Mere minutes after I got back, a shrub rustled as an armored brown Saursune emerged. I wracked my brain—had the suspicious fighter I'd encountered here before been brown? I thought so. Either way, it was a Saursune who wasn't acting aggressively.

After bowing my head, I gestured to the stretcher and held out my hand. He regarded me before dropping to all fours—much to my relief—and padding closer. The way his head avoided my hand convinced me it was the same one I'd first met when bringing Janette here.

His armored shoulder slid under my hand. It would have to do. Even as I felt my energy shift with his delicate siphoning, I followed the feeling and very, very carefully poured some energy through the link. His head, which had been looking over my shoulder, turned to stare directly at me.

I shifted uneasily under his intent gaze, yet he didn't pull away or even growl. It was hard to share energy with the armor between my hand and his hide, and when his siphoning slowed, I struggled to maintain it.

As if feeling the difference, he tilted his head and shifted to the side, letting my hand touch the much thinner armor at the base of his neck. That made it easier, and I tried to keep the flow steady.

He regarded me for a while longer, then lowered his head slightly and took a step to the side. My hand slid onto the unprotected hide on his neck. The direct contact was like night and day.

The energy moved far more readily; instead of me mostly trying to hold onto the connection, I just had to control the flow. It still wasn't easy, but it wasn't nearly as difficult.

I kept careful tabs on my body at the same time. It was early in the day, and I was fresh, but I didn't want to share too much. Someone would definitely notice if I was yawning.

I shared as much as I dared, and the moment my legs felt the least bit tired, I stopped. Despite trying my best, I couldn't measure or even understand how much energy I had left. It was still a mystery.

Lowering my hand, I bowed my head. "Thank you for helping her."

The fighter stepped back and sat on his haunches, and now that I wasn't distracted, I noticed several others watching from around the crystal. When had they shown up?

They might have been watching peacefully, but there were still too many Saursunes for me. Crouching down by the crystal, I grabbed the stretcher handle and touched a spire as I silently directed my mind to Sunrise Village. The air around me hazed over, obscuring my audience from sight.

The abandoned cliffs appeared, and the soot drawings caught my eye. I gazed at what should have been dire warnings. Mere months ago, I would have considered them an accurate foretelling of what would happen if any village were found or if any human was caught away from the crystal. But now...

I looked down at the stretcher still grasped in my hand. Perhaps the elderly porter was right. Perhaps there were more changes in the future.

It wouldn't erase the dark past, nor the pain I'd felt when losing friends to their claws. But the chance for a brighter future beckoned to me. One where my hunters didn't have to run the second they thought a Saursune was in the vicinity.

I couldn't change the past. Nor could they. But they seemed to be trying to make up for it. They had saved one of my hunters, guided two back, saved my friend from her deathbed, and had provided enough food to keep the rationing from reaching starvation levels.

What was Liam's favorite saying? Actions speak louder than words? I pursed my lips as I recalled how many raiding villages had been decimated recently. Which actions should I focus on the most?

The Saursunes I had recently met hadn't done me and mine any harm, only good. As long as my village never tried to steal from them, I suspected that trend would continue. I shook my head to try and dispel the imminent headache such thoughts were sure to bring.

I carried the stretcher into a cave and hid it in a shadowy corner. It would be way too hard to explain its presence if I brought it home right now. Returning to the crystal, I ported to the village and quickly told them everything I knew.

Then I went to check on Merryl at Bluebird Clearing and tell her the good news. As my vision cleared, I spotted Merryl sitting within arm's reach of the crystal. "Guess what? Janette's back, and she's fully healed!"

Merryl blinked and a relieved smile appeared. "Oh, that's fantastic! How is she?"

I plopped down beside my sister, and as I opened my mouth, a scaly head lifted above the grass about three hundred paces away. My head jerked in that direction as the blue Saursune lazily blinked at me, then lifted his head higher as his focus sharpened.

