The runners found remnants of a Shallai camp while they were scouting for a good autumn settlement. It was an old camp, they said. New grass broke through the rotting floorwork, but what could be seen showed the coiled grass snakes of the Shallai clan. Idok Nardu, the oldest and most experienced runner in the clan, had the runners lead vim to the abandoned camp. It took nearly a week for Nardu to get there and back: ve was old; ve walked with a pronounced limp. Sikelat said all those years of running destroyed Nardu’s knees. But still, when it came to cartography and land reading, there was no one better among the Avolayla than Nardu. Ve still had a runner’s mind. When Nardu returned, ve and the runners called a meeting in the long house. “The camp’s been dead four, five walks,” Nardu said. Ve had a rasping voice, dry as gold grass in the droughts. “We found rich dirt and bones where dead had been buried. Many dead, but only elves. No livestock.”

“Dead how?” Sikelat asked.

Nardu shrugged. “Disease? Famine? Slavers? Who can tell. The land’s taken them. The Shallai likely limped off to nurse their wounds, but they did it too long ago for us to follow. There was a time once, when I was young and still an unpaired in the Trilvanda clan, that we Trilvanda thought to find another clan. We found only a few left—maybe twenty. Pirates, you know. This clan had ventured too far south and the pirates took so many. We found these twenty survivors, scarred people, people who thrummed with fear and worry. Who could not sleep nights. We found them, and land save us, we braved the chaos bred in their souls. We took them in. Some stayed with us, and some left in the night, left to wander the land alone and clanless.”

Some nodded. Some frowned. Kishva caught my eye from across the house and glanced at Shinnani, who was dark and distracted. I gestured at Moura, a Vrala calmer, to sit next to vim. Moura sidled up close, shoulder to shoulder, and Shinnani grew harmonious again.

Murmurs rippled through the clan. “Such a story,” someone said.

“Clans come and go,” said another.