“We will go down first,” Nokom said.

Kellen thought she meant just her and Ira and started to slide off the horse, but Nokom stopped him.

“You and I,” she said. “Keep Vex close and do not let him open his mouth.”

“You know, there’s no reason to specifically mention — gah!”

Kellen snatched Vex out of the air and the Mana Beast shifted into his fox form as Kellen drew him into his arms. Holding Vex while he changed was a weird, unsettling experience, like holding a squirming cat or baby that suddenly looked like something else in the blink of an eye.

They rode down the hill toward the camp, Ira running on the ground next to them. Kellen thought Nokom might stop the storm horse out of the range of the drawn bows, but she seemed undeterred by the weapons pointed at them. Still dozens of paces away, three arrows suddenly sprang into the air. For an instant, Kellen thought about scrambling off the horse and taking cover, but Ira shot off of the ground into the sky and knocked the arrows away with a gust of wind generated by his unfurled wings. Kellen would have waited to make sure no more arrows followed by Nokom continued on. No more arrows came their way.

Feeling slightly ashamed to hide behind an old lady serving as his shield, Kellen peered over Nokom’s shoulder at the Earth Badger traders as they approached. Their appearance was quite unlike the Gray Dawn warriors. In place of storm-gray skin, theirs were rich shades of browns and tans. Their hair was all dark, though Kellen couldn’t place their complexion or physical features to any one Earth nationality. In place of leather and feathers, they wore linen robes in various cream colors and sandals laced up their legs with leather straps. Many had bangles of bronze on their wrists or arms or sported other bronze jewelry like hair beads, necklaces, and piercings. Their expressions looked as stony and implacable as the earth of their namesake. Kellen had run into more than one badger out working the fields at home. To say the animals were mean was to say the mana storm they’d just lived through was a bit of bad weather. He hoped Earth Badger people didn’t take after the animal too much.

“Peace,” Nokom said, raising a hand when they were only a dozen paces away. “Unless you keep shooting arrows at us.”

A big, blockish man stepped forward from the line of warriors holding spears, bows, and slings. His white hair was shaved close to his head, though he sported a large beard that jutted out from his face like a rocky spur from a mountainside. “Forgive us. We have not found many friends on this journey, Storm Horse.”

“You will not find enemies with us, at least,” Nokom replied. “I am Nokom, Beastcaller of Gray Dawn. Ira is the name of my Mana Beast.”

The big man raised his chin and locked eyes with Kellen. “And where did you find that half-starved boy clinging to your back?”

Kellen flushed, and Nokom turned around on the storm horse to look at him. “This is Kellen. He is a beastcaller also.”

Murmurs of surprise rose from the traders and they shifted their attention to him. He noticed several of the men and women whispering to one another and pointing, no doubt confused by his pale skin.

The white-bearded man nodded. If he was surprised at Kellen’s introduction, he didn’t show it. “My name is Zaramah. We are traders from the Eastern Earth Badger Empire and belong to the Splintered Stone tribe. If you come in peace, then we mean you no harm. We have had our fill of battle.”

While they spoke, Kellen’s eyes wandered around the destruction of the camp. Up close, the aftermath of the attack pulled at him like a physical weight. Several bodies still awaited burial, and flies already buzzed around the slaughtered llamas. Kellen had seen and smelled his share of dead livestock — you couldn’t avoid it living on a farm — and the scent already floated on the air. He almost wished the chants of the mourners would return to fill the oppressive quiet. How could people do this to one another?

“We are twelve, including the four of us you see here,” Nokom said. “We have searched many days for slavers who attacked our camp. I think you have encountered the same raiding party. Would you let the rest of my band join us so that we may share stories of our misfortunes?”

“We hardly have enough supplies to feed ourselves until we can reach an Earth Badger outpost,” Zaramah said. “All our valuables were taken in the raid that left us as you see here.”

“That is fine,” Nokom said. “We have our own food and even in your state, you are still twice our number. We want nothing but peace, and maybe some information about those who attacked you.”

