Peter aimed Varuq'hat’s gun at the nearest blackbirder mount and fired. The dart hit and the beast reared up to whirl in the direction of the sting. But Peter had already moved away and had lined up the next shot.

He fired again and again. The imp had not said how many shots the gun carried, but he ran out of targets before the gun stopped firing.

To call the drug in the dart a pheromone had to be wrong. But the effect seemed to be the same, the darts catalyzed a change in the mounts so that, however the blackbirders had broken the mounts to them, this now failed. The beasts turned on their riders, bucked and rolled to get at them as if they had become tormentors and not masters.

Soon those still in control of their animals broke off and left the field. Behind, the mounts that had been shot, turned savage, but when challenged by the disciplined Clan mounts the now wild beasts ran away into the blue night. Ash rose in the air at their passing, so the air stank of fire and death.

Instinctively the Clan’s mounts formed a circle with their heads faced inward, lowered and lowing as if in mourning. More mounts joined. And so the circle widened as the beasts shuffled and cried and made way for more to join.

In the center of the circle a felled and broken mount lay beside a body wrapped in a white banner. All ripped and bloodied red, upon the ground it had been streaked black with ash. Vale sprawled in death beside the bannered body. He had defended Turq where she lay, torn and broken by the Arthan’s otherworldly explosion. And he, heedless of his own injury, had perished beside her.

The skyship blazed with light as it drifted away on the wind. It bounced over the ground after the tether to the anchor had been cut. The remains of the blackbirder force now worked to secure their ship and ignored the Clan.

‘We cannot stay here,’ a rider said. ‘We have to get away before they attack again.’

‘They have what they wanted,’ said a voice.

Grey. Peter stared at the River Clansman. He had no blood upon him. His mount looked fresh. It reared up dominant and assured, not chastened and weary from fighting like the rest.

‘That’s what they always wanted,’ said Grey. ‘The skyship. Now they have it we can leave in peace.’

‘So you say.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I spoke with them,’ Grey said. ‘I brokered this peace.’

‘We broke them.’

‘They run.’

‘No.' Grey paused for effect as if proud of his oratory. 'Look to the recent past for proof of their power. But here they stayed their hand. When they could have thrown fire upon us, they fought with blade. When they could have shot their invisible darts at us, they rode at us upon mounts.’

‘They did that for sport,’ said Peter. ‘They are monsters that toyed with us.’

‘And it is you who took the skyship from them,’ said Grey turning to him. ‘You brought this upon us.’

‘They took our children, our grazing beasts,’ said another voice.

Peter did not see the point in arguing with this man. He had seen him run from the fighting. Why bother engaging with him?

Why don't others see him as a coward?

He spoke with the enemy. Clan and blackbirder cannot communicate except by their translation technology.

Peter narrowed his eyes. Confirmation of guilt lay upon that face, but Grey met his gaze and smiled.

‘And where is Sarah?’ said Grey. ‘That fair warrior not one can beat. Where is she?’

‘With the children,’ said Dusty. ‘She looks to the future of the clan.’

‘A worthy Clan leader,’ said Grey. ‘Does anyone doubt it?’

All looked upon Vale and the banner wrapped body of Turq, the River Clan leader. Grey slipped to the ground and went to one knee as if in prayer to the body. He gently freed her face from the banner.

‘I take up your mantle. For the Rivers. Until we choose another.’ He stood and looked around at the encircling Clans. ‘And Sarah? She stands for the Snows.’

A murmur shimmered around the Clans but no one spoke against him.

Peter looked for Thorn, but could see no sign. His heart fell deeper then. Vale and Thorn had taken him in, had made him Clan.

Girl reared up then and wailed. Other mounts did the same, and he knew they too mourned and did not celebrate this victory. Though Grey looked satisfied, as if the Clan acclaimed him.

Peter's guts churned then at all he had lost.

