City of Ice by Laurence Yep Page A

“I used to go out regularly with Father and my brothers on trading runs to the Inuit villages. So I’m as good as they are at camping out in the snow and hunting. I know this land as well as you do yours.”
    â€œI left Kushan when I was small,” Scirye confessed. “I’m afraid I don’t know it at all.”
    â€œThat’s all right,” Kles shouted back to her. “That’s why you have me.”
    Roxanna seemed puzzled by that. “Then where do you call home, Lady?”
    â€œEverywhere,” Scirye said, “and nowhere. My mother was stationed in Istanbul and then Paris before being assigned to San Francisco,” she explained. “But her missions took her all over Europe and Turkey and around the Mediterranean. And when our ship landed in New York, we toured the eastern coast of the United States before catching the train to San Francisco.”
    â€œI’d die to see even one of those places you’ve been,” Roxanna said, and then called out to Bayang, “Up those stairs.”
    As she galloped toward the stairs a hundred yards away, Bayang suspected that there was more to Roxanna’s devotion to her family’s honor and the goddess. They also seemed like convenient excuses for finally having an adventure of her own.
    Unfortunately, Bayang knew the Sogdian hatchling was probably right. The Arctic wilderness would be as deadly a foe as Roland and Badik. In fact, the dragon wasn’t even sure she could find her way out of the caravanserai without a guide.
    â€œHow come I keep attracting all these willful human hatchlings?” Bayang sighed. “It it some curse?”
    â€œHey, slow down, Stretch,” Koko panted. “My legs are shorter than yours.”
    Bayang felt a sudden weight on her tail. Glancing behind her, she saw that Koko had leapt onto the appendage. Leech had flown in close and was helping the badger to wriggle to a higher perch on Bayang’s tail.
    â€œIf you ate less and exercised more, you could keep up,” Bayang scolded.
    She depended on her tail to help her balance when she was on the ground, so the sudden weight there made it harder to keep on a straight line. She winced not with pain but with chagrin as her swinging tail smashed a table into kindling.
    â€œWatch it. You got a passenger on the caboose,” Koko protested as he shook some large splinters from his fur.
    â€œIf you don’t pay your fare, you don’t get to complain,” Bayang snapped. But she was being so careful not to knock Koko off that she stumbled on the bottom step, barely managing to stay on her paws as she clattered up the staircase, which groaned under the combined weight.
    Fortunately, the stairs proved sturdy enough, and at Roxanna’s instruction Bayang opened the door at the top. An icy wind blew into their faces as Bayang stepped onto the roof. The long night had claimed Nova Hafnia.
    Upach was waiting for them, wearing all her furs and with the muffler wound around her head and an imp burning fiercely in a lantern by her thick, furry boots. Next to her were various bundles and lengths of rope. Clutched in her arms was a rifle in a long holster.
    â€œWhen you told me you were going to chase Roland,” Roxanna explained smugly, “I suspected what Father would say. But I also saw the omen and knew she wanted you to leave. So I took some precautions for our escape.”
    Bayang had never seen an ifrit with a rifle before, so as she pulled up beside the servant she nodded to the weapon. “Is that really necessary?”
    â€œThe rifle’s mine,” the Sogdian hatchling said. “I used to go hunting regularly, so I know how to handle it properly.”
    Bayang frowned. “In my experience, humans and guns are an accident waiting to happen.”
    â€œWhile you may not have to worry about getting eaten by bears,” Roxanna countered, “the rest of us do.”
    Koko raised a hand