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  I have an idea.

  She might be clumsy, she might regularly deal herself bruises and stumbles, she might never truly be her father’s daughter, but Kelyn had no shortage of ideas.

  The leader looked at the captives, found them passive and unsurprised by the avalanche damage, and it enraged him. “You knew of this!”

  They said nothing. They might have inched a little closer to one another.

  The leader stalked up on them in two long strides and snatched Frykla, hauling her over to the edge of the trail. “You knew of this!” he repeated. “You know of other ways out, too — and you’ll show us!” He gave Frykla a little shake, and she froze in terror, her eyes pleading. Pebbles dislodged by her scrambling feet rolled over the sharp drop and pinged their way down the slope for a very long time.

  Fight him! Kelyn thought at the younger girl. Bite, kick, scratch — anything!

  Except she quickly realized the man had Frykla so close to the edge — over the edge — that along with threatening her, he was also the only thing keeping her alive. She hesitated, fuzzy-brained, and felt the others draw closer around her.

  “You’ll help, or she dies,” the leader repeated, sneering the words. “And then another of you, and another. You’re of no use to us if we can’t get back to the marketplace.”

  One of the other men spoke up, a short phrase accompanied by an expression Kelyn hadn’t seen before and didn’t like. The leader laughed. “Grolph reminds me that we will, of course, use each of you most thoroughly before you go over the edge. We’ve been a long time away from home, and the only reason you haven’t entertained us before now is that it’ll reduce your value. Doesn’t matter if you’re about to go over the edge, does it?”

  Iden muttered something horrified, and the group tightened into a little defensive knot — a hunt pack, expert partners in defense against animal and element...and no experience with human enemies. Trussed and drugged and entrenched in the experience that each human life was precious and crucial to the survival of the whole — and still not used to thinking of any human life in terms of a threat.

  “We’ll help!” Gwawl blurted.

  “Don’t drop her!” Mungo added.

  “Please!” Iden said, the most heartfelt of them all.

  And Kelyn said, “I know another way.”

  ~~~~~

  She took them back along the trail, then cut away to head upward. By then her leg ached heartily; Kelyn didn’t feign her reliance on the staff. Her wrists and ankles chafed and bled under the rough ropes. Clarity returned to her thoughts — and to judge from the puzzled glances her pack mates gave her, to theirs as well. For they were starting to wonder — and worry — what she was up to. She made it a point to catch Iden’s eye, to stumble forward long enough to mutter a reassurance in Mungo’s ear. To give Gwawl an assertive nod, and to smile at Frykla — who still knew very well that she would be first to die should the slavers grow impatient. She was the youngest, and she’d already caught their eye.

  Kelyn didn’t blame them for wondering, not even for worrying. For she led them right back up the trail to the nightfox den...back to where not a day earlier, they’d left offerings for the rock cat.

  But we know about the offerings, and about the cat.

  The slavers had not the faintest idea.

  ~~~~~

  “We have to go up!” Kelyn said in desperation, as Frykla dangled over another edge. “It’s the only way around! We have only to crest this peak, and then we’ll start back down again. But — ”

  “You arguing with me?” the leader said, incredulous expression clear even beneath his raggedy beard. Frykla froze under his hand, waiting to fall.

  Kelyn shook her head most emphatically, her hands white-knuckled around the staff as she watched Frykla. “I was only going to tell you that this is the best camp spot we’ll see before dark. It doesn’t matter to us, we’re used to sleeping on the edge of things. I just thought — ”

  He shut her up with a sharp gesture, but he also reeled Frykla in and shoved her off in the direction of the pack. Then he hooked his thumbs over his wide, stained leather belt and stared at them. Stared at Kelyn. Suspicious. “Aren’t you just the cooperative one.”

  Kelyn couldn’t help the anger in her voice. “I don’t want to be used unto death and tossed over a cliff. What would you do in my place?” And then she hoped he was dull enough — or overconfident enough — so he didn’t come up with the right answer. Lead you into trouble and leave you there.

  For she’d already done the first part. Just above this spot, they’d made their offering to the rock cat. There’d be one in the area, now — not taking kindly to intruders, either. Rock cats, proficient hunters that they were, didn’t need human prey. But they didn’t tolerate human presence, either. Perhaps one human...perhaps two. Perhaps someone who was quiet and didn’t intrude on the night.

  Kelyn wouldn’t leave things to chance. She pointed up the steep slope and said, “If you’re any good at climbing, you can find choi-buttons up there. A whole bush full. We’ve been letting them mature for harvest, but if you like such things — ”

  Gwawl shoved her. “Those are ours!”

  “What’s it matter now?” Kelyn said, glad to have one of the others finally, finally catching on and lending a hand — for the hallucinogenic seed pods were nothing the pack ever touched. Stupid, to rob your own wits in Ketura’s mountains. “If the buttons make them happier, our lives will be easier.” She nudged Gwawl, nodding at the tight space beneath a granite overhang sparkling in the rays of the setting sun.

  The rock cats attack from above.

