Herilak unlashed a bag of ekkotaz from the travois and they dipped out handfuls of the delicious mixture, dried berries and nutmeat, pounded together. Kerrick had been a boy when he last tasted it and childhood memories flooded back as he licked it from his fingers. It was good to be Tanu. But even as he thought this he was scratching at his waist, over and over. When he pulled the fur back he saw the red bites. His skin crawled as he realized that the brave hunter who had last worn these furs had been infested with fleas. Suddenly being Tanu was not that pleasant. His back was sore from lying on the hard ground, his muscles ached from the unaccustomed exercise — and if that wasn’t enough there was a sudden spasm of pain in his midriff. The burnt and tough meat was not sitting too well in his stomach; he hurried behind the nearest clump of bushes.

Racked with cramps he saw the flea crawl across his discarded garments. He cracked it between his fingernail, then wiped his fingers disgustedly on the grass. He was filthy and sore, flea-infested and ill. What was he doing here with these crude ustuzou? Why wasn’t he in Alpèasak? He had been comfortable there, at peace, close to the Eistaa. Why couldn’t he return? Vaintè was dead of a spear thrust — but who in the city knew that he had wielded the spear? He hadn’t been seen. Why couldn’t he go back?

He washed himself well, then went a few paces upstream to drink. On. the bank the two hunters were lashing the load back onto the travois. They could go on without him.

But did he want to go back to Alpèasak? For years he had been thinking of escape from the city — and now he was free. Wasn’t that what he had always wanted? That was the Yilanè’s world, not his. There was no place for him there.

But was there a place for him among the Tanu?

He stood knee-deep in the cool water, his fists clenched. Lost. Belonging neither to one world nor the other. Outcast and alone.

Herilak called out to him, his words cutting through Kerrick’s dark thoughts. He waded ashore, then pulled his garments slowly on.

“We leave now,” Herilak said.

“Where do you go?” Kerrick asked, still torn by conflicting feelings.

“West. To find other hunters. To return with them and kill murgu.”

“They are too strong, too many.”

“Then I will be dead and my tharm will join the tharms of the other hunters in my sammad. But first I will have avenged them. It is a good way to die.”

“There are no good ways to die.”

Herilak looked at him in silence, understanding something of the conflicting emotions that Kerrick was feeling. Those years of captivity must have done strange things to the boy who was now a man. But the years were there, they could not be taken away. There was no going back. The way ahead might be hard — but it was the only way.

Herilak reached up to his neck and slowly lifted the leather thong with the pendant skymetal knife over his head, then held it out.

“This was your father’s. You are his son for you still wear the smaller boy’s knife made at the same time. Hang this one about your neck beside it. Wear it now to remind you of his death and the death of your sammad. And who killed them. Feel hatred in your heart and the knowledge that you seek vengeance as well.”

Kerrick hesitated, then reached out and took the knife, held it, then clenched his fist tightly about its hard shape.

There could be no going back to Alpèasak. Ever. He must teach himself to feel only hatred towards the murderers of his people. He hoped that would come.

But now all he felt was a terrible emptiness inside.

CHAPTER FOUR

The hunting was very bad. Ulfadan had been out since before dawn and had little to show for it. A single rabbit hung from his belt. It was young and scrawny, with scarcely enough meat on its bones to feed a single person. How was his entire sammad to eat. He came to the edge of the forest and stopped under a large oak, looking out at the grassland beyond. He dared go no further.

Here there were murgu. From here to the end of the world, if the world had an end, there were only these despised and frightening creatures. Some made good eating, he had once tasted the meat from the leg of one of the smaller murgu with bills that grazed in vast herds. But death was always waiting for the hunter who sought them out. There were poisonous murgu in the grass, snakes of all sizes, many-colored and deadly. Worse still were the giant creatures whose roars were like thunder, whose tread shook the ground like an earthquake. As he always did when he thought of murgu, though he did not realize it, his fingers touched the tooth of one of these giants that hung on his chest. A single tooth almost as long as his forearm. He had been young and stupid when he retrieved it, risking death to show his bravery.

From the trees he had seen the marag die, seen the repulsive carrion eaters that quarreled and tore at the creature’s body. Only after dark had he dared to leave the shelter of the trees, to pry this single tooth from the gaping jaws. Then the night-murgu had appeared and only chance had saved his life. The long white scar on his thigh was witness that he had not returned unharmed. No, there was no game to be sought beyond the protection of the trees.

But the sammad must eat. Yet the food they searched and hunted for was growing scarcer and scarcer. The world was changing and Ulfadan did not know why. The alladjex told them that ever since Ermanpadar had shaped Tanu from the mud of the river bed the world had been the same. In the winter they went to the mountains where the snow lay deep and the deer were easy to kill. When the snow melted in the spring they followed the fast streams down to the river, and sometimes to the sea, where fish leaped in the water and good things grew in the earth. Never too far south though, for only murgu and death waited there. But the mountains and the dark northern forests had always provided everything that they had needed.

This was no longer true. With the mountains now wrapped in endless winter, the herds of deer depleted, the snow in the forests lying late into the spring, their timeless sources of food were no more. They were eating now, there were fish enough in the river at this season. They had been joined at their river camp by sammad Kellimans; this happened every year. It was a time to meet and talk, for the young men to find women. There was little of this now for although there was enough fish to eat there was not enough to preserve for the winter. And without this supply of food very few of them would see the spring.

There was no way out of the trap. To the west and east other sammads waited, as hungry as his and Kellimans’. Murgu to the south, ice to the north — and they were trapped between them. No way out. Ulfadan’s head was bursting with this problem that had no solution. In agony he wailed aloud like a trapped animal, then turned and made his way back to the sammad.

From the top of the grassy slope that led down to the river, nothing looked amiss. The dark cones of the leather tents stretched along the river bank in a ragged row. Figures moved about between the tents and smoke rose from the fires. Close by him one of the tethered mastodons raised its trunk and bellowed. Further along the shore some women could be seen scratching at the earth with their fire-hardened sticks, digging up edible roots. The roots were good food now. But what would happen when the ground froze again? He knew what would happen and he thrust the thought from him.

Naked children ran screaming, splashed in the water. Old women sat in the sun before their tents plaiting baskets from willow and reeds. As he walked by the tents Ulfadan’s face was set and stern, unreadable. One of his smaller sons hurried up to him, bursting with an important message.