Kerrick would have liked to have been there when the old man sang. The more hunters who chanted the happier Ulfadan’s tharm would be. When the singing was finished Ulfadan’s empty body would be wrapped in soft leather and tied high in a tree to dry in the wind. The body did not matter any more, once the tharm of the hunter had gone. Still, it would not have been proper to leave it where the carrion eaters could find it.

“I would be with you,” Kerrick said.

“It is understood,” Herilak said. “But it would not do to hurt the leg any more.”

When they had gone Armun came from the rear of the tent, but still stood hesitatingly to one side. When he turned towards her she reached quickly for her hair—then let her hand drop because there was still no laughter in his face when he looked at her. It had happened and she did not question it. But she was still unaccustomed to being stared at.

“I heard you when you talked about being captured by the murgu.” She spoke quickly, trying to hide her confusion. “Weren’t you frightened, alone like that?”

“Frightened? In the beginning, I suppose I was. But I wasn’t alone, they had also captured this girl, I forget her name. But they killed her.” The memory was still just as clear, the emotion just as strong. The murgu with the girl’s blood on it turning towards him. Vaintè. “Yes, I was afraid, very afraid. I should have kept quiet, but I talked to the murgu. I would have been killed as well if I hadn’t talked to the one who held me. I did, I was that afraid. But I should not have talked.”

“Why should you have kept quiet if talking saved your life?”

Why indeed? He was no hunter then, brave in the face of death. He had just been a child, the sole survivor of his sammad. There had been no shame in speaking out, he realized now. It had saved his life, brought him here, brought him here to Armun who understood.

“No reason, no reason at all,” he said, smiling up at her. “I think that was when I stopped being afraid. Once they could talk to me they wanted me alive. At times they even needed me.”

“I think that you were as brave as a hunter, even though you were just a boy.”

These words disarmed him, he didn’t know why. For some reason he felt close to tears and had to turn away from her. Tears, now, he a hunter? Without reason? Good reason perhaps, they were the unshed tears of that little boy alone among the murgu. Well, that was well past, he was no longer little, no longer a boy. He looked back at Armun and without intending to reached out and took her hand. She did not pull away.