Whitestar was pushing Cal to his limits, she could tell. He stumbled every few steps, and his breath was coming in sharp wheezing sounds. Still, she urged him on, maintaining her easy, loping, hunting pace. “Hurry, Cal. We need to clear this stretch of plains and get into those foothills if we want to avoid another patrol.” The human didn’t respond, only doggedly kept plodding forward, concentrating on not tripping on the scrub-brush predominant in the northern extremes of the plains.

They were moving northeast now. Whitestar was aware that something had changed, that she wasn’t leading Cal directly to the Ur-clan. She knew she wanted to avoid other Urghat, but she hadn’t put her decisions into conscious thought yet; she was avoiding it. Instead, she concentrated on the next step to get Cal into the eastern foothills before another clan patrol swept through. She was feeling good about their odds - the foothills were within sight now, and she couldn’t hear any boyii hounds. She kept her focus and urged Cal to hurry, and soon they were moving among the twisted, dried out trees, the sparse, dried grass, and the crumbling slopes of scree. Black yakkaw birds kept them company, watching from dead branches and making their characteristic, questioning sound. Whitestar sighed, slowing their pace and reluctantly turning her mind to what came next.

“Something’s changed,” Cal said, leaning over his knees and taking deep breaths.

“Hrm.” Whitestar paced in a circle, flexing her hands, so her claws stretched out and retracted in a slow rhythm.

“Back before that patrol came, when you hid me, we were making a fast pace straight to the mountains. Now you’ve had me running mostly east. What happened? Are you in trouble?”

“Ha. Me in trouble? Worry about your own skin, human. Now, drink some water, and we’ll get moving.” She tossed him her wineskin, turned, and started to slowly walk to the northeast, following a gully that skirted along the base of the foothills. The human was right. Sometime during that encounter with the patrol, Whitestar had made a decision. She wasn’t going to bring Cal to the Ur-clan. She wasn’t going to let him go home, though. No, she might have gotten soft where he was concerned, but she was still Urghat. She’d still tell Goretusk about the human settlement. Let him go to the Underclaws. Let them do what they would with the news, but first, she’d get Cal out of the area. She felt something nudging her elbow and looked down to see Cal was handing her back the wineskin. She sniffed and took it from his hand.

“Human, I made a mistake with you.”

“What do you mean?” Cal asked, gamely, scrambling after her long strides.

“I should never have learned your name; I should have kept a rag in your mouth. I shouldn’t have let you sing to me. I shouldn’t have shared my wine with you. Now I don’t want to see other Urghat eat you. You are my shame, Cal.”

“Hey, that’s not a thing to be ashamed of, Whitestar. You’re learning something that a lot of people struggle with: just because someone looks different doesn’t mean they’re your enemy. As far as I’m concerned, that makes you the best Urghat I’ve ever met. Of course, I’ve only really met two.” Cal’s voice was light with relief like he’d just been granted a pardon.

“Bah, what do you know. You’re a weakness to me, and I’m going to wash my hands of you.” Cal’s face blanched a bit at those words.

“Um, wait. Are you going to let me go?” Whitestar looked over her shoulder at him, studying his face for a long moment.

“Yes, Cal, I’m going to let you go.” She turned and kept plodding on.

“Oh, great, cause I thought you were going to kill me for a moment there.”

“Hmm, that would certainly be easier.” Whitestar let a bit of a grin show and glanced sidelong at Cal again.

“Hey! Not funny!” Cal’s mock indignation brought a wider grin to Whitestar’s face.

“Har, don’t worry, Cal. If we go through these foothills, there is a Ghelli wood on the other side. They are soft people like you. They’ll probably take you in. You’ll like them; they don’t even eat their enemies.”

“Oh? That sounds great, Whitestar, but couldn’t we just, like, take me back to the other humans? I mean, you could even just point me in the right direction, and I’ll make a run for it.”

