They crouched, spears ready, lowering them with relief only when Herilak’s silhouette was clear against the sky as he climbed the dune.

“You have been gone all day,” Ortnar said when the sammadar came close, the reproof clear in his voice. Herilak chose not to hear it, standing before them and leaning wearily on his spear.

“Bring me water,” he ordered, “then listen to what I have to say.” He drank thirstily, then dropped the gourd onto the sand and lowered himself beside it. When he spoke his voice was low and distant as he talked first of things they knew.

“The sammad of Amahast is no more, all killed, you saw their bones upon the shore. You see Amahast’s skymetal knife now around my neck and know that I took it from among his bones. What I found on that beach, among those skeletons, led me to believe that death came to them from the south. I chose you to come with me to find that death. I chose you because you are strong hunters. We have come south for many days, stopping only to kill for meat to fill our bellies. We have come south to the country of the murgu and have seen many of them. But yesterday we found something different. We found trails that were not animal trails. I followed those trails to where they led. I will tell you now what I found.”

There was something in Herilak’s voice that silenced them all, even Ortnar. The last light of sunset washed Herilak’s face as red as blood, a blood-mask that belonged with the anger that drew his lips back from his teeth, clenched his jaw so tightly that it now muffled his words.

“I have found the killers. Those paths were made by murgu, of a kind I have never seen before. There is a great nest of them out there where they teem like ants in an anthill. But they are not ants—or Tanu—although they stand erect on legs like Tanu. They are not any of the beasts we know, but are murgu of a new kind. They move over the water on the backs of creatures like boats and their nest is guarded by a wall of thorns. And they have weapons.”

“What are you saying?” There was terror in Ortnar’s voice, for Herilak spoke of nightmares come alive. “That there are murgu that walk like Tanu? Who have spears and bows and kill like Tanu? We must leave, now, quickly, before they reach us . . .”

“Silence.” There was grim command in Herilak’s voice. “You are a hunter, not a woman. If you show your fear the animals you hunt will know it and will laugh at you and all of your arrows will miss their mark.”