Kellen yawned. His eyes felt like sandpaper while his body floated in an exhausted state that made him trip over his own feet with almost every other step he took. They’d marched throughout the night, most of the time dismounted as the steady uphill and rocky ground made travel treacherous for even the sure-footed storm horses. Ira had flown back to the camp and reported the fires were still lit. By the time he returned, Kellen thought he noticed the first gray sliver of morning over the distant plains behind them. His tired and illogical mind wondered how the sun could rise in the east if they weren’t on earth. The line of thinking ended with another yawn.

“How far?” Nokom asked Ira in a low voice. They still didn’t know if the slavers were waiting for them in the dark, which was why Tama had relented and sent Shani, Cohwea, and Shinopah ahead to scout for enemies waiting to ambush them.

“You are still half a day’s walk,” Ira said, the discouragement heard clearly through his already tired voice. “I think maybe I should fly back and keep watch. I can stick close to the mountain where the black bird cannot surprise me.”

Nokom thought about this for a long time, working her jaws and closed lips back and forth like an old person trying to get their dentures in place. Kellen might have thought it was comical if they were in different circumstances. As it was, he stared blankly at the old woman and the winged coyote. Nokom called Tama to her, and they spoke as the group walked. Kellen didn’t hear what they said. At the end of the conversation, Ira flew off again into the night.

Dawn came and brought little warmth, though now Kellen could at least see the rocks he continually stubbed his toes into. Throughout the night, Vex had ridden on the back of the storm horse Kellen shared with Nokom, burrowed and secured in a nest made of Kellen’s hoodie they’d stuffed between the saddle and a pack of supplies. Kellen sensed Vex awakening, a wave of sleepiness that almost made him pitch forward on his face. Even circulating his mana to refresh himself was doing little after the all-night hike. Vex let out a squeaking yawn, followed by a long groan as he stretched and blinked all the way awake.

“Morning,” Kellen said, trying to hide the envy in his voice that he hadn’t been able to ride and sleep all night. He reminded himself that even if he was a creature made entirely from mana, Vex was still basically a baby who needed plenty of rest.

Vex smacked his lips, and he looked around in a half-daze. “It looks just like it did yesterday.”

The same rock-strewn landscape stretched across the plateau from the foothills all the way to the base of the mountains. The aspens rattled in a slight morning breeze, leaves quaking as if the trees were shivering in the morning cold. Kellen noticed a splash of yellow and orange among the green leaves. It wouldn’t be long before they blazed with their autumn mantle. High on the sheer rock above them, pine trees jutted out from the side of the cliff face, sometimes almost perpendicular as their roots wage war against gravity to reach for the life-giving sunlight. Even though they’d walked all night and an impending battle with the slavers loomed ahead, the view still caught Kellen’s breath.

“Not a bad view, though,” Kellen said.

Vex yawned and stretched again. “I was ready for a change from the plains.”

They were interrupted by Obishidan, who slowed down so they could walk side by side. Kellen supposed the Earth Badger boy felt almost as out of place among the Gray Dawn warriors as he did. Then again, after weeks of travel together, the women of Gray Dawn were becoming familiar. They might not be saddle pals, but he understood their habits and routines. Aside from Tama and Nokom, the others still didn’t speak to him much. They didn’t look at him with outright disdain anymore, either. Maybe that was because there was a new stranger traveling with them now.

“They say that you are a spirit traveler?” Obishidan asked. “That you come from the Great Before?”

Kellen shrugged. “We’re I’m from we don’t call it the Great Before. It’s just Earth. I’m Kellen, by the way.”

“Earth?” The boy seemed confused and at first thought the word hadn’t translated. “Like Earth mana? Earth Badger?”

“Yes,” Kellen said, glad he hadn’t tried to explain now he understood why Obishidan was confused. “Not very creative, but there you have it. I’m from a place called Idaho.”

“There are potatoes there,” Vex said. His eyes widened as if receiving a premonition. “Lots and lots of potatoes.”

“Your family are farmers?” Obishidan asked. “Call me Obishi.” He added as an afterthought

Kellen nodded. “We don’t grow potatoes, though. Just hay for the milk cows.”

“Ah,” Obishi said. “So you are herders? There are many farmers among the Earth Badger — almost as good as the League of Moose I am told. We have herders too, though they are mostly for sheep and goats.”

“And you’re from the… Eastern Earth Empire?” Kellen asked, pausing to remember the name. “What’s the difference?”

“In the Eastern Earth Empire, there are fewer mountains and they are not so tall as these,” Obishi said. “They are to the south. Most of our country is in the land of Red Bones. Lots of rocks, just different. Big rocks with flat tops. We make houses out of the rock or in the canyons, grown corn, raise sheep or trade, like my family. The Southern Earth Empire they farm too, but high in the mountains, and raise llamas instead of sheep.”

“Those are only differences?” That didn’t seem like much, other than a few animals and the name.

Obishi smiled. “No, but that is enough to help you understand for now, I think. I do not have time to tell all of our histories. My mother taught them to me and it would take days to share them.”

At the mention of his mother, Obishi fell silent, eyes focused on the ground ahead of them. Kellen knew the feeling. Allison was always on his mind. In the brief times when he got distracted, missing her crashed back down on him like a rockslide right after.

“We will find them,” Obishi said, and Kellen guessed it was more for his benefit than to reassure Kellen. He suddenly realized how young the Earth Badger boy was, probably only sixteen. Had he grown up in Kellen’s town, he would have no doubt been a state champion wrestler, but varsity sports were a far cry from the task ahead of them. Then again, maybe that was because Kellen hadn’t grown up in Oras. He wondered how commonplace raids and death and slavery were that a sixteen-year-old boy had to leave his entire life behind to save his mother from a life of captivity when no one else in his family would help.

