“Part of me isn’t,” Ortnar gasped, the beads of moisture standing out on his face. “But we have found them—or they have found us—and that is what is important.”

Kerrick had to lean most of his weight on Armun when they went down to the boat: Ortnar was carried on a litter of branches. He was in too much pain to take much notice of his surroundings, but Kerrick was wide-eyed and appreciative when he looked about him at the boat as he climbed in.

“Made of skins, light and strong. And all the oars! These Paramutan can build as well as the Sasku.”

“Some of what they make is even better,” Armun said, pleased at his interest. “Look at this—do you know what it is?”

She handed him the length of carved bone and he turned it over and over in his hands.

“It is from some large beast, I don’t know what kind. And it has been hollowed out—but what is this?” He shook the dangling leather tube, put his eye to the hole on top of the bone, pulled the knob next to it and discovered that a length of round wood, the thickness of an arrow, was attached to it. “It is wonderfully made, that is all I know.”

Armun smiled, her split lip revealing the evenness of her teeth, as she poked the end of the tube down into the water that was sloshing at their feet. When she pulled up on the knob there was a sucking sound, and when she pulled a second time a thin gush of water shot from the top opening and over the side of the boat. He gaped—then they both laughed at his astonishment. Kerrick took it from her hands again.

“It is like something that the Yilanè have grown—but this was made, not grown. I like this kind of thing.” He turned it over and over with admiration, tracing the carvings on its length that pictured a fish spitting out a great stream of water.

The return to the paukaruts was a great triumph with the women pushing each other, screaming with laughter, for the privilege of carrying the litter with the blond giant on it. Ortnar looked at them with amazement as they fought to touch his hair, barking at each other all the time in their strange language.

Arnwheet stared at his father in wonder; he had very little memory of any Tanu hunters. Kerrick knelt in the snow to look at him more closely, a solid, wide-eyed boy with little resemblance to the baby he had left. “You are Arnwheet,” he said and the boy nodded gravely—but shied back when Kerrick put his hand out to touch him.

“He is your father,” Armun said, “and you must not be afraid of him.” But the child clung to her leg at the strangeness of it all.