nisus lashed out the moment she saw the knife come out. Her injuries yelled at her to stay still, but losing the knife was a line she couldn’t stand. August had lent her the knife. It was only hers until she could make a new one. Her tail flicked against the ground, knocking stones and dust around to warn the two creatures.

Both kirin and unicorn jumped at her outburst, dropping the knife to the ground. Her arms were bound and throbbed red with irritated skin, but she still grasped for the tool. Its flint blade, carefully knapped by her cousin, was strong but brittle. Already she could see it had chipped its edge against the ground.

The unicorn yapped something in protest but the kirin interrupted. Nisus didn’t care. She struggled up to her hooves and grabbed her hunting kit out of the air, pulling it to her chest before the unicorn’s magic could get a grip on it again.

At the bottom of the kit were chopped strips of dried meat, deer-hawk venison slowly cooked over her clan’s bonfire. Right now it tasted better than anything, because it tasted like home.

The unicorn eyed her knife suspiciously, but the kirin said something that relaxed it. They returned to their seats by the fire, the unicorn still prodding at its wound while the kirin chewed on its sad looking vegetables.

Whoever they were, wherever they came from, they were outsiders. Nisus returned their looks as she tore off bits of her jerky. The herbs that flavoured the meat were from the mountain, and meat she had hunted herself. Every bite reminded her that she was still near her home.

And, with her mind cleared with food, their fear and caution started to make sense. Nisus realized she had been thinking of them as invaders and attackers. But even though she wore the chains, she wasn’t the prisoner. They were still on the mountain, surrounded by chimaera clans. And now it was the creatures who were trapped.

Ch 7 Sem'Eo

“What is it with these creatures and caves?”

Fahanin watched the light from the fire die out as a creeping wall engulfed the land around it. It was as if the forest itself had just grown over the cave.

Her sister Amorwen clutched her spear tightly. “If we knew they were here, we’d outnumber them instantly,” she said. “They're hiding from us. Smart.”

Her heart slammed her chest. She wanted so badly to reach out and grab Nisus when they found the camp, but the other creatures had returned first with their firewood. A unicorn? She had doubted the presence of a long-dead dragon from ancient history, and neither the maned-creature or bird-horse appeared in any of their stories.

But the unicorn was undeniably real. Now she wanted to go back in time and slap herself for even hoping to find a dragon.

They circled the cave, drawing as close as they could. With their naeht yege and dark blue scales, they moved invisibly through the forest. Even the moon was obscured by spring clouds, hiding all the light that could expose their movements.

“Arrow. Spear. Knife.” Nisus’s voice, muffled, came through the roots as they crept up to the cave. Amorwen and Fahanin traded looks. Was it a message? It sounded like random words to them. Then again, the moss and roots formed a thick wall. Seeing and hearing through it was nearly impossible. At least she was alive. If the beasts wanted her dead, they would’ve done it back in the Kerns’ land.

Fahanin checked their surroundings, using her enhanced vision to spot any landmarks that could lead back to this place. The most obvious was the tree above the cave. The mouth jutted out of the mountain like a knoll, and on top of it stood a zoak tree unlike any other. While the other zoaks were just beginning to grow new buds, this one had fresh zap-apples dropping from its branches.

She pointed her sister’s gaze towards it. “We should take some when we leave, show the other clans what we found. A fruiting tree won’t be hard to find at this time of the cycle.”

“The Ghendings ought to thank us for this,” Amorwen smirked. “No way they could’ve done this without us.”

“Sure let August know that,” Fahanin said as they retreated from the cave. Nisus might have been right behind that wall, but getting past solid roots and dense moss was not an option. “Surprised you managed to snap him out of it.”

“The Foreteller needed to see sense,” her wings flustered with annoyance. “His cousin’s in there, but these creatures affect all of us.”

“I’m sure he knows that, but he’s young for a Foreteller,” said Fahanin. “Be honest, what do you think of him? He’s older than us, sure, but not by much. I’m thinking he might make the wrong call one day.”

“Worry about it later,” Amorwen grunted. “As long as what we’re doing makes sense, we should do it. Let’s grab the apples and hurry back. The sooner we tell them what happened, the sooner that little jill will be safe.”

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

The Kern camp grew uneasy soon after August and Tregor returned. Beran was the first chimaera August talked to, but the news that only two hunters had returned quickly spread through the camps. The trading clans were, by tradition, supposed to avoid getting involved in Kern affairs. But their camps were attacked as well before they left.

Now, all their little camps surrounded the Kerns, and one by one the Foretellers who supervised the traders gathered at the Kern’s bonfire. One from each clan, highland and lowland alike. August wondered if the same was happening in all the other camps. With the Melt over, traders were everywhere on the mountain.

His clan was not excluded. Some of his people would be travelling up the mountain with cured meat, pelts, and sinews. Based on what the Skaiths said, his clan was safe from the attacks. Ghending traders all over the mountain would’ve walked straight into this mess without a clue. He wondered how the other Foretellers were handling it.

“Well? What happened?” demanded the Wefan Foreteller.

Muniko was not among the crowd. He was away somewhere. All for the better, August supposed. With Beran by his side, an argument was sure to start as soon as Muniko began talking.

So he wasted no time giving the details. He described the cave again, showing all the Foretellers what they found in the cave. From the bound sheets, they all agreed that the mysterious beasts had a complex language and an equally complex system of scrawling.

“They really are as intelligent as us,” the Ironhearth Foreteller said in awe. “What do they want then? Why attack us?”

August offered the metal contraption, quickly tossing it for the highland Foretellers to examine. “Maybe their tools might tell us something. They didn’t attack us with weapons, at least. Although, I don’t know if they even need them.”

He recounted the fight, adding the details of the thick-maned creature they saw in the cave. Its antler was the source of its magic, he remembered from the fight, and it had no markings or signs of a spell limit. But August spared his words on the details. What mattered was Nisus.

“You can’t be serious!” cried out the Skaith Foreteller, as soon as August mentioned that the twins had volunteered to track down Nisus. “You let those jills chase down the beasts while you tucked your tail and ran back here?”

Beran immediately stepped forward to his keus-bhrater’s defence. “These creatures are strong,” he said, gesturing to the wide scar that marked half his face. “The two times we’ve fought them, we’ve lost. My keus-bhrater made a sacrifice to come here and warn you all. Honour him, instead of throwing insults!”

