Emerging Legacy by Doranna Durgin Page A

lands.
    Any child of Thainn’s, her mother had reasoned, was bound to
get into more than her fair share of trouble. She wanted Kelyn hardened by
this harsh land...trained by it. Challenged by it.
    Of course, her mother had never had any reason to expect
Thainn’s child to be a clumsy one. Or an awkward one, with features that
fought each other for attention. Or the one whose opinion faced casual
dismissal as the pack equated clumsy with incapable.
    Just because she didn’t like the direction her thoughts had
taken, Kelyn gave the pack a good hard glare. And then, with some assurance,
she stepped off in the direction of the nightfox den.
    Whereupon she stumbled over nothing, twisted around her own
leg, and hit the rocky ground hard.
    Stupid! she chided herself, wrapping her arms around
the wrenched leg. If there was one thing she’d learned, it was that she among
them all could never not pay attention. Never be distracted, by
emotions or events or daydreams.
    “Kelyn!” Frykla crouched by her side. “That looked bad.”
    “I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone fly in so many
directions at once,” Iden observed, but unlike Mungo there was kindness in his
voice.
    Kelyn untangled herself, pushed herself to her feet with
help from the staff, and tested the leg. She’d given it a good twist, all
right — but she thought she could walk out of it in a few days. And besides, she
had the staff. “It’ll heal,” she told Frykla, who still hesitated by her
side. “I don’t know if I can get up to the dens...but I can take you close
enough.” More than once Kelyn had admired the nightfoxes’ ability to nimbly
ascend the sheer rock faces to their precariously placed dens. Today she
wouldn’t even try to emulate them.
    Not that it mattered. This one was for Frykla.
    ~~~~~
    Kelyn waited at the bottom of the abruptly thrusting rock
face, pulling her fur-lined vest more closely around herself and applying
herself to scraping the generous cache of edible lichen from the base of the
rock. Soup tonight! Perfect to ward off the year-round chill of the
high air.
    Her leg pained her, but not as much as it might have; she
favored it only because she knew better than to over-strain it. She’d likely
find it bruised and battered beneath the loose leather of her leggings and snug
loin cloth, and looked forward to the hot spring in their favorite camp spot.
    When the sun reached midday, she heard the faint echoes of
victorious shouting, and she smiled to herself. They might mock her lack of
grace, they might ignore her concerns on the trail, but not one among them had
a better eye for nightfox sign. Not long afterward, the little hunting pack
made their way down the back side of the thrusting rock and surrounded Kelyn
with their ebullience and slightly breathless victory. They’d also discovered
valuable choi buttons, which they could leave to cure another month and then
harvest for sale to outsiders.
    In quick order, they skinned the two nightfoxes they’d
snagged, and left the bodies arranged on a nearby outcrop, a tribute to the
rock cat that lived in this area. Kelyn joined them as they started down, a
descent of several hours to their closest established camp. They chattered
about their success as Frykla, flushed and happy, recounted the harrowing climb
to the den several times over. Satisfied enough with her part in the valuable
acquisition, Kelyn concentrated on navigating the rough terrain.
    Perhaps that’s why she was the first to hesitate — the first
to think something wasn’t quite right. She held up a hand and the others
instantly stopped — but a moment of group inspection revealed no sound or sight
out of place. Mungo was the first to shift impatiently, and Kelyn knew why — just
around this stand of stunted trees, through the narrow opening in two looming
rocks, their favorite camp waited. The hot springs inside their low scoop of a
cave called to Kelyn and her aching leg, and her stomach hungered for