“At first it was just one, a deer that had come to graze the shrubs. Dead, the vine with thorns wrapped about its leg. Then I saw the others, some just bones, creatures of all kinds, even murgu beasts, that had died on the growing wall. Birds as well, sea birds and others who had landed—and never left. Whatever grows there is living death that kills whatever comes near it.”

“But why? What can it mean?” Sanone asked, and the other listeners nodded in puzzled agreement.

“What does it mean?” Kerrick’s voice was grim when he spoke. “Nothing good for us. Think of it. The murgu are here in force with many of their beast-ships. They have a base on that island offshore where we cannot reach them. We could build boats—but I think we would die if we tried to land there. As long as they are on their island and we are here, why then there is no problem. But they have grown this death-place on the shore.”

“It is far from us,” Meskawino said in a faint but hopeful voice.

“It is now,” Kerrick said with no hope at all in his. “It will come closer or another one will grow closer, we can be sure of that. They are changing their tactics and I grow afraid. When they attacked us before this they sent armed fargi against us and they were destroyed. Now I have the great fear that the one who leads them is planning something much more intricate and deadly.”

How deadly was it—and how vulnerable? With this thought came a sickening fear. When he spoke again they could all hear it in his voice.

“I must go see this barrier on the shore. Will you show me, Nenne? Help me carry some things that I will need?”

“I will go with you. Now?”

“No, you must rest, and it is late. We will go in the morning.”

They left at dawn, going forward carefully and steadily, following the footsteps made the day before where they were still visible above the high-tide mark. By midday they had the barrier in sight, a green arc cut in from the sea. But there was one difference.

“They are gone,” Nenne said. “It was not this way before. The beast-ships were there and others were moving between them and the shore, large ones coming from the island. Now they are gone.”

Kerrick suspected some trap. The sea was empty, the afternoon haze making the island gray in the distance. There were other, smaller islands beyond it; Kerrick remembered them when he had passed in the uruketo, an entire chain of them. Alakas-aksehent, the succession of golden, tumbled stones. A perfect place to come ashore from the sea, to be safe from anyone on the mainland. But the arc of death planted on the shore—what did it mean?