The day ended faster than Peter had expected but he had no idea how long this planet’s day lasted. The sun had moved anti-clockwise across the sky so he knew they had arrived in the south, but how far south Peter did not know. The season would affect the length of the day too. He hoped they had arrived in winter and they could hope for warmer weather but he had no way to tell.

Perhaps Sarah would know. But she probably wouldn’t tell me.

Part of him agreed with her. The odds of arriving here and meeting her only made sense if somehow her arrival had been connected with his. Except did the portal work across worlds?

And the kids. Did they get sucked here too along with me? Just like Sarah?

The riders had mounted up and now gathered together with their beast’s in a head-first circle. All but the two riderless outcasts. Peter saw they remained tied up but restless, wanting to join in, but the humans would not allow them.

I don’t blame you if you’re getting a bit angry and upset. How bad is it to be excluded? I’d hate that.

The boys had remained close together and near the majordomo, but Jan had climbed up behind Sarah.

Not sure I like that development.

But he could not get involved. That would be a bad thing.

Jan can do as she likes.

But Sarah’s boys versus girls attitude would not end well.

Likely Sarah’s beast would not take an extra rider so somehow the boys would have to split up. The majordomo and another mount.

He looked back at the riderless beast, its eyes on him again. Almost reproachful. But he turned away and moved close to the leader who had now begun to talk about plans. He intended to travel at night, despite the cold, and the hidden dangers of the dark. All Peter wanted to do was huddle in front of a fire, but even that had not occurred.

That’s the benefit of the hot pools I guess. Warmth but no fire to alert the aliens.

But no hot food either. Peter picked at his teeth where a piece of dino-jerky had caught somewhere he could not quite get to.

‘We can attack again, or fall back and wait another moon,’ said Thorn.

Voices from other riders came from all directions.

‘They’re alerted to us now.’

‘And they have more than we expected.’

‘But we need that food. We need the grain and stored vegetables.’

‘We’ll survive another moon.’

The leader waited for the voices to settle. Then Thorn said, ‘We fall back. The plan did not work, they did not pursue us, they did not leave the village undefended.'

Other voices rose in argument and agreement.

'They have grown too many.’

‘We should have attacked sooner.’

‘We did not know they had come to stay. Or that they would multiply to so many.’

‘That is all true,’ said Thorn. ‘But in the here and now we fall back to our camp in the northern valley.’

Tiz leaned close. ‘So you understand what they’re saying.’

‘Most of it,’ Peter said.

‘How does that work?’

‘It’s complicated. They’re deciding what to do, and it looks like they’re retreating.’

‘I thought that’s what they had done,’ said Walt.

‘We circled back so The village where we arrived is not far, but they have decided not to attack. I think.’

The talking had stopped.

‘The majordomo, the second in command guy, he’s calling for a vote. Okay. That’s weird.’

The beasts had either bowed their heads or slipped back on their rear legs. More stretched low than up and a few even lowed a moan that reminded Peter of gharumal but they settled to a rumbling purr until all the beasts lowered their heads.

‘Seems like they’ve made a decision,’ said Tiz.

‘They’re retreating. But none are very happy about it.’

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Full dark had come but the riders did not move off. Instead the huge shadows of the beasts spread out and settled to the ground near the hot pool.

‘What are they waiting for?’ said Walt.

’That,’ said Tiz.

Peter saw the brightening in the sky to the east. ’Moon rise.’ Peter’s sense of anticipation mounted.

Different planets would have different moons. That had sort of been the case with Eoth. The moon there had been a lot brighter than Earth’s even if it all seemed much the same otherwise. He had never really worked out how Eoth and Earth related to one another. And now this third one. He stared at the moon in expectation.

‘Wow. That almost hurts to look at.’

A cloud slipped over the rising moon and Peter saw the bright disk of the moon bright and white as Eoth’s, but larger. Maybe.

In the moon’s long shadows, the bright night slipped to black and white, and Peter felt he had gone back in time four years to when he had been with Maggie and Breeze sailing The Jupiter in the black and white nights on that remote planet.

The years since now seemed the dream. Maggie’s death, and his sleepwalk through life, had now ended that dream. He lived again. He shivered in the mismatched clothing given him by the riders but the cold did not bite. Except his feet. The thick felt did not make such good shoes.

As on Eoth the night had turned to a black and white day. The beasts roused themselves and heaved onto their four feet. Riders swung up, or clucked to their mounts to lower their heads and they stepped up the beast’s muzzle.

It reminded him of the story about the fox and the gingerbread man crossing the river. The fox could not resist the temptation to toss gingerbread man in the air and eat him. Peter had seen the teeth, and the short work they had made of the alien blackbirders in the ambush.

He figured that since they relied on each other it would be a problem for them both if the beast ate their rider, but he could see genuine connection between man and beast too. Like these huge deadly beasts would no sooner attack their rider than a family dog would turn on their owner.

