Owlknight

Shandi had learned the essentials of camping all through her two years at the Collegium, by going out with Anda on a regular basis with little more than a bow and arrows, a fire-starter, and a few essentials in a saddlebag. Within three days, Shandi also had fit herself into the regular rhythm of things.

It was Keisha who had remained out of step for the longest, much to her chagrin. It took her a couple of days to get the hang of putting up her hammock so that it didn’t fold her in half, nor slip down on one side or the other. She’d never cooked over an open fire before, so she watched, feeling useless, as Shandi and Steelmind made meals. About the only things she could do competently were to fetch wood and water.

At least I’m good at fetching wood and water - and Steelmind can cook.

The others were already starting down into the river valley below; Keisha’s dyheli took it upon himself to follow. She stared at the mountains with the same fascination that she usually reserved for poisonous snakes. Beautiful, yes, but -

How far are we going to have to climb into those peaks? She’d heard all sorts of horrible stories about mountains - trails that ran out, leaving you on a tiny ledge too small to stand on properly, avalanches that swept down in white roaring walls of death, storms that came up out of nowhere, air too thin to breathe, and the dreaded “mountain sickness.” The latter wasn’t an illness as such; it was caused by the thin air; the symptoms ranged from simple shortness of breath to vomiting and delirium. . . .

And the only way to cure it is to get off the mountain, which could be a bit hard to do if you’re vomiting and delirious.

Nevertheless, that was where they were going, and she had volunteered to go.

The river valley was pleasant enough at least, and they couldn’t get farther than the very foot of the first mountain before nightfall. “Hywel, aren’t there any northern tribes around here?” she called to the front of the group. “This place looks deserted.”

“Oh, yes. This is part of Gray Wolf territory,” he said cheerfully. “They are usually farther upriver this time of year; I do not know if we will see them. They do not herd at all; they hunt and plant some.”

They had encountered two tribes thus far; Black Bear (not to be confused with Blood Bear) and Magpie. The latter, allied with Ghost Cat in the past, had welcomed them with great enthusiasm for the dyes that Keisha had brought with them. The northerners, like the southern Shin’a’in, had apparently never seen a color they didn’t love, and combined colors in ways that made Keisha’s eyes water.

Black Bear, however, had been wary and careful; the travelers saw only their warriors, and never had been invited to the camp. Keisha had asked about their Shaman and Healing Woman, and had been greeted with blank stares and no information. Still, Black Bear had not been actively hostile - or else they hadn’t wanted to take on a formidable enigma like Kel - and had let them pass.

Kel was up above now. Hashi and the dyheli doe Neta were somewhere ahead, acting as advance scouts. Neta was years past the age of breeding, but was just as agile as a doe half her age. More to the point, she was wary, clever, and experienced. The young stags were half afraid of her, since she had acted as a disciplinarian to each of them at some point in his life. Keisha was very glad to have her with them.

As her mount Malcam began picking his way down the hillside, Keisha scanned the valley below. There were no thin streams of smoke from possible campfires, nothing moving through the small clearings among the trees, nor along the banks of the river.

The air was so clear that everything stood out in sharp detail, and the scents were more like those of early spring than of early summer.

“We’ll camp early, on this side of the river,” Hywel called back over his shoulder, then urged his mount on ahead to pick out a good campsite.

Good! Steelmind and I can look for edible plants while a couple of the others hunt. Now that she’d gotten the hang of things, she’d be able to help with setting up camp, too.

In next to no time, they were under the trees again, and the branches cut off all sight of those intimidating mountains looming over them. The dyheli continued to pick their way down the slope in single file, with Steelmind taking rearguard just behind Keisha. There was no discernible track, but the rocky slope didn’t support much underbrush, so the way was clear between the trees.

It was a lot farther to the river than it had looked from the top of the hill; they were still making their way toward the river long past the time Keisha would have figured that they would have already been in camp.

They heard the water long before they saw it; a deep rumble that alarmed Keisha, though she saw no signs of worry in any of the others. When they finally came out into the sunlight, just on the riverbank, she saw why.

To her right, on the downstream side, a smooth and silky expanse of broad water passed into a much narrower and rockier channel. Instead of rolling placidly along, the river leaped over boulders the size of a house and roared along a series of descending cascades.