Es mo tarril drepastar, er em so man drija.

TANU SAYING

If my brother is wounded, I will bleed.

SEVENTEEN

Herilak walked the track ahead of the sammads, his eyes never still. Not only looking into the forest on both sides but also up at the branches above. He stepped over the trunk of a tree that had fallen across the track: it had been a long time since a sammad had passed this way. Something rustled in the undergrowth and he stopped and stared but could see nothing. Bird cries sounded among the leaves—and the sudden, distant snap of a death-stick.

He turned about and listened, there were shouts and a mastodon screeched. With his own death-stick held ready he ran back along the track to the sammad. Nadris was prodding a large, still form with his foot, the marag that they called spike-back.

“What happened?” Herilak called out.

“This thing came out of the trees, started towards the mastodons. I had to kill it.”

The tiny eyes were glazed in death. It was covered with armored plates and had rows of spikes down its sides and all along the length of its tail. It had been a good shot, the poisoned dart striking the creature on its mouth.

“They are good to eat,” Nadris said.

“But hard to butcher,” Herilak said. “If we turn it over we can take off the rear legs. But we will have to stop for the night soon so you don’t have much time. Stay here and get started—I’ll send Newasfar to help. Use his mastodon to carry the meat and be sure to leave before dark.”

They started forward, the mastodons rolling their eyes and trumpeting with fear when they passed the immense corpse. Herilak went ahead again, looking for a clearing where they could stop and build their fire. They would need dry wood, a lot of it, to cook all of the meat. It would spoil in the heat if they didn’t, a waste.

An animal trail crossed the larger track, angling off into the forest. He stopped to see if the trees were thinner here and something caught his attention; he bent and looked closer. It was a blaze on the treetrunk, a mark where a section of bark had been peeled away. Though it was partly grown over it had been done this season. And there, higher up, was a branch that had been broken and left to hang. This trail had been marked by Tanu.

Merrith was leading her mastodon, the others following in line behind it, when she saw Herilak waiting on the track ahead. When she came close she saw that he was smiling, pointing into the forest towards the east.

“I’ve found something, a marked path leading towards the shore. Marked more than once.”

“Could it be Kerrick?”