Peter found Walt and Tiz with the grazing beasts not far from the where the Clan had drawn together in a defensive formation. A group of mounted Riders patrolled the area between the retreating skyship and the Clan.

‘I can’t tell you off, I would have done the same thing,’ said Peter.

‘I thought we were pretty brave,’ said Walt.

‘That too. But I still do wish you had kept yourself safe.’

‘Nothing’s safe here though is it?’ said Tiz. ‘Our teachers would have a fit. They don’t even like us playing bar-the-door on school grounds.’

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

‘I’m sorry you’re here.’

‘You didn’t mean to do it. This is all an accident. Right?’

‘Sometimes I think so, other times I wonder if perhaps someone has it in for me. But I didn’t want to come here that day. I wanted to hang with Vanessa.’

‘Then it’s our fault. If we had not asked you to go into the cave with us.’

‘We can’t think like that. You can never go back. You can’t change the past. What’s done is over, and we need to make the best of things.’

‘Some of this is pretty cool though. Riding huge dino-animals, and not going to school, and that skyship was amazing.’

‘But I do want to go back. Back home that is. This cold is too much. I don’t want to have to stay here. Like Sarah has. All those years.’

Peter looked to the northeast where the wind had blown the blackbirder’s skyship.

‘I wish we could have kept the skyship. I should have tried harder.’

‘Why? What’s so important about it?’

‘There is a way to go back to Earth. Or there was. It’s possible for nuvra, for the newly arrived to go through a portal and return home. But it has to be within one month.’

‘We’ve been here over two weeks now right? So there’s still time.’

‘Yes. We arrived on the full moon, and now it is a crescent, and it gets bigger every day. That’s the problem. We have less than two weeks to get to a portal and get home. That’s reason I wanted the skyship. To get us to the portal.’

Peter sighed and looked towards the spark of light that showed where the skyship had drifted too. It looked so small and far away now.

‘So I’ve failed you too. I can’t get you home again. We’re stuck here like Sarah.’

‘So you endangered the whole Clan.’ Sarah stepped close to the boys. ‘Just so you could escape to Earth. If you had not taken the skyship the aliens would not have attacked us, would have left us alone.’

‘No, it’s not like that,’ Peter turned and stepped towards her.

‘And you would have left me too?’ Sarah stood her ground and faced Peter. ‘You say that only those newly arrived can leave. So you put us all in danger just so you can abandon me, You put the whole Clan put at risk. Vale, and Turq, and Spring, and Dawn, and others. They died just so you could run away?’

‘The skyship is more than that. It carried a treasure…’

‘So you did it out of greed? Is that any better?’

‘No. The blackbirders should not get the zharaqsa crystals. Having the catalyst crystals would have saved the Clan, given you something to bargain with over the mountains.’

‘And is there really a future for the Clan beyond the Teeth of the World? Are we all just doing what you need us to do, for your own selfish reasons?’

‘No. I tell you the truth.’

‘So you would leave me and the Clan? You just use the Clan all so you can leave? You are not Clan.’

Sarah turned and ran away into the blue night filled with long sharp shadows cast by the crescent moon as it rose above the eastern mountains.

Peter could not think of the words to call her back, to tell her she had it wrong.

‘That went well,’ said Walt.

‘Shh.’ Tiz pulled Walt away. ‘Come on Walt. We have to find Jan. She left with a rider going back to the camp. We have to stick together.’

Peter stared after them, then trudged along in their footsteps. Girl snuffled behind him, as if she sensed his distress.

She’s right. I used them. Didn’t I? To get home.

‘But isn’t that what I have to do? Get everyone home safe?’

‘Why don’t the blackbirders attack?’ said Tiz. ‘Makes no sense.’

‘They got pretty bloodied the last time, and they’ve got what they want,’ said Jan.

Peter nodded. He knew the skyship had been cleaned out of zharaqsa, and that made it stranger the blackbirders had not come after the Clan to get it back.