The Skaith looked down, pawing at the ground with one hoof. “The Element of Honour is within you, Ghending. I apologize.”

August held up a claw, holding his friend back. “You can show your apology with actions, Foreteller. Nisus is a close cousin of mine. I don’t have to tell you how much a sister means, especially one her age. All I ask is for your help to get her back.”

Some of the other Foretellers traded glances. Gaduron and Wefan both slunk back. Their clan was rich with fruits and nuts. They had few hunters. But the Skaith simply nodded.

“If they took one of yours, there’s no telling if they’ll take other chimaeras too. We have to stop them before that.”

“Of course,” the Gaduron Foreteller quickly agreed, gathering his courage. “Tregor was with you. He’s resting with the others right now, but there’s no shortage of brave hunters among us.”

Some of the other Foretellers snorted, but August ignored them. “If you’ll hunt by me, then the Element of Trust is among your clan.”

August turned to the highlanders. Ironhearths, Frostcorns, and Trapcasters, they were the least involved in all of this. Kerns and Ghending were lowlanders, and despite rivalries, it was natural that lowlanders would help their own.

The three Foretellers were still deliberating over the metal contraption, almost oblivious to the discussion around them. August stepped toward them and cut them short with a sharp look.

“Yes?” the Frostcorn looked up from the device. The eyes of the other chimaeras were on them, waiting for an answer.

“Oh, of course we’ll help. Kern is our sister clan. Many of our own kin have moved here.”

August turned to the other highlanders. They had a look about them. Uncertain. But more than that, they looked afraid. If they wanted, they could say no. No one could blame them if they didn’t want to chase monsters in the night. So why the hesitation?

He looked again at the Frostcorn. The Foreteller wore the same face. “You’re not telling us something,” he said, looking at the metal box in the claws. “Does it have to do with that?”

The Ironhearth snarled, but only briefly. “Would you even understand? The secrets of metal are something we can’t freely give.”

August opened his mouth, but to his surprise, it was the Gaduron Foreteller who scoffed at the Ironhearth.

“Come off your high peak,” he said. “You extract metal from stone with fire. Different metals have different properties, and each can be treated with different levels of heat and cooling. We don’t know the details but we’re all Foretellers. Sure as the Elements gave us magic, we can understand the concept.”

The other lowland Foretellers nodded. Beran smiled and slapped the Foreteller firmly on the back. “Ha! I’ll lock horns with the next Kern who says Gadurons have thin scales.”

Beran’s remark drew out chuckles all around, though the Gaduron Foreteller quickly twisted his face in confusion. What did the other clans say about them?

“So,” August settled the gathering, “what is that contraption?”

The Ironhearth sighed, fiddling with the round knobs on the front of the box. “Guess we all have to swallow pride at some point. We have no idea. Hundreds of years of perfecting metalworking and the three of us don’t have a clue. If it’s not just a metal box, then these creatures might not just be as smart as us, they may be smarter.”

“Never even heard of this thing?” August asked, looking at the Frostcorn. “And that scares you that much?”

“Should scare you too,” the Foreteller replied. “But as I said, my clan has kin in the Kern camp. We’ll help you.”

“And us too,” affirmed the Trapcaster. “If they can build more complex tools, we should learn. Perhaps they have other tools we can take apart.”

The circle of Foretellers eased back a little, though the fact that the three highlanders present had no idea what the metal contraption did was unsettling indeed. August kept his eye on their faces, reading them. But, as long as they agreed to help get Nisus, he couldn’t complain.

Muniko, however, was just beginning to stomp his way back to the bonfire. The grey-scaled jack was furious with his movements, but he wore a restrained grimace as he joined the circle of Foretellers. His mane looked dishevelled as if he hadn’t had a rest for a while. The others kept silent as he approached, letting him make the first statement.

“How nice of you all to come together,” he grinned with clenched teeth. “I’m glad we can start immediately. I only just heard August had come back with Tregor.”

“We finished before you even started, old jack,” Beran laughed. “Getting slow?”

Stifled laughs were given by the other Foretellers, though most of them were more than a little hesitant. Most of them were as old or older than Muniko. The Kern Foreteller watched their eyes, and following their gaze, noticed the metal contraption in the Ironhearth’s claws.

“Rumors have been spreading fast across the clan,” he said. “Looks like you found something after all. No one’s seen the other hunters except for Tregor. Should I assume…”

August scowled as Muniko trailed off. “They’re all alive. But we had to fight some of the creatures when we left their cave. Nisus was taken in the chaos.”

Muniko’s eyes widened. “So she’s dead then. You just won’t admit it.”

“By the Elements, she’s not!” Beran roared, his dark-brown scales making him an imposing shadow in the night. Muniko stepped back, but his face remained hard.

“Why would they keep her alive?” he asked. “The dragon didn’t spare much care when it tore through our tents.”

“If they wanted any of us dead, they would’ve just done it,” August told him. “We had a few more than them, but there were just two creatures and we still couldn’t win. That’s why we were so hasty, Foreteller. We need a hunting party by morning large enough to rescue my cousin and return safely.”

Muniko scoffed. “Not here, you’re not.”

The others frowned. Most chimaeras would never turn a blind eye to someone in desperate need. They all knew the importance of family, sister or cousin. The Ironhearth spat in disgust into the bonfire. The Skaith Foreteller stared arrows into Muniko.

“We’re not playing around, this is a matter of obeying the Element of Hospitality, Muniko,” the Skaith said. “That jill was taken on Kern land. The least you could do is help.”

“And normally, I would,” he replied, looking around the fire with concern written on his face. August and Beran both didn’t buy it. “But dragons and monsters? I won’t skirmish with those creatures, not on my clan’s land.”

“We’ve already had skirmishes with them,” Beran growled, “are you so much of a coward you can’t even see that?”

“I’ll let that pass, just once,” the Foreteller warned, his glance shifting from Beran to August, “in honour of your keus-bhrater’s current problem. If we go after them any further, they’ll come back for revenge, here, against my clan.”

He turned to the other Foretellers. “You form your hunting party tomorrow, and you’ll doom us. If these creatures can take one of our own, they’ll do it again. I won’t have it be a Kern.”

