The boys exchanged glances. Tryss guessed they were weighing the chances of this being a joke against the possibility of meat for dinner.

“Fine,” Ziss said, rising and stretching. “We’ll see this yern for ourselves.”

Trinn stood up and flexed his wings. As Drilli got to her feet, clearly intending to follow, Tryss felt his heart skip. She was going to be impressed when she saw the yern. He grinned, broke into a run and leapt into the sky.

Leading them away, he scowled with annoyance when the twins flew over to a group of older boys near the end of the Open. Tryss recognized Sreil, the athletic son of Speaker Sirri, the leader of his tribe. His mouth went dry as the group swooped toward him, whistling shrilly.

“Got yourself a yern, have you?” Sreil called as he passed.

“Might have,” Tryss replied.

More questions came, but he refused to explain how he had brought the animal down. He’d been unable to persuade many Siyee to look at his harness before this. If he started describing it now, they would get bored and lose interest. Once they saw the yern, however, they would want to know how he’d caught it. He would demonstrate the harness. They’d start to take his ideas seriously. After several minutes he glanced behind. To his consternation, the group following him had doubled in size. Doubts began to eat at his confidence, but he pushed them away. Instead, he let his imagination take him into the future. Sreil would take meat back to Speaker Sirri. The Siyee leader would ask to see Tryss’s invention. She would have Tryss make more and teach others to use them.

I’ll be a hero. The twins will never mock me again.

He roused himself from his daydream as he neared the place he had left the yern. Circling around, he searched the area but found nothing. Feeling eyes on him, he dropped to the ground and paced about. There was a hollow in the grass the size of a large beast, but no yern.

He stared at the hollow in disappointment, then felt his stomach sink as Siyee dropped to the ground all about him.

“So, where’s this yern, then?” Ziss asked.

Tryss shrugged. “Gone. I told you if we took too long a leramer would find it.”

“There’s no blood.” This came from one of the older boys. “If a leramer took it, there’d be blood.”

“And there’s no sign anything was dragged away,” another added. “If it stayed to eat, there’d be a carcass.”

He was right, Tryss realized. So where had the yern gone?

Sreil stepped forward and examined the ground thoughtfully. “But something big did lie here not long ago.”

“Having a nap, probably,” someone said. There was a snigger from a few of the watchers.