“These are the earliest, of the high valleys where the ustuzou usually winter. But this last winter the valleys remained frozen. The thaw did not come that brings them life during the rest of the year. Therefore the ustuzou must move south to find food.”

South, away from the cold of their winter, Vaintè thought, just as we flee south from the frigid winters of Inegban*. She wiped this repugnant idea away as quickly as it had come. There was no connection between the two facts, could be no connection between Yilanè and ustuzou. It was just a matter of chance. What did matter was that the creatures would have to move south to find food. She spoke aloud.

“South—where we can reach them.”

“You see the future clearly, Eistaa. If they stay, then they die of starvation. If they do not stay, why, we will be there to greet them.”

“When do we leave?”

“Very soon. See here, and here. The large beasts that drag the poles and skins. They come down from the hills. There is grass, but still gray and dead after the winter. And the white, here in the hollows, that is hard water. They must come further south.”

“They will. Are your preparations made?”

“They are. Supplies gathered, the boats fed, the armed fargi are ready.”

“See that they remain that way.”

She dismissed Stallan, put the hunter from her mind instantly, addressed her thoughts instead to the coming campaign. They would be going far inland this time and would be away all of the summer. They could not carry enough food with them for this long a time—so should she arrange for resupply? Or live off the land? This would be easier—and every beast they killed and ate would be one less for the ustuzou. But there would also have to be a reserve of preserved meat so their progress would not be slowed. Everything must be considered. Prisoners must be taken as well. The raptor’s chance movements would find only a few of the ustuzou packs. But questioning the prisoners would lead them from one pack to another until they had all been destroyed. A fargi hurried over at her gesture.

“Command Kerrick to attend me.”

Her thoughts went to the coming campaign until she was aware of his presence before her.

“Tell me of your health,” she ordered. “You are thinner than you used to be.”

“I am, but the weakness has gone, the scars from the sores are healed. Each day I make this fat Inlènu* run with me to the fields. She loses weight, I gain it.”

“We go north soon. You will go with us.”

“As the Eistaa speaks, so do I obey.”

He expressed this in the most formal manner when he left, revealing no other emotion. But the thoughts that churned beneath that calm exterior were quite different.