"Might get you the code," I pointed out, steering him back toward Zasen.
He murmured. "Okay, that's a good point."
But Zasen wasn't alone. Lansin was there, along with Irrik and three different dogs. Shadow turned first, lifting his lips in a snarl. The other two were only a bit slower.
"Dogs, stay," I ordered in Vestrian, the language they'd been trained in.
"I don't think they like me," Tobias said.
"They don't like Moles," I explained. "You smell like the compound, so you get put in that group." But I kept going until I could ask Zasen, "Do you need anything else? Tobias needs to get back before he's missed."
"I need to know when you're coming back," Zasen told him.
"I don't know," Tobias admitted. "This mission was announced last night. The elders told us we'd have weeks without needing to hunt because we had enough meat for all the weddings. Then, without warning, they sent us here - not to you. Now, only a few days later, we were told to come back. It doesn't make any sense, and the only warning we get is enough to have us ready to leave before the main lights come on."
"The days and nights are flipped," I explained to Lansin in Vestrian. "In the compound, they sleep when it's daylight, because the sun is too bright. That means the hunters are awake when it's dark, so they can travel without burning their eyes."
"Gotcha," he said. "Sadly, that does make sense."
"But we can't prepare now," Zasen grumbled.
"Actually," Lansin said, switching to heavily accented English, "I have um idea."
"An," I corrected without thinking.
Tobias chuckled. "He speaks weird."
"I rarely use English," Lansin explained as he offered something to Tobias. "This is a whistle. It sound loud, but we cannot hear it."
"Sounds," I mumbled.
Lansin grunted. "Right. The dogs hear it, though."
And he pulled out a matching one and blew in the end. I could hear the sound of the wind rushing through it, and there was a hint of something else, but it wasn't what I'd call loud - yet every dog, including Holly, whipped around quickly to look at Lansin.
He gestured to the animals. "Dogs hear better than people. This?" He blew two short bursts and the dogs all sat down. "Two means sit. All dogs from here will sit when they hear it, no matter who blows it. They can hear that for..." He made a face and asked me in Vestrian, "How do Moles measure distance?"
"In time," I explained.
Lansin nodded and switched to English again. "They will hear that an hour's walk away. Three blasts?" He blew three sharp bursts and the dogs all around us lay down. "That makes them lie down. Blow two times if you are coming here, and we will be ready. Three times if you are not coming here, and we will come stop you."
"How do I explain having this?" Tobias asked.
"A thing you took from the man who cut your shirt. You killed him, but the rest had already left, so you couldn't take his body. You didn't want to be stranded out here, alone with the Devil's minions."
"I can do that," he agreed. "But will you be here, Ayla?"
"We'll be here for a while, I think," Zasen said. "If not, Lansin will make sure we know anything you need to pass along."
"I'm Lansin," he said, offering his hand. "It's a pleasure to meet a friend of Ayla and Meri."
"He gave me the dog," I explained. "Mostly because I used her to stop you."
Tobias looked down at Holly. "And they work, Ayla. The dogs? We call them beasts, but the hunters are scared of them. Callah doesn't use the ethanol on most of them."
"Good," I said, "because dog bites can easily get infected."
"I'll make sure she knows that too." And his lips curled into a smile.
