Akar returned out of the larger cave as Skither's breathing became normal once more. After several minutes he nodded imperceptibly to the wolf, then spread his wings and took off slowly. He circled the mountain twice, swooped low down the canyon as if in anger, then turned westward at the sandstone ridge and moved steadily out of sight. Sylviana stood watching Kalus, whose eyes gleamed with some fierce emotion that was beyond her experience, but not her ability to feel. He was silent, lost in some world of his past, then spoke.
'It will be a long time before the Commodore ventures so far from its hole, to steal the flesh of those yet living.'
With this he seemed to come back to himself. He turned to the girl, contented. 'There is much work to do.' He reached above and behind her on the rockface to the place where he had set the pelt to dry. 'Have you ever worked with leather or fur?'
'Yes, a little.'
'Good. Take my knife and see if you can cut four long strands from the skin, each about as wide as your smallest finger. They need not be straight; they are only for binding wooden poles. I go to the valley to fetch them. Do not leave here until I return.' He began to descend, remembered himself. 'The sword…..' He passed her and reentered their tiny island of space, emerged with the sword, unsheathed. Its well-preserved edges looked sharp in the sunlight.
'Be careful,' she said.
'I am always careful. Akar will come with me.' He took a lock of her hair in his fingers, and would have kissed her if he knew how. He whistled for the wolf and started down.
'Kalus?' He turned. 'Won't you need an ax to cut the wood?' He could not hide his smile in answering.
'I don't have to cut it. I steal it from the beaver.'
The two hunters met on the broader ledge and descended into the shadows of the gorge, leaving the girl with only the large rabbit pelt and Kalus' jagged knife, in truth not much improved from the museum relics she had studied as a child. She moved to a small, relatively smooth stretch of stone just inside the entrance, and laid out the fur upon it. She sat down and tried to work, but after several tentative starts had only succeeded in shredding one corner and cutting her finger on the knife. There seemed no safe way to grasp it, no soft or unsharpened place anywhere on it.