Fugitive's Flight (Dragon Castaway Book 2)

Chapter 5

Jake moved silently over the rocks and through the tall grass that made up the landscape. Wyena followed closely behind him, mimicking his movements. Her bow was held in a ready position as they stalked their latest quarry in the soft light of the pre-dawn hours. The sky had been steadily turning lighter as time had gone on, but the sun had yet to peak out from over the distant foothills of the Cappadocia-like landscape that they now traversed.

Jake had to admit that he'd been impressed with Wyena's progress on shooting the bow he'd given her at stationary targets. She was learning extremely quickly for one who had believed the bow to be a lowly weapon only a few scant months before. If Jake didn't know any better he'd say that just like dragon riding she was a natural being held back by the culture of her home. Still, she needed a real test to improve further.

Fortunately, Jake knew that the best way to work on that problem was with one of his favorite activities, a bow hunt. He reasoned that not only would it allow her to practice stalking and hitting a live target, but also give him an opportunity to teach her about tracking or following sign as some back home had called it.

There had been some protest from the twins when he'd left them at the camp, but it had been necessary to leave them behind. Jake had sympathized with their concern but to bring them along would fly in the face of what he was trying to do. Archery from dragon back was a whole different lesson and before Wyena was ready to do that she needed to learn how to hit a moving target while dismounted.

"Plus, you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of stalking from an animal the size of a goddamn bus." He thought wryly.

Keeping one eye to the ground he quietly led Wyena through a shallow rock-strewn gulley before heading up the shallow slope of a low ridge.

Cresting the ridge Jake abruptly stopped and held up a hand to indicate that Wyena should do the same.

"Look here" Jake said his voice barely above a whisper as he crouched down and indicated a patch of earth made soft by the early morning mist. Wyena followed Jake's pointing finger with her gaze and nodded as she spotted the track of a hoofed animal imprinted deeply in the dirt.

"The track itself can teach you a lot about the animal or person. What kind it is, how big they are, what direction they're headed in, even if they are injured" Jake continued as he began to point to a couple other tracks where the animal had left the dirt patch and ventured into the tall grass on the opposite slope of the ridge.

"You can tell all of that just by looking?" Wyena asked raising her head to look at Jake the skepticism apparent behind her eyes. He didn't blame her for being skeptical, people who didn't know the craft tended to think that it was impossible even back home. Hell, he still had trouble believing that Polynesian wayfinding actually worked even though he knew it had to.

Still there was something behind the skepticism, something that bothered him. It was as if her attention was focused elsewhere.

"You can indeed" Jake affirmed ignoring his concerns for the moment as he drew her attention back to the print. "The type of print is probably an antelope given the type of country, the size and how deep it pressed into the mud tell me that it's quite large and from the other tracks I can tell that it's healthy because the stride is normal. On top of that from the condition of the dirt I can tell that the track was made recently"

Jake's ears perked up and he quickly motioned for Wyena to stay quiet as he heard the faint but unmistakable sound of a twig snapping. Crouching down to avoid being spotted the pair carefully inched their way through the tall grass.

Scanning the horizon Jake abruptly stopped, dropping out of sight as he spotted the silhouette of an animal grazing amongst the brush ahead of them he quickly held up his hand in a fist to indicate that Wyena should do the same. Peering back over the tall grass he cheered inwardly as the animal's head perked up to reveal that it was indeed an antelope.