Zaramah stepped back and had a brief conversation with another man and two women. Kellen guessed the four were the leaders of the traders, or at least those most capable of taking charge after the attack. Throughout their conversation, the other armed traders kept close watch on Kellen and Nokom, though their bows were no longer drawn. Behind them, peeking out of the ruins of a wagon and cart, Kellen caught several children staring at Vex and Ira. Their cheeks were dirty and streaked with lines of tears. Kellen’s heart felt like breaking. He wondered how many of them were orphaned or missing a mother, father or sibling that evening because of Ubira.

Vex jumped out of Kellen’s arms and transformed into his bat shape. Before Kellen could ask what he was doing, the little Mana Beast started blowing golden bubbles the size of basketballs. They floated down to the children, who laughed and bounced them around like balloons. Kellen smiled and felt a wave of pride that Vex could help distract them from the horrors they’d no doubt witnessed during the attack. The little Mana Beast landed in the middle of a group of the children, popping back into a round fox once more. The kids gathered around him, laughing in delight as they ran their hands through his thick, soft fur.

“And why aren’t you over there?” Nokom asked Ira.

The coyote shot her a dry look. His half-starved frame didn’t scream out to be cuddled. “If I looked like that, I would be. I don’t want them to think I’m coming to eat them.”

Nokom met his dry look with a dry chuckle. “Once, long ago, you were that fluffy. Don’t feel too bad, old man.”

“We have agreed that you may share our fires this evening,” Zaramah said when he finally returned. “Call the rest of your band down.”

Nokom bowed as low as she could while remaining on horseback. “We are grateful for your kindness.”

Soon the rest of the Gray Dawn warriors joined them and, as promised, they were seated around a fire with Zaramah and the other three traders he’d conferred with to decide if they could stay. Totoso, Night Rains and Ishtas watched over their storm horses while the others listened to the Earth Badger traders given an accounting of their attack.

“They came at dawn yesterday, down the same ridge you were on,” Zaramah said. “We outnumbered them, but they had a Mana Beast with them — a great black bird. None of our arrows or spears could harm it and it broke apart our line. We only had a single beastcaller with us — her and her beast were guardian-strength, but the bird cut them down like it was nothing. Once they were dead and the warriors were inside our camp, it was all we could do to defend ourselves. I think they only left because they had all the supplies and captives they could carry off.”

It surprised Kellen to see that Tama looked angry instead of sympathetic. “Why were you traveling with so few warriors?”

Zaramah met her disdain with an expression of stone. “The southern trade routes have been safe for a generation. We thought we had nothing to fear except bad weather and perhaps a wild mana beast”

While he fed Vex pieces of corn cakes the traders had shared with them in exchange for fresh buffalo meat, Kellen watched Nokom. She seemed troubled by something, though when she saw his questioning glance, she shook her head. A look passed between Ira and Nokom and she cleared her throat.

“You said they had a Mana Beast. What of the enemy beastcaller?”

“We never saw him.” The speaker was a middle-aged woman with hair braided down both shoulders and bronze bangles covering her arms from wrist to bicep. “There was a bald man with a black spear that appeared to be an enchanted artifact. The lower half of his face was covered. We have heard rumors of Ubira the Slaver before, but I did not know he attacked trade parties too.”

“These are the same slavers we hunt,” Tama said. “Ubira attacked our village half a moon ago, and we have chased him all the way across the southern Thunder Plains. I am sorry we were not here sooner. It may have changed the course of the battle.”

“What will you do now?” Nokom asked Zaramah.

“Continue to the nearest outpost,” the man said. “The trip will be a complete loss. The best we can hope for is to sell enough of what we have left and perhaps barter enough over the winter to make a small profit when we return home in the spring.”

“But the slavers stole your people.” Shani spoke for the first time, and if her mother had been disapproving of Zaramah, she sounded full of outright contempt. “You would abandon them?”

Zaramah’s heavy brows furrowed, and his square jaw tightened beneath his beard. “Who are you to speak to me in such a way? My duty is to the living you see around you. Do you think my pack llamas and donkeys could catch the slavers? And then what? More would die.”

