“Yes. You have said that Rinta-ah is a good distance away. I’m sure you’ll want to take the horse.”
“Yes. And I will ask Senta-eh to accompany me.”
“Of course,” Sekun-ak said with a smile. “Of course.”
Alex looked a little sheepish. Everyone in the tribe knew how he felt about Senta-eh. What no one understood was why Alex kept those feelings to himself, and why he didn’t act on them.
“We’ll leave before first light tomorrow, then.”
Alex went looking for Senta-eh and found her in the field in front of the caves. She and Noken-ak, the weapons-maker, had crafted half a dozen smaller bows and a few dozen smaller arrows. She was surrounded by boys and girls who had yet to see their tenth solstice.
She knelt behind a tall, reed-thin girl who strained to pull the bowstring back.
“To your ear, then hold it there,” Senta-eh said.
The young girl did so, but the arrow wavered.
“When it settles, release.”
Finally, the arrow came to a momentary stop and the girl let it go. It flew straight at the shield Senta-eh had set up twenty paces away and hit it with a satisfying thunk. The small girl dropped the bow and squealed happily.
Around her, every other child jumped up and down and begged to be next. Senta-eh saw Alex approaching and handed the bow to the tallest girl in the crowd. “Skenda-eh, you are in charge while I am gone. Start with the smallest children but give everyone a turn.”
She smiled at Alex and said, “Manta-ak,” by way of greeting.
Alex returned her smile. It always made him happy to hear his name from her lips.
“I am going on a journey to Rinta-ah tomorrow. I am taking them a karak-ta egg to thank them for the help they gave us. Will you come with me?”
“Yes,” she said, without hesitation. “We will take the horses, then?”
Alex remembered a time when Senta-eh was scared to ride even the docile horses they had been given in Tonton-ah. Now, she was a better horseman than he was. She was one of those people who mastered everything easily.
“Yes. We’ve been here at the cliffside too long. It will be good to see a little more of the world again.”
“Or perhaps you are looking for more giants to kill in a fight to the death?”
“I can easily pass on that part of the trip, thank you.”
“I will meet you at the stables before first light.”
Alex went to prepare his pack for the trip. His steps were light. He loved Winten-ah, but his sense of adventure had always been his driving force. The idea of setting out on a new journey excited him.
He found the pack he had used the year before and took it to Garta-eh, who controlled the supplies for the tribe.
Before he even opened his mouth, she reached for the bag and said, “Sekun-ak said you were leaving. I already have Senta-eh’s bag, too.”
“Wait. What? I just asked her to go with me?”
“Uh-huh. And before you did, she had already asked me to prepare a bag for the same trip.”
Alex’s head was spinning, but he handed the bag over to the older woman and said, “Thank you.”
He walked back out onto the field, still trying to figure out how Senta-eh always seemed to know things before she possibly could. That was a puzzle he could work on for days, but never come up with a solution.
A few hours later, as the sun grew low on the horizon, a guard’s horn sounded—three short blasts and a long—which meant someone who was not a threat was approaching.
Alex looked over his shoulder to see Sekun-ak staring into the forest.
“You just sent the runners out, right?”
“Yes. They could not have reached any village and given them time to send a trader here yet.”
Unannounced company was a rare thing in Kragdon-ah. All members of the tribe found a reason to pause what they were doing and look expectantly at the point where the path emerged from the forest.
The minutes dragged on, but finally two lone people on horseback emerged. Even from a great distance, there was something familiar about them.
Then, it clicked into place. Alex shouted, “Senta-eh! We have company!”
She caught him at the bottom of the cliff, and they strode out toward the oncoming horses. They met them at the edge of the open field. Children surrounded the new arrivals, but the two newcomers smiled, laughed, and pushed their way through to Alex and Senta-eh.
“Harta-ak! Versa-eh! We never thought we would see you again! How did you ever find us?”
“You leave an easy trail to follow,” Versa-eh said with a laugh. “You’re lucky that Lasta-ah was too wounded to send anyone after you. Everywhere we went, the legend of Manta-ak and The Chosen One grew and grew. We inquired at the very first village we came to if they had seen you. A one-handed man spit on the ground and cursed your name. That was when we knew we were going the right way. We got lost a few times, but when you don’t really care where you are going, getting lost can be a pleasure too.”
Harta-ak laid his hands on Alex’s shoulder and said, “Thank you for receiving us. We won’t stay long. We are looking for a place to settle down and call our home.”
“Come, come,” Alex said. “We’ll see what’s in the stewpot for the night, then we’ll find a place for you to rest.”
Alex turned and saw Sekun-ak and a group of tribal elders approaching. He put a hand on both Harta-ak and Versa-eh’s shoulders and introduced them, adding, “Without them, we never would have made it home.”
Sekun-ak stepped forward and offered the formal greeting of Kragdon-ah, putting his right hand on Harta-ak’s left shoulder. “We owe you for the life of three of our most cherished people. That gives us a debt we can never repay, but we will try. Please, stay with us as long as you
