They left Deyun beside the camp fire with a full kettle of water, a split pine log stacked within reach of his bench, and a carved bone whistle tied around his neck in case he needed to call Lilt and Chaska back down the slope. The original mouse rode inside Pip’s warm chest pouch, its small whiskered nose poking out through the fold to test the cold mountain breeze while its scrubbed wooden box rode lashed inside Chaska’s light folding pack frame. Ahead of Ysabet’s boots, Mother Suth’s wooden beetle marched steadily over the frost-heaved gravel on six long, jointed legs, pausing every dozen paces to tap the stones with its carved antennae.
“Deyun said the neighbor’s three ewes vanished near the salt-lick bench above the alder scrub,” Chaska said, adjusting her coiled glider lines over her shoulder so the brass rings didn’t clink against her small mirror fittings. Lilt glided low along the contour of the hillside thirty yards to their left, riding the cold morning updraft off the valley floor before settling onto a wide granite outcrop to wait for the walkers.
Sister Osha walked behind Ashaun, her heavy wool coat buttoned to her chin and her archive case strapped securely across her back. “If a solitary predator drags three full-grown mountain ewes up a thirty-degree scree slope in a single week, there ought to be snagged wool on every juniper bush between here and the crags.”
