This demon thrust him back into the hides, stalked from the hut, was swallowed by the swirling dust. Aiken crawled to his mother. She lay staring sightlessly skyward, thrust through the chest. He rested his head upon her breast, and weeping, gently closed her staring eyes.

Three days later a lone rider came galloping up from the south. Aiken happened to be with the mourners that day. He’d brought flowers to his mother where she lay in her tall raised bier, exposed to the sun’s kiss and the wind’s embrace. Others were out as well, his neighbours, cousins, and aunts. Those who’d survived the demons’ attack.

Everyone snatched up their weapons, of course. Even Aiken: as warriors were few now.

But it was an old woman. She threw herself from her lathered mount and ran to them. Her hunting leathers were dust-caked. Bead necklaces rattled about her neck. Her hair was a thick tangled nest.

‘How many?’ she gasped; she clutched a thin weathered hand to her throat. Aiken thought her a maddened survivor from another village.

‘A full third of our people,’ answered Jalia, Aiken’s great-aunt. Then she hissed, flinching from the newcomer. She pointed to her waist. Aiken glanced there and saw that the knives thrust through the old woman’s leather belt were of nut-brown stone, knapped, the grip leather-wrapped.

‘Demon weapons …’ Jalia snarled, and she went for her own daggers.

The ground erupted around them. Bone arms yanked clear of the dirt. Skulls denuded of flesh burst free. Aiken backed away, terrified yet fascinated. Jalia thrust for the woman but a demon stepped up between them, taking her arm and tossing her aside.

‘Do not harm them!’ the old woman bellowed. Then her wild gaze found Aiken and she yelled to him: ‘Go! Run!’

Aiken turned and fled.

*

Silverfox, alone but for the dead, stood quivering. She wiped her hands down her thighs. She felt intensely cold, on the verge of collapse. She stared about her: funeral biers. The custom of these lands. And how many new? Some forty? From this village alone? She closed her eyes and staggered, righted herself, headed back to her mount.

Pran Chole appeared at her side. ‘You must rest.’

‘They are close, Pran.’

‘True. A few days ahead. They flee you, Silverfox.’

‘Then I must continue to press. Push them along. They won’t have time … time to kill everyone, will they?’ Gaining her mount, she took hold of the saddle to steady herself. ‘Who were these people, Pran?’

‘These clans name themselves the People of the Yellow Grass.’ She pressed her forehead to the saddle. The leather was warm and damp with sweat. ‘It is all my fault … all this. My fault.’

‘By no measure.’

‘If I had pressed harder for the release …’

‘We refused you, Summoner.’

She nodded wearily, her eyes closed. She tried to raise her leg to mount, failed. ‘Who … who is north of us?’