“We tried to follow them,” the woman with the braids and bangles said. “The bird drove us off and even without it, they moved with unnatural speed, even those on foot.”

Shani was half standing up and clearly unsatisfied with the answers the traders gave. Nokom laid a hand on her arm. “Peace, Shani. Our guests have suffered much.” She peered at the Earth Badger woman across the crackling fire. “How close did you get to them?”

The woman shook her head. “Not close. The black bird made sure of that. After it killed our beastcaller and her mana beast, it grew to an even greater size.”

Once again, Nokom sank into a thoughtful expression but asked no further questions. Tama nodded to each of the men and women.

“We must continue in the morning. If we catch Ubira and his slavers, and are victorious, I promise we will return your people safe to an outpost in Earth Badger lands.”

Still seated, Zaramah bent forward in a bow. “We would be forever in your debt. I hope your mana is strong and you can do as you say.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Kellen watched Shani. She looked like someone had stuffed a chunk of buffalo dung in her mouth. She clearly thought the reasons the traders hadn’t gone after Ubira were thinly-veiled excuses.

A look passed between the other three Earth Badger leaders. “Is there no way we could pay for your protection on the last leg of your journey? Even your young beastcaller here would be invaluable to us.”

Kellen flushed as the attention turned to him. Before he could speak, however, Nokom ended the trader woman’s hopes. “He is bound to me.”

“And I will need all of my warriors if we have a chance of overcoming Ubira,” Tama added. Kellen had lived with the Gray Dawn band long enough to know the offer had been taken as an insult to the band’s loyalty, and likely a personal insult against Tama.

“Plus you couldn’t afford us,” Vex added after swallowing a mouthful of corn cake. “But your food is pretty great!”

Kellen’s faced burned even redder. He stuffed the rest of the cake into Vex’s mouth before he could get them in real trouble. As he did, he thought he saw the tiniest twitch of a lip that might have been a smile appear for a moment on Tama’s face. The Earth Badger woman did not seem impressed.

“Sorry,” Kellen muttered. “He’s… still learning.”

Nokom coughed and rose with a groan. Kellen knew better than to believe she was really that tired or stiff. It must have been a front to end the conversation before they were no longer welcome in the trader's camp. “It has been a long day for all. We should rest and speak in the morning.” Beside her, Ira stood and stretched his legs, mouth spreading in a wide yawn too.

“My warriors can keep watch tonight,” Tama said. "If you would like to rest.”

Zaramah spoke before the others had a chance. “We thank you for your offer. With our pack animals so skittish, we will keep an eye on them through the night. We cannot afford to lose more.”

Tama nodded her understanding. “Then may a better morning rise on you and the Wild Mother watch over your dreams.”

Kellen followed the lead of the others, scooping Vex into his arms to follow them to the spot where they’d set up a miniature camp near the storm horses. As he walked, he brushed what seemed like handfuls of crumbs from Vex’s fine fur.

“How do you stay so clean?” Kellen asked. “I’ve never once seen you give yourself a bath.”

“Why would I want to lick myself?” Vex seemed appalled and disgusted by the suggestion. “I’d get hair in my mouth!” He held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut. A burst of golden light flared from all around his body and when it faded, his fur looked just as pristine, soft, and silky as ever. “Too bad you can’t do that. Have I told you yet that you really need a bath?”

Kellen warned Vex with a look… and stumbled because he wasn’t watching where he was going. “I’ve told you, that’s not exactly an easy thing to do. I haven’t seen any bathtubs around.”

“Well, if you weren’t so bashful you could have cleaned up like everyone else!”

Kellen’s face burned for the second time. Before the mana storm, they’d camped by a creek one night and the Gray Dawn warriors had taken the opportunity to bathe themselves without warning, under the light of a full moon. Needless to say, Kellen almost died of embarrassment and shame, especially when Vex figured out why he was acting strange. The little fox refused to let it go. Kellen knew he should have been more mature and gone downstream to wash himself too, but Vex’s teasing soon drew the attention of the Gray Dawn women, who’d revealed a rare, wicked sense of humor at his embarrassment of community, intermural bathing.