  Gwawl wasn’t the only one catching on; Iden looked at the retreat with sudden understanding. As the slavers carried on a loud discussion in their harsh native tongue, the pack moved close enough to the overhang, and when the leader turned to them with a peremptory gesture, it was of no matter at all to sit just where they’d wanted to be. For the first time they were close enough to exchange words, but for the first time it was unnecessary. They knew the stakes. Ignoring the pain of her bloodied wrists, Kelyn subtly tested the ropes, checking to see if they’d loosened over the day’s activity — they had — and if she could slip her hands free.

  She couldn’t.

  But she still had slightly more freedom than the rest of them...and she could work at it. They all worked at it, watching as the slavers quickly set up camp, putting the sleep powder packet on the rock for later. The men split up, and one took on the task of climbing the steep rock, a gleam in his eye. A man who knew and liked the effects of the choi button, and was willing to make the climb even with dusk coming on.

  Kelyn hoped he didn’t make it back down alive...but if he did, then while the slavers crushed, burned and inhaled the powerful choi, the pack would still have a chance to escape.

  The leader started a fire, grumbling at Kelyn in the process. “It’s getting cold up here. You shouldn’t have brought us so high.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, as ingratiating as she could be without sounding false. Mungo rolled his eyes. “It’s the only way I know.”

  The sun’s light traveled up the rock, leaving the little clearing in shadow. The other men brought more wood, gnarled dead pine that would burn hot and fast. The leader poured a small amount of precious water into a battered travel cup and added a pinch of the sleeping drug, heating it beside the fire until steam wafted into the air. Then he brought it to them, pre-occupied and watching the rocky slope for signs of his companion. “Drink,” he commanded them. “One swallow each.” He took his eyes from the slope to glare at them. “Don’t spit it out.”

  He didn’t have to add the threats. They hung loudly enough, if unspoken, in the air between captives and captor.

  They each took a swallow, making terrible faces. Kelyn took her turn last, and siphoned the concentrated, intensely bitter liquid under her tongue, scrunching her face in an uncontrollable reaction to the taste.

  A trickle of stone came fro
m above. The slaver glanced overhead, and Kelyn soundlessly pushed the mouthful out between her lips, letting it dribble silently down her chin. By the time the man looked down again, she’d scrubbed her chin against her shoulder, removing the traces. Behind her, the pack held its collective breath, facing the suspicious glare.

  But if the slaver saw anything amiss, he never had the chance to say so. The trickle of stone turned into a thump and a thud, and the slaver jumped back just in time to avoid the falling body of his companion.

  The limp, falling body.

  The leader shouted in surprise and anger, dropping to his knees to roll the man over, shaking his shoulders.

  Almost dusk now. Hunt time for the big cats. Kelyn glanced anxiously back at her pack mates, her eyes full of question. As one they shook their heads — all but Gwawl, who mimed wiping his chin. He, too, had spat out the drug.

  And the others were already drooping, quickly taken by the warm liquid in empty stomachs no matter how they struggled against it. Kelyn closed her eyes in resignation. Only two of us. And with Gwawl tied more restrictively than she.

  Clumsy Kelyn.

  “He’s dead!”

  Kelyn turned back to the slaver leader, unable to dredge up surprise. She didn’t try to fake it--she was supposed to be drugged, anyway. She watched warily, knowing the leader might well take his ire out on her; her hands tightened on her staff. When the moment hung in the air, she gathered her courage and her most practical, faked muzzy manner and said, “Only three of you to split the profit, then.”

  He glared, crouched over his friend and taking no apparent notice of the four deep, bloodless puncture wounds on the man’s neck — the blow of a rock cat so irate it hadn’t even bothered to play. This man’s neck had been broken long before he hit the ground. Kelyn glanced back at her friends.

  They’d seen it. Of course they’d seen it, even through the drugs. Their tension filled the little overhang. But the slaver didn’t pick up on that, either, muttering about his clumsy companion and his deadly fall. He patted up and down the dead man’s sides, hunting — and finding — the seed pods the man had gone to acquire. To Kelyn’s surprise, he left the dead man where he lay and went to the fire. The other two men waited, wary and tight-lipped; the three of them huddled together to exchange terse words, glancing frequently at their prisoners. Then they seemed to come to some conclusion, for the leader settled in and though they had dried meat and a handful of dried tubers already set aside for a meal, they turned their attention to the choi buttons.

  Within moments they’d crushed the seed pods to fine, precious dust that they cupped in their palms, applying glowing sticks pulled from the fire. Pungent smoke drifted briefly toward the overhang, but most of it ended up inside the slavers’ lungs. After a few moments, they didn’t seem to notice when their aim grew less precise and the odor of burnt skin mingled with that of the choi. And a few moments after that, they stood, staggering against one another, raucous and jovial.

  Gwawl muttered, “I’m not sure...”

  He didn’t have to finish his words. Kelyn, too, had hoped the potent choi of this altitude would hit the slavers hard, but they were apparently well-accustomed to the effects of the herb. They didn’t lose their sense of purpose as they headed for their prisoners, three swaggering slavers standing before a sorry group of drugged, huddled youngsters.

  The leader announced, “Now that Grolph is dead, we’ve decided we can spare one of you.”

  Spare one of us...?