“You’re contradicting yourself, Muniko,” August raised his voice, having had enough. “You want them to stop, but you won’t take action. How will that solve anything?”

“You,” Muniko’s glare shifted from August to all the other Foretellers, “all of you, you are not putting your lands at risk. We’ve lost twice to them, and now they’ve even taken a chimaera. If you attack these creatures, they will follow you, and they will come right back here! My people will not pay for your brash actions.”

He stomped his hoof on the dirt, leaving his hoof marks in the ground. “If any of you form a hunting party, you will be putting my clan at risk. And that will make you enemies of Kerns.”

All the Foretellers reeled, surprised that Muniko would go so far to stop them. August, however, did nothing but clench his fists. His arms were long. The old Forteller was within his reach if he wanted to strike him. And he did. So badly, he wanted to bash sense into Muniko.

Luckily, Beran cut him short and stepped up to Muniko instead. “Nisus might as well be August’s sister, which makes her my keus-swesor. I will be up tomorrow, and my hunting kit will be heavy with weapons. Are you going to stop me?”

August watched his best friend take the lead, slowly drawing back the Foretellers’ confidence. Muniko was only one Foreteller. The Kern clan was too large for only Muniko to lead. Beran’s show of defiance was a message to the other Foretellers that they didn’t have to listen to threats.

“As I said before, boy,” Muniko clenched his jaw at Beran, “you are a young and rash idiot. You can let yourself die on a pointless mission, I don’t care. But I won’t let you endanger the rest of the clan.”

Beran leaned in. “Then say it. You know you can’t stop me unless you do.”

A twist in Muniko’s expression caught August’s eye. Suddenly a flash of both fear and temptation turned Muniko’s scowl into a sneer. He stepped back from Beran but walked confidently around the bonfire. His slow pace let him take a good, long look at the other Foretellers.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he replied, “if you intend on hunting them soon, they can’t be that far.”

“But it’s still a Life Hunt, isn’t it?” Beran taunted. “You said it yourself, I’d be risking my life if I do it.”

“You’d be putting more than yourself at risk!”

“That’s not for you to decide!”

All the Foretellers, even August, stared wide-eyed at Beran. Bringing up the Life Hunt could only mean he wanted one thing out of Muniko. And he was pushing the old jack to the edge to get him to say it.

“Kerns know right from wrong. No one in the clan’s going to listen if you ask them to stop me. And if you won’t say it, then you won’t get your chance to stop me yourself, either.”

Muniko twisted his head around, seeing the eyes of the other Foretellers on him. Whatever happened, there would be a story to be passed on. Who said what, and who looked like a coward. He bared his teeth at Beran.

“They will listen when they see how you will fail and endanger us all,” he said. “But if this is how you want to teach that lesson, then I will oblige you. I call a Sem’Eo.”

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

Foreteller Valpurgia announced the Sem’Eo as soon as Beran told her what he had said to Muniko. The Foretellers from the other clans, all except for August, were pushed outside the walls of the camp.

Sem’Eo meant “same earth.” It was a tradition common across every clan on the mountain, but it was also a private affair. Only because he was Beran’s keus-bhrater could August watch. As adults and children flocked from their tents to gather around the central bonfire, several hunters started working on clearing the ground of any tools or debris.

“The Kerns are good folk,” the Skaith Foreteller said as he took his leave. He was the last to go, and August could see in his eyes the yearning to watch how the Sem’Eo would end. “But you know our clans are the only true hunters. Whatever happens, I don’t doubt my people will want a chance to hunt a dragon.”

He nodded back to the Skaith. He wasn’t sure if their two clans had enough hunters, but he hoped the sentiment would be shared among the others.

He was standing by the Foreteller’s meeting tent, one of the few tents covered in animal hides rather than the ones of ancestors. Being the meeting tent, it overlooked the main bonfire perfectly and gave August a clear view of where Beran would be fighting.

Sem’Eo was an old tradition for testing a hunter’s ability to go on a Life Hunt. By definition, same ground meant no weapons or tools could be included in the test. Every clan had their own way of conducting a Sem’Eo, but there were traditional rules that every clan followed.

There was the challenger, the challenged, and a clan’s healer as a witness. Valpurgia was clearly fulfilling that role. August remembered from his Foreteller training that an audience wasn’t necessary, that one witness was the only requirement. But, since they were here anyway, most chimaeras didn’t want to miss the chance to see a good fight.

August caught Beran in his sight, swapping a few words with one of Valpurgia’s apprentices. No surprise, Beran was once Valpurgia’s student. The other apprentices were like siblings. And they reason to be worried.

Tradition dictated that only one fighter can walk away from a Sem’Eo. What that meant has sometimes been up to debate. If it were two hunters competing for the right to leave on a Life Hunt, a Sem’Eo could push both chimaeras to fight until they died.

And for Nisus’s sake, August couldn’t let that happen. He hurried and joined up with the two young jills chatting to Beran.

“-she thinks you’re being stupid. And we do too,” he heard one of them snap as he approached. Helen, August remembered, was Valpurgia’s older apprentice.

“He can’t afford to be stupid,” he said. “Magic is still allowed in Sem’Eo. He has to make use of the ten spells he can cast.”

“Muniko can only cast twelve times,” Beran chuckled, “I wouldn’t say that magic’s going to be a problem. I’ll finish before either of us reach our limit.”

“You better win,” Helen hissed, slapping Beran across the shoulder. “Just because you’re not Valpurgia’s apprentice anymore doesn’t mean we’re not your keus-swesors.”

“We’re already relatives,” Beran raised a brow, “same clan, remember? You can’t be my keus-swesor.”

“Take this seriously,” she insisted. The apprentice Foreteller turned to August. “Make him listen, please. He chose you as a brother. Means he chose to listen to you. Which is a miracle, since nothing else seems to get through that thick head of his.”

“Love you too, Helen,” he rolled his eyes.

August gave his keus-bhrater a dirty look. As the jill walked off to join her family somewhere else in the crowd, he pulled Beran aside.

“Spell limit or not,” he said, “Nisus needs you to take this seriously. The Skaiths will be joining the hunt, but I need you with me on this. She only has me to count on.”

