The troupe moved off down the river. Peter kept his mount as no one could argue against his success in bringing her under control. Most gave him a wide birth however and a few still gave him wary looks as if he had not proven himself.

Sarah and Jan pointedly both stayed clear and did not look at him.

He could not help but stare at Sarah though.

Hard to believe she’s the same wee Sarah from home.

The name of her boat, Tango, and the colour of the hull made sense now. An orange sailboat for the ginger headed girl. Her red hair had deepened to black in the moonlight.

Sarah moved easily with the gait of her mount. The gray leather and felted clothing swaddled her but she had an athlete’s grace and power. Across her eyes dark eyebrows drew attention to her eyes and he wished she would turn again. Even to glare at him.

His mount snorted and rose on rear legs to move closer to Sarah and Jan’s beast, but Peter drew the reins back and to the side. He did not know how to steer the beast.

How different from a horse could it be?

And the mount veered away. Ahead limped a man on foot leading his mount he stopped and waited for the troupe to join him. He’d been thrown and could not climb up to regain his seat. One of the others aided him until he once again took to the saddle webbing.

In the end they had not lost anyone in the blackbirder attack. Two men thrown and one mount had stampeded but now they joined the rest. Even if they had to endure ribbing from the rest of the group. The huge beasts lowed and butted against one another in a mirror of the human’s interactions.

There’s something to that, connexion, tulanvarqa. Imprinting, but also more I guess.

Peter experienced a similar bond with his mount, where she knew where he wanted to go and went there. Almost without thought. He had ridden horses on an overnight trek on Banks Peninsula with his uncle. Not Jeff. His aunt’s husband. And directing a horse with reins seemed like that a little, the merest pressure and the horse would turn.

Except they knew the trail.

He glanced up a Sarah and saw her turn away. Jan dug leaned forward and said something he could not hear.

I really don’t like that.

The moon rose high now and Peter yawned. Travelling in the middle of the night like this without sleep. He tried to remember when he had last closed his eyes.

A movement jolted him awake. Somehow he had dozed off. He yawned and saw the other cousins also nodded.

One of us could fall. And it’s three, four meters to the ground.

And it would be a hard landing. Large boulders had been strewn across their path by the hand of a giant. His mount had scaled one and had dropped to all fours and then took a leap from one boulder to the next. Or less than a leap, a long stride.

The other mounts did much the same. The short feathered tails waved up and down and around to help their balance. Not the fan-like tails of manisaurs, or the long strong counter balancing tails like ones of true dinosaurs. These tails waved and twisted like short monkey tails but feathered.

The beasts strange mix of bird, dinosaur, and mammal features made it hard to put them in a box to compare with what he knew. Nothing like the huge hulking gharumal of Eoth, or the two legged moasaurs either. Something new and unique. Lithe and graceful, fast and deadly, but loyal and even affectionate.

Hyena-parrots sorta? Crazy.

His mount had found its rhythm now and strode between boulders with a jouncing speed that scared him at one level, but exhilarated on another.

It’s the mount. I’m sensing her feelings

He realized they now climbed up the river bed higher and against the flow of the stream that cut between the boulders. On either side towering dark trees pressed dark against the boulder covered river bed. Then the mounts cut away from the stream up a scree slope. Down the other side of a saddle they moved amongst broken rocks, scraggly bushes, and huge plants that bristled with sharp spearlike leaves more like huge thorns.

Ahead a wide river valley opened up, and under the shadow of a huge rock he saw sparks of orange fire startling in the landscape of silver and black.

The rider’s camp, or village, or settlement.

The day dawned and sent the silver and black of the night fleeing before the red blush of the rising sun as if kindled by the fires of the human settlement.

Anticipation grew in him. The mount’s or his own, he could not tell.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter?

Not a camp. A tent city. But tents like he had never seen before. The mounts ran past a large area under the lee of a huge rock as big as a hill where stockades and stables had been built from wood. The ground here had been trampled into a hard packed stony firmness. Not paved but not far from it.

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Further from the rock a large open area had the same pounded ground appearance but sections remained covered in ice and snow, especially downwind from the biggest tents. Huge gray and black mounds of felt and hide had been erected on the edge of the open plaza. Round in plan and domed on top they opened onto wooden platforms like verandahs.

In the growing light of the new day a huge crowd of people, led by a mass of running children, gathered around a raised platform. The mounts as they drew up and formed the heads in circle with the platform in the center. Upon the platform gathered a a small group of who he guessed would be leaders.

Beyond the mounts a circle of people clustered close to hear what would be said, children scurried amongst the mounts avoiding the shuffling taloned feet of the carnivores.

Thorn spoke of the attack, then the ambush where the mounts had taken out a large number of the aliens. The crowd erupted in cheers at that success. But a sombre mood descended on the crowd as he spoke of the retreat and how the circling back to counter attack had failed. When Thorn told them of the blackbirder’s skyship wails arose and a man stood forward.

‘I told you, I saw that great thing in the sky.No one believed me. Like a black cloud riding on the wind it was.’

‘We know the truth of it now,' said Thorn. 'But do not blame us for doubting you. You are wise. I was blind. I thank you for helping me see.’

The praise quietened the man who had his back slapped with people nodding and bowing to him.

The great beasts lowered their heads almost as one and rumbled together in a single voice almost too low to hear. Then Thorn’s mount reared up as Thorn stood in his saddle. He rose meters in the air.

