I
Mar’athoin of the Heron Kyrinin sniffed at the feather. It had been tied to a twig on the stream-facing side of an alder tree. The path Mar’athoin and his two companions were following crossed the stream here, and the feather had been positioned so that no one — no Kyrinin, at least — could fail to see it as they made the crossing. It was a finger-feather, from the wing-tip of a forest hawk. A single thin strand of birch bark had been used to attach it.
Mar’athoin made a guttural coughing sound in the back of his throat. It brought the other two drifting out of the undergrowth. He nodded at the feather and his fellow warriors examined it closely.
“It must be ettanaryn, yes?” Mar’athoin said.
Cynyn, the youngest of the three by only a few days, straightened and ran a finger along his upper lip. It was a gesture copied from his elders, Mar’athoin knew. Cynyn no doubt thought it signified careful consideration of a problem. He had always been over-keen to credit anyone more than a few summers older than him with great wisdom.
“It must be,” Cynyn pronounced.
Mar’athoin nodded. Like the other two, he had never seen Snake sign before, but there was nothing else this could be: ettanaryn, marking the furthermost extremity of the Snake clan’s range. The Snake, like most of the northern clans, kept to old ways of summer wandering, winter gathering. Some a’an had set this marker here at the furthest point of their journeys back when the sun was high and the days long. Mar’athoin’s own people, the Heron, were less wedded to the old cycle of a’an and vo’an, living as they did amidst the constant bounty of the marshes. Nevertheless, foraging bands did cover long distances in the height of summer, and they still sometimes left their own ettanaryn. Where the Snake used feathers, the Heron used split, notched bog-willow stakes.
Sithvyr leaned closer and sniffed at the feather as Mar’athoin had done.
“Not fresh,” she observed. “There is no hand-scent on it.”
“I thought the same,” said Mar’athoin, relieved to be able to agree with her. He desired her, and would have been pained had she contradicted his own instincts.
“Should we make pause, then?” Cynyn asked.
“We should,” Mar’athoin confirmed. He set out back across the stream. The other two followed him without comment. He was pleased with the way they had so readily accepted him as the leader of their little band. Before they had set out, seven nights ago now, it had not been certain whether he or Sithvyr would have the greater authority. Mar’athoin had hoped it would be him from the start. He had, after all, won his first kin’thyn in the fighting with the Hawk clan two summers gone — the youngest of the clan’s warriors to have done so that year — and that was an honour Sithvyr could not yet boast.
“Lacklaugh would understand,” Mar’athoin said as they retraced their steps a short way and squatted down to wait. “He carried spears with my father when they were younger. He knows our ways almost as well as we do.”
He was almost certain he was right. Lacklaugh had urged them to keep a close watch on the other na’kyrim, the female whose mind was cracked, but he would understand the need to hesitate before crossing into Snake lands. It was an old rule, and not one to be lightly broken, that only a spear a’an offering battle would enter another clan’s homelands without first pausing and reflecting on their action. So the three of them would wait here until the sun had turned another quarter of the sky in its endless journey. Only then would they follow the wandering na’kyrim woman into the lands of the Snake Kyrinin.
They went quickly through the evening, meaning to catch up with the na’kyrim before night fell. The darkness held no fears for them, but it would be harder to track her on a moonless night such as this promised to be. The forest path their quarry seemed to be following was far too obvious to be Kyrinin-made. Mar’athoin knew the Snake traded as well as fought with the Huanin lords to the south and west. It seemed likely to him that this was a traders’ way; there were a few old and stale signs of horse or mule.
That she kept to such a clear trail made their task at once simple — the na’kyrim was clearly not trying to lose or conceal herself — and potentially harder. She was more likely to wander into trouble if she kept to what must be a well-used route. Mar’athoin and his companions had promised Lacklaugh only that they would follow her as far as seemed fit to them, and guard her against harm only if they could do so without endangering themselves or their people. Should the na’kyrim fall foul of the clan on whose domain she now trespassed, Mar’athoin could do nothing to protect her: the Heron had no quarrel with the Snake. Equally, if she stumbled across some rough Huanin trader who took against her, she would have to look after herself. Killing such a man within their territory, and without their permission, might well antagonise the Snake.
The trackway was running along the side of a steep valley. It was only lightly wooded, and great stretches of bog were visible beside the river below them. After the first day and night of their journey, they had settled — by silent consent — on what the Heron called their trytavyr: their way of going. Mar’athoin ran ahead of the others because his eyes and ears and nose were a fraction sharper than theirs. Next came Cynyn, keeping a good two dozen strides behind Mar’athoin so that he would have time to react to any signal. Last, close on Cynyn’s heels, came Sithvyr. She had shown herself to be the fastest of all of them, at least over uneven ground. If Mar’athoin found trouble up ahead, she had the best chance of escaping to carry word back to their vo’an in the great marshes.
As they came to a thicker sweep of scrubby birch trees, and just as his instincts began to sing to Mar’athoin that the na’kyrim was close now, he threw himself into a crouch and snapped out a flat arm to halt the other two. Cynyn and Sithvyr grounded themselves silently. Mar’athoin remained motionless, his head bowed. It was not for him to speak first.
“You walk on land promised to others,” came a gentle female voice from amongst the trees ahead. The Snake tongue was close cousin to that of the Heron; Mar’athoin had no difficulty in understanding it.
“This I know,” he replied without looking up. “We made pause at your ettanaryn. We are Heron-born, and mean to pass only.”
There was movement. A flock of little birds scattered, twittering in consternation. On the periphery of his vision, Mar’athoin detected two, perhaps three, figures drifting amongst the pale birches. There were at least four others, unseen, somewhere out there, if the scents and sounds on the breeze spoke truly to him.
“Where do you go?” the woman asked. Judging by her voice, she had moved closer.
“We seek a na’kyrim. We follow where she leads.”
“Do you mean to bathe your spears?”
“No. We act on behalf of another, a Kyrinin-friend. He asked us to follow this one and see to her safety.”
“Why? We have put our eyes on her, the one you seek. She is flawed. She speaks to the wind. She walks like a child, without care or sense. Do you mean to haul her out when she falls into a river, or catch her when she steps over a cliff?”
“If we can,” replied Mar’athoin.
The unseen woman laughed. “Life must be good for the Heron. Your fowl-traps must be thick with birds, your smoking sheds full of fish and your borders empty of enemies, if you can send three on such a foolish errand.”
“It is foolish,” agreed Mar’athoin placidly.
“And what clan does she spring from, this half-human you trail? Whose fires does she call her own?”
“She was born of a Heron mother.”
“Well, she rests up ahead. She made herself a bed of grass, in a bad place. She will be cold and wet in the morning. This night and two more, then she will be beyond our lands, if she keeps to this course. Keep to her track, do not stray, and you may pass with our goodwill. The Snake have no argument with the Heron.”
“Nor the Heron with the Snake.”
Mar’athin did not rise until he was sure all of the Snake had moved away. They would not go far, he knew. He brushed moss from his knees as Cynyn and Sithvyr came up to his shoulder.
