I stretched and limbered up as my group gathered around me.

"Stay safe," the elderly porter in the corner told me, slowly rocking in the rocking chair as he had been the entire time.

I nodded as hands rested on my shoulders. "I'll try. Home."

The desert viewpoint hazed over and was replaced by cliffs towering over us. Grant was sitting on a rock, studying his notes. He got up and came over as the hunters immediately jogged to the supplies room to get more bows, arrows, and knives since they had abandoned theirs when the Saursunes appeared.

"Saursunes?" Grant guessed, watching the hunters as someone else came to take the bananas from a gatherer.

"Yeah. First place was claimed, so we went to Elephant Charge and stumbled into a rather elaborate trap. We'll tell you the story tonight, but make sure no one goes there for at least a few weeks."

"Elephant Charge..." he murmured, tilting his head in thought. "Oh, Yellow Bird Bamboo Forest."

I grinned at his ability to remember the various names we used for some locations. We usually tried to keep the same ones but occasionally deviated if we had a stronger memory tied to that spot.

The hunters were already returning, so I said, "I rested plenty at the Guard Station, so I'm ready to head out. Any suggestions?"

Grant sighed but instead of telling me to sit for five minutes, he said, "Most places will be occupied by now. You can try Golden Oak Forest. It's a two hour walk from some large fields, but it was an earlier crop rotation. They should have finished harvesting and reseeding a couple of weeks ago."

After my recent brush with the Saursune trap, I would have preferred a more remote location, but there weren't many of those, and they would be occupied by now. Most crystals were located near fields and farms, courtesy of distant ancestors who preferred gleaning the remains of the Saursunes' harvests.

It wasn't easy to build up safer locations, not when it took a shard at least three years to grow enough for us to port to. Even if we were able to use a new location to leapfrog farther away, we only found a handful of shards a year.

"That location will work," I reluctantly agreed as several hunters nocked arrows onto strings as a precaution. Others held onto them and my shoulders.

"Be ready to bounce," Grant advised me solemnly. "Even if Saursunes aren't around, bears are common in that area."

I rested my hand on the crystal, the gentle shimmering at complete odds with my trepidation. "Golden Oak Forest."

We tensed up as the porting haze obscured our view. A squirrel's chattering became louder as the haze cleared to reveal a sparsely treed forest with a couple of oak trees nearby. All eyes scanned the grassy undergrowth and shrubs.

The hunters lowered their bows after a couple of seconds. At that sign, the others began spreading out. When a small shrub rustled, they skipped back, ready to leap to my side if we had to bounce.

A cat poked its head out from under the shrub and meowed at us. The hunters began fanning out again, ignoring the light brown feline, who watched them suspiciously. The gatherers glanced at the oak trees, which only had hanging pollen and flower strands. Any acorns not harvested by humans would have been claimed by the squirrels long ago.

A hunter followed the chittering. I hoped he'd be able to catch the squirrel. There wasn't much meat on them, but it was still something to take back, and it would be one less rodent competing with us during the next acorn harvest.

The cat meowed again. I took a few steps toward it, only for it to back farther under the bush. I crouched down and made soft psp-psp sounds while holding out my hand, palm up. It regarded me cautiously and didn't move.

The cat had likely been left here as an unwanted kitten or to keep the squirrel and mouse populations in check. It remembered enough about "people" to know that it wanted to be with us, but it had been alone so long that it was very wary or had gone partially feral. Its caution was prudent. When someone was on the brink of starvation, meat was meat and anything was a welcome addition to empty soup pots.

With a shrug, I stood up and began investigating the area. Ferns grew abundantly, although they weren't a kind we could eat. Someone had spread dandelion seeds at some point, but they struggled to compete against the local foliage and most had been picked by other groups or chewed down to the roots by rabbits.

The hunters had already disappeared into the forest as they went farther afield in search of wildlife. The gatherers headed east to a meadow they remembered. I scratched my head and looked around. This was the downside of traveling with a group; I wasn't able to go far from the crystal and there wasn't much nearby.

My eyes followed a small trail that ran between an oak tree and a dark hole under a root. For a lack of anything better to do, I picked up a sturdy stick and began digging on the other side of the root. Squirrels usually hid acorns fairly deep, but there was a chance I might find a couple of chambers.

I sat on the leaf litter and dug the dirt away while keeping an eye on my surroundings. The brown cat watched and eventually came out from under the bush. Its eyes followed every flicked clump of dirt as it edged closer.

