They were ruthless in their butchery, experienced killers of murgu. Only an occasional grunt of pain was heard as they stabbed down with knives and spears, slaying the sleepers one after the other. Only when the last one was dead did they use the captured death-sticks to slaughter the riding creatures. Some of these stirred and cried out at the smell of death around them, tried to run away and blundered into the deadly vines. One by one they were killed. The butchery was complete.

None of the hunters could sleep. They wiped the blood from their hands and arms as well as they could, sat and talked quietly until dawn. When there was enough light to see by, Herilak stood and issued orders.

“I want help here. I want to seal up this hole where we were hidden so nothing can be seen. Pull some of the bodies on top of the rocks. They might find the opening, I don’t know—but if they don’t it will be something more to worry them. They will then wonder how this happened, how we got past their defenses, and it could slow them down.”

“Will they go back then?” Nenne asked.

“No, that won’t happen,” Herilak said, feeling the anger rise within him. “They will keep coming. But we can slow them, kill them. We can do that. Now the rest of you, wait until it is full light and the thorns withdraw. Don’t touch anything, just use your spears to pull aside the vines. Leave everything else the way it is. We’ll take the death-sticks, some meat, nothing else. Pull the vines back into place when we go. This will be a sight to make the murgu very, very unhappy. I want it to be that way.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

They sailed south along the coast. The Paramutan were excited by this journey into the unknown, pointing out every new headland and bit of beach with shouts of wonder. Kerrick did not share this enthusiasm but sank deeper into a grim unhappiness with every day’s travel. Armun saw this and could only share his despair because she knew there was little she could do to help him. As they voyaged south the weather improved, but not his spirits. She almost welcomed the bad weather that followed because he had to work with others to reef the sails and pump out the bilge so had little time to think about the future.

The coastline made a turn here, they could see it on the map, until they were sailing due west. Although the sun was warm the winter storms lashed down from the north bringing squalls of rain. On their eighth day of sailing they ran through one cloudburst after another, starting soon after dawn, but by midafternoon the last squall had passed and the rainstorm had blown past them to the shore.