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needed, as well as humpbacks carrying bribes for the Bedu nomads, to let us pass through their territories. Our procession just quadrupled.”
    Sulis looked around at the bustling outpost, so familiar from her apprentice days. “When we bring spices and merchandise from Frubia, our caravan has about five hundred loaded beasts as well as humpbacks for us and the guards. This enclosure contains only about a quarter of what the family owns. The rest are kept in a private corral, east of this outpost, and Uncle Aaron will take them back across to Frubia when he returns from Illian.”
    Ava turned to stare at the animals again, a determined set to her chin. “Wait until Farrah and the kids hear about this,” she said. “No one I know has seen a humpback, let alone ridden one.”
    Sulis glanced toward the center of the outpost. Grandmother walked out of the main trading jetal and strode down the path toward them, clan members touching the backs of their hands to their forehead in respect as she passed. Grandmother nodded in return. Sulis realized she’d never traveled with her grandmother before. No one in her village saluted as Grandmother walked by. It gave her a strange feeling, like her familiar and beloved grandmother was somehow a stranger, and imposing.
    â€œCome, girls,” Grandmother ordered. “We will sleep in the family guesthouse tonight. I sent word ahead of us for this outpost to prepare the men and supplies for the trip south, and we will be able to leave before dawn tomorrow. You will want to retire early.”
    They were rousted before sunrise the next morning, Sulis yawning and rubbing her eyes as a cook handed them breakfast on the way out the door. Sulis sniffed at hers: journeybread, with spices and meat baked into the center. She tucked it into the sling pouch hanging across her robes, not yet hungry enough to eat.
    When Sulis got to the stables, the path lit by torches, Master Anchee was giving Ava instructions on the words to command and control her humpback. The humpback ignored Ava’s soft command to kneel, and spat at her.
    â€œLouder,” Master Anchee commanded. “More forceful.”
    Ava put determination into her command, and the beast folded first its front legs, then its back legs, to kneel. Anchee helped Ava scramble on the saddle behind the hump. A humpback tender fastened a large pack in front of the saddle and a canister of water on her pommel.
    â€œHold on tightly to the bar in front,” he told Ava. “The reins are just there to gently direct the beast along with your commands.”
    With that he slapped the humpback’s rear and ordered it to rise. Ava clung to the bar as it threw her forward, unfolding its hind legs, then she settled back as the front end lifted. The tender stayed beside her, where he would walk for the trip.
    Sulis located her own humpback and ordered it to kneel. Its saddle was different than Ava’s. This one had a platform with soft padding in front of the hump, and the saddle behind. Her father had developed this saddle for her mother so she and her lazy feli could ride together. The leather had been oiled, and it looked new again. Sulis felt a pang as she thought about the day her father gave her mother that gift. She remembered the smile that spread over her father’s normally taciturn face at her mother’s delight with the unusual tack.
    Sulis pushed the memory away, with the pain that always followed thoughts of her father. Not knowing what happened to him tore her heart open. She’d mourned her mother, but a part of her still expected Gadiel to come home, even all these years later.
    Sulis firmly signaled the humpback to rise, then closed her eyes and willed Djinn to leap onto the platform as a tender held the halter. Djinn yowled once in protest, then gathered his weight onto his hindquarters and leapt up in front of her. She patted his back as he settled unhappily onto the makeshift