All Kellen could do was roll up in his blanket, facing away from the stream, and pretend not to hear the jeers and laughs. The one glimpse of naked bodies Kellen had caught before he turned around popped into his mind whenever Vex brought the humiliating night up. He did everything he could to think of something else before the little fox caught on to that too and used it as extra torment.

“You are going to have to clean yourself soon, if you wish to keep riding with me,” Nokom said, with a sly smile and a wave of her hand over her nose that was probably more justified than Kellen wanted to admit.

“I can’t walk downwind of him anymore,” Ira said in his cracked voice. Kellen had no way of knowing if he was joking or not.

“Can we talk about something else?” he asked. Fortunately, Kellen had just the question to force a change of subject. “Why did you want to know if the traders saw Ubira’s beastcaller during the fight?”

By now, they were back to their own camp a short distance from the Earth Badger traders. Nokom unfurled her sleeping blanket and Kellen dared hope that with the sun going down, it meant they’d have the night off from training. Over her shoulder, Kellen noticed Shani and Tama listening, too.

“Because I do not think they have a beastcaller,” Nokom said.

“That is impossible,” Tama said. “Even I know that. A Mana Beast would not behave like that black bird unless it were bonded to a human.”

Nokom shot Tama a glare for interrupting her. “What I mean is that I think Ubira is the bird’s master, but I do not think he is a beastcaller. No, I do not know if such a thing is possible. And the bird’s mana is… strange. It seemed to have some aspects of poison or venom, Nature mana, though even that is not quite right. There is a chance Ubira’s beast heart awakened at a late age — it is not unheard of. Though if that were true, there is no reason he would not have used mana in the attack on the traders or the raid on our camp.”

“Maybe he had no need to,” Shani said. “By the way the traders spoke, the bird had no trouble defeating their beastcaller and mana beast on its own.”

“True,” Nokom said. “But I wish we had a better idea of what we faced, before we faced it. Like the way the Earth Badger woman said the slavers fled so quickly, even with captives on foot. This has confused me for days — we should have overtaken them long before the stampede.”

“Do you think it is mana?” Tama asked.

“Mana, yes, but not from a beastcaller,” Nokom said. “I believe they have a totem with them, lending them speed.”

“What’s a totem?” Vex asked, beating Kellen to it. “And how do we get one?”

“A totem is a powerful mana artifact from the days when the Wild Mother’s children still walked the lands of Oras,” Ira said. “They are statues of all different sizes and materials that grant specific powers to those within a certain area around them.”

“They are worth more than these Earth Badger traders could hope to earn in a lifetime,” Nokom said. “Some are so large they cannot be moved — sort of like the power of the Tall Spears. But there are legends of smaller totems a person or a horse can carry as a tribe travels. Zaramah was right: their llamas and donkeys have no hope of catching the slavers.”

“If what you say is true, it would change the future of Gray Dawn to capture this totem,” Tama said. By now, the rest of the warriors were gathered around them, and Kellen saw several excited nods among the other woman. Shani was the only one who seemed unphased by the news.

“Perhaps,” Nokom said. “If we had the strength to hold it. The totems of the plains have passed between tribes so many times no one knows who first claimed them. And Ubira has not survived raiding for slaves for so long without reason. He is cunning.”

Some of the excitement drained from the group at Nokom’s words, though Kellen could see Tama was still deep in thought. Seeing the conversation winding down, Kellen beckoned to Vex. Exhaustion pulled at him, but they could practice a few of the mana dances and channeling sun mana bolts before bed, if nothing else. Although they were no closer to Allison than when he’d started two weeks ago, something felt different. A voice in the back of his head whispered to Kellen, warned him to be ready.

Three weeks before, in what felt like someone else’s life, he would have discounted it as an idle worry. Now, it drove him to work even harder. Allison was still out there and she still needed him to be as strong as he could manage. And now that he’d witnessed firsthand what Ubira’s destruction looked like, he thought he might understand what drove Shani to put an end to the slaver’s evil once and for all.