"They would throw you off if you took a kajat," she said calmly. "But not an inu. She's too small to be a danger, and you and Sarraya can explain things to her so she doesn't cause any problems." She patted the inu 's flank fondly as the big predator bent down and ripped the umuni carcass apart with her long, dangerous teeth, swallowing it in huge, bloody chunks as she held the remaining carcass down with her wickedly clawed foot.
This was an argument he knew he was destined to lose. He knew when to cut his losses and at least bow out with some measure of dignity. "All right, but I'm not going to help you in any way. She's your burden."
"Yes you will," she said absently. "You'll argue, and you may even try to put your foot down, but we both know in the end, I'm going to win." She flashed him a bright, affectionate smile. "Because you love me."
"Sometimes love really stinks," he said with a snort, turning and stalking away.
They didn't have to slow down much for their new pet. The inu that Allia named Talon could keep up with them rather well, a testament to her stamina and her will to keep up. Inu were born runners, but Tarrin hadn't realized how much like the Selani they were until he saw Talon and Allia together. They had the same basic survival instincts. Both inu and Selani were nomadic, going to where the food was, and that meant that both groups were used to travelling great distances. Inu were fast sprinters, but they were also effective distance runners, able to eat up the longspans with an easy stride that they could hold for hours on end. He realized that the Selani had probably learned from the inu when they first came to the desert, for the inu 's hunting tactics were similar to the Selani's. They used ambushing tactics, running down a meal in a furious sprint, and a pack cooperated during hunts meant to bring down more than one prey animal, with one group chasing meals to where the rest lay in wait. The Selani did the same thing, able to either run down lone prey or chase them into an ambush set up by the rest of the hunting party. The Selani had found the desert a harsh, forbidding place when they first arrived, so they probably turned to those who thrived here and learned the secrets of survival from them. Selani were alot like inu, and it was no surprise that someone had finally noticed that.
Talon herself surprised Tarrin a great deal. She was very intelligent, playful, and seemed quite happy to stay in their rather unusual pack. She seemed a formidable, intimidating predator to him, but at the same time she was affectionate and very social, and surprisingly gentle. It amused him that he realized that he'd done the same thing so many others do, only see the bad side in a thing. He'd judged the inu from a bad experience with a pack and their fearsome reputation, but hadn't once thought about how they lived. A pack of wolves seemed dangerous and forbidding, but wolves themselves were very social and intelligent animals, capable of great expressions of devotion and love to members of the pack. Inu were like wolves that way. They were ferocious, and they were dangerous, but they were also mothers and cub, mates and pack members. To members of the pack, they were cordial, even compassionate, dutiful and loyal, and protective. That, he realized, what was caused them to attack in what some thought was a suicidal manner. They weren't attacking mindlessly, it was a powerful instinct to defend the pack against a dangerous enemy. That instinct to defend caused them to be wildly aggressive, attacking even things like kajats, because the concept of pack lived on even if the entire pack was killed in the fight. Even the last surviving inu thought in terms of pack, as we instead of I, and would continue to fight on for the pack. It took the realization that the entire pack would die unless someone retreated to make them break off from an attack.
Talon had adopted Tarrin and Allia as her own pack, and she had assumed a place in it. Inu were exactly like wolves; they had a hierarchy of command that ran from the leader all the way down to the lowest member. She assumed that lowest place willingly, not willing to challenge the mighty Tarrin over his role as leader, and sensing that Allia was just as deadly. She wouldn't challenge Sarraya because she was a Druid, and that left her in the most submissive position. Besides, she was a very young inu, and the youngest occupied the lowest ranks. After all, they still had much to learn.
Allia seemed entranced by the inu, and Talon seemed just as taken with Allia. She had gained the animal's trust, and after Tarrin used Druidic magic to speak directly to it-something he'd done with Sapphire before she could speak-some ground rules were laid down and some Selani was taught so she could obey Allia's verbal and hand-signed commands. After that, the two of them would go off and hunt together, and they would often drag back animals too big for either of them to catch alone. Or at least seemingly. Allia's intelligence and understanding of her environment and the animal she was stalking allowed her to take on virtually any animal in the desert. It would be a bit dangerous, but she could do it. But with Talon's help, they could easily bring down any size prey animal, from the largest sukk to the most heavily armored kusuk. It seemed odd that Allia would choose an inu as a pet, but on the other hand, a sleek and deadly raptor fit in with his sister's personality. The fact that Talon was just as big as Allia only made it seem even stranger.
There was no doubt as to who Talon's favorite was. She was friendly with Sarraya and Tarrin, but she behaved like a puppy around Allia, prancing about and almost trembling with delight every time the Selani stroked her scaled flank. She was right by Allia's side almost all the time, and Allia was so trusting of her that she'd even let the inu groom her. She had no fear of the animal, but it seemed to him that fear of Talon was woefully misplaced. She was a deadly predator, but she was also an animal with a pack mentality. Since she'd adopted them as pack, it made her as safe and secure a travelling companion as they could have.
Sarraya found the whole thing quite amusing. "Next thing you know, Kerri's going to bring home a kajat," she teased, giving Tarrin a wolfish grin one fine desert evening, as the two of them sat on a short rock spire, staring out into the desert to make sure no little surprises were close enough to cause any problems.
"As long as she feeds it, it's her problem," Tarrin snorted, which made the Faerie burst into laughter.
Several days of light travel as they adjusted to the inu seemed to fly by, but not without news of the outside world. Keritanima and Jenna projected out to him about every other day with news. Keritanima's news was redundant, for they were safely entrenched in his grandfather's house in Dusgaard, and were surrounded by an army of watchful Ungardt. They would probably be just as safe in the arms of the Goddess herself. The only real news there was that Auli seemed to be playing games with the human that had been altered to take his place. Fox, he was told, was an overly clever young man with a penchant for causing trouble, and someone like that would immediately catch Auli's attention. Tarrin wondered if the young human knew just how much trouble he was getting himself into. It wouldn't seem too strange for outsiders to see that, for Tarrin and Allia were quite close, and were known to tease and play with each other from time to time. Triana would be there to step on it if it got out of hand, though. She was visiting about every other day or so to keep an eye on Jula and make sure things were going alright for them.
The news from Suld wasn't as light-hearted. The strange inciter still hadn't been caught, and the crowds he was whipping into a frenzy in whichever square or marketplace he appeared in that day were getting bigger and bigger. Jenna had a real problem on her hands with him, and no matter how hard they tried, he always seemed to slip away during the chaos of the riots he would incite. On the king front, she reported that she had made significant progress. She had dropped Arren's name in the right places around Suld, and now there was open verbal speculation about the worthiness of the respected duke of a far-flung desmense. That was the first step to getting him on the throne, and Jenna told him she intended to go see him in a couple of days and order him to accept if the throne was offered to him. And she would make sure that it was offered to him. Jenna had a great deal of power, and her power inside the boundaries of Sulasia rivalled the monarch's. Picking a king was well within her abilities.