156 - The Road to the Gap

On the road to the gap Kyrus stood in his stirrups and flung the stick toward Werfas, who caught it and opened up his bridle, crouching low in his feathers.

If it is an ambush, they will believe we are unprepared. Elemfias has said quietly.  Let them think we’re so cocky as to let a couple of teenagers ride ahead, playing.

Kyrus struggled to keep his motions smooth, his laughter exuberant.  All the while the skin between his shoulderblades grew gooseflesh.  “You’ll never catch me!”

“Says who, birdbrain?”  They shouted back and forth, stole the stick from each other from birdback, tossed it around, generally acting like boys practicing for wargames.  Clumsily enough that they kept dropping their ‘target stick’ and having to get down and rummage for another.

“Da’s right,” Ky whispered once when his and Wer’s heads were close as they pulled another stick out of a patch of bristly clubfoot, careful to not touch the bulb at the bottom of the stalk they wanted.  “There’s something really weird going on.  These bushes should be full of bugs this time of day.  Not one.”

The rest of the group had just crested the hill and they got whistled back.  They made a show of dragging their feet, or their bird’s feet, obviously not wanting to get called in.  “Put on a show,” stepda had said.  “Play to someone who may or may not be there.  But waiting to kill us all.  And be careful.  You’re a distraction, not bait.”

“Anything?” Kyrus said under his breath as Ky settled to ride beside his da.  They were clustered together in anything but military formation, random clots of riders in a rough group, dealing with strings of recalcitrant pack birds and young people wanting to apparently ride off by themselves, sulking.

“No.  Has Hara picked anything up?”

“She’s sent a bug out a time or two to Ilax.  She’s noticing a few things.”

A whistle from Werfas and Ky sat up as if to go dashing off, Kyrus waving him back.  He slouched in his saddle and the bird bounced and bucked and made a fuss as he slid around in his saddle.  “Good.  There’s apparently nothing living other than plants around here.  That says to me that someone’s mandering or clinering and even the insects have fled.  Someone might have just scooped them up and added them to the trap.  Good job everyone.”

They pulled up at the turn that let them look down on the road where it dove between the spires and crumbles of rock, to the first rock fall.  “That hasn’t been touched and it was two days ago.  That’s bad.  This road has too much trade on it to let it go for more than a week.”

“So, where are the engineers?  Working from the other end?”

“I can hope so, son.  Loosen your sword, keep your mandery stretched out in detection mode.  You and Werfas interlock your powers well.  Keep it passive.”

“I know, da.”

“I don’t want to lose you in the first serious fight we might be having.  Got it?”

“Got it.  Da.  If I were him or them, I’d let us clear that little rock fall first, get us deep into that cut.”

“Yes, so would I.  So, let’s go haul some rock as if we’re unmandered, ignorant travellers, hmmm?”

“Yes, da...”  He had to say it.  “Da?”

“What is it?”

“Loosen your sword too.  I don’t want to lose you either.”