‘And we bring amongst us a shaman. A man who walks between worlds, and speaks to within us but without needing our words. He has brought a lost mount to heel, to renew its loyalty to our people. Rock brings us hope.’

Thorn pointed both arms at Peter and the gaze of a thousand faces turned up him. Without thought he stood in his saddle, and as he did so his mount mirrored the move and stood up on its read legs. The surge of vertigo from the movement made him sway and the unreality of the moment revealed his stark embarrassment at being the center of so much attention.

And I don’t deserve it. I’m just me. Doing what’s natural.

As the crowd roared a welcome he realized he had spoken those words aloud as all had understood him.

All except Sarah and the cousins from Otautahi Christchurch.

Then a lone voice called out to him.

’Liruq. Ri ve shan zhavisho, Qhawanaqha Vahnaru?’

It took a moment for Peter to realize he had heard Thaluk from someone in the crowd. A confused muttering rose and spread and he realized that no one understood the words. So he replied in kind.

‘Ka na Qhawanaqha Vahnaru ra. Ka sha Liruq. Shaga ra. - I am no witness to Gods. I am Rock. I am just me a man.’

‘Thorn’s beast called out then and the rider who stood upon the beast cried out. ‘You see. We have a shaman once more. One who stands between words to aid us.’

Peter had a sinking feeling he had got into much more than he had bargained for. Even his protests made him more worthy in their eyes.

His mount dropped to all fours and Peter fell forward. He ducked and rolled parkour style as his instincts reacted to the fall. On his back, feet forward he slid down the face of his beast and landed with a thump. A cry of surprise rose up from the crowd and peter stepped back. Right into the muzzle of the beast. She purred a deep rumble.

Oh great. I can’t even fall like an idiot when I need to.

When he dared to look up from under his lowered head his gaze snapped to one pair of eyes. Sarah’s. Her frowning brows drew a line of anger across her beautiful face and Peter’s heart stopped. Behind her Jan grinned like a maniac and he had to smile back.

Like a fool.

‘But I’m no shaman. I’m nothing. I don’t even know why I’m here or how I got here.’

‘You traveled on a the back of a mount that should have been lost to our people but for your uncanny powers,’ Thorn said. ‘You speak words that only one amongst us knows and yet we understand. That is proof enough.’

‘No it’s not. I told you. I ate some stuff. Weird blue glowing stuff, given to me by a sea creature…’

Thorn gasped. ‘You were gifted by the gods?’

‘Oh for…’ Peter swore and stomped a little. ‘It’s not like that. Can you just stop already? It’s embarrassing and it’s wrong.’

‘You reject our people then?’

‘No. I just keep telling you. I’m nothing special. No one is. We’re all equal..’

‘That is not true. Some have skills and training that makes them first amongst others.’

‘Yeah. You’re right but…’

‘And so have you such skills, and gifts.’

Peter waved his hands and walked away. Tiredness dragged at his limbs, his heart, and his mind. He walked in a daze in the hope that he dreamed all this but he knew from Maggie’s experience that would be a foolish path to take.

‘So. What’s it like coming down from another planet and to become a god?’ Tiz fell in beside him.

‘Oh shut it. I could do without that.’

‘Can’t escape it,’ said Tiz.

‘Especially that trick you did coming off the beast of the beast. Where did you learn that?’

‘CAP. Learn to fall gracefully or die. That’s what my downhill mountain bike trainer at Christchurch Adventure Park drilled into me. Made me do parkour training. I guess it worked. I can’t help myself.’

‘No. You can’t can you,’ said Jan coming up to him. ‘I really can’t believe how you’ve manipulated these people. Especially when this is all your fault.’

‘What’s my fault?’

‘We’re here because of you. Sarah’s here because of you. She’s told me all about it. And that’s the only thing that makes any sense. You were with her when she fell onto this planet. And we were with you when you did it the second time.’

‘She’s got a point,’ said Tiz.

‘It’s not like I planned any of this.’

‘Really? Once is a mistake. Twice is coincidence. A third time is enemy action.’

’Okay. So it’s been twice,’ said Peter. ‘Coincidence.’

‘There’s four of us here because of you. That’s more than three,’ said Jan.

Peter scoffed. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’

‘Come on,’ said Jan. ‘I’ve got us a place to stay.’

‘Where?’ said Peter.

‘Not you. Just us. I don’t trust you anymore.’

‘Jan? What gives? I would never…’

But Jan had walked off with Walt in tow.

‘Sorry Peter,’ said Tiz. ’I’m beat. I need to sleep. If she’s found us a bed…’ Tiz turned away and did not complete the sentence, but Peter knew what it was. He had become an outsider even with his family.

He watched them wander away down a street between the domed tents and rough wooden shacks. It all reminded him of a refugee camp he had seen on TV. But from afar he had seen a larger structure in the heart of the settlement.

Later.

He could not hold all the thoughts in his mind at once. Blackbirders in a skyship. Gaining connexion with a beast that turned him into a shaman or something. Someone else here spoke Thaluk that no one understood, and yet when he spoke they all knew his words. Finding Sarah all grown up and… And losing his cousins to a wild conspiracy story that even he might believe in.

If it had not happened to me.

As the day brightened the street grew busier but no one approached him. He turned on his heel and walked back to the stable. He sensed where his mount ate amongst its stable mates.

At least I have a friend there. Even if she might mistake me for breakfast and eat me.