The feline remained out of reach, but I welcomed its presence. I tossed a small rock into the ferns several paces away from it, and it pounced, digging around in the greenery. With a sneeze, it gave me a disgusted look. I chuckled and flicked dirt in the other direction to avoid startling it.

A hunter returned with a squirrel, and the cat quickly retreated under a different shrub.

He frowned at the cat and held up the squirrel. "Where can I leave this? I don't trust that cat to not run off with it."

"I can keep it beside me." I checked my belt and remembered I hadn't grabbed another knife after leaving mine at the trap. "I can gut it if you don't mind lending me a knife."

He handed over the squirrel and a small pottery shard blade barely as long as my finger. After scanning the area, he jogged away. I shifted away from where I was digging and cleaned the squirrel, tucking the heart and liver back inside.

It was too early in the day to try and save the rest of the guts for our village's cats and dogs. Six or eight hours of sun did unfavorable things to them. If there was water in the area, someone would usually bring a leather bucket of water to put the meat in; otherwise, I'd have to find a cool, shady place to store it.

The cat edged closer and mewed hopefully. I put the handful of innards near me and made more psp-psp sounds. The lure of food had it coming closer, looking between me and the two mouthfuls of juicy tidbits.

The cat stretched out its neck and quickly grabbed a mouthful before backing up. It gobbled down the snack in record time before lifting its head and meowing again.

"Unless someone brings me more, that's it," I told the feline, holding out my hand without expecting it to come closer. It could take years to build trust with a wary feline.

Surprisingly, it stepped forward, possibly reassured by the offering that I was a friend. It sniffed my fingers, then bumped its cheek against my hand. I petted it for a while before returning to the hole I was digging, hiding the squirrel a section of the tunnel I wasn't digging up. The cat sat beside me for more pets while I fought with the rootlets impeding my progress.

I kept digging, slowly unearthing the tunnel and small pockets of acorns. With no warning, a squirrel rocketed out of the tunnel. Even as I instinctively threw myself to the side to avoid the unexpected missile, the cat turned into a brown blur as it raced after the now-chittering rodent. After a brief scuffle, the cat proudly brought the limp squirrel over.

"Good reflexes," I complimented the feline while wondering if there was any way to convince it to let me have the squirrel or even part of it. Cats rarely shared a kill unless they were full, and I doubted this one had eaten today apart from the bits I'd given it.

I gave the cat a few more pets to test the waters. Without any additional incentive, it dropped the squirrel as it purred and rubbed against me. Making sure to pet the feline every few seconds, I gutted the squirrel and dumped the innards in front of the cat.

It wolfed them down, yet continued to ignore the furry squirrel in my hands. Feeling it was only fair, I peeled the fur back and trimmed off the front legs. I paused to pet the cat. Could I train it to bring me prey? I wasn't sure how Mack had trained his two dogs, but they happily brought everything back in exchange for pets, praise, and part of the kill.

For a lack of ideas, I dragged the dead squirrel through the grass. The cat immediately pounced on it and went for the throat. I gave the cat a few seconds to make sure the squirrel was dead, then held out one of the skinned front legs. It dropped the squirrel and chomped down the offering.

Like the cats back home, this one detested eating fur, possibly because they were accustomed to juicy entrails and innards. A quick check under the tail confirmed the feline was female.

I couldn't take her back with me, or our three toms would consider each other to be foes instead of friends. I could come here every day or so with an offering to see if I could train her.

It wouldn't be too hard to convince a hunter to let me have the unwanted innards from a rabbit or several rats, not when I already had one squirrel to prove there was some merit to my idea. I continued petting the cat. A while later, I dragged the carcass through the grass and rewarded the cat for "bringing" me the animal with the other leg.

I turned my attention back to the tunnel and continued digging. The cat shook herself off and cleaned a paw. Once she finished, she sat companionably beside me, occasionally batting at my stick or at the bits of dirt I was flicking away.

The cat's head whipped around, and she darted under a bush. I twisted around to see a light brown Saursune sitting thirty paces behind me. I scrambled to my feet and backed up, nearly tripping over the tunnel I'd just dug.

How long had it been sitting there, between me and the crystal? I had, unfortunately, focused on my task and forgot to check directly behind me for some time. A rookie mistake, and I was about to pay the price for it.