“When we return,” he said, “we will want to leave without delay. It may be that we will be followed.” He smiled at the sudden apprehension on their faces. “It is only a small chance. If we do our work as hunters there will be no chance at all. Here is what we must do. We are going to find a small group of murgu who are not close to the others. Yesterday I saw groups like this. They were doing something. We will find them and then, unseen, we will slay them. All of them, in silence. If my brother is hurt, I will bleed. If my brother is killed, then death is mine to return. Now we leave.”

Herilak looked at their grim and silent faces, could see them weighing his words. What he had proposed was something new and dangerous. But they would be hunting and killing murgu, murgu that had attacked and slaughtered the entire sammad of Amahast. Had butchered the women and children, the mastodons, everything. When they thought of this the anger grew within them and they were ready. Herilak nodded and took up his weapons and they took up theirs as well and followed him into the jungle.

It was dark under the trees where the dense foliage blocked out the sun, but the trail was well-trodden and easy to follow. They went in silence, bright birds calling out above them in the canopy of the forest. More than once they stopped, spears ready, as something heavy and unseen crashed in the undergrowth nearby.

The trail they followed twisted up through sandy hillocks set with towering pine trees, fresh-smelling with the morning breeze rustling their needles above. Herilak raised his hand suddenly and they stopped in rigid silence. He raised his head and sniffed the air, then cocked his head to listen. They could all hear the sound now, a faint crackling like burning twigs, or waves upon a stony shore. They crept forward then, to a place where the trees opened out upon grassy meadows. Meadows filled with movement.

Murgu, a giant herd of them, stretching out into the distance. Four-legged, round, each twice as big as a man, small eyes rolling as they tore at the grass and pine-cones. One reared to seize a branch in its duck-like bill, sharp claws on its small forelegs, sharper claws on its long hindlegs. Herilak signaled a retreat; they would have to work their way around the herd. Before they could move there was a scream from the jungle and a great marag appeared among the trees, leaping forward onto one of the grazing beasts. It was armored and scaled, its teeth white daggers now dripping with blood. Its forelegs were tiny and useless—but the claws of its great hind legs tore the life from its prey. The rest of the herd squealed and ran; the hunters hurried on before the marag took notice of them as well.