“Attention to speaking,” Kerrick voiced and waited until Nadaske was looking at him again before he spoke.

“In some few days we will be leaving. We will hunt, leave you meat.”

“Do not. It will turn green and stink. I will fish, there will be enough for both of us. Why do you not leave now?”

Armun and the baby, the unconscious Imehei here with his unwelcome burden of eggs: there was an unwelcome similarity here that Kerrick did not wish to point out.

“The time is not appropriate, preparations to be made. Meat will be brought.”

Nadaske was silent again and there was nothing more that Kerrick could do here, nothing more to say. He went slowly back to his own encampment. Ortnar was awake and supervising Harl, who was fixing arrowheads to their shafts.

“More arrows will be needed,” Ortnar said. “When we hunt and travel arrows that miss cannot always be searched for. Now that the baby is born we can leave.”

“Only when Armun is ready. But we must make the preparations so we can go as soon as she says. And this we must consider as well—where shall we go?”

“Tighter, the thong tighter or the arrowhead will be lost. Use your teeth.” Ortnar shuffled about until he was facing north, then pointed with his chin. “That is the only way to go. I know the path well. And I think I know of a place where we can stay as long as we have the death-sticks. With them we cannot go to the snows for they die in the cold. Nor do we want to stay close to the city of the murgu. Now I will show you what I have been thinking of.”

He used his speartip to scratch a line in the sand, then stabbed the lower end of it. “This is the shore of the ocean and at the bottom the city of the murgu. Now we are here.”

He circled the lake into the sand. Then drew the spear up along the line and pushed it down again on the shoreline. “Here is a place I know of. We hunted there once. It is as far north from this lake as this lake is north of the city. Is that far enough?”

“It will have to be. Close or far they can find us if they want to. If they seek us out we can run to the snows and they will be right behind us every step of the way. What did you find when you hunted there?”