Kavio

Sheer cliffs lay directly west, so Kavio took the gentler eastern path from the box canyon then circled back into the mountains. A generation ago, many thriving clanholds had nestled in the arroyos and cliffs of these mountains. Eagles nested in the thatch bomas where warriors had once stood guard. Whole clans had bequeathed nothing to the future but their bones. His father would not say how he had survived those years; that generation hoarded food and secrets, but Kavio knew more than his father suspected. It was in the West, in Yellow Bear, Kavio had learned his father was not the hero he’d always believed.

At times, he felt sure someone followed him. He went so far as to double back on his tracks, in case the rovers had friends. He saw no one.

At a major crossroads in the trail, however, a crowd of men and women waited. He growled to himself. He’d sharpened the stone point on the spear he’d won from the rovers, but if it came to real battle, he wasn’t properly armed.