  Suddenly, Kelyn understood. Spare the profit, leaving the slavers free to use and discard an unlucky youth. She gave the others a panicked glance, seeing her friends drugged, seeing Gwawl still tightly tied, knowing herself to be no closer to freedom.

  But she had her staff. The staff that supported her on the trail, that saved her from bruises when her pack mates picked up their own casually acquired quarterstaffs and set to causing trouble, that protected her from the attack of everything from unexpected rock fall to irate predators. And if her clumsy feet were tied, they weren’t drugged, either.

  The leader reached for Frykla.

  Clumsy Kelyn.

  Their only chance.

  Their last chance.

  Kelyn cast her self-doubts aside and exploded upward in front of her friend, staff whirling deftly in spite of tied hands — and when the men laughed, she planted one end of the staff and cast herself around it, slamming her feet into one barrel chest, knocking the man into his buddy. She landed in a crouch, lifting the weighted end of the staff to sweep it against the leader’s shins. Down he went with a cry of surprise, turning the slavers into a tangle of stinking, choi-besotted limbs. The surprise only lasted a moment — it was long enough for Gwawl to launch himself into the fray, loop his arms over one man’s head to jam the tight ropes against his throat and pull the man back onto himself.

  Gwawl might have been smaller than the slaver, and he might well have trouble breathing beneath the man — but the slaver was now his shield, and both the other men immediately turned to Kelyn.

  She grinned at them, a fierce grin, and unleashed the ululating hunt cry that until now had only echoed through the mountains in practice — the cry that declared her prowess and confidence and intent. She didn’t wait for their move — she leaped at them, her stance as wide as she could manage in the ropes, and she turned the staff into her shield, whirling it so quickly it became nothing more than a blur. “I’ve decided,” she snarled. “We can’t spare any of us — but we can spare all of you.”

  One of the slavers snarled right back at her. “You bi — ”

  That’s when Kelyn heard it. Another snarl altogether, deep and throaty and full of menace. She glanced at Gwawl, protected under his choking human shield, and she dove for the overhang, miscalculating enough to land right on top of her befuddled pack mates. “Down,” she said to them as they tried to heave her off. “Down, down, down.”

  They stayed down. Kelyn twisted to look back to the clearing as a huge shadow passed before the overhang. A great webbed paw slapped one man, a hind paw scraped across the man on top of Gwawl, and the immense dappled white rock cat snatched the leader up in his jaws and bounded right out of the clearing.

  Silence.

  Kelyn sat up; the others disentangled themselves. Gwawl pulled his arms free and dragged himself out from beneath the dead weight of the equally dead man atop him, and crawled over to join the others. The fire had been kicked to sparks; night was nearly upon them.

  But the slavers were gone. The hunt pack was free.

  Gwawl looked at her and murmured approvingly, “It takes more than brawn to make a powerful hunter...or warrior. And anyway, you saved the clumsy for last.”

  Kelyn moved quickly out into the clearing, using the last bit of fading light to grab knives from the slavers, and to snatch up the meat scattered beside the dead fire. She gave Gwawl one of the knives and they went to work on the ropes. She glanced at their stuporous pack mates. “Will they even remember what happened?”

  Gwawl grunted as his ankle ropes parted, and stretched his legs with pleasure. “Who knows? Does it matter?”

  “No,” Kelyn said, settling in for a long night of huddling beneath the overhang to watch over her drugged friends, guarding against the return of the rock cat. “It doesn’t.”

  Because she knew. And things would be different from now on.

  Clumsy Kelyn could be her father’s daughter after all.

  ~~~~~~~~~~

  A Note from the Author

  There are so many good books to read...thank you for choosing Emerging Legacy! I appreciate your letters, emails, blog comments, and Facebook posts more than I can ever express. These days, readers hold more power than ever with their choices, and reviews and word of mouth are an author's best friend — always very much appreciated!

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  If you enjoyed this short story, you might like Kelyn's ongoing adventures in the novel Wolverine's Daughter:

  Kelyn of Ketura.

  Daughter of a legendary warrior who left the mountains before she was born. Brave. Strong. Tempered by her struggle to survive in the hostile, craggy Keturan mountains. And plagued by moments of enormous and puzzling clumsiness.

  "Find your father," the local wisewoman tells her. "To find your true self, find the Wolverine."

  Angered by his abandonment, Kelyn doesn't care about her father--but the lure of adventure in the Out Lands calls to her, just as it called to the Wolverine before her, and she accepts the challenge.

  New languages, new weapons. Magic. Witch hunts. The treacheries of civilization. She doesn't know just how much of a challenge it'll be.

  And here's the first book in the Changespell Series: Dun Lady's Jess: all woman, all heart... all horse.

  When hikers Dayna and Eric find a naked and terrified young woman, they’re sure she’s the victim of foul play. But the truth is much more shocking: she isn’t human at all. She’s Dun Lady’s Jess, a horse transformed into this new shape by the spell that brought her and her rider, to whom she is utterly devoted, into this world.

  Possessed now of human intelligence but still a horse deep inside, Jess desperately searches this world for her master and rider, using her fiery equine spirit to take on human idiosyncrasies — and human threats.