Chapter 103

Two days later, the warnings began.

At first the scouts reported one fire, then another, until every morning they were returning with word of another blaze sighted out on the plains.

The Sun People knew the importance of secrecy while they were in the territory of their enemies, and it was rare to see so much as a single campfire from the hunting parties that strayed so far afield. The bonfires they were burning now had not been built in the name of secrecy.

The hunters reported one large group, sometimes two. They would travel during the day and build their fires at night, meandering back and forth along the length of the river, sometimes advancing, sometimes retreating, but gradually drawing ever closer to the outcrop.

“Perhaps they saw Hawk and Essie’s pyre as a challenge,” Caspian said one morning as he, Khelt, and Adel talked over a shared meal.

A tenuous truce seemed to have fallen between the alpha and den mother, though it seemed born of their s