The Clan gathered in moot. The mounts gathered in a large circle, their heads in to the center. Peter rode behind Varuk’hat on his mount. He mourned the death of Girl and the bound between them forged from tulanvarqa and tempered in battle.

Unused to Clan traditions the klaed leaders slipped into the middle of the Clan moot circle to fill the central space. They dragged with them the blackbirder prisoners. The sullen aliens had been bound tight. Their dark auras flickered deep violet. Peter shuddered. The nezhnakhevo had been well named — black winged ones, as if they spread dark emotions from shadows under black wings.

‘We’ve driven off the attackers. We are safe for the moment,’ said Khavuraqo. The Clan shaman Kituqarup stood on the side of Sarah’s mount and called out a translation. A cheer rose and spread. The mounts rose on read legs and trumpeted a joyous cry.

The manisaur leader upon his zugulu moasaur had to pull and tug to control the creature as it shifted and bobbed nervous of the surrounding carnivores. Peter didn’t blame it.

‘We’ve defeated them,’ said one of the Clan. We should return to our lands. We do not belong in the north. We’re strangers here and will never be accepted.’

‘I tell you now. As a leader of the Lekliruq militia my voice has weight,’ said Khavuraqo. He used the skittish movements of his zugulu to study the surrounding Clan and klaed. ‘You are worthy warriors, allies, and friends. I would welcome you in our klaed. There is land to be worked, forests in which to hunt, and space to live in as your own. You carry your homes with you and in time you would build a place amongst us.’

A mutter came from amongst the manisaurs. Peter heard dissent but those voices got hushed down. Khavuraqo’s view prevailed, though Peter sensed the main reason was that the manisaurs were impressed by the mounts, the large grazing beasts, and the warrior force that would add to the defense of the klaed against the Empire.

Peter also knew that manisaurs had a very different view of the world to humans and he could not quite understand all the motivations for Khavuraqo offer. But he did not lie. The manisaur believed what he said. The Clan could go to the klaed with these manisaurs and be safe.

Sarah rose and took to the head of her mount.

‘We cannot stay here. This is only the middle of our journey. The decision should be with the Clan, to go forward with Khavuraqo and his people. Or return to our land where the alien blackbirders have chased us from. I don’t believe we have defeated them. Just given ourselves a reprieve.’

‘How can we trust these quevantaqi? They are aliens too.’

‘We should return over the pass.’

‘We have no home there now.’

‘There are other lands to the south free of the alien invaders.’

Peter heard all the arguments, the shouting from beyond the moot circle, the discussions between the mounted riders. He could not sense a strong direction. He watched the blackbirders. They only pretended to be submissive, they waited for their chance.

Kituqarup spoke. ’Know this. The quevantaq people speak the truth of what they believe. Unlike the Arthan invaders, these aliens.’ He gestured to the captives. ‘In truth not all in the north would welcome us. But most would. I am of two cultures, but become of one people. The Clan. As you have accepted me so would the quevantaqi accept you. I am trium, in my third age. In this time I journeyed and found you my friends. I have been happy. I wish this for you all too. Khavuraqo of Lekliruq would be our champion.’

More discussion and dissent rippled across the Clan. Khavuraqo made his way towards Peter.

‘You should speak,’ the manisaur leader said. ‘You who have tulanvarqa know what I offer. You see the truth of it too. You stand between worlds, qvazira — human. Persuade them.’

‘I’ve no standing here. I am an outsider. They’ve known me less than a month. And I’ll leave them when the full moon comes.’

‘Then I will speak,’ said Dusty who had heard. Peter had brought his mount close enough to Sarah and Varuk’hat’s for others to hear, or to include him. ‘I have things to say. Though they may not hear them.’

The old man and his weary old mount pushed into the middle of the moot circle. He broke with tradition and took the center stage. But all eyes fell to him as his mount reared up and Dusty pulled himself to his feet. He staggered a little but the mount compensated as he stepped onto the head of his mount and put one foot forward.

‘You know me. All you know me. A man older than you all. I have seen a few things, but what I have see today is the most wondrous seeing of all. Clan and klaed fighting together against a common enemy. The invader who took our town, chased us from our homes, and returned us to our homeless past.’

