Two young kirins rushed through a sunlit forest, scrambling over tree roots, dodging pinecones and toadstools. Rabbits and field mice eyed them curiously as they passed.
They stopped to look back. Through a break in the trees they saw it, still distant, coming steadily over a rise. First its head, then a white hairless body with two long arms, then two sturdy legs. It resembled no other living thing.
“No face,” murmured Talli.
The same height as a kirin, the gronom was methodically stalking them.
The dark-eyed Gilin grasped Talli’s hand. “We have to separate. Maybe we’ll both make it. But one of us must!”
Talli looked down as their right feet touched in the time-honored kirin gesture of joy, sorrow, greeting, and parting. We might never see each other again, she thought, or any of our clan.
A burnished blue gemstone was in Gilin’s hand, and he pressed it into hers. “It brings luck. It was my grandfather’s, my father’s, mine, now yours.”
She caressed his hand, then from her belt satchel withdrew a thin gold disc, shiny and worn. “My birth piece,” she said, giving it to him. “Remember me.”
She looked over her shoulder, her hair a shimmer of gold in the sunlight. The enemy was marching intently toward them.