“We will,” Kellen assured him.

The only stops were short breaks to find a bathroom behind some rocks or to check the horses. Kellen ate from the supplies in Nokom’s saddle while the old beastcaller remained at the head of the group and Tama’s side. Around noon, Shani and the others who’d been scouting ahead returned to the group. They’d found nothing ranging ahead and had returned to let the group know.

Kellen tried not to think about the fight too much, instead skipping over it to consider what he and Allison would do once they were safe. The thought of arrows flying, knives swinging and confronting the black mana beast bird again coiled his stomach like fighting snakes. While he walked, he practiced channeling a small shield or bolt of sun mana in his hand, switching back and forth from left to right, with Vex giving him pointers from his perch on the horse’s back. Obishi watched in amazement but stayed silent as Kellen channeled the mana. His improvement on the bolts had improved by small measures, though he didn’t trust his accuracy all that well.

Aside from the bolts and shields, he’d been playing with something of his own creation. With a moderate amount of focus, Kellen found he could conjure a small shield in his palm, then stretch it over itself to form a sphere about the size of a racquetball. For reasons he couldn’t explain — maybe because of his association with a racquetball in his mind — the sphere also bounced. After two or three bounces, the mana winked out. As long as Kellen held it in his hand or caught it between bounces, he found he could maintain the sphere with little focus or mana drain.

Nokom joined him in the night to discuss his role in the upcoming battle. When he’d shown her the ball, her interest surprised him.

“Mana manipulation is not something a ward-strength beastcaller can usually undertake,” she said. When Kellen asked why, she explained. “It is like a baby. They have the strength to stand but not the coordination with their body and muscles.”

That made sense to Kellen. He took a small amount of secret pride in his new discovery, even if it was a trivial thing. His pride soon faded, replaced by worry, when Nokom resumed her discussion about the battle.

Tama’s plan involved attacked the camp at night and taking the slavers by surprise. Until Ira returned, they had no way of knowing if Ubira had broken camp or not, however. Kellen sensed the other Gray Dawn warriors were just as weary of the chase as he was. No one said it out loud, but the shared hope seemed to be that the slavers would still be in the same camp where Ira had spotted them the night before.

Kellen was to remain in the back, using shields as best he could to protect the others. The only time he was expected to go on the offensive was if she and Ira couldn’t keep the bird distracted. Even in a support role, Kellen understood the chances were solid that he and Vex would be forced to fight and maybe even kill another person. You couldn’t grow up on a farm without an early and thorough understanding of life and death. There were quite a few differences between putting a suffering animal out of its misery and killing another human, even if that other human was trying to kill you.

Catching himself falling into the same cycle of anxiousness and over-analyzing, Kellen refocused on what he and Allison would do once she was safe. He suspected Gray Dawn would not let them go, even though he’d never really felt like a prisoner as Nokom had first claimed he was. He knew the band had more than a passing interest in keeping him around as a second beastcaller, but Kellen doubted they would help him look for a way home with Allison. Leaving as soon as he found Allison seemed the best option. That meant wandering through unknown land with little provisions and who knew what dangers. Maybe he could travel back to Obishi’s tribe? Zaramah had seemed sincere in his gratitude for Kellen’s gift of the bear claw. Perhaps they could feed and shelter them until Kellen could decide on a better plan.

He’d meant what he said to Vex the night before. There had to be a way to make sure Vex would exist once he left Oras and Kellen was determined to find it. If wild Mana Beasts could exist without a bond to human, then why couldn’t those bonded to a human do the same? It wasn’t like Kellen was dying. He would just be going somewhere else. Napping once more, Vex shifted in his sleep and mumbled. Kellen wondered if his thoughts of leaving Oras had entered the little fox’s dreams and disturbed him. He still didn’t understand their connection fully. Vex was more than a pet. The confusing part was if he was more like a little brother or an extension of Kellen himself. Kellen struggled to wrap his head around their bond, more than he did the acceptance of magic or other realms of reality. If getting Allison home meant cutting off his arm, could Kellen do it? He suspected that might be the closest comparison to leaving Vex.

Swift wing beats interrupted Kellen’s thoughts for the future. It was Ira, flying fast. By the look of things, he’d maker a hard landing. The winged coyote pulled up at the last second, and landed with a gust of wind at the front of the band. Fear gripped Kellen’s heart, and he looked to the sky. There was no sign of the black bird though something was obviously wrong. Reaching for Vex, Kellen hurried to the front of the group to hear what Ira had to say, Obishi following close behind.

“They’re gone from the camp,” Ira said. “When I returned, the fires were out. I waited until first light. There was a battle, though who they were fighting, I do not know. It looks as if most of the slavers are dead, and a few of their captives.”

“Any of ours?” Tama asked, voice sharp. “What of Ubira?”

“What about my sister?” Kellen asked. He dreaded to know the answer if Allison wasn’t okay.

“And my mother?” Obishi added as questions came from the rest of the Gray Dawn all at once.

“Peace!” Nokom raised a hand. “Let Ira speak.”

“None of Gray Dawn were among the dead,” Ira said. “Nor any that could have been your sister, Kellen, or an Earth Badger woman. I did not see any sign of Ubira or the black bird.”

“How far?” Tama asked.

“If you move fast, you can make it before the sun sets,” Ira said. “We should be careful. I do not know what happened, but things are not as they seem.”