“Three hunters are here, from another sammad. One of them is very funny.”

“Take this rabbit to your mother. Run.”

The hunters were sitting around a fire, taking puffs in turn from a stone-bowled pipe. Kellimans was there, and Fraken the alladjex, old and withered, but respected greatly for his knowledge and healing powers. The newcomers rose in greeting when he appeared. One of them he knew well.

“I greet you, Herilak.”

“I greet you, Ulfadan. This is Ortnar of my sammad. This is Kerrick, son of Amahast, son of my sister.”

“You have food and drink?”

“We have eaten and drunk. Ulfadan’s generosity is well-known.”

Ulfadan joined the circle about the fire, took the pipe when it was passed to him and inhaled deeply of the pungent smoke. He wondered about the strange hunter without hair, who should have been dead with the rest of his sammad but was not. He would be told at the proper time.

Other hunters were also curious about the newcomers and came and sat in a circle about them, for this was the way of the sammad.

Herilak was no longer as formal as he once had been. He waited until the pipe had passed only once before he spoke.

“The winters are long, and we know that. The food is scarce and we know that. Now all in my sammad are dead except two.”

There was a silence among the hunters after he had spoken these terrible words, wails of agony from the women who listened outside the circle. Many had relations who had married into Herilak’s sammad. More than one looked up at the eastern sky where the first stars were beginning to appear. When Herilak spoke again no sound disturbed him.

“It is known that I went with my hunters so far south that there was no snow and it was hot in the winter, to the place where there are only murgu. It was my thought that murgu had killed Amahast and all in his sammad. My thought was correct for we found murgu that walk like men and kill with death-sticks. It was one of their death-sticks that I found among the bones of sammad Amahast. We killed the murgu we found there, then returned north. Now we knew that death lay to the south and we knew what kind of death it was. But we were hungry this last winter and many died. In the summer the hunting was bad, as you know. So I took the sammad south along the coast because of the hunger. I led the hunters farther south for the easy hunting there. We knew of the danger. We knew that the murgu might attack us too, but without food we would be dead anyway. We were on our guard and there was no attack. It was only after we turned back that they fell upon us. I am here. Ortnar is here. The rest are dead. With us is Kerrick who is the son of Amahast, captured by the murgu, now free at last. He knows much about the murgu ways.”

There was a loud murmur of interest then and movement among those listening as those to the back tried to get a clear view of Kerrick. They pointed out his lack of hair and the shining ring about his neck, and the skymetal knives that hung there. He stared straight ahead and said nothing. When they were silent again Kellimans spoke.

“These are days of death for the Tanu. The winter kills us, the murgu kill us, other Tanu kill us.”

“Is it not enough to be killed by the murgu? Must we fight one another?” Herilak asked.

“It is the long winter and the short summer that we must battle against,” Ulfadan said. “We came to this place because the deer are gone from the mountains. But when we tried to hunt here the bowmen of many sammads from beyond the mountains drove us away. We have little food now and in the winter we will starve.”

Herilak shook his head sadly. “That is not the way. The murgu are the enemy, not the Tanu. If we battle one another our end is certain.”

Kellimans nodded agreement as Ulfadan spoke next. “I believe as you do, Herilak, but this is not of our doing. It is the other sammads you must speak with. If it were not for them we would hunt and not starve. They come from beyond the mountains and they are many and very hungry. They push us back and we cannot hunt. They would see us die.”

Herilak dismissed his words with a chop of his hand. “No, that is wrong. They are not the cause of your woes. The hunting must be just as bad beyond the mountains or they would not have come here. The Tanu have two enemies. The winter that does not end — and the murgu. Together they are uniting to destroy us. We cannot battle against the winter. But we can kill murgu.”

Others raised their voices then and joined the argument, but were silenced when Fraken began to speak. They respected the old man’s knowledge and healing powers and hoped that he could show them some answer to their problems.

“The murgu are like the leaves and as numberless as leaves. You tell us that they have the death-sticks. How can we fight against creatures like this? And why should we? If we risk death fighting them — what do we win? It is food and not warfare that we must have.”

There was a murmur of approval when he finished speaking. Only Herilak seemed to disagree.

“It is food you must have, revenge that I will have,” he said grimly. “A way must be found to kill these murgu to the south. When they are dead there will be good hunting down the coast.”

There was much discussion and crosstalk after this, but nothing could be decided. In the end Herilak signed to Ortnar and they rose and left. Kerrick watched them go — but hesitated to follow them. His lust for revenge did not match theirs. If they did not call to him maybe he would not have to join them. He could stay here by the fire and join the talk with the other hunters. Perhaps he might even stay here with this sammad and hunt and forget the murgu.

But this was not the answer. He knew what the others here did not. He knew that the Yilanè would not forget him nor the rest of the Tanu. Their hatred ran too deep. They would send out the raptors and find every sammad and would not rest until they had all been destroyed. Ulfadan and Kellimans and their people feared only the winter and their hunger and the other Tanu — when the certain killer was just over the horizon.

No one took notice when Kerrick picked up his spear and left. He found his two companions at a fire of their own and he joined them there. Herilak poked at the fire with a stick, looking deep into it as though searching for an answer among the flames.

“We are only three,” he said. “We cannot fight the murgu alone — but we will if we have to.” He turned to Kerrick. “You know about the murgu — which we do not. Tell us of them. Tell us how they wage war.”

Kerrick rubbed his jaw in thought before he spoke. Slowly and hesitatingly. “It is not easy to talk of. You will have to know about their city first, and how they are ruled. You must understand the fargi and the Yilanè and just how they go about doing things.”

“Then you will tell us,” Herilak said.

Kerrick found it difficult at first to speak of things in Tanu that he had never thought of in that language. He had to find new words for scenes he was familiar with, new ways of describing concepts totally alien to these hunters. They questioned him over and over again about things they could not understand. In the end they had some idea of how the Yilanè society worked, although they had little idea why it did so.

Herilak stared in silence at his clenched fists where they rested on his thighs, seeking to grasp the meaning of what he heard. In the end he had to shake his head.

“I will never understand the murgu and I think that I will not try. It is enough to know what they do. The large bird flies high to watch us, then returns and tells them where a sammad is so they can attack it. Is that right?”

Kerrick started to protest — then changed his mind and nodded agreement. The details were not important as long as they had some understanding of what the Yilanè were doing. “When they know where a sammad has stopped they prepare an attack. Fargi with weapons go out on the boats. They come from the sea suddenly and kill everything as you know.”