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Chapters (69)
  1. PROLOGUE: KERRICK
  2. BOOK ONE
  3. CHAPTER ONE
  4. CHAPTER TWO
  5. CHAPTER THREE
  6. CHAPTER FOUR
  7. CHAPTER FIVE
  8. CHAPTER SIX
  9. CHAPTER SEVEN
  10. CHAPTER EIGHT
  11. CHAPTER NINE
  12. CHAPTER TEN
  13. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  14. CHAPTER TWELVE
  15. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  16. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  18. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  20. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  21. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  22. CHAPTER TWENTY
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  30. BOOK TWO
  31. CHAPTER ONE
  32. CHAPTER TWO
  33. CHAPTER THREE
  34. CHAPTER FOUR
  35. CHAPTER FIVE
  36. CHAPTER SIX
  37. CHAPTER SEVEN
  38. CHAPTER EIGHT
  39. CHAPTER NINE
  40. CHAPTER TEN
  41. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  42. CHAPTER TWELVE
  43. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  44. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  45. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  46. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  47. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  48. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  49. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  50. CHAPTER TWENTY
  51. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  52. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  53. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  54. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  55. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  56. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  57. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  58. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  59. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  60. CHAPTER THIRTY
  61. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  62. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  63. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  64. THE WORLDWEST OF EDEN
  65. YILANÈ
  66. TANU
  67. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  68. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  69. About this Title

A long, thin creature, with tiny and unusable legs. Many ribs, far too many ribs, and more bones in the spine than seemed possible.

A marag of some kind, there was no mistake, for he had seen their kind before. It did not belong here, no murgu could live this far away from the hot south.

South? Did that have a meaning? Herilak stood and looked west, where he had come from. No murgu there, that was impossible. He turned slowly to face the north and could see inside his head the cold ice and snow stretching away forever. The Paramutan lived there, very much like the Tanu although they spoke in a different manner. But there were very few of them, they rarely came south, and they fought against winter only, not Tanu or each other. East, out into the ocean—there was nothing there.

But south, from the hot south, murgu could come. They could bring death and leave again. South.

Herilak knelt in the frozen sand and studied the marag skeleton carefully, memorized all the details of it until he could have scratched its likeness in the sand and would remember forever every single bone of it.

Then he stood and ground its brittle fragments underfoot. Turned about and without once looking back started on the return trail.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Kerrick never realized that it was age alone that had saved his life. Not that Vaintè had spared him because he was so young; she felt the most intense disgust for ustuzou of any age and would happily see them all dead. Ysel had been too old to respond naturally to a new language, particularly one as complex in construction as Yilanè. For her Marbak was the only way to speak and she used to laugh with the women when hunters from the Ice Mountains visited their tents and spoke so badly they could barely be understood. To her this was just stupidity, any intelligent one of the Tanu would of course speak Marbak. Therefore she had showed no interest in learning Yilanè, and was satisfied to memorize by rote some of the funny sounds just to please the marag and get food from it. Sometimes she even remembered to make body movements with her words. It was all just a stupid game—and she had died for believing that.