She blinked. “I was taught to make my own when I first started training with a bow. Everyone will make them slightly differently, and I am particular about mine.”
He just watched her hands moving, and Iryana tried not to bristle. The threads began to thin, so she untwisted a few times, laid a few more strands in, and began twisting again.
“Would you teach me?”
Her heart pounded. “Uh, I don’t have enough sinew for a second string.”
“We need to get lunch, Mezho,” Vaneshta called, shifting her weight impatiently.
He ignored her. “Where’d you get the sinew then?”
“An elk.”
“You… hunted an elk for that?” Mezhimar frowned.
Pepha’s face looked positively green as she stepped closer, abandoning Vaneshta on the path.
Iryana sighed. “I went with one of the hunting parties on my day off with the understanding I could keep the sinew of whatever I killed, and they could take the rest. I had hoped for a couple of deer, but I got lucky and took down an elk. Their leg sinew is great for bowstrings.”
“Leg sinew,” Pepha squeaked, grimacing at the sinew in Iryana’s hand, her fingers delicately placed over her lips.
Shahn laughed. “Gross.”
“Please,” Vabihn said sarcastically. “You see dead dakii all the time.”
Pepha was already shaking her head. “Yeah, but I don’t pull their bodies apart; I don’t hunt or work in the kitchens.”
Mezhimar picked up one of the slightly damp fibers of sinew from the bowl, rubbing it between his fingers. “This is part of a guardian’s training, right? Self-sufficiency?”
“Yeah,” she answered, although she had taken it a lot further than most of her family.
They stood there awkwardly as Iryana kept twisting the fibers, and then she remembered what she’d been thinking about before their interruption.
“Uh, could I ask you all something?” she forced herself to say.
Vabihn narrowed his eyes at her, but Mezhimar nodded. It was Vaneshta that spoke, though. “What is it?”
She took a deep breath. “The pack from that day… were their uh, tactics normal?”
“They were on path, if that’s what you mean,” Vaneshta answered.
“On path?” That was not a phrase she’d heard before.
“Ugh, this stuff.” Vabihn rolled his eyes and turned away from them. He clapped a hand over Shahn’s shoulder and pulled him toward the estate, likely to grab lunch. Pepha chased after them, avoiding looking at the sinew again.
Vaneshta shook her head at her teammates, but she stepped up next to Mezhimar. They were an odd pair standing side by side. Where she was Iryana’s height, Mezhimar was tall. But Vaneshta was all thick muscle next to his wiry form. Her face was square, expression guarded and framed by straight brown hair. He was relaxed, his long face even longer with those curiously raised brows.
“The dakii aren’t migratory, but they usually follow certain paths,” Vaneshta explained, seeming to choose her words carefully. “Every encounter with them has to be carefully tracked, because it can change what path they follow. It’s how we plan all our patrols and missions.”
It didn’t explain the strange tactics, but it was even more helpful. Understanding when and where the dakii would go helped explain how the brigades survived out here.
Iryana nodded, mind spinning. What she would give to get access to those maps… “Is that something anyone can look at?”
“If you went with a captain, sure.”
She deflated. Darish would never take her to pore over maps. There went that idea—at least for now.
“It took a long time to track their paths,” Vaneshta added.