Dusty paused and lowered his voice so people began to repeat his words so all could hear. ‘Our ancestors came from across the western sea. They found in the south a land of bounty. Tales tell of a temperate fertile land, but it is warm and welcoming no longer. Those homes we lost, my grandfather told me how they had to seal them against the increasing cold. He told me how the crops failed so we had to forage for wild things. Our lives diminished each year as we became people on the land, not of the land. That snowbound land fought us daily. The invading aliens only showed us what we should have known. The cold lands of snow Are not where we belong.’

Dusty paused and stared across the Clan and klaed. All had fallen silent. His gaze fell upon the blackbirders so they reminded everyone of their fate at the enemies hands.

‘We have no home to return to. But here in the north it is warm, it is fertile. This could be a land we make our own. I will join Khavuraqo’s klaed in my own third age. All who come with me will know the warmth our forefathers knew.’

‘Why should we follow you old man.’

‘Because I am true to my Clan, true to myself, and you know me. All you know me. I’m just Dusty.’

Stolen story; please report.

Dusty’s mount dropped to all fours as he hung his head. He rode out of the moot circle and joined the klaed riders. Their mounts shifted with unease until Dusty’s mount dropped its head and lowed almost in imitation of a gharumal. The militia’s zugulu settled.

Peter wondered then if mounts could lie, and if they used the imitated calls of herbivores to trick their prey.

So Dusty and his mount joined the klaed and others joined them. Until one young rider took the center against the flow of movement. Shouts fell upon him from the moot circle and beyond.

‘You have no standing.’

‘You cannot take the center.’

‘Let him speak.’

‘I will not hear.’

His mount rose up but the young rider could not take to the beast’s head, it had not yet grown big enough. Their voice cried out.

‘Grey led us this far. And he has fallen. He would not submit to others like this. I say we take what land we want. Our mounts are more than a match for these grazing beasts.’

Immediately shouts erupted across the moot and spread in a ripple of unease. Khavuraqo looked to Kituqarup for a translation but the Clan shaman would not speak. Perhaps they could not.

Sarah’s mount rose up then as the young woman strode to the head of her great meat-eater. The beast gaped its jaws and reminded everyone who had standing as the leader of the clan. Peter’s heart thumped. One toss of the head and Sarah would be breakfast, or dinner. Or whatever time it was.

‘You chose me as leader. As co-leader of three. But where is Grey now?’

‘Fallen,’ shouted some.

‘Run away,’ said more.

‘Run away,‘ Sarah repeated. ‘He abandoned us. Only two leaders remain.’ She looked at the manisaur shaman who stood on the back of Sarah’s mount. ‘I wish Thorn could be here to lead us. I am Clan, but born of two worlds. You took me in and made me so. And isn’t that the way of it? Who is Clan alone? We are family and friends. And which Clan? River? Snow? Thorn saw this and welcomed outsiders. Kituqarup, is quevantaqi from the north. We have one who flew an Italian flag into battle but fell today in defense of the Clan. The quevantaqi of Lekliruq fought beside us, for us, as much as with us.’

A rumble of agreement and glances between the human Clan and manisaur klaed militia showed that the fighting had formed a bond between them. Peter did not expect it to last, but hoped it would.

‘In the south there is cold, much snow, and ice. In the north there is a warm welcome. I want to slap dust from my clothes not ice. Not snow. I would be dusty for a change. We step down. We follow our elder whether he likes it or not. I acclaim Dusty to lead us into the north.’

‘Dusty.’ The cry went up as Sarah retired from the circle.

The Clan held no vote. And broke tradition in doing so, but few complained. Most followed Khavuraqo and Dusty down the mountain. The few who didn’t went their own way.

Peter ached to head for the temple above Hatunqiri but he found himself following Dusty, Sarah, and the Clan.

With Girl left dead upon the battlefield, Peter rode behind Varuk’hat on his turned mount. The same Peter had shot from under a blackbirder as it attacked them high on the mountain pass. He knew now Girl would have been turned the same way. Varuk’hat shot her in the initial attack upon the portal all those weeks before.

The imprinting had a sinister aspect. He watched Walt ride a turned thraqanonkra. Peter had shot it when the pack attacked them. Girl had loved him, and he her, but had that bond been freely given?

Can love ever be a gift unbound, or is it only an expression of mutual need, of compulsion?

Peter laughed. ‘That’s too deep.’ Sadness tugged at him though.

Girl had somehow become a part of him. He did not understand the way of the Clan. They had left the animals upon the battlefield as carrion for any scavengers. Their own dead they carried bound in hides in bundles upon the backs of the mounts. They would bury and mourn them in time. The nomads took their dead with them on their trek.

