“You should have done something.”

Allison would have refused to ride with Professor Ruggs, but the first time she’d jumped off the mule, the slavers had threatened to whip Kattoh instead of her as punishment. As a result, she sat on the mule, arms folded, glaring at the professor’s back.

“Allison, keep your voice down,” Professor Ruggs warned. He sighed and Allison saw him reach up a hand to rub at the tight curls of his gray and white hair. “We have been over this — what could we have done?”

Allison didn’t know, but that wasn’t the point. “Something, anything!”

She’d thought nothing could be worse than the storm: giant purple clouds crashing like tidal waves in the sky while birds the size of airliners surfed the wake, summoning lightning strikes with each flap of their wings. The slavers and their captives took shelter on a rocky bluff crowned by the formations they called a Tall Spear as the fire bison stampeded by them. The thousands of fire snorting animals had trampled any doubts Allison had about the existence of magic in this world. Them and the constant threat of being deep fried by the thunderbirds shooting lightning down all around them. Even Ubira’s black bird Shakraa remained grounded during the storm, hissing up at the sky and clacking her beak. Allison was sure she would have eaten one of the captives if any had been within her reach.

The mana storm, as the slavers and Professor Ruggs called it, had been scary. Watching Ubira’s warriors massacre, a group of innocent traders had been terrible on a different level. Allison had wanted to stop it even though she knew she was powerless to do anything. When they spotted the trader camp, the slavers had left the captives out of sight and under guard a few ridges away. When they returned an hour or so later, laden with stolen pack animals, goods and more captives, it wasn’t hard to figure out what transpired. Once regrouped, they’d steered wide of the camp, so Allison didn’t witness the results of the raid for herself. But she heard the cries of the new captives and saw the smoke trails in the sky. And she still remembered how it felt the night in the village when she’d been taken.

It wasn’t fair to blame Professor Ruggs any more than the other prisoners, but Allison thought the professor could at least show a little outrage at the slavers or empathy for those taken.

Professor Ruggs sighed again — Allison learned early in life she was good at invoking that response in adults. But this time, he lowered his voice. “There will come a time when we can escape. Until then, we must appear to be weak and submissive. Let the guards believe we have no ideas of running. This kept me alive among the Fire Bison band who held me.”

“A lot of good that did you,” Allison said. “They sold you off to someone worse.” She had no desire to be a sheep and grew more mad at herself each day she didn’t try to get away from Ubira, threats or no.

Professor Ruggs looked around, judging how close the nearest slavers were to them. They rode at the front of the column of prisoners. Most of the guards were to the left and right or the rear of the party. With almost twenty armed and mounted men and women to the front, there was little need to waste additional guards there.

“I have been listening to Ubira’s slavers as they talk during the day, in the morning and over the fires at night,” Professor Ruggs said. “Our destination is not the Kingdom of the Sun Hawk. Ubira has not shared where he is leading the group. Even with Tapuk gone, the slavers are worried that they will be trapped in the mountains by the Southern Earth Badger Empire. Especially now that they attacked one of their trading caravans.”

Allison considered herself a pretty smart girl, but she didn’t really understand why it mattered where they were going. She said as much to Professor Ruggs.

“Use that head of yours,” Professor Ruggs said, sounding like a teacher the most since Allison had met him. “I’m told Ubira knows secret pathways through the mountains into the Kingdom of the Sun Hawk, which is how he usually takes captives to be sold as slaves without the Earth Badger Empire’s notice. But we aren’t traveling in that direction. From what the slavers say, it is more south and now we travel almost due west.”

“I told you, Ubira said we were going to the mountains, to a special place,” Allison said. When she’d returned from her private conversation with Ubira, she’d told Professor Ruggs everything. He’d wondered about it ever since.

“But where? And why?” Professor Ruggs asked. Allison didn’t know if he intended her to respond or not. Either way, she didn’t have the answers. “The Kingdom of the Sun Hawk is south of the mountains. West, there is nothing but more of the Earth Badger mountains. It is not expensive or easy to keep this many slaves. The longer we go, the more we eat, the weaker we get and Ubira’s profits dwindle.”

Allison thought about that for a minute. “So… maybe Ubira isn’t going to sell us?”

Professor Ruggs nodded without turning around. Allison really hated talking to someone on horseback. When Professor Ruggs spoke so quiet she could barely understand him. Even if it was out of necessity so the slavers didn’t hear, it was still annoying.