‘Except even dog attacks happen.’ Peter turned to the riderless beast and shivered. The creature still watched him, almost as if it wanted to eat him like the gingerbread man.

Be careful of who you trust. But here by trusting their mount they get trust in return.

Peter resolved to stay clear of the beasts unless close to their rider. The trust seemed to be extended to all humans, but that might prove to be a fragile thing.

‘Get the boys up behind Crag and Braid,’ the majordomo said as he led his mount towards Peter. ‘You come with me again.’

‘What’s your name?’ Peter asked. The others had been hauled up the side of the beasts behind a man and a woman. Their mounts reared on two legs, twisted around then followed the rest of the troupe trudging through the snow and ice on all four legs.

‘Vale, and yours?’ the majordomo looked him up and down.

Mostly down since Vale had already scampered up his mount's muzzle.

Peter smiled. ‘People call me Peter. I guess that means rock in the ancient language of my world.’

‘Peter,’ Vale said repeating the word phonetically. ‘Come Peter Rock.’

Peter sighed. He stared the beast in the eye. It seemed accepting of him so he climbed from the creature’s forearm to shoulder and then slipped onto the felted position behind Vale’s saddle. It felt like he had just climbed a mountain.

‘Peter Rock,’ Vale said. ‘That is a good strong name.’

I really shouldn’t have told him that. Tiz will laugh a fit.

The troupe of beasts and riders ran off through the trees along trails next to the overflow from the hot spring waters.

Steam and mist rose from the stream where it tumbled over small falls. As the stream grew the trail could not follow it close by but Peter saw glimpses between the trees. The bright moonlight turned the waters into quicksilver.

The trail opened out into a wider expanse but rather than cross the snowy ground the riders kept to the trees. He saw why when dark waters broke through the blanketing snow, a swamp or shallow frozen lake would not be a good to stomp their ten tonne beasts over.

Occasionally he saw flying creatures spiral above the trees but they did not move like birds. The rapid jerky motion of something more alien. He had seen no birds in this strange winter land. Once in the distance a huge cloud of smoke roiled over the trees, a curling cloud of black against the sliver clouds lit by the moon. The smoke moved in unnatural ways, almost like it had intention. The sight did not concern Vale but it puzzled Peter. And anything he did not know only gave him something more to worry about.

Like what would happen to the two mounts without riders when they reached the riders home base. He looked around. The two beasts ran along beside the trailing riders, their tethers held out on long poles to maintain distance from the rider’s mount. But when the trail narrowed to single file the beasts came closer, and yet remained calm.

Herd creatures. Pack hunters. Like wolves or something.

That would be how the beasts had been tamed. The humans had used their pack instincts to turn the carnivores into obedient mounts.

When they left the trees and into the open snow covered the ground but between ran the quicksilver threads of a braided river. It spilled and twisted over a kilometer-wide river bed of silver-gray shingle.

The troupe sped up and spread out, the rattle and thump of their footfalls in the snowbound stones died in the air. The surreal landscape only made concrete by the sear of cold on his face and the heat that radiated from the rolling bunching muscles of the huge creature beneath him.

Above him cloud mottled the sky, creating beams of moonlight that danced across the expansive snowfield in a patchwork of light and dark, ever shifting and changing. Peter had not got a look at the stars and so could not compare this planet’s skies with that of Earth and Eoth. He had decided that Eoth and Earth somehow existed in the same place in spacetime, but each shifted sideways from the other. His professor remained skeptical, and yet it fitted what he remembered of his time on Eoth.

Another data point here would clinch it.

He laughed when he realized he still had hopes of completing his research for his master's degree.

I’ll probably never even get a chance to finish my bachelor's.

And the laugh died. He searched out the others now the whole troupe could be seen at a glance.

The mounts carrying Tiz and Walt had surged ahead but remained next to each other. They waved and gestured around, equally enthralled by the alien planet’s eery landscape.

Jan on Sarah’s mount had slipped behind. They kept well back from the riderless beasts which had come close behind Vale’s mount.

Peter looked back and the beast’s heads turned as one to return his gaze.

It’s like they want to keep their dinner in sight.

He sensed it before he consciously heard. And later he could not work out what had alerted him. The riderless beasts reared up and pulled their tethers tight and the beasts leading them roared in annoyance as all four beasts stumbled.

Peter noticed then, a sharp edged shadow raced over the ground beside them. Not a cloud, not a creature, just a darkness. He thought then of the spooky smoke and turned in his seat to search around for the source of the shadow.

Behind and above him the moon’s light blazed a brilliant but cold white. He raised his hand to shield his vision. He saw it then.

A vaniyaq. A flying sailing ship. A skyship.

Blackbirders had them here too. The black vessel dropped towards them to begin its attack.