“Good fight, little sister!” Kiypu said, clapping his hands in delight as if describing an unexpected present. “The Wild Mother smiles down on us. Never doubt that.”

“Blessed!” Shakraa agreed. “Favored!”

“If this is what it is like to be favored by the Wild Mother, I would not wish to make her angry,” Shani muttered. Her beast heart ached and her body already protested from dozens of bruises and cuts, but the victory had been worth it, if only to stop Raiqo from saving the day again.

“For a pair of Chieftains, it looked like you took quite the beating,” Inferi said to Raiqo and Skystrike. “Luckily, we were here to save you.”

“The totem drains our mana strength but we would have defeated the spirit eventually,” Skystrike said. Shani detected a hint of irritation in his regularly measured tone. “And it was us who came to save you.”

“Perhaps,” Raiqo said. He slapped a hand against his Mana Beast’s neck and rubbed his mane. “Do not begrudge them this victory, Skystrike. We have taken two from her, after all!”

“Which means we’re not even yet,” Inferi said.

“Children, there will be many more fights to come, no need to quarrel,” Kiypu said, stepping between them and waving his emaciated hands. “I feel it in these old bones. Come, we should keep moving.”

“Don’t stop!” Shakraa added. “Onward!”

Without waiting to see if they followed, Kiypu and Shakraa set off with an ambling gait. The mummy struggled to make his way through the soft sand as best as the ‘old bones’ he’d referenced would let him.

Raiqo leaned in close to Shani, worry veiling his chiseled features. “There is something not right about that old one,” he said in a low voice. “Aside from him looking like a dead man, I mean. His head is… cracked.”

Shani almost laughed. She had no clue how long Kiypu and Raiqo had been traveling together inside the totem, but it was clear he hadn’t grown used to the mummy’s quirks. “Nokom believes he was once a powerful Beastcaller,” she said. “I have seen hints of it. To be truthful, he is one I am glad to have with me in this strange place.”

“I will take your word for it,” Raiqo said, still looking unconvinced.

“How is it that you came to be together?” Shani asked. She hadn’t seen Raiqo in weeks, not since he’d helped them defeat—if she was honest, defeated by himself—the rhinoceros Mana Beast that had appeared during the opening of the totem. She assumed he’d spent most of his time inside the Storm Horse totem since then, and had heard he was leading one of the teams climbing into the interior.

“We were looking for you,” he said, pointing to her with a grin. “One of the guards you attacked reported it to Aniya.”

“It was the Snake Cult, not us,” Shani said. “They came from within and caught the guards by surprise. I think to let more of their numbers in from the camp.”

Raiqo’s face darkened. “This is bad news. We were attacked by a group of them as well, right before the cavern collapsed. I hope that your friend the spirit traveler made it out to warn the others. The main chamber was blocked, forcing us to take another path into the totem. We came through some caves and then found this canyon after much wandering. We have seen no one but you and Inferi since. I had hoped to reunite with the Storm Horse Elders, or learn more about what these Snake people are doing inside the Great Totem.”

Shani’s stomach tightened at Raiqo’s words. She paid attention to most of them after he’d mentioned a spirit traveler. “Kellen was with you?”

“He wanted to stay and fight,” Raiqo said. “We held the Snake Cult off so he could warn the others. I… he left before the cavern began to collapse. I would not have sent him away if we had known what would happen. I am sorry.”

Shani was surprised at how unsettled the news made her. Kellen had proven himself to be more than she’d ever expected when they’d first met. Back then, she’d wanted to leave him for dead on the Thunder Plains, convinced he would only be a burden. Hearing Raiqo’s news, she realized somewhere over their travels and months of training they’d become… friends? No, Shani didn’t think herself capable of making friends anymore. Yet the thought of Kellen lying dead somewhere in the cavern left a heavy, sick feeling in the bottom of her stomach that she wouldn’t have expected.

“Kellen is full of surprises,” she said, clearing any emotion from her face. “He may have escaped. There is more to him than first appears.”

The words were almost as unexpected as the sickening worry. She knew she was telling herself that Kellen was alive more than trying to convince Raiqo.

Without waiting for a response, she followed after Kiypu. They would gain nothing talking about the past. Words couldn’t bring a person back to life. Kellen was alive, or he was not. Even telling herself this, Shani’s worries did not cease.

Despite his struggles through the sand, Kiypu moved at a quick pace, his bowlegged waddle reminding Shani of a desert lizard propelling itself forward.

“There is a cavern opening ahead,” Kiypu said. “We saw it when Inferi sensed your presence.”

As Shani expected, the cavern opening in the cliff was the one she’d used to descend to the canyon floor. She led the group back to the top where she hoped the bridge remained, explaining how she and Inferi had survived the cave-in and escape the chamber.

With Raiqo present, she thought it unwise to mention the part about melding Inferi’s shadow mana with her own and instead told the story that they’d used their mana workings separately to widen an existing hole in the chamber. No one questioned the story. Shani hoped he hadn’t seen her last shadow-storm mana working during the fight, pinned as he’d been beneath the mana spirit’s talons.

If they made it out of the totem, Shani planned to explain what she and Inferi had discovered to Nokom and Kiypu. She allowed herself a small but firm hope that perhaps they’d found a way to overcome their different mana attunements after all. For now, the thoughts had to be pushed aside. For all the opportunity presented inside the totem, it would be a challenge to escape with their lives, if what she’d seen so far was any indication.

On the top ledge, the bridge thankfully remained. Inferi was not keen on walking across it and Shani had not shared her glimpse of the Storm Horse with the others. Given that it had already collapsed on one of them, Raiqo volunteered to go first.