“That’s right. None of this group of slavers had ever worked with Ubira before he began raiding this spring. My guess is we’re going somewhere he doesn’t want anyone to know about and whatever is there, he wants to keep it a secret. And this ‘great work’ he mentioned… I do not like the sound of that.”

Allison considered this. She already knew the chances of Kellen finding her were like a needle in a haystack after the storm. If Ubira really was taking them to a hidden location, her chances of being rescued were almost zero. Not that she’d ever planned on waiting to be rescued in the first place, but it definitely increased her urgency.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Professor Ruggs said. “Don’t do anything reckless. Our chance will come.”

Looking off to the left, Allison locked eyes with one of the slavers — a man with long hair, a wild beard, and a scar running from just in front of his ear all the way down to his chin. It cut through his tangled and snarled beard, giving him an even more sinister look. Allison’s insides ran cold. Could he hear them? On the outside, she glared back until the man cracked a wide, gap-toothed smile and turned his attention elsewhere.

“Listen carefully to me,” Professor Ruggs said, voice so low Allison had to strain to hear his words. “Our best opportunity will be once we reach the mountains. Out here on foot, there is nowhere we can run or hide. In the mountains, there is hope.”

“I’m not leaving Kattoh and Myri,” Allison said. Myri was the young Storm Horse girl the slavers had paired with Kattoh after Allison was sent to ride the mule with Professor Ruggs. The three of them were the only children in the group. Allison couldn’t imagine leaving them both in the hands of the slavers. After listening to Professor Ruggs, being sold into a life a servitude was almost preferable to the unknown reality they faced. She wouldn’t abandon them.

The professor paused for a long time before he responded. “We will make a plan. Now is not the time for that.”

Allison felt impatience to do something but knew Professor Ruggs was right. Especially after the leers of the bearded slaver, she felt there were more eyes and ears on them than it seemed. Bored and with nothing to do while she sat on the back of a mule, she went back to her habit of studying the slavers. After days and days, she’d put together a pretty good picture of the group. She knew the faces and most of the names of all twenty-five slavers and any other details they exposed. Allison knew the weapons they each preferred, which were most likely to doze off during watch, who smoked from the long curved pipes, who Ubira trusted the most and which were in charge of brewing the nasty drink all the slaves on foot drank.

The drink she guessed, kept the slaves from succumbing to exhaustion. It was the only possible explanation of how people could run all day long and not die. The strange antelope man statue had something to do with it too and Professor Ruggs had confirmed this theory. He called it a totem and claimed it had powers to make the people and horses tire less easily, as well as giving them extra speed. That explained the strange tingling sensation in Allison’s legs each time she got too close to it. To her eyes, however, they didn’t seem to be moving any faster than a regular group of riders and joggers would. When Professor Ruggs explained what the totem did, she half expected to see the grass go whipping by like the view out of a car window.

Allison studied Shakraa too, though the tattered black bird was the least favorite of her subjects. The bird hadn’t come back with any further injuries since the first incident before the storm, so Allison guessed it hadn’t been in any more fights with the other creatures Professor Ruggs called Mana Beasts. The bird had grown in size, though. She was now too large to perch on Ubira’s arm, and none of the horses would stand to be anywhere near her. Allison amused herself by imagining what the bird would look like stuffed in a Natural History museum or a sporting goods store. Sometimes she could picture it as a giant cooked turkey in the middle of the Thanksgiving dinner table. That said, she wouldn’t have eaten a drumstick that came from Shakraa even if her other choice was to starve to death.

She never heard the bird say anything intelligible, though Professor Ruggs said Mana Beasts could speak just like people. Allison still didn’t entirely buy that, especially when Shakraa only hissed, shrieked and screeched whenever she returned from a flight to Ubira. It seemed the slaver leader could understand her because he always listened intently to her sounds and seemed to take away information that determined when and where they made camp. Allison felt certain the bird had warned Ubira about the mana storm and stampede because they’d gone out of their way on a half day’s hike to climb to the top of the bluff.

Ubira’s promise to kill Kellen still rang in her mind. If she were braver, she would have asked the slaver if the bird had any news about her brother. Had he been caught in the giant storm and stampeding buffalo? Was he still searching for her? Counting guards and observing their mannerisms and quirks were the only activities that kept these questions off her mind.

Allison thought Professor Ruggs was a good person. She wanted to trust him, to believe him when he said they would come up with a plan to escape together. But even she knew that one person could get away easier than four, or even two. If it came down to it and she hard her chance, could she leave the others behind if it meant reuniting with Kellen? What would he do if he were in her shoes?