be discovered.
'You're on our land, Ochre,' one of the strangers said, a touch of laughter still lingering in his voice.
Crowrane stood forward to confront them. The earth belongs to no man, besides, here we are nearer our koppie than yours, Bluedancing.'
Their leader made his aquar take a step towards the Elder. 'Perhaps, but even so, we're the great Bluedancing and we go where we want. Do you wish to fight us, old man?' The tone of mockery stung even Carnelian.
Crowrane stared fiercely up at the invader. 'We've no quarrel with you.'
His eyes followed the riders that were moving around the camp. The gaze of their leader fell upon the slope of hide rising behind them.
'Perhaps we should take your earther from you.'
Carnelian saw the way the men of his hunt moved to shield the saurian with their bodies. He felt possessive of her too. He set his teeth. If it came to a fight, he would stand with the Tribe.
'At least we should take the best cuts,' drawled another of the riders.
A mutter of amusement passed among the Bluedancing. Their leader made a gesture of contempt. 'Let's leave her to them. Look how scrawny she is. I doubt they had the strength even to take such a clapped out old cow themselves. Probably found her collapsed from age. Look,' he pointed, 'she doesn't even have both her great horns.'
This was greeted by a chorus of snorts and derisive laughter. Their leader caused his mount to spin round and then leap forward, kicking through the fire, scattering its embers into the darkness then, whooping, the riders rushed headlong back into the night.
As Carnelian helped the hunt gather up the burning fernwood, he was as angry as they were.
'Why don't we mount up and pay them a return visit?' cried Ravan.
'Riding across the plain in the middle of the night?' said Crowrane. 'Are you possessed, child? Have you forgotten there are raveners out there?'
'If they can do it why can't we?'
'You know perfectly well, son of Stormrane,' said Crowrane. The Bluedancing have at least twice our numbers. Do you want to bring a war down upon the Tribe we couldn't hope to win?'
They grow more arrogant with each passing year,' Ravan gave back.
They've always been arrogant,' said Crowrane.
Ravan confronted the Elder with a stare.
'Do you doubt, child, that I can remember further back than you?'
It took a while before the fire went out of Ravan's eyes. 'No, my father.'
For some moments the old man glared at him, but then he too swallowed his anger.
'Consider yourselves lucky they didn't spot the Standing Dead.' Face sweaty with anxiety, he looked round at Osidian and Carnelian.
Gloving his hand with fern fronds, the old man stooped to scoop some embers. 'Come on, let's get this mess sorted out before we find ourselves having to fend off a ravener without a proper fire.'
Crowrane woke them before dawn and made them breakfast as they sat ready with their javelins and spears. Raveners were still abroad. Crouching by the fire, Carnelian flinched at their every cry. He savoured his meal as if it were his last. Then they waited until the edge of the world began to show. His heart lifted as the aquar sang their welcome to the dawn.
The raveners fear our fire too much to attack,' said Krow.
'We're not home yet, child,' said Crowrane severely and set them to hitch their aquar up to the earther.
When it had grown bright enough for them to see the Koppie tiny on the horizon, they set off towards it. When the sun rose, it found them moving laboriously northwards. It was slow work and they had to stop often to allow the aquar to rest. At midday, they stopped within the flickering shade of a copse of ginkgos. Carnelian, who had hoped they would soon be home, saw through the trembling air that the Koppie seemed as far away as when they had set off. Gloomily, he realized they would be spending another night out on the plain. The sickly odour of death was already penetrating the saurian's cedar aura and floating away on the air.
Dusk robbed them of the guiding hope of the Koppie. Crowrane set them to rubbing more of the cedar balm on the earther, but this did not stop a mist of decay hanging around their camp. When a breeze picked up, they built a barrier of ferns on the saurian's windward side, hoping thus to stop the wind from carrying her odour out across the plain. Having done what they could, they huddled around their fire, eating, talking, while all the time sneaking glances out into the night.
Carnelian drowned slowly in nightmares and, when he managed to come up for air, his half-waking was haunted by the shrieks in the blackness. Eventually he forced himself fully awake. He rose and stood until his legs would no longer support him. Then he tried squeezing pain into his thighs. He was not the only one watching the night.
They were yearning for dawn when the raveners came. They felt their approach in the trembling ground. Crowrane slapped a youth's arm that held a flare questing for the flames.
'It could be anything,' he hissed.
A waft of carrion breath soon changed his mind. Foolishly, Carnelian did not think to look away when he lit his flare. Blind, he heard the Plainsmen's fear and, blinking for sight, he could just make out vast shapes coalescing from the darkness. Flares danced around him amidst a tumult of shrill battle-cries. Roars carried on a foul breeze of breath. The vast presence of their smell. A clashing of jaws. The fire describing their hideous shapes in monstrous movement. Then they left as quickly as they had come and the yelling raggedly abated until all Carnelian could hear was the guttering of the flares.
'Put them out,' came Crowrane's command. 'Mustn't waste them.'
'I've never seen them so unafraid of fire,' one man said.
Loskai pointed his flare at Osidian. The Standing Dead bring the raveners down on us as they did in the swamp.'
Ravan stood forward. 'Remember it was the Master that saved us then.'
Krow was nodding, his face pale as he relived that time. Crowrane shoved him so that the youth dropped his flare.
'I said, put them out.'
As the flares went out one by one, Carnelian glared at the Elder, disliking the way he had treated Krow, but also reluctant to lose the sorcerous protection of his flare. He ground its flames out in the earth. Then he stood with the others waiting, hardly drawing breath through his dry throat until the first light seeping showed the land free of the monsters.
The drudgery of another day pushing through the ferns, encouraging the aquar, dragging the saurian after them as if she were a slab they were bringing back from a quarry. The heat, the plagues of flies, the beacon of the Koppie staying obstinately the same size. Carnelian plodded on, drifting into a walking sleep haunted by black terror, squinting up at the cruel sun, watching with despair its slow fall to earth with its promise of another night.
Deepening dusk found them sullen behind their fire, fingering their flares nervously. It was then their fear was taken by surprise. The raveners came before the sun was fully down. Three black shapes loping against the bloody edge of the sky, heads slung low, their bobbing accenting each heavy stride.
A hand grabbed Carnelian's robe and clung to him. He steadied himself on the edge of flight. He stooped to put flames upon his flare. Wielding it gave meagre comfort. The last snuffing out of day stole away their view of the raveners' final charge. Thunder in the ground. Then the death grins slavering in the firelight.
Crowrane wailed: 'Light the wings, sweet Mother, light the wings.'
On their right, the horn of their crescent ditch grew a plumage of flames which lit the underside of a jaw connecting back and up to a dark mass which swung away gurgling, revealing for a moment an eye bright with malice. Gaping, Carnelian became aware the fire glow was missing on his left. The earth groaned as a ravener stepped across the unlit ditch. Firelight showed the wall of its flank; the grinning length of its head. It was among them and the Plainsmen were shrieking. Without thought, Carnelian tore himself loose of their hands and joined the two or three men keeping the monster at bay with wild swings of their flares. The sound of Quya froze him:
