When Lyle reached the dark cliffs that encircled the whole valley, he began to climb. It was getting more difficult as he grew, but he had been doing it his whole life, and he knew the tricks. He could tell by sight which pieces broke easily, and which ones could withstand the weight of one foot or two.

His hands were a little scratched up by the time he got to the watch place, and he was breathing heavily. He was getting too old for this. He had to admit the irony, though—in town, all he wanted was to grow taller, but out here, he wished himself a child again.

He knew that he could remain a guide for a couple more years after he out-grew this, but after that, he would have to find another job. He would still be doing something to help the bear-hunting business, since it was a family trade. He would also be training children, which he was already doing for the whole off-season.

Eventually, he would take over Uncle Roderick’s job, which was to watch over all parts of the operation. Then he would always have something to do.

He looked around for the mother bears he was supposed to be watching. He easily found Tanter sleeping in the sun a quarter-mile from her den, her cub exploring in the grass nearby. Lili’s two cubs were right outside their den, playing, so it was safe to assume Lili was inside.

He leaned back against the rock to enjoy the sun, and realized he had missed being a watcher. He was paid to sit up here all day and enjoy the view.

From the ground, the valley seemed to stretch on forever, but from up here he could see the whole thing. Yellow grass encased by jagged black mountains. The town sat in the center, and raised roads led directly north, east, south, and west from it. The western one was the largest, the one that connected them to the Outside. If he squinted, he could see their closest neighbor, Brey, nestled in the only gap in the mountains.

All he had to do to entertain himself all day was watch the grass—from up here, you could see it moving in long, rippling waves. It was the closest you would ever get to seeing the wind, he often thought. He let out a long breath and relaxed against the sun-warmed rock.

Half an hour later, he heard a high, clear whistle from the direction of the cabin. The hunters were finished unpacking and were ready to begin.

In their assigned turns, all five watchers blew their whistles twice to confirm that they were in place. He counted as each one came, remembering who was stationed where. He was closest to Raven. If she got into trouble, he would be the first one to be able to get to her, and vice-versa. Not that it was likely, but that was how they were trained to think.

Lyle was last, and after his whistle, the valley grew very quiet. A bird chirped. A squirrel chattered. The bear cubs played outside their den, wrestling and knocking each other over. He could distantly hear their mewing noises of complaint when they fell or their sibling bit too hard, and it made him smile.

Occasionally he heard a whistle or two as the guides and watchers communicated the location of the bear they were hunting, or other bears heading their way.

A while later Tanter woke up, and she and her cub started moving west, right in the direction of the cabin. Lyle was preparing to go down there and herd her back toward her den with the whistle, but then she veered off course. She went south, then came back toward the dens, then went west again. Lyle frowned as he watched her, trying to puzzle out what she was doing. She came all the way back around to where she started, then went north instead of west, and moments later stopped in a big berry patch.

Lyle snorted. “Tanter, did you just get lost?” he muttered. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called, “I saw that!”

Tanter lifted her head and looked around for the source of the sound, but didn’t see him up in the rocks. After a moment she went back to eating berries.

That was the most entertainment he had for the next hour as the bears all sat around eating or sleeping. To keep himself from nodding off, he pulled his bow into his lap and dug around his bag until he found his knife. He unsheathed it and began carving runes into the wood.

He had learned them from Torsten, the Slovic client he had helped pack up after lunch. Torsten had taught him nearly a dozen, but Lyle had memorized just a few—the ones that meant strength, courage, and warrior.

He sat back against the warm rock and drew his knees up to get a better grip on the bow as he held it close to his face and chipped little splinter after splinter away. He didn’t know whether the runes were part of the Slovic language or their religion—was he writing the word strength on his bow, or was he imbuing it with strength? He liked to assume the second.

After an hour, just as he was growing restless again, he spotted a herd of gazelle grazing nearby. He double-checked the bears’ locations, then strung his bow.

He carefully climbed back down the rocks, slipping a few times but managing not to fall. He headed into the grass with his pack and bow and snuck up on the herd easily enough. There were six females and one male with great, black, spiraling horns. He took a few minutes to watch their slow movement as they ate. They were so graceful, the way they stepped through the grass without making a sound or leaving a mark. He watched the muscles slide under their coarse hair. Delicate, yet so powerful.

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One of the females would do. He pulled an arrow from the quiver at his waist and notched it. He pulled back the string, which took most of his strength, and aimed—between the shoulder blades, straight to the heart. He took a deep breath, and as he let it out, he released the string.

The thwap of an arrow hitting flesh spooked the rest of the herd, who scrambled over each other to leap into the grass, As fast as he could, without checking if the first had fallen, Lyle notched another arrow and fired at one that was fleeing; he missed, and got to watch his arrow vanish into the grass.