“I have to do this,” Beran reached out and squeezed him on the shoulder. August didn’t even notice, but his wings were flared up from the stress. “We’ll get Nisus back. I won’t rest until it happens. But when it does, Muniko will be furious if we don’t settle this now, and I don’t want my clan to get torn apart just because Muniko doesn’t have the Elements in him.”

August nodded, and did his best to keep his wings from tensing up again. The only issue was that he knew how Foreteller’s thought. A few spells could turn a fight when used properly.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

“Sem’Eo has been called!” Valpurgia shouted to the clan. The marks on her palms, magenta hearts, glowed brightly as she used a spell to amplify her voice. From the very back of the crowd, even August could hear her clearly.

“Foreteller Muniko is the challenger, and reserves the right to make the first claim,” she said.

The grey jack walked to the centre of the Eo, the ground selected for the challenge. Right next to the bonfire, the dirt was padded down and flattened, encircled by a thick rope laid down on the ground.

“Beran has thrown our camp in chaos,” Muniko said. “We needed information on the beasts who attacked us, but instead he has engaged in dangerous skirmishes with enemies we know nothing about. Now one of our guests from the Ghending clan has been taken, and rather than consult the Foretellers for a wise rescue plan, he intends to form a hunting party to take her by force, threatening the clan’s safety by bringing their wrath back to us.”

Murmurs and gasps radiated throughout the camp. A chimaera, taken? The fear of being snatched by a dragon could be heard from the front to the back. But Beran, standing opposite Muniko, shrugged off their concerns.

Valpurgia turned to her former student, gesturing to Beran to offer his case. The very moment ears were on his voice, Beran took the ground.

“A hunting party is a wise plan,” he said, “and the right one. How can the Elements of Honour and Hospitality be with us if we can’t defend our own guests? They are creatures who threaten all of us. We will have to fight side by side with the other clans if any of us are to be safe.”

There were a few confident nods in the crowd. Most of the chimaeras who hunted with each other understood Beran. But parents and children were reluctant to agree to easily.

“I have heard you,” Valpurgia said, “and Beran makes a strong case for a Life Hunt. This Sem’Eo has the right to continue. Your fates are now tied within this circle. Only one can walk away.”

The old jill lifted her tail as she stepped out of the rope circle. The instant her hooves stepped outside, both jacks descended on each other.

Despite his size, Beran was fast. Faster than August ever imagined. He didn’t want to see his keus-bhrater hurt, but after an exchange of wild blows between both fighters, it was clear Beran was making use of his physical advantage. Muniko came around with a whip from his tail, but Beran smoothly parried it, quickly returning strikes of his own.

But once Beran started to advance, Muniko’s marks began to glow. The lilac scales that drew out fangs on his knees burned hot with magic before Beran could react. “Gersbhendh!”

Short wisps of grass in the dirt shot up, thickening and tightening into a dense knot around Beran’s hooves. His advance was stopped immediately, and Muniko returned a powered kick to his face.

Beran’s scars had healed, but not fully, and taking the hit full-force opened a cut over his nose. Muniko came again, slashing with his claws to deepen the cut. But Beran was wise to the trick, and he lowered his head, ramming his horn forward.

The two jacks locked heads, trying to push the other off-balance with their horn. Beran had a clear advantage in strength, but Muniko’s experience let him use subtle shifts to disrupt Beran’s motion. Eventually, the giant of a chimaera lost his patience and roared, the spiral mark on his horn flaring brightly.

“Thurnin!” His scales hardened, raising up into painful thorns. Beran immediately threw his weight forward, picking Muniko up by the legs and slamming the grey jack into the dirt. There, pressing down with all his weight, his thorns drew blood from all parts of Muniko’s body.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

The twins expected to return and find the Kerns quiet and asleep. Instead, they found their kin waiting at the edge of the walls, staring toward the sounds of shouting and cheering coming from inside.

“What’s going on?” they asked as soon as the other Skaiths had noticed them.

Their Foreteller rushed out to meet them as they hopped down from the branches of zoak trees. He embraced them both, relief written across his face.

They wasted no time trading stories. Amorwen and Fahanin described the cave Nisus had been taken, showing them the zap-apple that they took as proof. Their Foreteller did the same, explaining August’s plan, the metal contraption they found, and the Sem’Eo.

“August needs to know his cousin’s safe,” Amorwen said. “Well, safe enough.”

“They might still be taking the jill somewhere else. The roots blocked our view of their camp,” Fahanin added. “We don’t know if they’ll be there for one night or if it’s dug in.”

“We’re hunting those beasts down no matter who wins the Sem’Eo,” one of the other hunters assured them. “So, that Ghending better be ready to go without his keus-bhrater.”

They both nodded, though Amorwen didn’t like the idea of leaving Beran behind. She heard the Kerns has a giant among them who was strong enough to wrestle an ox-bear. August named him specifically as part of the plan. If he was that strong, then they couldn’t afford to lose his help.

The light of the bonfire was easy to hide from. With nearly every chimaera watching the Sem’Eo, there were more than enough shadows behind tents to walk among.

Sem’Eo was a private affair, no outsiders allowed unless they were keus. But they’d have to be caught first before that rule could take action. The twins walked silently through the camp. With the shouting of the crowd and the tents’ shadows, they didn’t need to try to move unseen.

August was not hard to find among the Kerns. He was just as tall as Beran, even if he didn’t have the build to match it. From afar, his head and skinny neck could be seen watching the fight with concern scrawled across his face.

Amorwen found her way through the crowd, sneaking easily up behind August. “Someone pushed him too far?” she asked.

August whirled around. He gaped but kept his voice down. “Foreteller Muniko tried stopping us. He’s worried we’ll draw the creatures back to the Kerns if we hunt after them.”

“We heard,” Fahanin said, standing just behind her sister. “But that doesn’t matter. We found your cousin, trapped in a cave further down the mountain.”

A flash of excitement lit up August’s eyes. “Is she hurt? Which of the creatures did you see, the dragon?”

“Couldn’t get a good look,” Amorwen shook her head, “they used magic to close off the entrance.”

August tensed his wings, frustrated. “As long as she’s okay we can get her back.”

The change in his posture didn’t go unnoticed. “Just keep a level head. Looks like the creatures have been there a while.” Amorwen put one of the zap-apples they took in his claw.

August frowned. “Where’d you find this? They’re not in season.”

“The other creatures, if I had to guess. The roots that closed off the cave didn’t grow naturally. Could be the same with the tree we found. Which means they plan on staying a while. You don’t grow a whole tree just for fun.”

His wings relaxed, letting himself believe they had time. “You’re right. Those creatures aren’t simple animals. They won’t give us more than one chance to save Nisus. We can’t afford mistakes.” August settled his eyes on Beran.

Muniko continued attacking his keus-bhrater’s scar, covering the giant’s face in blood. August had lost count of how many spells both had cast. But now it was clear that the Foreteller’s experience was outweighing Beran’s energy.

“I need this hunt to go perfectly,” August repeated, “so that’s why I need to ask one more favour from you two.”

“Hunt with you again?” Fahanin asked. “You couldn’t leave us behind even if you wanted, Ghending.”

He shook his head. “Not that, though I appreciate it. What I need are hunters with your talents keeping an eye on the highlanders. I don’t trust the way they were acting.”

Amorwen tilted her head. “What do you mean?”

“Said they had no idea what the contraption we found does,” he explained, “but there was a lot of hesitating. There’s something else they’re keeping from us lowlanders. But if I followed them, I’d get caught.”

Fahanin scowled. “It’d be just like them, keeping secrets from us and acting like they know better. But all that metal can’t stop a Skaith from sneaking up on their backs.”

“We’ll keep our ears on them,” Amorwen said, looking at her twin, “and nothing else.”

Ch. 8 Sonimitter

“Walk,” the kirin said, lifting Nisus up by her arms. They had removed the chains from her legs, but her arms and wings were still bound. She wondered if they actually thought she could fly away. She wished. Without membranes across her wings like a bat’s, or feathers like a bird, she was as grounded as they were.

The kirin’s magic shrunk the roots and vines covering the cave, opening up to the faintly lit sky. Even though it was a welcomed sight, Nisus kept her head low. The unicorn was watching her closely. Nisus simply stepped out from the cave and flicked her eyes around. All around her she could see old trails made by past hunters, paths she could take to lose her captors in minutes.

It was the break of dawn. The sun barely purpled the clouds and the birds hadn’t yet chimed the start of a new day. Not a full night of sleep then, considering how late they stayed up to figure out how to talk to each other. Nisus hoped the exhaustion was why she could hear a faint ringing.

She had her doubts, though. The sound came from her repaired ear, the left side with a crystal replacement. The sound was subtle, but by the time some birds started to rustle in the trees, she realized her left hearing was becoming mismatched with her right. To make matter worse, the chains tugged at her arm and Nisus winced.

Overnight, the kirin managed to prod Nisus with a needle when she was distracted by dinner. It carried some kind of medicine, one that numbed her wounds better than any herbal poultice. But like any medicine it did not last forever. Even if she couldn’t see past the cloth bandages around her arm, she could feel the pulsing pain, fighting its way back.

How much worse would she get before she found a way to leave the creatures? The unicorn nudged the kirin and pointed to Nisus. They didn’t teach her the words, but she could guess from their tones.

“Watch her,” the unicorn said, or thereabouts. The kirin nodded, but when she turned away she twisted her face in mockery of the unicorn. Nisus also didn’t understand what the kirin was muttering to herself, but it couldn’t have been nice.

While she listened, she also kept her eyes on the unicorn. The two seemed adamant about leaving soon, so what was the unicorn up to? It lifted up its leg and-

Nisus whipped her eyes away. So it, the unicorn, was a he. The unmistakable trickle was familiar after countless hunts with August. And from how the kirin also looked away, Nisus guessed the two were jack and jill. Opposites.

“What you do?” she pointed to the kirin’s bag, trying to speak by piecing together the words they shared last night. Though the response was slow, the kirin seemed to understand what Nisus was saying.

She pointed to the bag, and then the metal contraptions against the side of the cave. “Get more.”

Nisus kept her face relaxed, but she wondered exactly how much more the kirin meant. It looked like they already had enough parts to build an Ironhearth’s tent. Their contraption looked like a massive box, one flat surface full of little knobs and buttons to touch. It was connected to an equally large curved sheet of metal. It looked like a giant bowl or disk, with a rod sticking from its centre.

She spied the unicorn from the corner of her eye. He was distracted, using a stick to dig up enough dirt to cover the evidence of his activity. If she ran while the kirin was busy, she doubted they’d be able to follow her. They were very low in the lowlands, but the mountain was still her home.

And if she left, she’d be back in her camp by the next night, with no idea what these creatures are doing here with all their metal.

The choice was easy. Escaping meant going back to where they started. Would more attacks continue? The dragon was nowhere to be seen, neither was that bird-horse creature. Nisus gripped her kit by its string and held out her chained arms.

“Friend,” she tried, repeating the Highland pronunciation.

The kirin didn’t say anything, but just nodded with a sad look on its face and shrugged. She pointed to the unicorn. “You say to him.”

Nisus frowned. “You can’t be serious. You’re the one talking to me. He hasn’t done anything, why should he have anything to say about it?”

She looked at Nisus with some surprise, trying to figure out what she said. In the end, though, she simply shrugged again. Of course, her words fell on deaf ears. Nisus scratched her left ear.

“Maybe I’m not one to judge,” she whispered. Even her own voice sounded distant.

“What?” The unicorn wiped his hooves against some moss before grabbing his bag from the cave. “Walk now? What you speak.”

Nisus sighed. They needed to fix their language problem. She lifted her chained claws, holding her hunting kit. One problem at a time, though. “I friend.”

She pointed to their large metal disk. “Help get more.”

The kirin fastened her bag to her back and bounced up to her hooves. She stood with a smile and said no words, using just her eyes to cast an expectant stare at the unicorn.

“Walk now,” he told her in his own language. “Talk later.”

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

Crack. August watched his keus-bhrater stumble back as Muniko’s elbow pulled away. Light from the bonfire bathed the square in an orange haze. Beran retreated from the light, the night’s shadow shrouding the blood on his face.

Crimson red turned to black sludge in the absence of light. The scar across his face might’ve recovered, but it wasn’t completely healed. The soft skin had split open easily to Muniko’s blunt blows. Beran planted his hooves firmly into the ground and grabbed Muniko by the arms before he could land his next blow.

The two Kerns locked horns. Sem’Eo might’ve been an old tradition across all the clans, but the Kerns had their own way of fighting it. Like a long branch pulling up a stone from the dirt, Beran twisted his horn like a lever and cranked Muniko to the ground.

The old Foreteller stumbled, his age showing in his slow recovery to his hooves. For a moment, August took his mind off the hunt. He forgot about his allies and he stopped worried about how many would actually help him find his cousin. Half of the crowd of chimaeras whooped and cheered.

Because Beran was winning. The old Foreteller had two spells left, but Beran was winning. He rushed him down to the dirt before he could stand fully. Muniko’s mark, twin fangs formed on the knees, glowed with some power still. He yelled a spell and his scales turned to spikes.

They rolled and kicked up clouds of dirt. It was hard enough to see with just the fire, their tumbling and thrashing were so hard to follow, all August could tell was that there was a lot of blood sticking to the ground.

“Beran!” shouted Muniko over the chanting of the other Kerns. “You have to stop this!”

“Tired already?” he bellowed back. “If you think you can, then make me! I’m going to prove you wrong.”

“Why risk everything? You know the stories. Dragons were one of the creatures who failed the Elements. They will never bring any good. Fighting them only invites their danger to our family.”

Muniko’s straining voice told the clan what the settling dust was slowly revealing. Beran had him on the ground, head and an arm locked inside a tight grip. Muniko’s scales might have been spikes, but Beran seemed to barely notice the innumerable cuts and gouges over his body. He laid himself over Muniko, his probably nearly double the old jack’s.

With a jerking twist, Muniko’s head turned to an impossible position, and it took no longer than a second for the Foreteller to cry defeat.

August exhaled. Despite his cuts, Beran jumped up, victorious, and waved his arms to the clan. Many cheered, though August noticed that plenty of parents and elders still wore concerned faces. He didn’t blame them. Muniko did a good job stirring their fear. The Kerns already suffered badly from the dragon. Many of their tents, carefully built from their ancestor’s hides, were ruined.

But future tents needed present chimaeras to build them. Muscling his way through problems wasn’t how he wanted to do things, but for Nisus, this way okay. He had to believe Muniko was wrong.

August wormed his way out the crowd of Kerns. Even with their horns, he stood at least half a head taller than the other chimaeras. At his height, he could see to the edge of the Kerns, all the way to the entrance of their camp, where chimaeras from the other clans were waiting to get in to hear who won.

On another day, August would’ve gone straight to Beran to pat him on the back. But their hunt was going to start early. Fahanin and Amorwen would find out if there was anything the highlanders were hiding. But that would be an issue to bring up once Nisus was safe. After fighting the dragon, then the other creatures that they found, and finally trying to chase them down, August knew they’d need more arrows and throwing spears, perhaps even skirmishing shields.

Both encounters with the creatures were hard fights, and they seemed to survive only on luck more than anything else. August felt the exhaustion in his body to prove it. He wanted to lie down and wait for someone to wake him up for the hunt.

But if they were going to succeed against creatures like what he fought, he needed more weapons first before he got sleep.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

The orange light flickering from the Ironhearth’s fire snapped at Amorwen’s hooves like hungry wolf-hares. The trees were misted with the cold air that hadn’t yet left the mountain. None of the highlanders wore blankets, and they formed a wide circle around their fire.

“I wonder how our clan is dealing with this,” groaned one of the Ironhearth traders in a deep, breathy sigh. “It reminds me of home. Foretellers say that the cold air sinks from the top of the mountain, from the peaks that never melt.”

“Every single clan camp on the mountain must be like this,” said another trader, a slightly round and older jack. “We had already left when it happened. If it wasn’t for the survivors chasing us down, even we wouldn’t know what’s happening. Probably every other clan, including ours, is just trying to put the pieces back together.”

“Sharing the burden doesn’t make it lighter,” replied the other trader.

A tap on her shoulder almost made Amorwen jump before she realized the only thing that could’ve snuck up on her was her sister.

“How’s it going on your end?” she asked, unsurprisingly.

“I thought you were going to follow the Frostcorns?” Amorwen whispered.

“I am, but I thought I’d get a head start on their Foreteller. The old jack’s on his way here. And, if I had to guess, I bet the Trapcaster Foreteller’s not too far behind.”

“It can’t be that easy.”

“Still need to find out what they’re here to talk about,” Fahanin reminded her, raising her claws up to her ears. “Naeht ohr.”

Amorwen did the same. Their marks dimmed a little as they focused their magic into their ears. They could hear everything. The way the wind danced on the zoak branches, tickling the leaves, became crisp ticks and scratches in their ears. Every sound was amplified until it was as if they had their ears pressed against the source.

Just as Fahanin had said, they saw the Frostcorn Foreteller walk from the dirt path to join the Ironhearths at their fire. The Ironhearth Foreteller pushed the flaps of the main tent open and greeted his highland kin like a friend.

Metal bowls were passed around by the Ironhearth Foreteller while one of the traders put a pot full of meat broth over the fire. Carrots, fish, and lowland spices were thrown into the pot and left to simmer before each chimaera filled their bowls to the brim. Once they had started eating, the Foreteller from the Trapcaster clan arrived off a narrow path in the forest.

“You’re late,” said the Ironhearth, “I already took the good stuff.”

“What else is new?” The Trapcaster took the bowl handed to him by one of the traders and scooped out some of the soup for himself. “I would’ve come sooner but I passed by the Kern camp on the way. Their Sem’Eo was just decided. The Kerns are going to bless the hunt for the beasts.”

“Would’ve helped anyway,” said the Frostcorn, “The kerns are our lowland siblings, after all. Plus, August’s a Ghending. A hunt’s sure to go our way with him.”

“His cousin was the one the beasts took,” the Ironhearth reminded. “The Ghendings aren’t perfect.”

“Well, the lowlanders were naive to send a small scouting party like that. We would’ve loved to help, but they made the decision by themselves.”

“And now we have to help clean up their mess,” the Trapcaster added after emptying his bowl.

There was a moment of silence between the highlanders. The Ironhearth traders swapped glances, searching in each other’s eyes for the courage to say something. Even from the shadowed trees, Amorwen and Fahanin could hear the breath of the forest take back the air as the jacks stopped talking.

“But can even a Ghending,” started the Trapcaster, “stand against these creatures? We all saw that contraption. The next thing we find might be a weapon aimed at us. They’re clearly still gifted by the Element of Inspiration if they have things like this.”

