“I understand your doubt, Eistaa, but it must be done. More fargi must be obtained from the cities of Entoban*. More uruketo, more weapons. Then we will go north as spring ends, land, move west. Killing them all. By the end of summer we will have reached the mountains and will turn south then to the warm southern sea. Supplies will be brought to us during the winter. When the next spring comes we shall strike west of the mountains. By the following winter this species of ustuzou will be extinct. Not a single pair will be left to breed in some dark and noisome place. That is what I feel must be done.”

Malsas< heard this, accepted it. But she was still concerned about the possibility of such an ambitious plan. Could it be done? She looked at the model, thought of the vast distances, of the ustuzou teeming there. Could they really all be exterminated?

“They all must be killed,” she said, answering her own question aloud. “That is what must be done, this fact cannot be escaped. But can it be done this next summer? Would it not be better to send smaller parties, seek out and destroy these packs that we have found?”

“They will hide, they will go north into the frozen lands where we cannot follow. I wish it could be done in that way. But I am afraid that it cannot. An army of fargi, a sweep across the country. An end to this menace.”

“What do you say, Stallan?” Malsas< said, turning to the stolid, silent hunter. “You are our killer of ustuzou. Will this plan do what Vaintè says it will do? Shall we attempt it?”

Stallan looked at the immense model, ordering her thoughts so that she could speak them clearly.

“If there is a trumal the ustuzou will die. I do not know if enough force can be gathered together to do it. I do not rule so I cannot say. What I can say is that if the force is strong enough then the trumal will succeed.”

There was silence then as Malsas< weighed everything that had been said while the others waited. When she finally spoke it was a command.

“Trumal, sarn’enoto. Destroy the ustuzou.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“Excuse the interruption of one so hard-working and important by one of little consequence,” Krunat said, hesitating as she approached Vaintè.