“A very few among us saw great grandchildren born,” said Eldest Uncle with the patience of the old. “That is a long time.”

He was not angry, although the accusation was insulting. Even Feather Cloak, normally the most placid of souls, found herself flushed, cheeks hot. She tucked her infant more tightly against her. Those who had returned from the shadows could not possibly understand how precious each child had become. Green Skirt held the other baby with the fond attention of a besotted aunt, although the two women were not related by blood ties. White Feather had her own children to care for; the toddler was sleeping in a sling tied around the older woman’s torso, and the girl was crouched by the wall, arms hugging her knees, eyes closed, rocking slightly on her feet.

“How long?” asked Zuangua. “How many years?”

“We could not count the round of years accurately. We had no sun and no stars by which to measure the calendar.”

Zuangua had brought with him a pair of followers, a toughlooking woman wearing a fox mask and an older man with a merchant’s sash slung around his torso. Fox Mask stood with arms crossed and feet braced aggressively. The merchant sat crosslegged and with a cold stare examined Feather Cloak’s council members as though he would have liked to spit on each one.

“Very well,” he said grudgingly. “It may be impossible to determine.”

“So have we told the sky counters,” murmured Eldest Uncle. “Many times over. But it appears they do not believe us.”

“So it does. That brings us to my second point.” Zuangua raised the next finger beside the little. “What of the priests? No land can survive without order, for we see that it did not. Yet how can it be that every one of the blood knives died?”

None of the elders replied, and most looked at the ground. White Feather’s baby stirred, made restless by the tension, and the infant Green Skirt was holding gave a single, flustered cry before the old woman shushed her gently.

This was a subject no one had ever spoken of, even during exile.

“I wait,” said Zuangua.

Eldest Uncle rubbed his chin. He did not look at the others. “When the famine came, during the first generation, and we died in great numbers, the blood knives offered us no solution, only problems. And when the great sickness came, still they refused to change. They could not count the measure of the sky in that place, but all they spoke of was the way things used to be done. We worship the gods still, and properly, giving of our own blood in tribute, but those who used the power of the blood knife to keep themselves raised high above others are all gone. It is true. They are all gone.”

The merchant coughed, for something in Eldest Uncle’s tone made everyone uncomfortable.

Zuangua frowned. “It is difficult for me to know which of those words I like least, and which I dislike most.” He still held up his hand, and now he raised the middle finger to stand beside little and next. “Three. Two of the twenty clans have vanished from among the exiles.”