A Plague of Giants (Seven Kennings #1) - Kevin Hearne Page 0,65

and needed the break.

—

The bard hopped up onto the stage after taking a few long draughts of ale and said, “Let’s travel back to the west, where several decisions altered the course of our history, beginning with our hunter who no longer wished to hunt, Abhinava Khose.”

We finally found the kherns, and close behind them followed the moment when I had to inform my family that I wouldn’t be hunting with them. It was not merely unpleasant: it was the end of my world.

Uncle Navir spotted them coming. They were only a plume of dust above the plains at first, a small cloud on the horizon to the southeast, where the headwaters of the Khek River began their long journey to the ocean. It was the mark of their passage, earth and grass churned up by the pillars of their legs and thrown into the air by their tapered snouts. We were skirting an island of broad-trunked nughobe trees in the sea of grass because you never go into that darkness: you make the animals inside come out if they want to eat you, where you can see them before their teeth sink into your flesh. But we had circled around it from the north side and traversed its western border with not so much as a howl from a wheat dog. It was once we began to swing around to the south that my uncle shouted and pointed to the khern cloud in the distance. Father climbed up on top of our wagon and shielded his eyes from the sun, and when he was satisfied that he really was looking at a boil of kherns, he unpacked his smile and spread it out for us to see.

“Great Kalaad blesses us! It is a mighty boil at last! The Khose will get to be hunters after all!” My mother was driving the wagon, and he bent down to kiss the top of her head. “Move us away from the trees. We don’t want anything coming at us while we are busy with the kherns.”

And so the wart yaks were turned due south and goaded to increase their speed by a step or two, and my aunt and my cousins did a little dance in the grass while Uncle Navir for some reason thrust his hips repeatedly in the direction of the khern cloud. He stopped when his daughter asked him what he was doing.

My sister, Inasa, laughed at him and then turned to me. “Come on, Abhi. Let’s get ready.” I joined her at the back of the slow-moving wagon, but not to get ready for the hunt. My preparations looked similar but were intended for something much different. We had field bags for hunts like this when we would be away from the wagon for extended periods. Usually they were filled with twine and snares and implements for simple meals. I loaded up on the simple meals.

I packed many water skins, so many that Inasa said I would spend all my time draining my bladder and miss out on the hunt. I also carried a very small cooking pot filled with a bag of dry beans, along with a separate bag of root vegetables and a few onions, a box of salt, a blanket, and a firestone enchanted by a Hathrim sparker. She picked up her bow and quiver, but I left my spear alone. I had a hunting knife on my belt for defense; the spear would be useful against larger beasts should I be attacked by one, but it had become a symbol in my head and I didn’t want to touch it again.

When I left it behind, Inasa pointed it out. “You forgot your spear, Abhi!”

“No, I didn’t. I won’t need it.”

“We’re hunting kherns! Of course you’ll need it.”

“No. You will see. But thank you, Inasa. You are the best of all possible sisters. I love you.”

She flinched as if expecting an attack, and when none came and she saw I was being serious, she cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “What is wrong with you? What have you eaten recently?”

I grinned at her. “I love you regardless of what I eat.”

“Yeah, but you don’t usually say it.”

I sighed and said, “It’s a truth and a fault. One I’m trying to remedy. I should remind you more often.”

Inasa stared at me, her mouth hanging open, so rather than shock her any more I strode to the front of the wagon to remind my mother. She