“The murgu came to the valley to destroy us—have you forgotten that already?” Nenne said. “It was Kadair’s will that we come to this place to destroy them, and that we have done.”

“They return.”

“We will kill these too. You whimper like a baby, Meskawino.”

Meskawino was too filled with fear to even notice the insult. Life here by the ocean was not at all to his liking, too different from the ordered existence he had enjoyed in their protected valley. How he longed for those solid stone walls.

“There, ahead, what is it?” Nenne said.

Meskawino stopped, took a backward step. “I see nothing.” His voice was hoarse with fear.

“Out to sea, floating in the water—and there is another one.”

There were indeed things there, objects, but too distant to make out what they were. Meskawino tried to pull back, to return.

“We must tell Kerrick what we have seen, this is important.”

Nenne stuck his tongue far out, a gesture of great contempt. “What are you, Meskawino? Woman or Sasku? Do you run in fear from logs floating in the ocean? What do you tell Kerrick and Sanone? That we have seen something. They will ask us what—then what will you tell them?”

“You should not have done with your tongue like that at me.”

“My tongue stays in my mouth as long as you behave like a Sasku. We will go south and see if we can discover what it is we have seen.”

“We go south,” Meskawino said with resignation, sure that he was going to his certain death.

They kept away from the surf, as close to the trees as they could get, walking in careful fear. But the beach was empty. When they came to a surf-eroded headland they climbed up through the scrub and palmettos, still going warily although they knew they could not be seen from the ocean. At the crest they parted the boughs with care and looked through.

“Murgu!” Meskawino moaned, falling forward with his face in his hands.

Nenne was not that easily frightened. The murgu were not close but were farther down the shore and in the sea. There were ship-beasts, the same as the one that had taken the survivors away when they had burned the city. He had seen it with his own eyes so knew what it looked like. But there were more of them in the ocean here, the count of two hands. And smaller ones as well plying back and forth to the shore bearing the killer murgu. They were being landed on the shore, were doing something there, he could not tell what because a wall of brush hid them from sight. Out to sea he could see more of the ship-beasts approaching, coming from the direction of the island there. It was all very strange.