the solid rock. What we need is the wisdom to follow that track. That track led you to us and you brought the mastodon to show us where we came from — and where we are destined to go. Karognis sent the murgu to destroy us, but Kadair sent the mastodon to guide us over the ice mountains to this place to wreak his vengeance upon them. And they are destroyed while this place has been burnt but not burnt. You seek wisdom here, which means you are following the mastodon’s tracks just as we are. Now I can see that our valley was just a stop along the track while we waited for Kadair to stamp out his path for us. We will remain in this place and the rest of the Sasku will join us here.”
While Kerrick had difficulty in following Sanone’s reasoning, the depths of the mandukto’s knowledge was great and well beyond him, he welcomed the decision enthusiastically.
“Of course — you have said what I was trying to say. There is more here in Alpeasak than one person could understand in a hundred lifetimes. Your people who make cloth from green plants, hard rock from soft mud, you will know about these things. Alpeasak will still live.”
“There is a meaning to the sounds and movements you make? Has this place been named?”
“It is called the place of the warm, the shining — I don’t exactly know how to say it in Sesek, the sands that lie along the ocean’s edge.”
“Deifoben, the golden beaches. It is well named. Although it is sometimes difficult, even for myself who has been trained in mysteries and in the unraveling of mysteries, to understand that murgu can speak — and that those sounds you make are in reality a language.”
“It was not easy to learn.”
Kerrick, his thoughts filled with the Yilane, could not keep all of the pain from his mouth. Sanone nodded with understanding. “That was also a footprint on Kadair’s path — and not the easiest part. Now speak to me of the captive murgu. Why do we not kill them?”
“Because we do not war on them — nor do they wish us any harm. They are males, and have rarely left that building, are in reality prisoners of the females. I can talk with them and they give me a… companionship that is different from the ways of the hunters. But that is how I feel inside myself. What is more important is that they can aid us in knowing this city for they are more a part of it than I am.”
“Kadair’s path; all creatures are upon it, even murgu. I will speak to the Sasku. No harm will come to your murgu.”
“Sanone is the wisest of the wise and he has the thanks of Kerrick.”
Sanone nodded and accepted the praise as was his due. “I will now speak so that the murgu will be safe. Then you will show me more of Deifoben.”
They walked until it was too dark to see the path ahead, then returned to the welcoming fire by the hanale. That day the Sasku who had accompanied them had marveled at the fields of animals — were pleased to discover that only a small portion of them had been destroyed. They ate the fruit until they were sticky with juice, gazed in awe at the nenitesk and the armor-plated onetsensast, swam in the warm waters off the golden sands. While they admired the living model of the city — unharmed, although some of the protecting, transparent ceiling had been burned — Kerrick looked in wonder at how it had grown in the few years that he had been away. His head so filled with memories and visions that, for the first time since they had left the sammads, he did not think once about Armun and the encampment in the snow, so far away in the distant north.
The encampment was the familiar one in the bend in the river. Once again the too-early snows blanketed the ground, covered the ice upon the river as well. There were more tents here than there had ever been before, while all the mastodons of the different sammads made a small herd. They trumpeted in the cold air and dug for the grass that was not there. But they were full-bodied and well fed despite the lack of grazing for they had had their fill of the young branches gathered in the autumn. The Tanu were well fed as well. There was smoked meat and dried squid, even the preserved murgu meat if it were needed. The children played in the snow and carried bark buckets of it into the tents to be melted for water. All went well, although the women, children too, felt the absence of the hunters. The sammads were not complete. Yes, there were the old men and the handful of younger hunters who had been left behind to guard the sammads. But the others were gone, far to the south where anything could have happened to them. Old Fraken tied knots in his strings and he knew how many days had passed since they had parted company, but this meant nothing. Had they done what they had set out to do?
Or were they all dead?
That thought, which had been just a tiny one soon after they had left, grew day by day until it was like a thunderhead that spread blackness over them all. The women would gather around when Fraken dug into the owl pellets, pushing at the mouse bones until he could see into the future. All was well he reassured them, there had been victory, all was well.
They wanted to hear him say this, so they saw to it that he had the softest pieces of roast meat that his old teeth could chew. But in the night in the darkness of the tents the old fears returned. The hunters — where were the hunters?
Armun had such fear that Kerrick was dead that she would wake up in the night, gasping for air, clutching the baby to her. Awakened and frightened, Arnwheet would wail lustily until solaced by a milky breast. But nothing could bring solace to Armun who would lie awake, tense with fear, until light crept in around the skins. The loneliness of her lifetime was already seeping back. A boy had pointed at her mouth and laughed. Although the laugh had turned to a wail of pain when her quick hand had lashed out, it had still brought back memories long banished. Though she was not aware of it, she once again walked through the camp with a fold of her deerskin over her mouth to hide the split in her lip. The future without Kerrick, cold and empty, did not bear thinking about.
Then it snowed without stopping for many days, for days to the count of two hands, snow that drifted silently into giant drifts that clogged the landscape. When the sun finally returned the river could not be told from the land in this new white world. The mastodons bellowed angrily, their breath forming white clouds against the pale blue sky as they trampled the snow underfoot. Armun wrapped Arnwheet in many layers of deerskin before slinging him on her back. The snow was heaped high over the tent and she had to dig her way up to the outside world. Other women were emerging, calling out to one another. None called to Armun. Anger replaced her old despair and she put the baby in its carrier and walked away from the tents to find peace from the warm cries that were only taunts to her. The snow was waistdeep, but she was strong and it was good to be out of the tent. Arnwheet gurgled on her back, seemingly enjoying the release as much as she did.
Armun walked until trees hid the tents and only then did she stop and catch her breath. Ahead of her the white plain stretched out, not really a plain but the frozen, snow-covered river. Black dots moved upon it in the distance and she was suddenly sorry that she had come this far alone. She had no weapon, not even a knife. Even if she had she would never have been able to stand against the starving predators. They were closer and she turned to run — and stopped.
There were more now, strung out in a single line, more and more of them. Hunters! Could it be?
Unmoving she watched as they came closer, until it was clear that they were hunters — skinclad, snowshoed hunters. And the one in front, that massive form could be no other, it must be Herilak. Breaking trail, leading the way. She shielded her eyes to see which one was Kerrick, her heart pounding as though it would burst. She laughed aloud and waved. They must have seen her for their ululating cry of victory cut the air. She could not move, only wait as they came closer and closer, until Herilak’s frosted beard was clear, until he could hear her cry.
“Kerrick — where are you?”
Herilak did not answer, nor was there any answering shout and she swayed and almost fell.
“He is dead! I am dead!” she screamed when Herilak came close.
“No. Kerrick lives, he is sound. The battle has been won.”
“Then why doesn’t he answer me? Kerrick!”
She floundered through the snow to get past the big hunter, but he stayed her with one hand.
“He is not here. He did not return with us. He is in the burnt murgu city. He told me to care for you in my sammad and that I will do.”
“Kerrick!” she wailed and struggled against his grip.
To no avail.
