“You know the reason,” Kerrick said, his voice as deadly grim as the death that surrounded them. “Something has happened in the city. I must go there, find out—”

He stopped when he heard the sound from the forest, dim and distant. A sound familiar to them all. The bellow of a mastodon. Kerrick ran toward it, through the slaughtered sammad and beyond, toward the opening in the trees where a path had been torn, clearly marked by broken branches and shrubs. The mastodons had panicked during the attack, had broken away. He came to one dead body, then another. He stopped to listen and heard the trumpeting call again, much closer this time.

Moving quietly be slipped through the darkening forest until he saw the beast: he called out softly. It turned toward him and lifted its trunk, made a burbling cry in response.

When it moved, in the shadows behind it, he saw the small girl standing forlornly against a tree. Tear-stained and frightened, no more than eight years old, speechless. He made soothing noises as he approached, both child and animal were still afraid, bent and picked her up.

“Let me,” Armun said as she came through the trees. He gave her the child.

It was getting too dark to move on. They stayed there, in the protection of the trees, waiting for the others. The boys were close behind Armun, but Ortnar did not come hobbling up that quickly.

“No fire,” Kerrick said. “We don’t know where they have gone. They could have come by land, might still be close.”

The child finally talked to Armun, but could add nothing to what they already knew had happened. Her name was Darras. She had been alone in the woods, squatting down in the shelter of the bushes, when everyone screamed. She had been frightened, had not known what to do, so had remained hidden. Later she found the mastodon and stayed with it. She was hungry. When she was asked why the sammad had trekked north she had no idea. She ate the cold meat ravenously and fell asleep soon afterward.

There was little to be said until Kerrick broke the silence.

“In the morning I will see if there is any trace of the Yilanè, though they must be gone by now. If they are, we will start south, to the lake where I left the two male murgu. If those two are still alive we can get their death-sticks. There will be food there too; it will be a safe place to stay. I must find out what has happened in Deifoben. But I will have to do that alone while you remain at the lake.”

“That is what you must do,” Ortnar said, grimly. “The sammads are there—or were there. We must find out what has happened.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE