Tama’s prediction proved true: the mana storm and the accompanying stampeded erased every sign of Ubira’s group’s passing. They ate well the first night — as much buffalo meat cooked over an open fire as any of them wanted. By the time they finished, Vex could do little more than roll over and groan. Kellen felt stuffed for the first time in days and spent the evening waiting for Vex to throw up all over him.

Luckily it never came, but the storm horses weren’t as fortunate in their feast as the humans. With the grass trampled and burned, they had nothing to eat until the group made camp on the second day, south of the stampeding herd’s path of destruction. The going wasn’t much slower with Kellen riding double behind Nokom, though the experience was less than ideal for anyone. Kellen vowed if he ever got his own horse again he would never complain about chafing and a stiff rear end.

On the third day, they found signs of a camp. None of the band could say for certain if it belonged to Ubira and the slavers or not. All they could tell was that several pack animals and people had stayed there, next to the last dregs of a wide but shallow spring. Gathering another ball of storm mana, Nokom dried a trail to the water through the mud. To refill their water skins, the group still had to wade through knee deep mud before they could reach the fresh water. They took turns watering the storm horses by leading them down the half-dried trail Nokom created a path to the water, ensuring none of the horses jostled one another off the track and up to their bellies in the bog.

Chief Tama pushed them hard. The band rode until the last light faded and was in the saddle by the first hint of golden dawn. Kellen noticed the grasses grew shorter and the Tall Spears appeared over the horizon less frequently. Instead, a long, jagged line like a cracked knife appeared in the distance ahead of them: their first look at the tallest mountains he’d ever seen. Here and there, pine trees and oak brush took the place of cottonwoods and sagebrush.

“We are nearing the edge of the Thunder Plains,” Nokom explained when Kellen asked about their location. “Soon we will come into the foothills of the Southern Earth Badger Empire. If the tracks we saw at that spring were not Ubira, they may be traders from the Empire. Their routes pass this way from the east.”

It was hard not to be discouraged when no one knew for certain if they were still on the right track or not. Kellen did his best to fuel his worry into his training, but at the end of a hard day of riding, summoning the physical and mental fortitude to put himself through the ringer didn’t come easy. After the stampede, Nokom and Ira drilled Kellen and Vex until they were almost asleep on their feet. While Kellen worked on improving the size, thickness and duration he could hold his shields, Ira and Vex staged mock fights flying and on the ground, their blasts of purple-blue and golden mana lighting up the night sky like a mini firework show. Tama complained to Nokom about the lights and the noise but Nokom snapped back saying it was necessary if they wanted Vex and Kellen as ready as possible when they confronted Ubira.

Although his shield work improved in slow but visible increments, Kellen still struggled to manifest and shoot the golden bolts of light. No matter how much she showed Kellen and how long they practiced, his mana projectiles still looked liked they’d passed through a low definition, static-y lens. They crackled and sputtering, throwing out sparks at random, reminding Kellen of a roman candle someone tried to light while it was wet. After an intense and frustrating practice, he suggested to Nokom that maybe the problem was the difference between her storm mana techniques and his sun mana.

“Been a beastcaller for two weeks and now you think you know the secrets of mana, do you?” she said, rapping him on the head with her knuckles. “The basics are the basics. There’s no need to teach you how to do anything more advanced until you can control the mana.”

“But my shields are a lot better!” Kellen protested.

“A coyote who only knows one trick to hunt often goes home hungry,” Ira said, landing beside his beastcaller. Vex hovered overhead and landed on Kellen’s shoulder.

The last thing Kellen wanted to hear was another Nokom or Ira-ism. He groaned and rubbed his head, which pounded from the effort he’d expelled over the last hour trying to solidify a beam of sun mana strong enough to cut through an oval of storm mana Nokom projected as a target. So far, his pencil-sized bolts hit the twisting purple-gray surface and either ricocheted or disappeared in a puff that resembled pixie dust like Tinker Bell got hit by a freight train.

“You must picture the mana bending to your will in your mind,” Nokom said. “If you cannot see it there, you cannot wield it out here. Vex cannot advance to Companion-strength unless you understand the fundamentals.”

What she didn’t say but what was abundantly clear to Kellen was that he, not Vex, was the reason they were being held back. He had no response or excuse. The randomness of his successful use of mana drove him crazier than if he hadn’t been able to do anything at all. It made no sense that he could conjure a shield strong enough to knock aside a wall of stampeding buffalo, yet he couldn’t send a finger-sized projectile through a little wind gust. The old woman poked him in the forehead.

“The problem is in here. You have the ability, but you are not convinced yet. What is it that holds you back?”

Kellen didn’t answer. He had his suspicions — having what felt like a foot in each world was a big one. In the back of his mind, he remained convinced this would all be a strange memory one day. His future was set: he’d live an unremarkable but fulfilling life the same as every Lars had before him since they’d first immigrated to Idaho. But was that really what he wanted from life? The unknown stretched before him, a world of endless possibility — and danger, yes — but it beckoned to him. Every bizarre aspect of Oras whispered the same question: do you have the courage to walk a new path?

