It was late afternoon before the raptor flew south. The great bird had killed a rabbit earlier in the day, then had flapped up to the top of a tall dead tree with its prey still kicking in its talons. Perching there, it had torn the creature apart and had eaten it. When it was done it remained, sated. The dark lump on its leg was obvious to anyone who might have looked up at it from the huddle of tents below. The raptor wiped its hooked beak clean on the bark, preened its feathers—and finally launched itself into the air. Rising in ever higher circles it turned and flew away to the south.

One of the boys who had been ordered to watch the bird ran at once to tell Kerrick, who shielded his eyes and looked at the sky, saw the white speck vanishing in the distance.

“Herilak, it is gone,” he called out.

The big hunter turned from the deer’s carcass that he was butchering, arms red to the elbows. “There may be others.”

“There may be, we can never be sure. But that flock of seabirds is gone and the boys say that there are no other large birds to be seen.”

“What do you think that we should do, margalus?”

“Leave now and not wait for dark. We have all the food we need, there is nothing to be gained by staying here any longer.”

“Agreed. We go.”

Inside the tents all of their belongings had already been bundled and tied, ready for departure. As the tents came down the travois were lashed to the mastodons and quickly loaded. Everyone was eager to leave the menace of the coast for the security of the mountains. Even as the last loads were being tied into place the first protesting mastodon was trudging heavily away. The hunters looked over their shoulders as they left, but the beach was empty, as was the sky. The fires still smoked on the shore, the half-gutted deer hung from the frame. The sammads were gone.

They walked until dark, stopped and ate cold meat, lit no fires, then went on. The march continued through the night with only brief halts to rest the animals. By dawn they were in the forested hills, distant from the route they had taken on their westward trek to the beaches. The mastodons were freed of the travois so they could graze while the weary sammads slept under the trees.