“You would not make it, Cal. You think you can travel fast for three more days? You think you can avoid Urghat patrols and hunters? What about wild boyii packs? There will be many more Urghat in the plains once news of the humans spreads. Better for you to make a home with the Ghelli for now.” Cal didn’t respond to her words, just looked at the ground and kept following her.

“I feel like a coward if I can really be safe with the Ghelli. Shouldn’t I try to warn my people about the Urghat? About your clan? Do you really think they’ll attack?”

“You have a good spirit, Cal. I think I would want to warn my people, too. Maybe the Ghelli can help with that. Meet them, talk to them, maybe one of their scouts can make the journey and bring a warning.” Cal didn’t respond, just following, clearly lost in thought. Whitestar didn’t worry about whether he could get a warning to the humans or not - her people would crush them, regardless.

They hiked through the foothills for another few hours until the sun was halfway down toward the western horizon. Whitestar wanted to push on, knowing that the woods where the Ghelli lived were just on the other side of the foothills, and they had to be more than halfway through by now. “Keep pushing just a few more hours, Cal. I want to drop you off before nightfall.”

“Okay, I think I should tell you…” The shriek of a howler cat cut off his voice. Whitestar frantically pulled her bow from her back and dug the string from the pouch at her belt.

“Put your back to mine, Cal, that’s a howler cat, and it will not hesitate to try to turn us into its dinner.” She hooked the string to one end of her bow and bent the bow against her knee, trying to secure the second loop when she heard scrabbling and a grunt of pain from behind her. She just managed to finish stringing the bow as she spun around. The howler cat had struck; Cal’s entire head and upper torso were in its mouth, and it was dragging him away, up the loose dirt on the side of the gully. The cat had to weigh close to a thousand pounds. Its brightly striped orange, red and black fur stood out in stark contrast to the shadowed gully. Its saucer-sized yellow eyes glared at Whitestar, almost daring her to do something as it pulled Cal’s kicking body backward up the slope.

Whitestar didn’t hesitate: in one smooth motion, she pulled an arrow from her quiver, knocked it, and activated her True Aim skill, drawing on most of her meager pool of Energy to fire an arrow directly into the big cat’s eye. Whitestar might not have been as strong as most of the warriors in the clan, but she was undoubtedly a better shot than most. Her arrow flew true and buried itself deep into the eye of the cat, which didn’t even have time for death throes; it simply collapsed in a twitching heap. Whitestar ran forward, thrilled with her perfect shot and enjoying the influx of Energy from the dead beast. She put one foot on the cat’s lower jaw and yanked the top up with her hands. Cal was still weakly struggling as she reached in, grabbed him above his shoulder, and pulled him out of the beast’s maw.

Cal moaned and thrashed weakly, barely conscious. He had terrible puncture wounds on the upper parts of his chest and back. Whitestar dug into her pack and pulled out her folded packet of toril-root powder. She unfolded it with bloodstained fingers and hastily sprinkled it into Cal’s wounds. Sizzling steam erupted from the punctures, and Cal suddenly opened his eyes and screamed until his voice went hoarse. The bleeding halted, Whitestar used her stolen pouch of storage to stow away the valuable corpse of the howler cat; what a story she’d have to tell when she showed her clan the corpse with the arrow through its eye! Then, she hoisted Cal onto her shoulder and set off through the last stretch of hills.

“Oh, it burns! God! What was that thing? What was that stuff you put on me?” Cal weakly whined while he flopped against her back.

“Hush, Cal. That was a fated encounter! A million times, that cat would have eaten you for dinner, but on this lucky occasion, I landed a perfect shot in time to save you. You’re going to have some memorable scars. Toril-root powder stops bleeding, but you’ll bear your marks of courage, don’t worry.”

“Uhnn,” Cal mumbled as his consciousness slipped away. Whitestar grinned. She was happy. She was happy that Cal had lived through the encounter, happy that she had made such an amazing shot, and happy that she’d have hides to trade back at the Ur-clan. She was even happy that she was about to set Cal free with the Ghelli. Let someone else take the glory for capturing humans. She didn’t care.