When Kellen looked up, Nokom studied him with piercing gray eyes. It was like his thoughts were written plain on his face. She nodded in understanding. “The time will come when you must make a choice, traveler. No one else can make it for you. Now! Perhaps we may clear your head with different training. Work the body hard enough, and the mind does not have time to wander. Begin!”

Stifling a groan, Kellen dropped to the ground and back up again. He didn’t know why are how people in a different dimension of magic animals had discovered burpees, but he would have traded it for almost any other exercise. Since most of their morning trainings were short, Nokom had transplanted his runs with a bodyweight circuit that would have made a crossfit junkie dry heave, which Kellen did more often than not before they were done. Vex bounced up and down with Kellen, shouting encouragement that didn’t help.

“More breathing, less puking!”

Later in the day, Kellen swayed in the saddle, waking with a start just before he fell off the back of Nokom’s storm horse. The old woman glanced over her shoulder and chuckled. “Asleep again, are you?”

Kellen rubbed his eyes and did his best to stretch the knots in his back. He’d never had a professional massage on Earth but after the last weeks of training, he would have sold the farm for one. Each time they slowed the horses to a walk, he was in danger of dozing off. Usually, Nokom made him walk as punishment. Before she could even ask, Kellen sighed and dismounted. Walking would loosen his stiff muscles, anyway.

No sooner had his feet hit the ground than Ira glided back toward them. He’d been scouting ahead as they following the tracks near the spring. He spread his wings wide and dropped to the ground, causing the storm horses to snort in annoyance at the gust of wind and grass stalks that swirled up in the wake of his landing.

“Not Ubira,” he said at Tama and Nokom’s questioning looks. “But he has been this way. Earth Badger traders are camped ahead. I did not speak to them, but by the look of it, someone recently attacked them. I would bet my wings it was the slavers.”

Kellen’s pulse quickened. If nothing else, they could speak to the traders and know for certain. Nokom was already motioning him back on the storm horse. While Kellen climbed back on, Shani pulled her horse up beside her mother. “Let me ride ahead with Night Rains and Shinopah. The slavers may not be far if they stopped to attack this group.”

Tama shook her head. “Earth Badger traders are usually friendly, but we are in their lands now, not ours. They may think we are another raiding party. We will stick together.”

Shani held her horse in front of her mother and Kellen could all but see the tension spike between mother and daughter. Night Rains and Shinopah stood behind Shani, clearly voting for her suggestion over the chief’s

“This could be our chance to catch them. They will be tired and slow after a fight and we are fresh.”

“We do not know if it was the slavers that attacked them or how large the raiding party was,” Tama said, voice raised. “We will remain together until we know more. This is my command as chief of this band.”

Shani still didn’t move her horse. Kellen didn’t know if she’d turn its head and ride off or if she wanted a fight.

“Either challenge me for the right to lead or move aside,” Tama said in a growl loud enough for the entire band to hear. Shani looked to be considering her options. Nokom nudge her storm horse forward and pushed it between Shani and Tami.

“Enough of this foolishness,” the old woman snapped. “I have no patience for it and we have not the time to waste. While we are standing here, talking we could be riding for these traders.”

“Our beastcaller is right,” Tama said. “Let’s go.”

Kellen watched with apprehension as Tama’s storm horse brushed past Shani’s. The chief kept her eyes head, not bothering to look at her daughter. Even to Kellen it was a clear statement: Tama wasn’t worried about a challenge. Shani’s gaze followed her mother as she rode past, then she fell in behind her, jaw set, refusing to look at the others. Kellen recalled his conversation with Nokom. In spite of the old woman’s advice, he still wondered if there was something he could do to free Shani from the burden she felt she owed him. He resolved to find the chance to speak with her alone… outside of the reach of her knife, anyway.

Following Ira’s lead, the horses loped over the hills toward the trader camp. As they drew closer, Kellen spotted a few columns of smoke rising in the sky and his stomach rumbled, thinking of a hot meal. When they came to the top of a windswept ridge overlooking the valley below, his rumbling stomach clenched in fear.

Even at their distance, it was easy to see the bodies carried by the living toward shallow graves, and the cairns of rocks covering the fresh mounds of graves already filled. Dead donkeys, llamas and dogs were scattered across the area, impaled by spears or stuck full of arrows. Two wagons still smoldered, spilling their contents over the ground. The wind carried the scent of smoke away, though it wasn’t strong enough to take the cries and lamentations of the living with it. Kellen had not seen the Gray Dawn camp after the attack. He could only imagine how the two raids must have been similar. A shiver ran down the base of his neck.

The mourners broke their chants and wails short at the sight of the Gray Dawn band. No doubt a line of riders on the skyline filled them with greater terror. Several ran for weapons, while others ushered wounded and non-fighters back behind the growing line of warriors. All together, there seemed to be just under thirty. Kellen wondered at the size and strength of Ubira’s band if they’d attacked such a large trading party.

Tama raised a hand in greeting. The Earth Badger traders held their weapons and defensive line.

“Well,” Nokom said. “We may not be welcome company after all.”