It did end with that. Harl stayed on in her tent and no one came for him, nor was the matter discussed in Armun’s presence. Harl’s mother had died in the last hungry winter and his father seemed to care nothing of the boy. Armun was glad of his companionship and the whole matter rested there.

Spring was late, it was always late now, and when the ice finally cracked on the river and floated away in great floes Armun looked to the east for Kerrick. Each day it was harder and harder to control her impatience, and when the flowers were in full blossom she left Arnwheet playing on the riverbank with Harl and went to find Herilak. He sat in the sun before his tent, restringing his bow with fresh gut for the hunting they had all been awaiting. He only nodded when she spoke to him and did not look up from his work.

“Summer is here and Kerrick has not come.”

His only response was a grunt. She looked down at his bowed head and controlled her temper.

“This is now the time to travel. If he does not come to me I will go to him. I will ask some hunters to accompany me who know the track.”

There was still silence and she was about to speak again when Herilak lifted his face to her. “No,” he said. “There will be no hunters, you will not go. You are in my sammad and I forbid it. Now leave me.”

“I want to leave you,” she shouted. “Leave you, leave this sammad and go to the place where I belong. You will tell them . . .”

“I will tell you just once more to leave,” he said, standing and towering over her. This was not Nivoth. She could not strike Herilak—nor would he listen to her. There was nothing more to be said. She turned on her heel and left him and went to the river, sat and watched the boys playing and rolling in the new grass. She could expect no help from Herilak, the opposite if anything. Then who could she turn to? There was only one she could think of. She went to his tent and found him alone and called the hunter away from the fire.

“You are Ortnar and are the only one still alive from the first sammad of Herilak, you who were of that sammad before it was killed by the murgu.”

He nodded agreement, wondering why she was here.

“It was Kerrick who freed your sammadar when the murgu captured him, Kerrick who led us all south when there was no food, who led the attack on the murgu.”

“I know these things, Armun. Why do you tell me them now?”

“Then you also know that Kerrick remains in the south and I would be with him. Take me to him. You are his friend.”