The Ironhearth nodded. “Which is why we have to support this hunt. Obviously, the Ghendings will want one of their own back, but we also have to keep an eye out for more of their crafts.”

“We could make that task a lot easier if we told them what the sonimitter really is,” the Frostcorn suggested. “Isn’t that why the Element of Trust demanded our ancestors not to hold secrets?”

“The Element of Trust also demanded that we know when to tell the truth,” the Ironhearth said. “But once we bring back that jill and end a successful hunt, my hope is that the truth won’t be necessary. We highlanders will be enough, and once we beat the creatures, everything can return to normal.”

“And if we can’t?” the Frostcorn challenged. “Hide the truth long enough and it won’t matter how much things change after the fighting ends, because the fight would’ve been too long to even remember how things were before.”

“You think they can become that dangerous? The Element of Inspiration might still influence them, but their materials are still limited. There’s no way they can make more of their contraptions.” asked the Trapcaster.

“They already are dangerous. Look at how they attacked us. We haven’t heard any news of the creatures and their creations until now, and they targeted multiple clans just after the Melt. They know they have to conserve what they have, plus, they’re an enemy that knows how to fight larger conflicts, not just win small skirmishes.”

“Telling every lowland clan where that contraption really came from won’t change how strong they are,” the Ironhearth leaned toward the Frostcorn. “All it will do is make the lowlanders stop trusting us. Even if we somehow defeat these new enemies, the highlands will not survive if the lowlands break from us.”

The news hit both Skaiths hard. Without context, it was hard to say how much the highlanders were hiding, but it was clear they weren’t being honest. It was easy to guess that the so-called “sonimitter” was the contraption they had brought back, but what it did was still unclear. It seemed whatever it was, all the highlanders understood its importance. Amorwen and Fahanin read each other’s nervousness and noiselessly slipped away from the Ironhearth camp.

“Is my highlander that rough or did I hear them right?” Fahanin asked her sister. “They knew exactly what that thing was.”

“Seemed like it,” replied Amorwen. “Plus, they mentioned weapons. I don’t think the sonimitter is one of the ones they’re talking about, but it must be complex enough to give them a scare. We need to tell August.”

Her sister nodded, but her arms were crossed unhappily. “We need to tell everyone. Why they would hide their knowledge is beyond me, but it’s obvious they haven’t been playing even with us. All of us.”

“Can’t it wait until we find Nisus?”

“Are you seriously thinking about keeping the secret? You’ll be as bad as they are. There might be no ‘after’ for the hunt if the creatures we’re chasing can make craft things complex enough to scare Trapcasters and Ironhearths.”

“You’re right, but I think August is barely hanging on. He’s desperate to get Nisus back. She might as well be his sister with how close they are.”

Fahanin turned away from her sister, looking for the quietest path through the trees. “What is with you and that Ghending? This secret affects all of us. They may be close, but August and Nisus are just two chimaeras.”

“If it were you, sis,” Amorwen said, “I wouldn’t anyone distract me from getting you back.”

Fahanin barely nodded to such an obvious fact. “Yeah, but if you could cast as many spells as a Foreteller, you’d be rushing off without considering the consequences. If you’re worried how he’ll act, think about this: if he finds out there’s a secret while we’re hunting, it’s going to go way worse.”

“Fine,” Amorwen gave in, “but we need to make sure this hunt happens, no matter what. August is rallying them because of Nisus, but if he loses his focus, it’s a matter of time before those creatures are free to strike at the Skaiths.”

“Then we better go,” Fahanin said, leaning off from one tree branch and reaching right for the next step. Amorwen followed, and they both slipped from the camp as easily as the smoke blew away from the fire. Bringing up the secret was going to shock them. Amorwen considered if the highlanders would do anything desperate to save themselves. But what would come, would come. There was nothing in the world that didn’t happen without consequence.

-------------------------->>>><<<<--------------------------

Nisus raised her hands over her eyes, shielding out the morning’s light. Their side of the mountain faced the rising sun, meaning it would be many more hours before the mountain provided it all-encompassing shade.

The unicorn walked far in front, using magic from his horn to chop leaves and bushes out of their path. Nisus, kept her eyes ahead, scanning the way she normally did for animals when she hunted. With so much noise, she was surprised they hadn’t been driven off by a wolf-lion or ox-bear. Of all the predators on the mountain, those were the two with the widest territories. It was almost a guarantee that they were walking through their territory.

Does he have to be so loud? She wanted to ask the kirin, she had no idea how to say it. Hiking together gave them the chance to trade words for other things, like “tree” and “rock,” but they were still far from holding a conversation.

“Hm?” The kirin ruffled Nisus’s mane, tilting her head with an inquisitive look. Speaking might have been hard, but she seemed fine with using simple gestures.

Nisus motioned with her claws to the unicorn and then pointed to her own ear while twisting her face into an irritated expression. The kirin just smiled and nodded, and then spoke a few sentences.

Her words were slow, but all Nisus just shrugged and tilted her head. “I have no idea what you just said. But he doesn’t have to cut all the branches.”

Her words fell flat on their unfamiliar ears. Her ears, meanwhile, were as alert as her eyes. Nisus tapped her left side frequently, trying to get her crystal ear to work with her normal side. Sounds shifted from being off-time to turning completely muffled. Worse still, snaps and pops would come out of nowhere, even if she couldn’t see any source for them.

Focus on the markings. Being her home, she could read the lowlands like a Foreteller scrawling on a sheet of hide. Even so far away from her own clan, there were signs of exactly where on the mountain they were on. The upward hike made the first part obvious. Whatever her captors were looking for, it was higher up on the mountain.

Then she watched the stones and the trees. They were certainly too high up the mountain to be found by any Gadurons or Apelgadurons. The dragon’s cave was the border between the Kern and the Wefans, but she was sure she was much further than that. Wefans grew a special plant that only they knew how to care for. If they were in Wefan territory, she would have seen some cotton-flax saplings by now.

Nisus recalled the lessons from her Foretellers. Leodth, one of the oldest Foretellers in the Ghending, knew every other clan on the mountain, lowland or highland.

“The river that the Wefans use to water their trees,” he used to tell her, usually when she was tired of August’s magic lessons, “is a thinner offshoot of the Longway River.”

