Zaranth was gliding silently and speedily toward the nearest herdbeasts, which had obviously been split off from the main herd by the canny felines. The predators were as apt to injure beasts, rendering them lame enough to attack later, as to kill outright. Tai had seen the result of such tactics, a wide pasture dotted with bleating, moaning animals, awaiting the pleasure of the cubs that the felines hunted for.

There! A tawny spot, one of the fast ones, Zaranth cried.

Tai caught the merest glimpse of the yellowish-brown form, bounding after the terrified herdbeasts. She grabbed her straps instinctively as Zaranth turned on a wing tip that just cleared one of the stunted trees that dotted the grassland. A shape leaped from its shadow, barely missing Zaranth’s wing, and in spectacular leaps, made for the cover of the jungle. To flush a feline was unusual. Neither dragon nor rider would have seen it lurking in the shade. Of course, neither would the herdbeasts who were obviously the intended prey.

Zaranth hissed at so close a swipe; a small flame, residue of the most recent Fall, escaped, spurting after the beast.

Watch it, love! The hide’s worth more unsinged, Tai cried.

Despite being large for a green, Zaranth had lost none of the agility that was her color’s most valuable characteristic. She dove, with a burst of speed that took the breath out of Tai’s mouth. Matching the rhythm of the feline’s bounds, she caught it midleap. Tai felt Zaranth’s heavy shoulder muscles convulse, then relax. She had a glimpse over her shoulder of the limp spotted body stretched out on the plain, its back broken.

The other one! Zaranth cried, spinning obliquely to her left and heading back up the plateau toward the first predator they had seen, who was now closing in on a herdbeast and unaware that its hunting partner had just been taken down.

The most successful—and safest—tactic was to come up behind a feline as Zaranth was now doing, keeping their shadow from warning the carnivore of pursuit. Now, just as the feline swiped its front paws at the herdbeast’s galloping hindquarters, Zaranth’s claws made contact and snapped its neck in one clean jerk.

Not bad hunting, Tai said, well pleased with a bag of two, both prime specimens and, unless Zaranth had singed the first one, quite saleable. Shall we continue?

Monarth says it is all in hand. A big pride, but a half wing is sufficient, Zaranth said as she circled back with her second kill, depositing it with an almost disdainful negligence beside the first. These, and Zaranth’s tone was possessive, are mine!

No one will dispute it, but I get the skins.

And skinning was hard work. Tai’s brief elation departed.

I’ll help, Zaranth said.