Emerging Legacy Read Free

enough to give it significance, until within moments they
all stood a little taller...waiting.
    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