Talon had adopted Tarrin and Allia as her own pack, and she had assumed a place in it. Inu were exactly like wolves; they had a hierarchy of command that ran from the leader all the way down to the lowest member. She assumed that lowest place willingly, not willing to challenge the mighty Tarrin over his role as leader, and sensing that Allia was just as deadly. She wouldn't challenge Sarraya because she was a Druid, and that left her in the most submissive position. Besides, she was a very young inu, and the youngest occupied the lowest ranks. After all, they still had much to learn.
Allia seemed entranced by the inu, and Talon seemed just as taken with Allia. She had gained the animal's trust, and after Tarrin used Druidic magic to speak directly to it-something he'd done with Sapphire before she could speak-some ground rules were laid down and some Selani was taught so she could obey Allia's verbal and hand-signed commands. After that, the two of them would go off and hunt together, and they would often drag back animals too big for either of them to catch alone. Or at least seemingly. Allia's intelligence and understanding of her environment and the animal she was stalking allowed her to take on virtually any animal in the desert. It would be a bit dangerous, but she could do it. But with Talon's help, they could easily bring down any size prey animal, from the largest sukk to the most heavily armored kusuk. It seemed odd that Allia would choose an inu as a pet, but on the other hand, a sleek and deadly raptor fit in with his sister's personality. The fact that Talon was just as big as Allia only made it seem even stranger.
There was no doubt as to who Talon's favorite was. She was friendly with Sarraya and Tarrin, but she behaved like a puppy around Allia, prancing about and almost trembling with delight every time the Selani stroked her scaled flank. She was right by Allia's side almost all the time, and Allia was so trusting of her that she'd even let the inu groom her. She had no fear of the animal, but it seemed to him that fear of Talon was woefully misplaced. She was a deadly predator, but she was also an animal with a pack mentality. Since she'd adopted them as pack, it made her as safe and secure a travelling companion as they could have.
Sarraya found the whole thing quite amusing. "Next thing you know, Kerri's going to bring home a kajat," she teased, giving Tarrin a wolfish grin one fine desert evening, as the two of them sat on a short rock spire, staring out into the desert to make sure no little surprises were close enough to cause any problems.
"As long as she feeds it, it's her problem," Tarrin snorted, which made the Faerie burst into laughter.
Several days of light travel as they adjusted to the inu seemed to fly by, but not without news of the outside world. Keritanima and Jenna projected out to him about every other day with news. Keritanima's news was redundant, for they were safely entrenched in his grandfather's house in Dusgaard, and were surrounded by an army of watchful Ungardt. They would probably be just as safe in the arms of the Goddess herself. The only real news there was that Auli seemed to be playing games with the human that had been altered to take his place. Fox, he was told, was an overly clever young man with a penchant for causing trouble, and someone like that would immediately catch Auli's attention. Tarrin wondered if the young human knew just how much trouble he was getting himself into. It wouldn't seem too strange for outsiders to see that, for Tarrin and Allia were quite close, and were known to tease and play with each other from time to time. Triana would be there to step on it if it got out of hand, though. She was visiting about every other day or so to keep an eye on Jula and make sure things were going alright for them.
The news from Suld wasn't as light-hearted. The strange inciter still hadn't been caught, and the crowds he was whipping into a frenzy in whichever square or marketplace he appeared in that day were getting bigger and bigger. Jenna had a real problem on her hands with him, and no matter how hard they tried, he always seemed to slip away during the chaos of the riots he would incite. On the king front, she reported that she had made significant progress. She had dropped Arren's name in the right places around Suld, and now there was open verbal speculation about the worthiness of the respected duke of a far-flung desmense. That was the first step to getting him on the throne, and Jenna told him she intended to go see him in a couple of days and order him to accept if the throne was offered to him. And she would make sure that it was offered to him. Jenna had a great deal of power, and her power inside the boundaries of Sulasia rivalled the monarch's. Picking a king was well within her abilities.
Jesmind had still yet to talk to him, and that was bothering him a little bit. She knew he was angry, but he figured she would have put that aside to make sure he was alright. That wasn't normal for her, and he realized that maybe he was going to have to put his anger aside for a little while and check on her himself. He was depending on her to let him keep tabs on his daughter, Mist, and Kimmie as well. Then again, tht may be one of the reasons she wasn't talking to him. Jesmind had shown a great deal of jealousy over him, and he had the feeling it was because Mist and Kimmie, her two rivals, were right there. If they weren't around, she'd probably be alot less jealous, but with them there, she felt she had to compete for his attention.
Probably not. As a reason, anyway. Jesmind could do something that Mist and Kimmie couldn't do, and that was talk to him any time she wished. That she wasn't using her advantage meant that something else had to be bothering her.
He knew that it had to be Jasana. Having to punish her that severely had strained her, but she knew it had to be done. That was another reason to talk to her, if only to cheer her up a little bit.
The next morning, the four of them ran with a sandstorm threatening from behind, and they came over a rise and looked over the very gentle hills that crowned the distant cloud on the horizon, not yet hidden by the wavering air caused by daytime heating. They pulled up and looked at it a long moment. "Here we are," Allia said. "We'll be there by the midday heat."
"I wonder why we haven't seen any Aeradalla," he growled, looking around in the sky. "The last time we came, we saw a bunch of them before getting this close."
"I was wondering the same thing myself," Sarraya agreed. "I didn't think we were this close, seeing as how we slowed down so Allia's pet could keep up with us."
"They don't normally go in this direction," Allia said. "They seem to hunt to the south of the Cloud Spire. You don't see them very often when you approach from other directions."
"As often as they fly just for fun, you'd think that we would have seen some of them by now," Tarrin fretted. "It's strange."