rootstair with a waterskin to pour the precious contents into the cistern that lay in a cleft in the Crag.
The second day they saw riders moving on the other side of the lagoon. Ravan claimed they were from a neighbouring tribe, the Woading.
It was on the fifth day that Carnelian learned why it was the Plainsmen considered fetching water perilous. They were returning from the lagoon when they found themselves in the path of a stampede. Burdened with their fully laden drag-cradles, the hunt could not evade the charge. The bleating earthers thundered through their line. Many of the monsters managed to swerve around the obstacles; others were skilfully deflected with bull-roarers; but one gored a man and another crashed headlong into a cradle, exploding its waterskins everywhere. The hitched aquar was hurled over onto its side. Screaming, it flailed its clawed feet. The earther, tossing its head to free its horns from the ruins of the drag-cradle, ripped open the belly of the aquar and was, in turn, gashed by the aquar's claws. One of the Plainsmen leapt in to end the aquar's agony, others dared to approach the earther to hack it loose. Erupting free, the monster trampled a man. It was clear nothing could be done for him. Crowrane put an end to the man's agony by slitting his throat. They carried the body back on a drag-cradle. For fear of raveners, they used earth to cover the trail of blood they were painting across the plain.
That night the Tribe mourned their loss. Akaisha took Carnelian with her to watch the blackened body being carried up to the summit of the Crag. Osidian came too, with Ravan. At one point, Carnelian overheard them discussing the next day, which was to be his first hunt. He forced the anxiety from his mind by trying to pick meaning from the song of lamentation rising up with smoke into the sky. The dead man's soul would soon be carried up into that blueness by the birds that fed on him.
Akaisha and Poppy came down to the Southgate to see them off. In the predawn twilight many other women had gathered to bid their men farewell. Everyone spoke quietly.
Carnelian was holding his shoulder where Fern had touched it when he had wished him a safe hunt.
'You'll be careful, Carnie, promise me you'll be careful?'
Crouching, Carnelian looked into Poppy's dark eyes and nodded solemnly. Kissing her, he rose and saw Osidian standing apart from them, aloof and remote as he examined a huge spear he was hefting in his hand.
'I'm not a child any more,' said Ravan, looking aggrieved, as he confronted his mother. 'Fern had no right to it. It came to me from my father. It is mine to give away.'
Carnelian looked back at the spear in Osidian's hand and realized it had been fitted with Stormrane's iron blade.
As Akaisha watched her son join the Master, she had the look of someone who had just been slapped. Carnelian looked away so she would not become embarrassed. Harth, who had come down to see her son and husband off, was regarding Osidian with baleful eyes. Krow stood behind them, forgotten, sullen.
A hand on his arm made Carnelian look round into Akaisha's face. She made a point of glancing at Harth, who was hugging Loskai while her husband, Crowrane, stood by. Akaisha looked at Carnelian and raised her eyebrows to see if he understood her warning.
'I'll be careful, my mother.'
As her gaze moved to Ravan, she seemed suddenly old and frail.
'I'll keep an eye on him too,' he whispered and was rewarded by a squeeze of thanks.
'Come, child,' she said, offering her hand to Poppy. Today's our last day in the ditches for quite a while. The sooner we start, the sooner the day's work will be done.'
'And tomorrow we'll weave, my mother?'
Akaisha shook her head. The day after.'
As Akaisha led her off chattering along the Homewalk, Carnelian waited for Poppy to sneak a glance back at him. He grinned when she did, waved and then he turned grimly to the business of the day.
Once the hunt crossed the Newditch, they rode southwest with the morning breeze, their shadows streaming like pennants. At first curious, Carnelian looked around him at the land they were riding through, but he soon grew weary of the infinite fernland where only the acacias showed they were making steady progress. They had brought drag-cradles with them piled high with fernwood. He whiled away some time trying to imagine what they were going to do with it. He played with the javelins Ravan had given him. Though crude, they were nicely made. Scouring-rush shafts had been split to take a blade of sharpened flint. Many windings of gut held the blade in place. Though sharp enough, he was sure the blade would prove brittle and he was envious of Osidian's iron spear.
It had grown torrid when the first glimmer appeared on the horizon. He knew it must be water and for a moment wondered if they had been riding in an arc towards the bellower lagoon. A glance at his shadow was enough to convince him otherwise. Squinting, he saw that to the east of this lagoon there lay another smaller one he had never seen before.
When he spotted the specks of a saurian herd, his heart began hammering. No doubt the hunt would soon begin. A thousand fears took possession of him, chief among these that his inexperience was going to make a fool of him. To quell these anxieties, he busied himself moving his grip up and down a javelin to find its balance.
When he found it, he realized it was marked with notches. All his weapons were.
Eventually, there was nothing left to do but watch the steady approach of the herds, motes barely visible against the quivering dazzle of the lagoon. Soon they would be close enough to hunt. He wondered how it would be done. Who would choose their victim? What part would he be expected to play? Most likely, he and Osidian would be assigned positions of danger. There was nothing he could do about it. He would have to see the business through to the end.
Crowrane veered their march towards a stately acacia. As each rider entered its shade, he dismounted. Relief at the reprieve flooded through Carnelian, but was soon replaced by an ache anticipating the coming ordeal.
As he rode in, the shade slipped its cool delight over him. He dismounted, taking care to keep his hand on his aquar's neck so that he would not lose her. He was puzzled to see that people were unhitching waterskins, food bags and all manner of other baggage from their saddle-chairs. He found Krow.
'Are we stopping here long?'
The youth looked startled. 'All night, Master.'
'All night?'
'We must make many preparations.' 'Preparations?' said Carnelian.
Krow smiled and reached up to pat Carnelian's aquar. 'Come on, I'll show you where to put her.'
The Plainsmen cleared ferns from ground that lay just beyond the roof of branches and in the direction of the lagoon. They scraped a shallow crescent in the red earth and filled it with some of the fernwood they had brought. Hobbled, the aquar were near the trunk of the acacia. The hunters settled between the aquar and the fernwood crescent which they lit, taking care to keep the fire from spreading from the centre into either horn of the arc. Cooking pots were produced, bundles of fernroot, fernbread, some fresh meat wrapped in fronds. Ravan, Krow and the other young men began to prepare a meal while the older men busied themselves checking what appeared to be brooms whose twigs were matted with yellow fat. Leaning on his spear, Osidian stood gazing off towards the lagoon, now only a smoulder in the dying afternoon. Carnelian sat quiedy, seeking release from the general tension by watching the men cooking
Dusk creeping over the land was curdled by a screaming roar. Carnelian huddled closer to the fire with everyone else. The heat of the day had not lingered long and he clasped his hands to his bowl of broth to warm them. They ate in silence. When they were done, Crowrane sent Loskai to one of the drag-cradles that had been propped up against the tree. He returned, carrying a piece of an earther's hom which might have been a carving of the moon and which he laid, reverently, in his father's hands. The old man muttered something before plunging the fragment deep into the embers.
A sequence of ravener bellows set everyone trembling. They tried to drown it out with their talk. Mosdy they lingered on the glories of the next day's hunt. Solemnly, Crowrane put a choice piece of meat in the flames and, as they watched the smoke it made spiral up into the sky, they mumbled prayers to the Skyfather.
'Success and coming home safe,' said Crowrane and the Plainsmen echoed him.
The talk then turned to their wives, their children, to their sweet mothers. It was as if they already half believed they would never see them again. The gloom soaked into Carnelian, until the Koppie seemed faraway in another, brighter world.
