The clan chewed over this story. The hour was late, and we dispersed to our yurts. The decision spread slowly, like a disease, from one person to another. No one made a proclamation; no formal decision was made. The runners simply returned to their maps one day, first to see if the Shallai might have crossed paths with some other clan in the region, and then to map a route to connect with the Allunga who roamed in particularly good pasture land northwest of where we were. No one spoke of the Shallai again.

* * *

We crossed paths with the Allunga in high summer. We found them in a region of the grasslands the Droma know as the Slide, a plain that slopes gently downward over miles and miles. Unnamed streams split from the Vanna River to the north and thread through the basin. Rich grass grows on the Slide, and fresh water is abundant even in the dry summer months. There is, on the Slide, enough to pasture livestock from more than one clan, and its consistent richness meant it was likely the Allunga returned there every summer.

We saw their livestock first. Their yaks, like ours, had already shed their downy undercoat. They are sleek animals in the summer, not the shaggy shambling creatures they are in the winter. The Allunga yaks were larger than ours and darker. Not so different, but different enough to the practiced eye. Our runners ran out to meet the Allunga herders, singing walking songs bred by things Halaavi had said to the clan when we first reached the Slide. Halaavi was deeply taken with that part of the land. Ve spoke of harmony and cycles, of the lack of time there. I felt it, what Halaavi spoke of. It felt to me like a shift in the magic. The Slide was a place where the land magic was smooth and pristine, a place where the magic blended with the abundance of the mundane parts of the land instead of fighting with it.

The runners ran, and their voices slipped from earshot. Three days later, the runners returned singing an Allunga running song with Allunga runners in tow. The Allunga runners wore their hair cropped close to their scalps and sported beaded bracelets and anklets made of painted yak bones, which clattered when they moved. They ran into camp swathed in a slight sheen of sweat, grinning, and our runners led them up to our fire tent for food and drink. Avolayla children crowded around them, fingering the beads, asking questions. The Allunga were perfectly at ease until they spotted me. One froze, blinking, ash-faced. Another leapt to vis feet and demanded explanations. Ve called me a settler, a slaver, things I had not been called in years. Halaavi ran over and tried to explain, but the Allunga would not listen until an Idok calmer brought the mood back down.

Kishva came and stood next to me, arms crossed. “Nardu said this might happen.”