Nisus wondered as they walked how big the river was exactly. Both the name and the river came from the highlands, where everlasting glaciers melted new water into a massive lake. Combined, the river and lake were the largest body of water Nisus had ever heard of, excluding tales from Life Hunts of a far-off saltwater lake so massive it swallowed the horizon.

She had never seen the Longway herself, but if they had passed the Wefans, they were sure to find it eventually. The river cut through the mountain from the very top down to even the surrounding hills.

“Stop here,” the unicorn took Nisus out of her daydreaming strut. They had been walking through dense forests, though not aimlessly. On their right, the mountain sprouted up dramatically, almost like a cliff. The narrow path they were following barely held off the roots and bushes around it, but made easy work of the steep slope by winding back and forth.

Nisus quickly checked the trees around them. Paths as long as this one were usually made for travelling between clan camps and blocked off during the winter. But she didn’t recognize where this one could lead. Stranger still, there were snapped branches up the path, cut the same way the unicorn did.

The days since the Melt felt long with all their fighting, but that didn’t change the fact that it hadn’t been long since the paths were fully thawed. No chimaera, no matter their clan, would’ve spent the time to clear out the trees.

They had been here since the winter. That was the only conclusion Nisus could draw. There was no other way to explain how giant dragons and contraptions of metal could go unnoticed. Most clans sent their hunters away tracking herds of animals during the winter, and few ever left the walls of their camp while it snowed.

“What now?” Nisus asked, not caring if the kirin understood her or not. Walking in silence for the past hour or so was beyond boring.

“Metal,” the kirin said in its language before swapping to lowlander. “Metal here.”

Nisus listened and nodded, watching whatever the unicorn did. He stepped off the path to a small ditch that led into the side of the mountain and then suddenly disappeared behind a wall of overlapping bushes. Nisus peered, trying to see what he was doing, but there was no way from where they stood.

Nisus started following. As far as hiding places went, this wasn’t bad, but it wouldn’t take more than a few weeks for the local clan to discover something was here.

“What’s here?” Nisus called out as the kirin quickly matched her pace.

“Wait,” she said, tugging on Nisus’ arm with a field of magic. Her injury shot pain all the way up her shoulder, forcing her to wince and stop in her tracks. She cast a dirty look at the kirin, though she had no words to say.

Before any explanation could be given, the unicorn came out of the cave with a metal contraption strapped to his back. Nisus recognized its arrangement of turning knobs immediately. It was the very same from the dragon’s cave where they fought, and like the one back at the smaller cave.

She watched as the unicorn’s horn glowed, seeming to connect to the contraption. There was a small crystal piece on the front with the knobs. Nisus didn’t pay attention to it at first, but now it came alive with a shimmering display of lights.

“Sonimitter,” pointed the kirin. She repeated the word again slowly for Nisus.

“Sonu-meta,” Nisus tried repeating, trying to follow the shape of the kirin’s mouth.

Suddenly, a crackling sound shot through her left ear. It sounded like a heavy rainstorm, but only on one side of her head. Nisus clutched it, spinning her head around for the source of the sound, but there was only them. The kirin quickly offered her horn as a post for Nisus to lean on.

“What?” she asked, shocked. The unicorn stared as well before flicking his eyes around nervously at the trees.

Her ear didn’t hurt, but the constant buzzing noise was maddening and made even paying attention to the kirin’s words difficult. Nisus wracked her brain to come up with a word, but all she could do was point to her left ear.

“Loud!” she yelled.

The unicorn’s voice betrayed his panic as his words became impossibly fast. He cut his connection to the contraption and levitated it aside, and said something to the kirin, tugging as her hoof to go in some other direction.

Nisus snapped her head at the unicorn. She heard him clearly. In fact, she realized, the moment he set down the sonimitter, the noise was gone. She let go of her ear and pointed right at the contraption.

“What is that thing supposed to do?” she cried out at the two of them, not caring if they understood or not. “Why is it so loud?”

They both looked at each other dumbfounded. “Why loud?” asked the kirin. She pointed to Nisus’s ear. “What you hear?”

Nisus thought for a moment. She cupped her claws over her mouth and made as low of a buzzing sound with her tongue as she could. “Brzzrt!”

The unicorn shook his head, denying it. Nisus sat and listened to him drone on about something, but all she could do was look irritated at him. The sound was loud and clear. The unicorn was in no position to lecture her about what she should or should not have heard.

Part of her wanted to turn it on again, just to prove it was the contraption that made the noise. Whatever was wrong with the piece of crystal that Foreteller Walgpurgia put in her ear had something to do with it, Nisus was sure. But the name, sonimitter, meant nothing to her, it didn’t even sound like a highland word. Though, that made sense as Nisus thought about it. Metal or not, the contraption looked completely different from what highlanders made. Even if they could figure out what it did, they probably didn’t have a word for its design.

As the kirin and unicorn muttered to themselves, Nisus reached out and fiddled with the knobs. The stubby protrusions spun freely, up to a point.

“Hey!” shouted the unicorn, snatching the contraption up with a simple levitation spell. Nisus stood up against him, face to face, scrunching her nose in frustration at how, despite their massive language barrier, she still knew how stubborn he was. She pointed to the sonimitter with a firm glare at could cut through an ox-bear.

The unicorn stepped back, looking at the sonimitter and then back to Nisus with some kind of understanding. “Okay.”

The contraption responded immediately to the glowing of his horn, and again the sound returned, though quieter. Nisus pointed to her left ear and nodded. “But less,” she said in their language to be clear.

The unicorn furrowed his brows and twisted one of the knobs, and the noise suddenly surged in her head so much that the pain almost felt like pressure against her skull. Nisus’s claws snapped back to her ear again and she almost toppled from the surprise.

“Stop,” cried the kirin, turning the knob back. She looked at the unicorn with a funny look. Nisus didn’t need a translation to know what “I told you so” looked like. Now the kirin took her time blasting words at the unicorn. Nearly all of what she sounded like gibberish, but Nisus was just happy to make the unicorn look bad.

Whatever she said, the unicorn seemed to agree with a long sequence of head nodding. Once they were done, the kirin helped Nisus up, levitating her by her good arm this time.

“You follow,” she said, “need speak to dragon.”