It was on the next day that the stream they were following ended in a rocky pool. There were the tracks of many animals in the mud beside it. The pool itself had no outlet. The water must run underground from this place; they had seen this happen before.

“This is where we will stop,” Herilak said. “There is water here, grazing for the beasts, good hunting if we have read the signs right. Here is what we will do. The sammads will stay in this place and the hunters will bring in fresh meat. There are berries, roots to be dug. We will not go hungry at once. I will go on with Munan who has been here before to see what lies ahead. Kerrick will come with us.”

“We must carry water in skins,” Munan said. “There is little water after this, none in the desert.”

“That is what we will do,” Herilak said.

The change began at once, as soon as the three hunters were lower in the hills. There were few trees now, the grass was dry, and there were more and more of the spiny, dangerous-looking plants. As the foothills grew flatter the grass became sparse and they walked on gravel and drifts of sand. All of the plants now were spiny and dry-looking, each spaced far from the others. The air was dry and motionless. A lizard wriggled out of sight when they approached. Nothing else moved.

“It has been a long hard day,” Herilak said. “We will stop here, one place is like any other. Is this the desert you talked of?”

Munan nodded. “It is all very much like this. Some places with more sand, sometimes broken rock. Other than these spine-plants nothing grows. There is no water.”

“We will go on in the morning. It must have an end.”

The desert was hot and dry and despite what Herilak had said it appeared to be endless. They walked for four days, from sunrise to sunset, resting in the middle of the day when the sun was high and it was too hot to go on. At the end of the fourth day the mountains were only a gray line on the horizon behind them. Ahead the desert was unchanged. At sunset Herilak stood on a small rise, shading his eyes as he looked west.

“The same,” he said. “No hills or mountains, nothing green. Just more desert.”

Kerrick held up the water skin. “This is the last.”

“I know. We return in the morning. We have come as far as we can. Even now we will have no water for the last day’s walking. We will drink well that night, when we reach the hills again.”

“What will we do then?” Kerrick asked, piling up dry twigs for their fire.

“That must be thought about. If the hunting has been good perhaps we can stay in those hills. We will see.”

When it was dark there was a hooting of an owl, close by. Kerrick shook himself, suddenly wide awake, feeling a sudden chill. It was just an owl, nothing more. They lived here in the desert, eating the lizards. Just an owl.

The Yilanè could not know they were here, could not have followed them through the snows of the mountain passes. They were safe.

Yet that night he dreamed of Alpèasak, was once again among the scurrying fargi. There was Inlènu* at the other end of the lead. He moaned in his sleep but did not wake, did not know that he lay with his fingers clamped on the iron ring about his neck.

When Kerrick woke at dawn the dream was still with him, pressing down on him like a great weight. It was just a dream, he kept telling himself, but the feeling of disaster stayed with him as they walked.

They made good time on their return journey. With their food and water gone they had less to carry and could move faster across the dry desert, then on to the grassy slopes of the foothills. It was late in the afternoon when they came over the last ridge, their mouths dry, looking forward with pleasure to the water that lay ahead. The track they were following led through thick undergrowth that crackled as they pushed by. Herilak was leading the way, climbing steadily. He saw that he was outdistancing the others and stopped to let them catch up.

As he did the arrow strummed past him and thudded into the ground.

He hurled himself to one side, calling out a warning as he did. Lying behind the bole of a tree he took an arrow of his own from his quiver and nocked it to the bowstring. A voice called from the slope above.

“Herilak, is that you? Did you cry out?”

“Who is that?”

“Sorli. Be on your guard. There is danger in the forest.”

Herilak looked carefully about but saw nothing. What danger was there here? He did not want to call out again. Kerrick appeared among the trees, moving warily. Herilak waved him forward, signaled to keep on up the trail. When Munan had passed as well he followed them, silent and alert.

Sorli was waiting for them, concealed from sight behind the large boulders. Other hunters from his sammad were close by, hidden from below, peering back down the hill. Sorli waved them past, then fell in behind them. Once over the ridge he took the arrow from his bow.

“I heard you moving through the brush, then just saw your outline. I did not know it was you, that is why I let fly the arrow. I thought it was the others. They attacked this morning, just after dawn. The hunters on guard were killed, but gave the warning. They killed one of the mastodons too, perhaps for the meat, but we drove them off before they could do anything to it.”

“Who were they?”

“Not Tanu.”

“Murgu!” Kerrick. heard the terror in his voice as he spoke the word. Not here, no, not here too.

“Not murgu. But not Tanu as we know Tanu. There is one we killed, you will see. They had spears but no bows. Once the arrows struck among them they broke and ran.”

They walked along the trail and Sorli stopped and pointed to a dead body.

The corpse lay where it had fallen, face down in the brush. There was a bloody hole in its back where the arrow that had made the mortal wound had been cut out. There were furs tied around the waist. The corpse’s skin was darker than theirs, the long hair black instead of light. Herilak bent and heaved the corpse over, pushed the furs aside with the butt of his spear.

“A hunter. He could be Tanu except for the skin and that hair.”

Kerrick bent and pulled up an eyelid; a misted black eye stared up sightlessly at his blue one. Munan leaned over to look as well, then spat with distaste.

“Harwan,” he said. “When I was small I used to be frightened when they told stories about the black men from beyond the high mountains who came in the dark to steal children and eat babies. They were called the Harwan and were ferocious and terrible. Some said that the stories were true. Others laughed.”

“Now you know,” Sorli said. “They were true. And there is another thing. Look at this.”

He led them a short distance up the hill to the dark form stretched under the trees. Herilak looked at it and grunted with amazement. “A longtooth, one of the biggest I have ever seen.”

It was immense, half again longer than a man. The creature’s mouth gaped in death, the two long teeth that gave it its name projecting, large, deadly, sharp.

“It came with the dark Tanu — and there were others as well. They marched with them like mastodons, attacked when they were told.”

Herilak did not like it in the slightest. “This is dangerous. Armed Tanu and these creatures. Where did they come from?”

“From the north — and they went back to the north. It may have been a hunting party.”

Herilak looked to the north and shook his head. “Then that way is sealed to us. So is the way west, at least at this place. We do not know how many of these dark Tanu there are, or how many longtooth run at their sides. We do not want to fight them. That leaves us only one direction to go.”

“South,” Kerrick said. “South through these hills. But there may be murgu there.”

“There may be anything there,” Herilak said, his face set in hard lines. “It does not matter. We must go. The desert may end there, the hunting may be good. Now let us go drink the sweet water. Keep guards out during the night. We leave at sunrise tomorrow.”