‘What is that you said young human?’ said Varuk’hat. ‘Explain.’

‘Why don’t I ever see you without your webbing?’

‘That’s too deep,’ Varuk’hat said.

‘It is?’

‘Think of my webbing as a cultural necessity. I would not be myself without it.’

‘Right,’ Peter said uncertain what that meant.

And now he had a chance to study it, the webbing appeared stranger than ever. As Varuk’hat’s body swayed to the mounts movement Peter saw how the complex tracery followed the contours of the imps muscles. It also extended around his neck and onto his head where it burrowed amongst the imp’s fur-feathers. A line of it ran down Varuk’hat’s spine to end in a hasp on a wide belt around the imp’s waist. Peter got the sense it all branched from that module in the small of his back. Then sometimes, when they passed into the shadows under the dark beech trees it glittered almost like phosphorescence.

Or the aether in the kheel of my flying sailboat Jupiter.

That thought jolted him back to the present.

‘Varuk’hat. We have to get to the portal above Hatunqiri before the full moon.’

The imp turned his mobile head and Peter saw in the imp’s gaze the same face of his friend Breeze. The uncanny steadiness of the head, the slow blink as if thoughts spun a moment within his skull before words came out. Wind ruffled the imp’s fur-feathers and a chill ran up Peter’s spine.

‘The portal? Hatunqiri.’ The imp considered the words.

‘As nuvra we can return to Earth through it.’

‘The portal opens there on the full moon?’

‘Yeah.’

‘And that’s in three nights?’

‘I think so.’

‘Then you must go there. Why then are we travelling into klaed lands?’

‘That’s sort of what I ask myself,’ said Peter.

‘There’s no time to lose. We turn from this path. At once.’ The imp directed his mount towards the side of the path.

‘At least wait for the next fork in the road,’ Peter said.

Varuh'hat's mount moved faster to overtake others until they drew close to the head of the line of Clan. Peter saw her then.

Sarah and the manisaur shaman spoke with animation to the klaed leaders. Blackbirder prisoners rode on grazing beasts cut from the herd along with many others to carry the weary Clan down the mountain.

Walt still rode his thraqanonkra which seemed to have reached the end of its endurance. Jan and Tiz walked beside him.

‘She won’t let me get off,' the young boy said.

‘What do you mean?’ said Jan. ‘She will be happy to be free of your weight.’

‘It’s not so bad riding one of these beasts,’ said Tiz.

‘They’re not meat eaters.’

‘So?’

‘She tells me the meat eaters are the top of the pack,' said Walt. 'The leaders eat the weak.’

‘What nonsense is this?’ said Jan. ‘You can’t hear her. Surely?’

Peter stared. There could be no way Walt could have tulanvarqa. He stared at the thraqanonkra.

‘Is it true?’ Peter said. The ravening beast whined, and Peter got the sense of agreement.

‘Walt. Stop. Ride with me on this mount. Varuk’hat will not mind.’

‘Is she a meat eater?’ Walt said.

‘You know she is.’ Peter remembered that some of the fallen beasts in the battlefield had fed the mounts before they set off down the mountain.

‘She says it is okay,’ Walt said. He seemed almost delirious while the thraqanonkra staggered as if in relief when he got off.

‘We’re going to leave the Clan,' said Peter. 'We will go to Hatunqiri while the other go to the klaed.’

‘Why can’t we stay with them?’ Walt said.

Peter helped the boy up into the mount’s webbing where he snuggled into a saddlebag. ‘We can return home. To Earth. I know a place where a portal will open.’

Walt had chosen a bag filled with zharaqsa but Varuk’hat said nothing.

‘One mount cannot carry you all.’ Sarah had turned her mount as the Clan’s progress stopped. ‘And the grazing beasts cannot carry on much longer. They have had no forage.’

’I am told there is a wayhouse not far ahead,’ said Kituqarup. ‘There is a place for us to stable the mounts, and pasture for the grazing beasts.’

‘Then it is settled,’ said Sarah. ‘There will be no haring off to Hatunqiri. At least until tomorrow morning.’

The next morning they found the blackbirder prisoners had escaped in the night. Someone had freed them.

It seemed the Clan had not lost all of its dissenting members.

Grey and his allies remained out there somewhere. It made Peter all the more eager to be away from the Clan and on the road to Hatunqiri.

‘We’ll be finally shot of the blackbirders.’