Mistress of Animals

Chapter 10

CHAPTER 10

Penrys took advantage of the prevailing winds from the west and pulled herself high enough that she could manage most of the work by gliding. Her mind-scan reached no further from the air, but she could cover a much larger stretch of territory when not limited by a horse’s long-distance speed.

She worked downwind to a spot about ten miles southeast of the camp, not without marking the camp’s landmarks very clearly first, and began a circle to the south. She planned to circle the camp once at that distance. That would be a flight of sixty or seventy miles, two or three hours in the air. If she found many strays, she might have to widen it the next day, but a full circle five miles further out would take much longer, more than she could fly in a single day.

At least, she assumed that was true. She’d never had an opportunity to fly free like this in daylight, for hours, without worrying about witnesses. Did the wings tire, if they were a device? How were they powered? Her back and shoulders felt some of the effort, and her belly, keeping her legs from dragging in the air—what would their limits be? Her only other long flight, in the dark, looking for the Kigali expedition a few weeks ago, had covered about forty miles and hadn’t tired her seriously at all.

Assuming this first circuit didn’t exhaust her, that left her about two hours of daylight to look down the southeast trail toward the spring camp, maybe thirty miles coming and going. The lowering sun at that time of day should make marks on the ground stand out more clearly.

She would be out of range of mind-speech with Najud the whole time. Unless she found the people they were looking for, she would be all alone, free as a bird.

Najud tried not to worry as the sun set and Penrys had still not returned. It was unnerving, being out of mind-speech range with her. None of the Kurighdunaq clan-kin mentioned it to him, and that worried him in other ways. If it had been a scout that was overdue, all would have spoken of it, with concern. But what he had decided to do at mid-day, showing them her wings, had made her more alien than just a foreign bikrajti, and so they held their tongues. Who knew, after all, what a foreign wizard could do?

He hadn’t wanted to expose her, fearing this sort of consequence, but it had to be done, for the better survival of the whole group. And now she was out there somewhere in the dark, and he had no idea where.

The work at the encampment had gone well. All the kazrab were disassembled and ready to be loaded, and it looked like there would be enough packhorses to carry the camp, barely. He hoped Penrys would turn up more of them, though it might take another day to bring them back to the accumulating herds. Better more horses than trying to improvise packs for the cattle, or even the goats—assuming the Kurighdunaq even trained those animals for packs.

But where was she?

If Ilzay was right, then they needed to take the spring trail southeast out of the camp in hopes of finding the missing people.

He looked up. The moon was half-full, and the sky was clear. She’d flown at night before, he remembered, that night she located the Kigali encampment, and came back to him. That first night he had finally acted on his desire for her, and found her willing. He smiled, lost in his thoughts.

He caught Hadishti’s eye on him. She glanced down at his bowl, still untouched.

“She’ll be back, bikraj. Who could stop her, up in the air? Maybe she was overtaken by darkness and will return in the morning, cold but unharmed.”

Could she be simply lost? She has water and the makings of fire, on her belt, and even a bit of food.

He nodded to Hadishti and conscientiously ate his dinner.

The talk around the fire later was quiet, but less haunted than the night before. Packing up the summer encampment had taken some of the curse off of the abandoned kazrab.

Najud had tried to stop checking the sky, once he’d noticed that everyone looked up when he did. No one wanted to mention contingencies—what they should do if Penrys were still missing in the morning. Time enough then to discuss it.

*Naj-sha, can you hear me?*

He jumped to his feet, abandoning all dignity, and faced the south.

*Are you all right?*

*Fine. Sorry to be late. I have news—be there in a few minutes.*

Najud tried to convey his relief through the mind-speech. *Come to the fire. We’re all here.*

He couldn’t keep himself from grinning when he turned to face the others. “She’s not far away, and coming in.”

He sat down again somewhat abruptly, before his knees weakened altogether.

He rose again a few minutes later when the moon outlined the dark shape of something large gliding in from the south.

Penrys stumbled a bit on landing, and staggered. Najud walked over to take her arm.

“It’s nothing,” she told him. “I’ve never flown that long and I’m just tired. The wings can go on forever, seems like, but not the rest of me.” She rotated her head until her neck cracked.

All eight of their fellow-travelers had stood up to watch. Hadishti picked up a bowl she had been keeping warm by the fire and a skin of water and held them out. “Come have some dinner and tell us your news,” she called.

Penrys smiled at the welcome. She took the skin of water and drained a good bit of it before stoppering it again and laying it on the ground.

She took the bowl and its spoon from Hadishti’s hands. “If you don’t mind, I’ll eat standing. Anything to work the kinks out.”

She took her first two bites, and then paused. “I’ve found strays around the encampment, quite a few of them. And then I took the trail southeast about thirty miles.”

Looking over at Ilzay, she said, “I can’t vouch for how old it is, but the next thirty miles look the same to me as the part we stood on earlier today. If that was recently traveled, then…”

She took another couple of bites. “Rather than just retrace that path back, the shortest way, I decided to swing west until I was due south of here, figuring that would put me near the direct route to the winter camp. Then I would come back that way. The other two sides of the triangle, you understand. I wanted to see if there was anything along that route we should know about, like more strays. There wasn’t quite enough daylight left, but the moonlight would be sufficient.”

Privately for Najud, she added, *After all, it’s just the mind-glows I needed to see, not the ground.*

“So, there I was, maybe twenty-five or thirty miles south of here, when I found three more strays. Human ones.”

She took advantage of the reaction to set the bowl down and pick up the skin of water again. Najud could see her throat working as she swallowed.

After she put the skin down, she patted the air to calm everyone.

“I landed out of sight—didn’t want to scare them. My walking in without warning was bad enough. Two boys, they were, and a very injured man. The boys are Zabrash and Birssahr, and the man is your predecessor”—with a nod to Najud—“Umzakhilin, the zarawinnaj.”