Chapter Eleven

Kernow paced the treeline, keeping his senses on high-alert. His smokey-blue coloring allowed him to blend into the shadows on the snow, hiding him from sight. Keen amber eyes and sensitive nares picked up the trail of the intruder. Gauging the time, he bounded, sluicing to a stop before the strange male in a pool of shadows. Kernow mantled, bushing out his deep blue-grey pelt.

"You trespass," he said softly, with a keen, deadly infliction.

The male, a scout to judge from his harness, stepped backwards in shock, his beak a-gape. Regaining his composure, he sat in the snow, trying to find the speaker in the playing of light and dark. "These lands are marked as unclaimed." His voice echoed off the trees, leaving him staring at various patches to discern the truth.

Kernow frowned, stepped into a shaft of light. "Unmarked by your standards, not by ours. You have been warned once; this is your second warning. Go back to your clan; tell them to find another camping ground."

Deftly, a short dagger appeared in the male's dexterous right paw, a clan rune stamped upon the hilt. Currith Clan, it bespoke. The scout shifted his weight, one suited to combat fighting, not to throw. "You warn the wrong male, friend. I come from Tyan Currith's clan -- the most powerful clan on the tundra."

"Tyan Currith can shove his leadership back up his ass where it belongs," a female voice snarled from above Kernow's head. In a shower of snow, a coal-black gryphoness dropped from the tree limb she'd been perching on. She landed along side her brother, luminous golden-amber eyes staring out from behind a stark-white beak. "You'd best heed my brother; he's been lenient."

The scout took a step backwards, dagger point swaying from male to female. Thinking better, he stowed the blade and bounded off through the woods.

They watched him go a moment, then Zreana turned to face her brother. "This isn't good, Ker. He's going to tattle to old white-ass, isn't he?"

Kernow pounded the unforgiving bark of a nearby tree, rolling his eyes skyward. "Mind you mouth, Zre; you know how Mama hates when you swear." The admonishment came with half a heart behind it; he had worse problems then his sibling's dirty vocabulary. (Heaven knew where she'd acquired it from!)

Zreana shrugged unapologetically. "Sorry."

"We'd best go and get Bayl and head on home. Mama and Father'll want to hear about this one right away."

Zreana nodded. Together, brother and sister shot off into the woods, a different direction than the scout.

The years had been kind to Ziara Flurrith. She still retained her youthful appearance, even into middle age: the plush midnight blue fur showed no grey, nor were the white points of her ears, pinions and tail dulled by time. Except for a few lines around her nares and eyes, she was as lovely as she had been as a young female.

Sular and Ziara sat curled in the living room while their offspring related their encounter. Ziara shook her head in disbelief. "I thought that Tyan would be dead by now-- if not by his own ambition, then by someone else!"

Kernow shook his head. "I'm afraid not, Mama. The scout's hilt clearly bespoke Currith." Grey Bayl shuffled; of the three of them, he took most after their quiet, reserved sire. "Of all accounts, Currith Clan had move out of the area," he said softly, tongue just about spitting out the surname in distaste. "I heard their plans quite clearly."

"Apparently not," Sular murmured, ears flicking back and forth in distress.

"You shoulda let me kill him," Zreana muttered unhappily. "Then we wouldn't have had this problem."

"Zre!" exclaimed both her parents. "Killing is not the only solution to what befalls you," Sular told his youngest offspring. Zreana had the grace to blush.

Ziara ran a paw over her face in exasperation. "All these years ... we thought we were finally free. Free ..."

Sular gripped her shoulder comfortingly. The triplets eyed each other, none knowing what to say next. For years, ever since they were old enough, they'd patrolled their territory, ever-mindful of their parents' exile and death warrants. Knowledgeable about their heritage from the get-go, they'd only seen Sular's trueform but once -- when an errant colddrake had wandered in. To see the Vahazayan in action had awed and subdued Kernow, Bayl and Zreana; Sular might be a pacifist, but he did have the ability to change when the situation utterly called for it. No triplet could shift shape -- though they dearly tried -- but they did inherit a few Vahazayi characteristics. Mental, if not physically.

Kernow coughed politely. "What would you suggest we do, Father?"

"Did you name yourself?"

"No."

"Then we have nothing to truly worry about."

Bayl and Zreana exchanged glances. The compact female spoke: "Papa, perhaps we should go out and see what's going on, regardless."

A quirking frown appeared at the edges of the brown-grey and white male's mobile beak. His eyes flashed with indecision. Finally, with great difficultly, he nodded. "Tomorrow, then."

Bayl, being the best tracker, led them, following the day-old path of the scout. Behind him trailed Sular, Kernow, Zreana and Ziara, who insisted on coming. "I was a scout, too, you know," she told them. "I still am!"

As they moved, Kernow asked his mother, "When ever has a clan camped in the woods, Mama? I thought that they always preferred open tundra."

Ziara shook her head. "I can only conceive Tyan ordering this madness," she replied as they cleared a fallen log, turning west at Bayl's issuance. "Clans loathe confined spaces -- even the woods. He must be up to something!"

"But not you, Mama," Zreana put in. She was pacing evenly with Bayl, turning her head slightly to talk over her shoulder. They were grey and black shadows amongst the trees, those two.

Ziara chuckled. "I adapted, I changed. Glacials rarely change."

Kernow clicked his black-tipped white beak thoughtfully. "But we're not Glacials, Mama ... maybe we can make them change."

Bayl's ears perked and he flicked his tailtip, signaling quiet. **This is where sound stops and stealth begins,** he Sent on their family length.

Zreana crept close, every hair on her glorious black pelt slick; she moved as a liquid, amber-eyed shadow, bonelessly graceful. For all her bravado and vernacular, Zreana was a warrior, as was Kernow. Sular was inordinately proud of his children; they were everything he was not, and more. Even quiet Bayl could turn savage when cornered. Red, not ivory blood burned in their veins, but they would live a long, long time, even due to that. Sular's Vahazayi genes would swim uninhibited through the Glacial bloodline, contaminating their racial purity within a few generations. A small slice of revenge against the collective mind set. And a tiny, minuscule part of him found amusement in the fact.

**Father?**

Kernow gestured and Sular followed his eldest across the way, crouching down behind some kernak bushes. Bayl and Zreana lay along two broad boughs, Ziara secured near a large, overturned trunk. She shifted, a branch digging into her thigh.

"Move, and you die," whispered a voice she knew.