He dug inside his furs and took out a folded scrap of leather and opened it slowly. Kerrick knew as he unwrapped it, knew what he would see there.

Small, pointed, feathered.

Darts from a hèsotsan.

“They have followed! They are here!”

Herilak bellowed the words aloud, a roar of mighty pain. His fist lashed out and smote the Kargu’s arm so hard that the hunter screeched in pain. The darts fell to the ground and Herilak ground them underfoot.

The Sasku looked on in amazement, unable to understand, and Sanone looked to Kerrick for some explanation. But Kerrick felt the same mixture of black anger and fear as Herilak did. He drew in a shuddering breath and forced out the words.

“It is them. From the south. The murgu. The murgu who walk like Tanu. They are coming again.”

“Are these the murgu you told me of? The ones you have fled from?”

“The same. Murgu of a kind you have never seen nor thought possible. They walk and talk and build cities and kill Tanu. They killed my sammad, they killed Herilak’s sammad. Every hunter, every woman, every child. Every mastodon. Dead.”

At these last words Sanone nodded with solemn understanding. He had given this matter much thought ever since Kerrick had first told him about the murgu. He had not spoken of it until now; he had not been sure. The surety came now for it had been taught, and he knew the teachings, and he knew that there was only one creature that would dare to kill a mastodon.

“Karognis . . .” he said, in a voice so filled with loathing that those closest to him shivered and stepped back. “The Karognis is loose on the land and is now close to us.”

Kerrick was only half-listening for he was not interested in what Sanone was saying. “What do we do, Herilak? Do we flee once again?”

“If we flee again they will only follow again. Now I know the meaning of my dreams. This is the day that I saw coming. I will meet them and I will fight. Then I will die. But it will be a warrior’s death for many of the murgu will die with me.”

“No,” Kerrick said, the word harsh as a slap across the face. “That would be good if you were one man and wanted to die. But you are the sacripex. Do you want the hunters and the sammads to die with you? Have you forgotten that the murgu are as numberless as the sands upon the shore? In open battle we can only lose. So now you must tell me. Are you the sacripex who will lead us in battle—or are you the hunter Herilak who wishes to go alone against the murgu and die?”