With a sigh, he turned to the downed gazelle. It was not quite dead, and when he looked at it, the animal began to bay loudly. He swore under his breath. If he cut its throat, a bear would be there in minutes to investigate the smell, but if he let it bay it would also attract a bear—he had to act quickly. He pulled its head up and pressed a knee to its throat as hard as he could. Within moments it went limp, but he held the position for a long time just to be sure.

His uncle could break a gazelle’s neck with his hands, but Lyle had once attempted it and not quite succeeded, making the animal scream. He had not tried it since.

One day, while sitting up in the rocks, he had watched a mountain cat take down a gazelle by jumping onto its back and closing its great jaws around the neck even as it kept running, until it collapsed. He found that to be a very good idea.

The grass rustled aimlessly, waving back and forth, whispering secrets. As he knelt on the gazelle’s throat, holding its warm head in his hands, he listened closely, as his uncle had reminded him. Something was off. His skin prickled with a familiar warning. Probably a bear heading his way, but he couldn’t hear it yet, so he had a little bit of time. He quickly slung his bow over his shoulder, then took the animal’s limp back legs in either hand and dragged it back to the edge of the valley. His skin was prickling the whole time, and he was ready to drop his kill and get out of there if he spotted a bear, but he saw and heard nothing.

He had a hard time dragging it up the rocks, but after about thirty minutes of struggling and sweating, he managed it. When he looked back, he saw Tanter inspecting the place where he had killed the gazelle. The grass had spoken true, as it always did.

He pulled out his knife and began to saw the gazelle in half. He had never attempted to do so before, but it was a logical solution. It was harder than he expected. The smell was so bad that multiple times he had to stop and back away, covering his nose and mouth with a sleeve. The worst was the part where he had to break the spine—he had not thought that far ahead. After a few failed kicks, he smashed it with a rock.

With the deed finally done, he dragged the front half of the gazelle, entrails dangling behind it, to the rocks directly above Tanter’s den. Then he gave the meat a hefty kick. It rolled down the slope and landed with a smack at the entrance of the den. He did the same for Lili, giving her the larger half because she had two young.

Half a gazelle was not a huge meal for a bear, but it would be enough to ensure the mothers felt no need to explore the valley for food today.

Having accomplished his task, Lyle returned to his watch place, only to find it stinking of guts and blood. His clothes were in a similar state. What a stupid idea—now he smelled like bear bait. He sighed. He needed to cool off, anyway—so he decided to go down to the river to wash up.

He checked the positions of the bears again—Tanter was still foraging for berries, and Lili and her young were already tearing into their half of a gazelle.

Feeling it was safe, he went down to the river. After placing his pack on the bank, he rolled up his pants to wade in, then took his shirt off and gave it a few good dunks and squeezes, briefly dying the water red before it melded into the river. He threw it over his shoulder to dry. His pants were only slightly splattered with blood, so he left them alone. He dunked his sweaty head and shivered as the frigid water rushed along his scalp.

He waded out of the icy water and took a moment to stand in the sun to warm up. He was half-dressed and all of his gear was on the ground out of his reach. This, he thought dryly, was the kind of thing he had been warned against doing today.

He sighed and pulled his damp shirt back on and swung his pack over his shoulder. He took a moment to listen as a gust of wind made the grass sway and sigh around him. The grass was restless, seeming ever more to warn that something was wrong. He didn’t have the tingling sensation he did when a bear was approaching, and if someone else was in trouble, he would have heard a whistle. Maybe he was imagining the feeling in his gut because of what his uncle had said.

All the same, he made his way back to the rocks and climbed. When he reached the top and looked around, he saw that the carcass was gone from the entrance of Lili’s den—she had likely dragged it inside, and Tanter was on her way back to her den from the berry patch, cub trailing faithfully in tow.

What was it? What was that feeling? He frowned, eyes searching the entire valley. Unease gripped him.

Movement at the mouth of Tanter’s cave caught his eye. For a horrifying moment, he thought the gazelle had risen from the dead, but then the form took shape—it was two people. Two children, a boy and a girl, emerging from Tanter’s cave. They shaded their eyes against the sun and looked around like they were lost.

Heart pounding, very confused as to where they had come from, Lyle looked around and found where Tanter was. She was lumbering through the grass back to her den, seemingly unaware of the intruders, but headed right for them all the same. She would reach it in less than a minute, and the moment she saw people so close to her home, she would kill them.

Lyle ran.

He slipped down the rocks immediately, then got up and kept climbing down. It wasn’t fast enough. He grabbed the whistle around his neck and blew with all his might, over and over. The strangers barely glanced around at the sound and not in his direction at all. He swore, lost his footing, sliced open the back of his leg on a long piece of shale, and swore twice over.

When his feet finally touched the ground, he ran faster than he ever had before. Would he make it in time, or would he hear their screams through the grass as they died? Would he find them in pieces like the gazelle? Who were these people, and what kind of lunacy had brought them out of a bear’s cave?