They went on, through the small stand of trees and out into the meadow where he had first met Sanone. He could see the river from here and the campsite beside it.

It was empty, deserted.

The sammads were gone.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Kerrick was surprised by the disappearance of the sammads, even a little disturbed, but the effect on the two manduktos was astonishing. They dropped to their knees and wailed pitifully. Their unhappiness was so great that they paid no attention to Kerrick when he spoke, and he had to pull at them to draw their attention.

“We will follow them, find them. They won’t have moved very far.”

“But they are gone, perhaps destroyed, vanished from this earth, the mastodons dead,” the younger one moaned.

“It is nothing like that. The Tanu of the sammads are not bound to one place like the Sasku. They have no fields or rock dwellings to live in. They must move always to find food, to search for better hunting. They have been in their camp all this winter. They will not have gone far or they would have sought me out and told me. Come, we will follow them, find them.”

As always, the tracks of a sammad on the move were easy enough to make out. The deep ruts first pointed north, then swung west into the low hills. They had been walking for only a short time when Kerrick saw the thin twists of smoke rising up ahead and pointed this out to the relieved manduktos. The grooves and tracks led back to the river, to a place where the high bank had been broken and trampled, leaving a trail down to the water. The manduktos, their earlier fears now replaced by excitement at the sight of the mastodons, hurried forward. Some children saw their approach and ran shouting with the news. Herilak strode forth to greet them, smiling at Kerrick’s white clothing.

“Better than furs in the summer — but you would freeze in a real winter. Come, sit with us and smoke a pipe and you will tell me of the happenings in the valley.”

“That I will do. But first you must send for Sorli. These Sasku have gifts for him — and a request.”

Sorli was summoned and smiled with pleasure at the baked cakes of ground meal, the sweet, fresh roots, even some of the rare and highly regarded honey. The manduktos looked on anxiously while he poked through the baskets, were relieved at his smiles.

“This will be good eating after the winter. But why do they bring such gifts to my sammad?”

“I will tell you,” Kerrick said in a serious voice, pointing to the gifts and the manduktos while he spoke. “But you must not smile or laugh at what I say, for this is a serious matter to these people. Think of all the food they have given us, all the food to come. You know how they have great reverence for the mastodons?”

“I do. I do not understand it, but it must be of some importance or they would not act as they do.”

“Of greatest importance. Were it not for the mastodons I do not think they would have helped us at all. Now they have a request. They ask for your permission to bring the cow Dooha into the valley so that her calf will be born there. They promise to feed and tend to her during the birth. Will you agree to that?”

“They wish to keep her? I cannot let them to that.”

“They won’t keep Tier. She’ll just be there until her calf is born.”

“In that case she will go. Where the calf is born is of no importance.”

“But you must make it sound important, in the way that you talk. They are listening closely.”

Sorli turned slowly to face the two manduktos, raising his hands palm outwards. “It shall be done as you ask. I will take Dooha there myself, today.”

Kerrick repeated his words in the language of the Sasku, and the manduktos bent low in honored acceptance.

“You will thank this sammadar,” the older mandukto said. “Tell him that our gratitude will never cease. Now we must return with the word.”

Sorli looked after their retreating backs and shook his head. “I don’t understand it — and I’m not going to try to. But we will eat their food and ask no more questions.”

There was a feast then, and all of the sammads shared the fresh food. Kerrick, who had eaten like this all of the winter, did not touch the Sasku food; instead he took great pleasure in chewing on a piece of tough smoked meat. When they were done, the stone pipe was lit and passed and Kerrick drew on it gratefully.

“Is this site better than the old one?” he asked.

“For now,” Herilak said. “The grazing is better for the beasts here, but the hunting is just as bad. We have had to go as far as the mountains to find game, and that is dangerous for the dark ones hunt there as well.”

“What will you do then? The hunting may be bad — but there is all the food we need from the Sasku.”

“That is good for one winter — but not for a lifetime. The Tanu live by hunting, not begging. There may be hunting to the south, but we have found that there are barren and waterless hills on the way and they are hard to pass. Perhaps we should try.”

“I have talked to the Sasku about these hills. There are some valleys there where there is good hunting. But the Kargu, that is what they call the dark ones, are already there. That way is closed. Have you looked to the west?”

“Five days once we walked out into the sand, then we had to turn back. It was desert still, nothing growing except the spine plants.”

“I have talked to the Sasku about that as well. They say that there are forests if you are able to reach the other side. Most important, I think that they may know the trail across the desert.”

“Then you must ask them. If we can cross and find a place that has good hunting, without murgu there, why, then the world will be as it used to be, before the cold, before the margu came.” Herilak’s face fell as he spoke and he stared, unseeing, at the dead fire.

“Do not think of them,” Kerrick said. “They will not find us here.”

“They will not leave my thoughts. In my dreams I march with my sammad. See them, hear them, the hunters, the women and children, the great mastodons pulling the travois. We laugh and eat fresh meat. Then I awake and they are dead, dust blowing on that distant shore, white bones in the sand. When I have these dreams, then all these sammads about me are strangers and I want to leave and go far away. I want to go east back over the mountains, to find the murgu and kill as many as I can, before I die as well. Then perhaps in the stars I will find peace. My tharm will not dream. The pain of memory will end.”

The big hunter’s fists were clamped tight, but his fingers only closed on empty air, for the enemies he fought were as invisible as his thoughts. Kerrick understood, for his hatred of the Yilanè had been just as strong. But now, with Armun, his child on the way, the life among the Sasku was as full as he had ever wished. He could not forget the Yilanè, but they were in the past and now he wanted only to live in the present.

“Come to the place of the Sasku,” he said. “We will talk with the manduktos. They have knowledge of many things, and if there is a way across the desert they will know about it. If the sammads do go there you will have the twin barriers of the desert and the mountains behind you. The murgu will never cross both of them. You can forget them then.”

“I would like to. More than I desire anything else I would like to put them from my mind during the day, from my dreams at night. Yes, let us go and talk with the dark ones.”

Herilak was not like the other hunters who laughed at the Sasku who worked here in the fields, strong males digging in the dirt like women instead of stalking game as real hunters should. He had eaten the food raised here, had lived well through the Winter because of it. When Kerrick showed him how the plants were grown and stored, he listened with close attention.