When dawn broke, the tribe moved again. They packed up their tents. They mounted their totem on wheels. Their hunters flew above upon rocs, shrieking in the wind, while the rest of the tribe shuffled below through the mud.

Laira brought up the rear as always. Sometimes, walking here at the back, she had dreamed of slinking behind a tree, running to the hills, even shifting into a dragon and flying away. But the rocs forever circled above, and if she lingered too far behind, Zerra would swoop down and lash her with his crop. And so she walked on, weak with hunger, her head spinning, following the others. She had not eaten more than morsels in days, and her belly rumbled, but there was no food to be found. When they crested a hill lush with grass and bushes, she picked a few mint leaves and chewed them, staving off the hunger for a while. When she saw worms in the dirt, she managed to grab one. She swallowed it down quickly before disgust overwhelmed her.

That evening she served the camp again, preparing food, cleaning, washing. And again she approached Zerra.

He sat upon a fallen log thick with mushrooms, gnawing on a bison rib. Laira stood before him, half his size, a weary little wisp of a thing. She raised her chin, straightened her back, and said, "Let me hunt."

He clubbed her with the bone, then laughed as she fled.

"I will be a huntress," she vowed that night, huddling with the dogs. Among them she found a bone with some meat still on it, and she ate the paltry meal. "I am the daughter of a prince. I am blessed with forbidden magic. I am strong and I will hunt."

Because hunting did not only mean honor, a rise in status, and perhaps true meals and no more beatings. Lying among the dogs, Laira stared up at the dragon stars.

Hunting meant flying.

She had never forgotten the beating of her wings, the feel of open air around her. She had flown only once as a dragon, the day her mother had died, but the memory still warmed her in the cold.

"If I cannot fly as a dragon again," she prayed to those stars, "let me fly upon a roc, a proud huntress of my tribe."

For six nights she approached Zerra, demanding to join the hunters. For six nights he scoffed, tossed bowls or bones or stones her way, and laughed at her pain.

On the seventh night, she waited until he retired to his tent.

That night she approached that tent, the greatest one in the camp, a towering structure of tiger pelts and cedar branches topped with gilded skulls. Fingers trembling, Laira did something she knew could mean death, could mean burning at the stake.

She pulled back the leather flap and she stepped into her chieftain's home.

He sat upon a flat stone, polishing his leaf-shaped sword with oil and rag. None in the Goldtusk tribe knew the secrets of metal; only the loftiest warriors owned jewelry of gold or knives of copper. Most still tipped their arrows with flint. A sword of pure bronze, captured from the corpse of a great champion from the northern villages, was the most valuable artifact the tribe owned aside from their gilded tusk. It signified to all that Zerra was mightiest of his tribe.