"He showed up just after you left," Merryl said warily, keeping an eye on the Saursune, yet not reaching for the crystal. "He brought a deer and a basket of corn, but he hasn't left since, so I haven't taken them to the Guard Station."

"A deer?" I asked, twisting around and finally spotting the dead animal behind me, which was kind of a creepy discovery even if I was grateful for the gift. The fighter must have recognized the ten here as being from my group.

A braided circle of vines lay beside it. I glanced back at the Saursune, who sat up, but it wasn't the same fighter I'd given energy to last night. The fighter's shoulders and head had been a bit broader. This one had a more slender build.

The ten older individuals gathering greens around us began shifting closer to the crystal when our guest sat up. Some had wandered a lot farther than I would have expected with a Saursune present, but if he had been here this long, they might have been getting brave. Or perhaps their desperation might have driven them into trying to collect enough food to feed their grandchildren tonight.

"I'm surprised you and Callie are still here," I finally said, trying to figure out why they hadn't left.

She fiddled with a corner of the hide she was sitting on, her eyes never leaving the Saursune. "My group isn't nearby, and I don't want to leave them here. He hasn't come close or bothered anyone, and he did bring food..." She paused, trying to find words. "If we left, the only places open would be the alpine slopes, and we wouldn't find enough to feed ourselves, let alone anyone else."

I would have made the same decisions, so I nodded. "Grant and the aunties might have some words when they hear about it, but that's why I've been letting them catch me. It also seems to make them more tolerant of my hunters."

She nodded and relaxed fractionally, like she'd been worried I'd give her a lecture about risking both herself and Callie. I rolled my eyes internally at that notion; as if I was going to hand out a lecture, not with my track record.

The Saursune finally looked away and turned his attention to the band on his upper arm, which he tapped with a clawed hand. That had everyone running for the crystal and us clambering to our feet. Callie held onto her mother's hand, but gazed around as if trying to figure out what had caused such activity.

As the first people gathered around us, notably in front of us, the Saursune looked back at me, then jumped to his feet and bounded into the forest. We watched him disappear.

"Okay... What prompted that?" I asked.

"Did anyone else notice how his behavior changed after he got a good look at Natalie?" an older hunter, Arthur, asked as he limped over, finally reaching us.

"He stared at her for at least nine or ten seconds before he sat up," another hunter agreed, watching the bushes our visitor had disappeared into. He glanced at me. "Is there any chance he might have recognized you?"

I scratched my head, hoping they'd assume any nervousness that showed through was due to being recognized, and not because I had literally just donated a bunch of energy and hadn't waited around for gifts. Could their communication really be that fast?

"I haven't been to this crystal for almost two months," I told him, letting confusion color my voice. "But if he was nearby when I checked it this morning, he probably saw me then. Or he might have been one of the ones that found us in the past."

"That could be it," the first hunter said, agreeing far more easily than I had anticipated. "We've been in fairly remote locations the last few days, so I don't think any of them have seen you lately."

Could that be why the fighter had acted so excited to see me last night? Because none of them had seen me for several days, notably after I'd dropped off a severely-injured porter?

"Well, I'm not about to linger. I just came to check on you and let you know Janette is back." I told them about her healed wounds and that she was staying at the Guard Station in case there was a tracker on her.

Many looked relieved or thoughtful when I finished. Callie hugged her mother tight in glee, already chattering about all the games she'd play with Janette when she got back.

With a shrug, I said, "So unless anyone needs anything, I'll take these to the Guard Station and head back to the village."

"Thanks for telling us," Merryl said in relief.

Due to how big the basket of corn was, it was surprisingly difficult to wedge it between my knees to free up my hands for the deer and the crystal. Poor Grant was going to be in for a shock when I showed up with this much food—and I wasn't even bringing back any of the carry nets!

I was looking forward to enjoying a nap back in the village.

~

I nodded a thank-you to the blue Saursune, who was sprawled out where he had been the first time I'd come. The alien somehow resembled a sunbathing cat as he watched ten of my slower hunters gather around me.

