“Again, Dadda! Again!”
Alex did as she asked. He was mindful of what Senta-eh had asked of him and did his best to let their daughter try and fail on her own. But when it came time for playtime in the field, he let her have her way until he was exhausted. He always ran out of energy before she did.
Finally, Alex collapsed onto the ground with a sigh.
Sanda-eh climbed on his chest, leaped into the air, tucked her legs, and landed hard on his solar plexus. The air whooshed out of Alex’s lungs.
She stood on his chest, readying for another attack, but Alex put his hands under her arms and lifted her to the grass. She took that as an invitation to run, and run she did.
“Monda-ak, I’m worn out. It’s your turn.”
Monda-ak was older, but showed no signs of losing his puppy-like energy. He woofed his agreement, then gobbled up the ground between himself and Sanda-eh. He loped past her, then knelt down on his front two legs and growled menacingly.
Sanda-eh laughed again, ran at him, and swatted him in the face. Monda-ak closed his eyes and panted a smile to her. The two of them wrestled long enough—the tiny girl nearly getting lost in the wide expanse of dark fur—that Alex was able to find his second wind. Sometimes he thought being a single parent—or, co-parenting with a giant dog—was harder on his body than fighting battles had been.
Alex Hawk had been in Kragdon-ah for ten years. There were early flecks of grey growing into his hair. His body—especially his twice-wounded left arm and shoulder—was worse for the wear. He had what felt like a thousand small war wounds, and that wasn’t counting the dozens of scars from the wasta-ta stings and the zisla-ta bites.
Alex had stopped marking the anniversary of the day he had arrived in Kragdon-ah. There was no sense to him to mark something that only served as a painful reminder. A reminder that he had made one impetuous decision that had taken his daughter Amy away from him forever.
Thus, it was unmarked by Alex that the day passed when he had spent ten years in Kragdon-ah.
When he had sat face to face with Douglas Winterborne seven years earlier, Winterborne had accused him of going native.
That description was more apt than ever. Alex’s hair was so long that when he pulled it back and tied it with a leather thong, it nearly reached his buttocks. He used the sharp knife he had brought back from his journey to Lasta-ah to trim his beard from time to time, but mostly it was long and unkempt as well. In the heat of the summer, he could be found in a skimpy loincloth and bare feet more often than not. By the summer solstice each year, he was so deeply tanned that he could almost blend in with his tribemates if only he had been a little taller.
As much or more as the exterior evidence, though, was what was in his mind and his heart. He thought almost exclusively in the language of the Winten-ah and was afraid that his English might be getting a little rusty. He remedied that by teaching Sanda-eh. She might have been the only tri-lingual person within a hundred miles, effortlessly fluent in English, Winten-ah, and the universal language of Kragdon-ah.
The Special Forces member who had once been trained in high-tech weaponry was nearly gone. When he thought about weapons at all, it was spears, bow and arrows, knives, and his trusty axe that nearly always dangled from his right wrist. He hadn’t thought of a television program or movie in years.
He was well on his way to becoming a true son of Kragdon-ah.
He mourned Senta-eh and talked to her in his head as he fell asleep and again first thing in the morning. Like the growing number of single fathers in the tribe, Alex never lacked for help in raising Sanda-eh. Lanta-eh was her most constant companion when Alex was out hunting, but in a time when babies were rare, volunteers were easy to find.
They had once again managed to trade for two milk beasts, so nursing mothers were not absolutely necessary, but the children of Winten-ah were moved to solid food earlier than they normally would have been.
In the three and a half years since the night of the zisla-tas, the land around Winten-ah had made progress back toward normalcy. You could no longer sit on top of the cliffside and see through the forest to the plains of the ronit-ta. The bugs were the first to return, as they had either burrowed underground to safety or laid their eggs there. The birds were next, building their nests in the bare branches of the trees until new limbs and leaves sprouted to offer better protection.
Finally, the animals returned.
Alex, Sanda-eh, and Monda-ak continued to live in the little house against the cliffside. It wasn’t unusual for Alex to wake in the morning and find that Sanda-eh had crawled out of bed with him and curled up with Monda-ak during the night. No child ever slept more safely.
The loss of every mother to childbirth put a pall over the entire community and region. Beyond that, life continued much as it had for many generations in Kragdon-ah.
Alex worried about Draka-ak the Younger, wondering if and when he would send another army to Winten-ah to exact his revenge. Alex expected him constantly for the first year, but when he did not appear, he considered the possibility that Lasta-ah had also been hit by the zisla-ta. That was enough to put petty concerns like revenge on the back burner for a long time.
Or so Alex hoped.
He was tired of war, of schemes. Not just of having to fight at a constant disadvantage—an army of three against an entire city—but of fighting in general.
Alex the warrior had lost his taste for conflict.
At least once a year, Alex made a visit to see Harta-ak and Versa-eh in