“If I fall, I can slow my descent with storm mana,” he said. “And as the strongest in our group, can face any foes or traps that lie ahead. I have spent many days in this totem—all I know for certain is that you must always be on your guard.”

He didn’t say it in a boastful way, yet his words annoyed Shani nonetheless. It probably stemmed from the fact he’d saved her life at least once and probably two more times. Perhaps it was the fact that she’d always pictured Chieftain strength Beastcallers as stern warriors. She’d witnessed Raiqo’s ability firsthand and wouldn’t deny his skill as a Beastcaller and a warrior. It was his kindness she couldn’t understand. He was too caring, too nice. It made no sense to fault a person for it, she knew. Maybe another way Inferi was rubbing off on her.

With Skystrike close behind him, Raiqo took a cautious step, followed by several more. The translucent bridge held.

“I think I understand!” he shouted when he’d made it about halfway across. “This is a mana working! It maintains itself by drawing on a portion of the storm mana in a person or mana beast.”

“Well, at least you have an excuse for falling through it now,” Shani told Inferi.

“Just make sure you stay close by when I cross,” Inferi said. “I don’t think either of us wants to find out how it feels if I hit the canyon floor instead of a passing tornado.”

To be safe, Raiqo and Skystrike remained on the bridge until the rest of the group caught up with them. Nearing the far side, Skystrike rose in the air on his wings and Raiqo helped each of them by him before he stepped off of the mana bridge. The bridge remained in place, at least by appearances.

“We’ve encountered several other workings like this inside the totem,” Raiqo explained. “The Storm Horse has filled her temple with many strange things.”

The tunnel on this side of the canyon continued straight a short distance through the rock, then opened on another large, flat plain, illuminated by a pale sunlit sky shrouded in a thin layer of gray clouds. This prairie was devoid of anything but long stalks of grass swaying in an invisible wind.

“What do you make of this?” Kiypu asked Raiqo.

Raiqo scanned the waving grass as Skystrike circled above them to get a better view of the horizon. “I cannot say. Nearly every area I have explored inside the totem was different from the one that came before. Sometimes, you know you are moving upward. Other times like this, it does not seem that way. I can tell you this: I feel the pull on my beast heart stronger again, draining more of mine and Skystrike’s mana away. This tells me we are walking where no other Storm Horse Beastcallers have tread yet. It also tells me there is danger ahead. On each plain there has been some puzzle, mana spirit or wild Mana Beast to defeat before the totem stopped pulling at our mana.”

“So there is no way of knowing what we face unless we blindly walk into it?” Shani asked. “How is it we are the only ones to reach this place? I had thought there were hundreds of Beastcallers inside the totem, plus the Elders.”

Raiqo nodded to Kiypu. “We have discussed this together. As the cavern collapsed, Aniya broke away chasing after several of the Snake Cult through the main entrance we had used to ascend into the totem from the caves. Like you, we found a different route revealed by the cave-in. It would seem that there are different paths throughout the totem and this one, it seems, has only been tread by us. I cannot say if or when we may reunite with the others who were farther up in the totem before the collapse.”

Skystrike landed beside them, tucking his wings into his sides before giving his report. “There is nothing but grassland for miles, at least to my eye. I’m afraid we will not discover what we face until we venture into these plains.”

“Then enough talking,” Inferi said, rising and padding into the grass, which almost obscured her from sight after her first steps. “Let us meet the challenge the Storm Horse has for us head on.”

All at once, the sky changed from a murky gray to the blood red of cloud-filled morning with a storm on the horizon. As their eyes shot up and watched the color bleed into the sky overhead, objects rained down all across the plains. Shani spotted shards of mana crystals, spears, shields, clubs and many other objects, both human made and natural. None fell close enough to hit them, however. They drifted down like snowflakes, settling on the ground after a cushioned landing from the waving grass.

She was just bending down to pick up one of the nearby arrows for closer inspection when Raiqo cried out in alarm.

“Look!” he shouted, pointing in the distance. “There are people falling from the skies!”

They stared in horror as people—bodies, judging by how limp and unmoving they were—floated down to the ground. When the nearest one landed, they rushed toward it and found a dead Snake Cultist wrapped from head to toe in the bandages that stopped mana attacks. Several more people fell near them, close enough for Shani to make out additional Snake Cultists as well as Storm Horse Beastcallers.

Seeing a Storm Horse man drift down nearby, Raiquo rushed to the spot the man landed. When she caught up, Shani was surprised to find the person still breathing. The wound on his side told her it would not be for long. That and the absence of his Mana Beast, which also hinted he would soon draw his last breath.

“Raiqo… how?” the man muttered, reaching for his side. His lack of obvious Chieftain’s marks led Shani to believe he was Guardian strength. It was hard to tell with her mana sense, given how weak and flickering his aura was. Shani thought she had seen him in the camps before. He clearly knew Raiqo even if his clothes and face paintings marked him as a different tribe she did not recognize. She guessed him to be a few years older than her.

Raiqo reached down and placed a gentle hand beneath the man’s head. “Rest easy now, cousin. Can you tell me what happened?”

“Aniya told us… thought you were lost,” the man said, his voice growing softer and more broken. “Elders are still trapped. Continued deeper into the totem… many Snake people. We fought…”

The man grimaced once, then his features and body went slack. Raiqo lowered the man’s head to the ground and bowed his own.

“Fair winds, Beastcaller,” Skystrike muttered, standing behind Raiqo.

When Shani looked up again, the skies were clear, showing a brilliant night sky full of stars she did not recognize. A lonely wind moaned as it drifted across the plains, now littered with the dead.

“Should we search for survivors?” Shani asked, already knowing the answer.

“No,” Raiqo said. “There is nothing we can do for them. We must carry on and hope to find the living. If they are here, they are already on their way to the Great Beyond.”