That day neither sky nor forest nor river attempted to kill them. But they had now left the bright colors of the deciduous fall behind and entered into that more elevated stretch of evergreen-forested territory. In some places the trees stood well apart, shooting arrow-straight from a fragrant carpet of needles that was soft beneath sore feet.

They had come to a pass where because of victuals consumed, victuals spoiled by damp, and victuals abandoned while running away, they needed more victuals, and so a day was set aside for hunting and, should the hunt succeed, butchering and dressing of meat. Prim was pressed into service as an archer, and played along despite knowing that if any beast were within range of her skills as a bow-woman, it would be close enough for her to kill it by wishing it were dead.

It proceeded like any other hunt, with a lot of dull waiting and framing of over-elaborate plans that detonated into chaos at the first contact with reality. A big thing with horns—clearly descended from beasts of burden that had been brought here to tow ore carts and since altered form and personality to live wild—was struck by a shot from Lyne, and in its flight chanced to come near Prim. She drew an arrow and took aim. Then, taking pity on it, she did the thing in her mind that cut off its life. A wolf emerged from the undergrowth, having scented blood and given chase to the wounded beast. Prim thought that one to death straightaway as it was sniffing at the downed prey.

It seemed worthy of note, and quite likely a sign of larger trouble, that even a single wolf had turned up right in the middle of what had been drawn up, with sticks in dirt, as an orderly perimeter of alert hunters. Prim tried calling out the others’ names: Mard, Lyne, Burr. Another wolf came in from the same general direction as the first. She made it die. She could do that all day; she was Death afoot; nothing alive could hurt her unless she suffered it to.

Camp she could find, and people might need help there, and so that was where she went, breaking into a run as she became certain she was on the right track.

She was relieved to find that all was well here. Edda was pacing round the campfire in a wide circle. Querc was stoking it to make it blaze up. Pick was limbering up his stick technique to one side and on the other Fern was standing with dagger and cutlass drawn, the dagger in a reversed grip, blade tucked along the bone of the forearm, ready to raise up and stab down. She had not joined the party; to her, hunting was an uncouth procedure carried out in pointless wastelands by half-savage souls whose purpose in the grand scheme of things was to offer meat for sale in waterside markets.