Tara glanced up at the night sky. The stars were beginning to shine brightly and the moon was cresting over the eastern horizon, a bloated gibbous moon. The extra light allowed them to see fairly well and Acharya had no further problems navigating the land. Acharya was able to finally turn the jeep across a bit of a dip across the dry creek bed and continued east. He glanced back at Tara, wondering if the woman had heard him or not.

  Tara finally answered, “What we really want is a guarantee of our survival. That the sacred hoop will not be broken. We want our people and our cultural to have a chance to thrive. We don’t want our language, or our religion, or our way of life to disappear like tracks through melting snow.”

  Acharya nodded in understanding, or at least a semblance of understanding. He had no real idea of what Tara and her people had gone through. But he understood the sentiment. “So, how do I offer that to the Matriarch of a people who have lost everything time and again?”

  Tara shook her head, “I don’t know, Acharya. I don’t think they would be willing to move their entire clan to another continent, especially one where hyenas are not native. We would raise far too many suspicions.”

  Acharya responded, “No, and hyenas are very competitive for territory and resources, even their own kill each other for dominance. There’s no way we could take them back to the City Under the Mountain. Perhaps we could offer them aid with building their own city?”

  “It would give them the security they seek, but nothing of everything else Tara spoke of,” Aiman called over the noise of the jeep engine. “Perhaps Mary’s Scout abilities might be leveraged to give them some aid in identifying and finding more of their kind, to strengthen their numbers and increase their security.”

  Mary looked a bit taken aback, “Whoa, hey this finding other Shape shifter thing is still pretty new to me and I haven’t really been very good at it. If we say that I can help I had better be able to deliver. I’m not sure it’d be a good idea.”

  “We need options Mary, not excuses. I need you to do whatever it is you do to practice and make it work. You’re our Scout, I know that you can do this. Whatever I can do to help I will, but I’m even more in the dark on this than you are,” Acharya said encouragingly.

  Mary knew that he meant well. And she knew that her pack would do anything to help her. But the technique that the Elders had taught her in the Tower was not exact in any kind of way. Nicolas had help from Ansuya, and that poor girl he found died during the trials. Yes, she had since gotten practice and the Mountain had enjoyed some success. Even she had been able to find a not yet reborn Shape shifter. But she was focusing on her own kind. She didn’t know much about hyenas.

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  “Aiman?” Acharya called back to his Enforcer. “What else do you know about hyenas? You were right when you mentioned a matriarch to the librarian on that hill next to Lake Chad. What else do you know that might help us?”

  Aiman replied, “They move in tight clans, more condensed than wolf packs. They are matriarchal, and even the lowest females are seen as higher in the social order than the highest males. Males are smaller than the females. They can recognize family and use that to determine social status as to who they can dominate and who not to. They are unique among mammalian predators in that they form coalitions to determine status. Their place is not determined by size or ferocity but the social coalition that they can build. However, hyenas don’t have a fluid social order, ranking members of the clan are seldom overthrown.”

  “So, this will be just as much a political game as one of straight forward aid,” Malikah said.

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Acharya cautioned. “We still have to find them, but this gives us options. If their social status is determined by coalitions, then maybe we can build our strength by starting at the bottom and working our way up the chain. Maybe if we can approach the Matriarch from a position of strength, then we could barter a deal that’s a little more in our power to facilitate, and not try to pull off a mass migration of hyenas to North America that no one will be able to explain.”

  “Wait a minute,” asked Mary, “if hyenas are clan based does that mean that if we make friends with the wrong clan, we might be defeating ourselves before we even have a chance to actually try to barter a deal?”

  Aiman answered smoothly, “hyenas have very strict territory rules. I know that there have been reports of hyenas stopping dead in their tracks, even when chasing prey, to not violate another clan’s territory.”

  “Not even wolves go that far,” Tara commented.

  Aiman shook his head, “Of course, this rule is violated when food is scarce. And then only mostly by the males. Males are the ones that leave their clan while the females for the most part, stay with their birth clan.”

  “So, males might be the best people to approach to start negotiations,” Acharya said.

  Aiman nodded, “This is all strictly from the animal side of things, we will be dealing with Shape shifters. I have no idea how the human half of their kind would have changed or influenced how the bultungin society as a whole works.”

  “Judging from our run in with that librarian I’d say that the dominance and aggressive nature of hyenas hasn’t been tempered by their human half,” Acharya said. “Well, I guess we just play it by ear. I’m just glad we have three females with us.”

  “And why is that?” Mary asked sarcastically.

  “If we need to run for our lives, you three can at least dominate the males in the group,” Acharya answered with a smile, “That’s half of the entire bultungin population that we don’t have to worry about fighting.” The conversation died down and the pack rode east in silence.

  They took turns driving and Acharya got a few hours sleep. The jeep was loud and uncomfortable, but he was so tired he could have slept on a bed of nails.

  The jeep ran out of gas a little after sunrise. The group didn’t know how far they had gone but not having to walk last night was a blessing. They left the jeep and continued their journey east.