I went fast, too fast to lose my footing, and slammed into him and plunged Distik’s monster-tooth in his neck where the big vein is. The blood jetted over us both; he reeled sideways with a choked cry and collapsed, dragging my weapon with him. Something happened inside me at that, like tough tissue splitting open. A white light sliced through my head. It was like a voice singing to me: Now the beast is out of the cage.

I had come up with the last two warriors. I barely noticed who they were. The left-hand man lunged in at me and cut me in the flank, and next moment I ducked and caught at him and was bursting up in a whirl of blood and snow and cloaks, with him held over my head the length of my arms, like an offering to the sky.

He was a big man and I was only a boy. I had always been tall and well-grown and very strong, yet I had never known my strength, and neither had they. It was no bother to me to hold him high and kicking and bawling there, or to swing around with him and cast him off into the other one and watch them go hurtling down together to where Distik lay.

I was meaning to follow them, perhaps to kill them with their own knives, but as sudden as it lit, the white light in my head went out. I stood there in a somber daze getting back my sanity after the fight. And when I raised my eyes to the slope, I ascertained that this time nobody else was coming.

The warriors were very silent, as well they might be.

Seel had prudently combined with the shadows, but Ettook remained by the fire where I had seen him last, and his face was a greenish-white, though he grinned as he jumped down and strode toward me.

“Am I proved, my chief?” I called out to him, loud enough for all of them.

Ettook turned in midstride, shaking his arms at the men.

“Is he proved warrior?” he shouted. “Proved—yes, more a brave than any of my fighters, this, my son Tuvek.”

The warriors began to stamp and clack their spears on the rock of the mountain under the cave to show their approval and consent, but not a face matched the noise. Their looks were better suited to a burying, or Sihharn Night when they mount guard against the spirits of the Black Place.

However, Ettook came up to me and clapped me on the shoulder.

I immediately kneeled before him in the snow. I could master as much diplomacy as he.

“If I am a warrior, the strength of my arm is for your service alone, my chief and my father,” I said. And he dug his fingers in my hair as any father might, proud of a loved son who had done him honor. I wondered what price he set on this act of his, showing his liking of me after what had gone before. And not for the first time, I wished I had a friend, a single man I could trust my back to.