Holly did. Pepper? Not at all. That dog looked at me, then Zasen, and immediately trotted after her person. Beside me, Zasen shook his head and chuckled. I knew I was smiling, but I wasn't upset either. I actuallylikedthat she had a dog that loyal. It made me worry about her a little less.
"Can Lorsa take our wounded again?" Eriska asked.
"Gladly," Rymar assured her. "We also found our informant."
That made the Reapers grumble. The Dragons didn't, surprisingly. Then again, we knew a lot more about the ties between us and the people down there.
"Tobias said they weren't looking for meat," Ayla said. "They have what we gave them, and enough to freeze."
"Freeze?" Eriska asked.
"Moles have electricity," Rymar explained. "That means refrigeration too. They freeze food to store it when they have enough, and it sounds like it's been alongtime since that has happened."
"I can't remember it in my lifetime," Ayla explained. "But, the elders still sent out the hunters, and they were headed to Lorsa. They were told to capture women who look like them. I can only guess they mean pale skin like mine, since they've taken women with hair that isn't blonde."
I looked around the crowd, seeing far too many women who fit that description. Light skin was just as common as all the other colors, and few Reapers had tails. Just from where I was standing, I could spot at least ten women who fit the criteria.
"He also said," Rymar called out, "that they don't know where they'll hit next. Here, there, or somewhere in the middle. They were told to retreat instead of die. Many of the hunters are young, and this was their first time out. Recently, they've reduced the age of maturity from twenty to eighteen, so a lot of kids - and those kids are new. Inexperienced. For all we know, this could've been a training mission."
"What?" Ayla asked, looking at him. "Tobias didn't say that."
"Nope," Rymar agreed, "but he said he didn't know, and that's whatwedo. Experience is the best weapon all of us have, and as much as I hate to admit it, Moles aren't stupid." Then he raised his voice a little more. "But what he was sure of is that we can't predict where they'll go, and we Dragons have to protect Lorsa first."
"Wait!" Ayla begged. "If we do that, they'll attack the Reapers."
"Yeah," Rymar said.
Which was when Lansin pushed forward. The man's arm was wrapped, proving he'd been injured, but there were three dogs following behind him. That anyone had been able to touch him was a little surprising.
"We know where they come from, right?" he asked.
So Zasen moved closer. I followed, reaching down to make sure Holly was with me. If we were going to start acting like experts, then I might have a few things to add as well.
"They always leave from the place where we left the meat," Ayla explained. "It's the only exit from the compound."
"The problem," Lansin said, using his hands to explain, "is that we don't know if they'll go toward us." One hand veered to the right. "Or to the Dragons." The other went up and left. "The further out we are, the harder it will be to stop them, so we need to get up close and take them out as soon as they leave."
"No," I said. "They have guns, Lansin. We know they leave at night. Tobias calls it morning, but their schedule is inverted because theycan see in the dark. That gives them the advantage. If they're well-rested, excited, and braced? That turns their entrance into a chokepoint."
"A kill zone," Zasen said, hammering my point home. "Kanik's right. Lansin is too. If we all go home, Dragons will lose the benefit of all your dogs. If the Reapers head home, they'll lose our venom and experience."
"And experience is a weapon," Rymar mumbled, reiterating his point from before.
But that gave me an idea. "Why can't we make a wall in the middle?"
"What?" Eriska asked, looking at me like that made no sense. "We can't build a wall that fast!"
"Not a literal one," I assured her. "Look, the one thing Reapers are good at? Moving around. Your supplies are all portable and meant to be moved. We Dragons build in bulk because we're stable. Combined?"
"What are you thinking?" Zasen asked.
"Lorsa donates tents," I said. "We get fletchers working to restock our arrows. Now, I don't know how you Reapers want to handle this, but either we leave a core group at your camp to hold it, or we empty it and set camps up in an arc between Lorsa and your camp. Halfway between. A barrier where the Moles will not expect us, and one with dogs to alert us all before they're on top of us."
"And so they can't slip between," Lansin said, nodding to show he agreed. "We still have plenty back at the camp, though."
"We can move all of it to the winter camp," Eriska said.
"I have puppies," Lansin mumbled, sounding like he didn't want to admit it, but they were his real concern.