Arthur held onto the leg of a small wild pig the Saursune had brought shortly after I left. Once everyone was ready, I ported my first group to the Guard Station, leaving Merryl and Callie to watch over her group and a few of my long-ranging hunters until I could return.

Our view cleared, and the number of people pacing, wearing pensive expressions, and watching the sky made my heart race faster than when I'd first seen the Saursune at Bluebird Clearing.

My eyes darted to Janette, who was deep in discussion with about twenty other people, letting them examine the scars on her arms and legs. She was still safe. My gaze flickered across the dozens scattered across the wide cliff-side ledge. At least six groups were here already, and two of the porters were dozing on the hides.

Two guards were watching the scanner, as per usual, but even they occasionally glanced at the horizon. Carry nets were spread along the ridge, with each section of the line belonging to a particular group. The nets made it unfortunately easy to tell which groups had dared to harvest greens near the fields and which had remained as far from the Saursunes lands as they could.

Some nets held almost nothing, barely enough to feed one or two people. A large basket of grain and a gazelle stood out among the collections, evidence that a couple of porters had lingered long enough for the Saursune to bring something back instead of vacating the area as was our old habit.

One of my hunters frowned at the number of people watching the horizon. "What's wrong?"

A guard exhaled heavily. "Some village we've never heard of apparently had the dim-witted idea of arming their porter and setting a trap."

My breath caught in my throat. "Oh no."

Saursunes detested it when humans held weapons. Even my current hunters made sure their hands were empty when returning to the crystal since the aliens had been hanging around so much. Admittedly, they no longer threw their weapons away if they saw one, but they sure put their bows on their back and the knives in the sheathes as fast as they could.

And to attack a Saursune? That had never ended well in the past. It could have triggered a full-scale cull!

The guard's eyes scanned the sky as he nodded. "The Saursune single-handedly knocked the porter down, broke the weapon, then killed the twenty armed people who tried ambushing it. The porter was the only one who escaped."

One of my hunters furrowed his eyebrows. "What were they thinking? Those lizards are nearly impossible to kill, even when our ancestors had guns. It'll almost certainly trigger a retaliation."

"It already did," the guard said bluntly. "The smart individuals who didn't agree with the ambush had already left the village, and a good thing too, because the airships showed up right after. They let the rest of the porters escape, although most had been wise enough to leave ahead of time."

"They must have known which village they belonged to and where it was," a hunter stated.

"Not only that, but"—he raised an eyebrow as he paused—"they also destroyed their scanning location, and I mean destroyed. Everyone bounced before the cannons powered up, but that whole section of rocks was leveled and even the crystal was shattered. Someone went to a nearby crystal, and they said all the boulders were reduced to rubble."

Another hunter made a quiet whistle of shock. "That's crazy. We had a Saursune hanging around all day, but it wasn't the least bit aggressive. It even brought us a bunch of food."

The guard exhaled heavily. "That's what everyone else is saying. No other attacks have been reported yet, and anyone who got cornered was given dead animals or a basket of something. Many still bounce as soon as they spot the lizards, of course, so the porters are evading them."

One detail was lodged in my mind, and I asked, "The crystal is gone?" The Saursunes never destroyed crystals before—not even when they attacked a village or chased groups away from their farms. That had always confused me in the past, and it confused me even more right now.

He nodded. "Nothing happens when people try to port there. The fragments are probably buried in the rubble somewhere."

My group looked at each other, still trying to absorb the news and reconcile it with Janette's recovery and the sunbathing Saursune who'd kept them company all day. The fighter near the town had trusted me enough to let me touch his hide, even after another porter had tried to attack a Saursune.

There was no way he wouldn't have known about that, not after proving how good their communication system was by getting the other Saursune to bring us a pig mere minutes after I had left. I shook my head and decided that porting back to Merryl was an easier task than figuring out the methods and madnesses of an alien race.

At least I didn't have to worry about my energy levels tonight, not after sharing my energy as a thank-you for Janette's return.