A Plague of Giants (Seven Kennings #1) - Kevin Hearne Page 0,66

trailed after me, calling my name, while I called Mother’s.

But Father’s voice cut through both of ours, assuming it was an unimportant sibling squabble. “Everybody gather over here for your duties!” he yelled from the other side of the wagon, so I reversed course to jog around the back—it’s unwise to step in front of wart yaks. Inasa tried to grab me, but I dodged around her and continued on, joining Father and Uncle Navir and all my cousins to the right of the wagon, keeping pace with it so that Mother could hear.

“This looks good. It’s a big enough boil that we might get two, maybe even three. Two would give us a handsome profit, and three would be astounding riches. As always, we need to flank to either side and pick off the ones in the back. Navir, take your family around the near side, and I’ll go with Abhi and Inasa on the far side.”

“No,” I said.

“Shut up, Abhi,” Father said.

“I’m not going.”

My uncle told me to shut up next. “It’s not the time for jokes.”

“I’m not joking. I’m staying with the wagon.”

Everyone’s eyes traveled up and down my body, looking for injuries. “What’s wrong with you?” Father growled. “Stub your toe?”

“No, I simply don’t want to hunt anymore. I’ll stay and watch the wagon and protect the yaks. But I won’t seek out another creature’s death.”

My family physically recoiled from me as if I had announced I was diseased, and then their expressions hardened, taking their cue from Father. But he was the only one who spoke.

“Tell me you’re joking, son,” he said, crossing his arms in front of him.

“I’m not.”

“You’re a Khose. That means you’re a hunter. That’s it.”

“I think it’s time that Khose meant more than that.”

“Like what, Abhi?”

It was the question I’d dreaded and still didn’t have an answer for. “That’s what I plan to figure out.”

“There’s no need. I’ve figured it out for you. You either come with us and help this family of hunters prosper or you leave the family.”

Inasa gasped. I think my cousin Pandhi did, too. But it was no less than I expected. Father can be stark and uncompromising at times, and I assumed that this would be one of those times. And I also knew from experience that there would be no arguing with him. There was only submission or walking away.

“I want you to know that I love you all,” I said, looking around at the faces of my family. “But I will not hunt. And I can do both of those things: love you and hunt no more.” I returned my eyes to Father and finished, “If you will let me.”

Father’s lip curled in a sneer. “Contribute nothing but say you love us? Your actions don’t match your words. If you want to contribute nothing, then contribute it elsewhere. We will not support you.”

I nodded once, carefully keeping my emotions packed away in my field bag; I planned to open it later. “Farewell,” I said. “Good hunting.”

Pivoting on my heel, I faced north and began to jog toward the island of nughobe trees, the water skins heavy and sloshing around as I moved. Mother cried out in confusion, unable to believe what had just happened; Inasa called after me and took a few steps, but Father barked at her to let me go and her footsteps halted. Mother pleaded with him, Uncle Navir said something and so did my aunt, but he said they had a hunt to finish and they could worry about me later.

All of that went as expected, and painful as it was, I had prepared for it. I had prepared to walk all the way back to Khul Bashab by myself and start a new life in peace with other creatures and hope that one day, after they had some time to recover from the shock I had given them, my family would talk to me again.

But then the ground began to shake and thunder and the shouts of my family changed their tenor, and when I turned to look, the distant dust plume of the kherns was closer—too close—and the largest boil of them I have ever seen was not merely traveling but stampeding directly at our wagon. We had taken our eyes off them during my selfish drama and thus had little warning.

There could only be one reason why: something was pursuing the kherns from behind. The Khose were not the only hunters on the plains. Though in fact