Everyone ran from the caves, not caring at all about the rain or the mud that was now everywhere their verdant field had once been.
“You live!” Alex said, beaming.
“Thanks to you,” Harta-ak said. “If you hadn’t sent the warning, we would have been zisla-ta food.”
“How did you survive? There is nowhere in Danta-ah that would have withstood an attack from them.”
“You are absolutely right. But, knowing that we would be going back and forth to Rinta-ah, the first thing we built was a small boat of our own that we could use to cross the river instead of signaling, asking to be picked up. When Wenta-eh rode and told us what was coming, we knew there was no place we could make secure in Danta-ah. So, we made several trips across the river until we were all across.”
Alex pictured Rinta-ah in his mind. A lovely village built into a natural amphitheater that protected them from attacks, but would not do the same against the zisla-ta.
“How did you survive in Rinta-ah? Are there caves there for you to hide in?”
“No,” Klipta-ak said, picking up the tale. “Harta-ak, Versa-eh and all their people came across the river to warn us. We did what we could—reinforced our great building, pulled as many of the animals inside as we could, but we thought it was likely the end of us.”
“Your presence here belies that,” Alex said, grinning happily.
“The zisla-ta passed mostly to the south of us,” Harta-ak said. “It wiped out everything we had started to build, but it did not reach across the river. We all survived”
“We saw a few thousand of the floating creatures, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle. Fortune smiled on us,” Klipta-ak said. He looked around at the unrelenting brown that surrounded them. “We wanted to thank you for thinking to warn us. We brought you new horses to replace the ones we are sure you lost. We are going to leave these here for you and we will walk back.”
Alex and Sekun-ak looked at each other. They had known that the loss of their horses would limit what they could do, and they had no idea how they would get more to start over. They were certain that the karak-ta had been nearly, if not completely wiped out by the zisla-ta, which left them very little to trade with.
“I don’t know what to say,” Alex said.
“Nothing needs to be said,” Rinka-ak said. “I would not be here if not for you and that is not a debt that can be easily repaid. Our lives were not untouched by the scourge of the zisla-ta, but good fortune shined on us.”
“We have one more thing,” Versa-eh said, pointing to two bulging saddle bags. “This trip, we are not just bringing danta. We also brought you these seeds. It is almost time to put them in the ground. It will help make up for the other food sources you lost.”
“We are also looking for information,” Rinka-ak said. “Since the plague of the zisla-ta, every woman in our village who has given birth has died. Every one. We have lost too many before, but if we lose every woman who gives birth we will not survive. What has happened here?”
“It is the same here,” Sekun-ak answered gravely. “On the night of zisla-ta, we had two women with child. They both died within an hour of giving birth.”
“Is it a curse?” Versa-asked.
Lanta-eh, The Chosen One, stepped forward. “It is not a curse. At least, not the way we might normally think of it. Every day, I talk with the monks. We are working on a resolution, but it will be difficult.”
Alex’s mouth fell slightly ajar. If Lanta-eh was in communication with the monks, he wasn’t aware of it. In fact, he knew she hadn’t been more than a few miles from where they stood since they had returned from Lasta-ah. He still had trouble reconciling statements about telepathic communication with the normal young girl he saw before him. If he hadn’t seen a man communing with a rabbit on that journey, he might not have believed it.
Alex realized that their guests, who had traveled so far to see them, were all still on horseback, with the exception of Wenta-eh, who had slipped from her horse and ran to her family immediately.
“Please, dismount, and let us greet you properly. We will welcome you and give you a place to rest before you return. We do not have much food to share, but what we have is yours as much as ours.”
“We wouldn’t think of taking what you have,” Klipta-ak said. He pointed to his own saddlebags. “We brought a feast of our own to celebrate with you.”
That night, the Winten-ah ate well for the first time since the night of the zisla-ta. For the first time, they went to bed with full stomachs.
Still, the curse that Versa-eh had spoken of hung heavily over them. If they couldn’t have children, how could the tribe survive?
That was a long-term question, though. For the short term, the hand up that their friends gave them allowed them to get through the most difficult part of the recovery.
Versa-eh and Harta-ak stayed behind for a few days after the Rinta-ah returned on foot to show the Winten-ah how to plant a crop from the seeds they had brought for them. They called it krinta, but as soon as the tall stalks burst through the ground, Alex knew it was some form of corn.
He hadn’t thought of corn in the years since he had arrived in Kragdon-ah, but as soon as he saw the