‘Unless they captured Varuq’hat,’ Peter said. ‘And they have all the zharaqsa they need.’

Riders continued the patrols but the Clan had eaten a meal and many now fell asleep with exhaustion. Peter and the boys and Jan had hunkered down on the edge of the Clan as if they had been shunned. Grey’s influence had turned many of them against him as he blamed him for the blackbirder attack and the deaths of their leaders.

‘The bigger problem now is that the Clan has to carry the stores that had been onboard the skyship,’ said Peter. ‘They’ve no choice. Effectively they’ve become refugees.’

Walt slept curled up next to a grazing beast that had taken a liking to him. Imprinted through the trauma of the battle Peter thought.

Tiz nodded as he stared into the fire, while Jan gave up trying to stay awake and soon fell asleep. Exhaustion tugged at Peter as well and without realizing he too dropped off.

He started awake, unsure what had woken him. Girl lay to windward where she had sheltered them from the wind, but now the wind blew across the Clan.

Perhaps the wind woke me.

Too tired to bother moving Girl he began to dose off when he heard a chirp and the guttural squawk of a blackbirder.

All sleep fled then. He moved to stand next to Girl. The mount slept, her breath slowed and all motion stopped. But she shivered then and took a huffing breath as if she had sensed his wakefulness.

It’s coming from the other side. East. Blackbirders sneaking up? But they have patrols out.

Girl stirred.

‘Easy. Stay still.’

The beast’s flank relaxed, and Peter stepped around her.

‘What is it?’

Peter jumped and bit back a shout of surprise.

‘Walt. Don’t do that?’

‘I need to pee,’ the boy said. ‘But I don’t want to go out on my own.’

‘There’s blackbirders out there,’ Peter whispered. ‘Keep your voice down.’

He crept around Girl and stared towards the east. The crescent moon lay in the west now, brighter than it had any right to be, but still a slim narrow outline of the globe. A light flashed and a crackle of digitally distorted sound came that sounded like Clan.

Peter couldn’t understand the words. The strangeness of tulanvarqa meant that someone had to be present, speaking, intentionally communicating, for him to understand. He and Walt walked closer, he kept a patch of low brush between him and the faint cold light. He and Walt lay on the ground next to the bushes and listened but nothing made sense until the Clan voice replied.

‘I do not know what that substance is you talk about. And no one else amongst the Clan would either. Such magic we would avoid if ever we saw it. And if we had it I would return it to you.’

A clatter of guttural Arthan blackbirder speak, and then the digital voice muttered a translation into Clan. So low and almost lost on the wind.

‘There is one from Earth that may know. I will seek them out in the morning and find out.’

More digital distortion and guttural utterances. Still Peter could only understand the speaker’s Clan.

‘Yes. I can turn them over to you. Just keep your distance. I have control while I can speak of the accord we have to let you have the skyship. And you will let us on our way.’

The radio chirped.

‘You said you would tell me the way over the mountains. Tell me now.’

Silence then.

‘Speak. You promised.’

Eventually the Clan speaker realized no one would reply and shuffled with little sound back towards the Clan. As they turned their face to the crescent moon Peter saw who it was. And the whispered voice made sense to him now.

‘Grey,’ Walt said.

‘Yes,’ Peter whispered. ‘He’s been speaking with the blackbirders all along.’

He must have found the radio and translation equipment. And the smart fellow worked out how to speak with them.

‘Grey might be a nasty coward, but he’s no dumbass.’

Peter held Walt still for much longer than the boy could almost bear. He wriggled from Peter’s grasp, stood and peed onto the bush.

‘Oh. Sorry.’ Peter stepped away. ‘I forgot.’

They wandered back toward Girl and spoke in low voices about the excitement of the day. Anything except what they had just seen and heard.

Walt needed no time to fall asleep again, but Peter watched the constellations glide across the sky for what seemed an age before he too fell asleep again.

When he awoke, it was because someone had kicked him.