“I will think about it,” I said finally. We N’Akron didn’t lie, either, and that was as close to a falsehood as I could go.
The long look N’thim gave me made me wonder if he knew of my deception, but when he eventually nodded, I tasted the air in relief. There was no anger coming off of him, no sense that he had seen through my lie. “I will return to your trail in three days,” N’thim said in that weird monotone of his. I had been taught from a youngling to keep my face calm, but he was a stranger. “If you do not wish to present us with a female, we will have no choice but to travel to Kohta and report your actions.” Another lingering look. “If I am busy, a scout will meet you.”
My back stiffened at his last two statements. That hadn’t been mentioned in his immediate plans, that he planned to hurt us as a tribe if we did not cater to his wishes. With a nod and a faint hiss, N’thim was gone, leaving me standing there and trying to think over everything that had happened. What I hated the most was that I was considering it, wondering if there was an eligible female in the tribe that we could gift to his tribe in exchange for our safety and their assistance.
Did that make me any better than the Caterri? Maybe. I didn’t do it at the same level, or even think about it in the same way. They were controlling all of us. This was just one tribe’s attempt to control what they could in front of them. But that he was asking the very thing the Caterri asked for made me wary. Maybe he was already in their pockets. Maybe he was just looking for an excuse to return to Kohta and tell the emperor something that would gain his tribe much favor. Had I made a mistake by trusting him?
Not that I really had the time to think about all of it, not now. No, my focus needed to be on tracking forward, finding time and space to set up the traps I needed to. Since the Caterri were sleeping, I could take advantage of their lax watch and circle around the camp to the other side with the goal of going ahead of them. If I was to injure them, it was not going to be from setting things behind them. No, I needed to get ahead of them, to predict the route they were going to go and how I could best cripple their people.
I gathered my few belongings and spent some time scouting the path, my mind wandering even as I worked on determining which route the Caterri would take. Dana, at least, would be safe, provided she was in that strange metal beast that they seemed to tie to her to with strange metal circles. I could dig holes without worrying about her delicate human feet, at least. Faint memories of seeing O’Rrin tending to Hetta’s feet popped up in my mind. Did she wish someone to rub her feet when feeling ill? Was that something I should have offered to her when we crossed paths?
Wishing I knew more about human mating customs, I skirted the Caterri camp, moving quickly and quietly in the dense brush. I didn’t want them to catch sight of me, but I also wanted to get another peek of Dana. Using the grass to hide and by sneaking, I caught sight of her, still chained to the metal beast and seemingly asleep. Uneasily, I thought of the tang of blood earlier, trying to catch it on the wind on my tongue. Was it really from a Caterri, as she had claimed? Either way, I could not smell it anymore, although I wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing.
I was at least two hours ahead of the Caterri when I started digging. I disguised the traps as best I could, using patches of grass that shaded the stiff sahtor poles I carefully placed inside. If we were lucky, the Caterri would cut themselves. If not, the depth of the holes meant they would at least injure their strange legs. Next were the trip wires, although I struggled to place them above the ground. While I had set them for hunting back home before, it was different so close to Kohta when we needed to be invisible. I couldn’t use leather in that case, because the Caterri would see it and know something was going on.
My people twined the sinew from animals into long lengths, so I used that, using small fragments of wood to hold them far enough off the ground and steady enough it would harm the Caterri in the event they stumbled into one. I did hope that it would come across as an accident, because the wood would give fairly quickly. Maybe the Caterri would think it was just bad luck.
By the time I finished, the sun was nearing the horizon, starting to cast bright rays that illuminated everything. I was starting to tire, knowing I had to sleep at some point, but not yet. No, I needed to keep an eye on Dana first. I needed to see how the Caterri would react to the trap, and there was no way I could sleep that close to their trail.
When I realized it would take another hour or two for the Caterri to arrive, I darted
