The pace remained slow. Marika recovered from her earlier strain. She wanted to drop back and lend encouragement to Kublin, but dared not. Her place was with the huntresses now.
The day began to fail as the packs descended toward the floodplain of the Plenthzo. Scouts reported other packs were in the valley already. The main herd was still many miles north, but definitely in the valley. It would be nighting up soon. There would be no hunting before tomorrow.
They came to the edge of the floodplain in the last light of day. Marika was amazed to see so much flat and open land. She wondered why no packstead stood on such favorable ground.
Only Pobuda felt inclined to explain. "It looks good, yes. Like a well-laid trap. Three miles down, the river enters a narrows flanked by granite. When the snows melt and the water rushes down, carrying logs and whatnot, those narrows block. Then the water rises. This land becomes one great seething brown flood, raging at the knees of those hills down there. Any packstead built on the plain would be drowned the first spring after it was built."
Marika saw the water in her mind, and the image suddenly became one of angry kropek. She began to comprehend the nervousness shown by some of the huntresses.
She did not sleep well. Nor did many huntresses, including her dam. There was much coming and going between packs, plotting and planning and negotiating. Messengers crossed the river, though meth disliked swimming intensely. Packs were in place on the far bank, too, for it was not known which way the kropek would follow, and those beasts had no prejudices against water.
Dawn arrived with unexpected swiftness. Pursuant to Skiljan's instructions, Marika placed her bedroll in a tree and memorized its location. "We will be running the herd," her dam said.
Marika expressed her puzzlement.
"The herd leaders must be kept moving. If we let them stop, the herd stops. Then there is no cutting individuals out or getting to those we might drop with arrows. They would not let us near enough."
The packs with which they had traveled moved out. Since first light scores of huntresses and males had been at work some distance down the plain, erecting something built of driftwood, deadwood, and even cut logs. Marika asked her dam about that.
"It is to scatter the herd. Enough for huntresses to dart in and out of the fringes, planting javelins in the shoulders of the beasts, or hacking at hamstrings." Skiljan seemed impatient with explanations. She wanted to listen, like the others. But her duty as dam was to relay what she knew to her young.
"They are coming," Pobuda said.
And a moment later Marika heard them, too. More, she felt them. The ground had begun to tremble beneath her feet.
The noise swelled. The earth shuddered ever more. And Marika's excitement evaporated. Her eagerness went away, to be replaced by growing apprehension. That sound grew and grew like endless thunder ...
Then she spied the herd, a stain of darkness that spanned most of the plain.
"Both sides of the river," Pobuda observed. "Not running yet."
"The wind is with us," Skiljan replied. "Thank the All."
Pobuda spied Marika's nervousness, despite her effort to conceal it. She mocked, "Nothing to it, pup. Just dash up beside a male, leap onto his shoulders, hold on with your legs while you lift his ear, and slide a knife in behind it. Push it all the way to the brain, though. Then jump clear before he goes down."
"Pobuda!" Skiljah snapped.
"Eh?"
"None of that. Not from anyone of my loghouse. We have nothing to prove. I want everyone able to carry meat home. Not one another."
Pobuda frowned, but did not argue.
"Do they do that?" Marika asked her dam.
"Sometimes," Skiljan admitted. "To show courage. Behind the ear is a good spot, though. For an arrow." Skiljan cocked her head, sniffed the breeze. A definite, strong smell preceded the kropek. "Only place an arrow will kill one of them. Not counting a low shaft upward into the eye."
"Why use bows, then?"
"Enough hits will slow them down. It will be stragglers mostly, that we get. The old, the lame, the stupid, the young that get confused or courageous or foolish." She looked at Marika with meaning. "You stay outside me. Understand? Away from the herd. Use your bow if you like. Though that will be difficult while running. Most important, make plenty of noise. Feint at them when I do. It is our task to keep them running." As an afterthought, "There are some advantages to hunting in the forests. The trees do keep them scattered."
Skiljan had to speak loudly to be heard over the kropek. Marika kept averting her gaze from the brown line. So many of them!
The tenor of the rumble changed. The herd began moving faster. Faintly, over the roar, Marika heard the ululation of meth hunting.
"Ready," Skiljan said. "Just after the leaders come abreast of us. And do what I told you. I will not carry you home."
"Yes, Dam." All those venturesome thoughts she had had back at the packstead had abandoned her. Right now she wanted nothing more than to slink off with Kublin, Zambi, and the males.
She was scared.
Pobuda gave her a knowing look.
The roar of hooves became deafening. The approaching herd looked like a surge in the surface of the earth, green becoming sudden brown. Lean, tall figures loped along the near flank, screaming, occasionally stabbing with javelins.
"Now," Skiljan said, and dashed toward the herd.
Marika followed, wondering why she was doing such a foolish thing.
The Degnan rushed from the woods shrieking. Arrows arced in among the herd leaders, who put on more speed. Skiljan darted in, jabbed a male with her javelin. Marika made no effort to follow. At twenty feet she was as close as ever she wanted to be. The eyes of the ugly beasts held no fear. They seemed possessed of an evil, mocking intelligence. For a moment Marika feared that the kropek had plans of their own for today.
Distance fled. With speed came quick weariness. The meth who had been running the herd fell away, their hunting speed temporarily spent. They trotted while they regained their breath. The kropek seemed incapable of tiring.
There was endurance and endurance, though. Meth could move at the quick trot indefinitely, though they were capable of only a mile at hunting speed.
A male feinted toward Skiljan. Pobuda and Gerrien were there instantly, ready to slip between it and the herd if it gave them room. It moved back, ran hip to shoulder with another evil-eyed brute. Marika shuddered, imagining what would become of someone unlucky enough to fall in their path.
Another male feinted. Again huntresses darted in. Again the beast faded back.
Marika tried launching an arrow. She narrowly missed one of the huntresses. Her shaft fell with no power behind it, vanished in the boil of kropek. She decided not to try again.
Her lungs began to burn, her calves to ache. And she was growing angry with these beasts who refused to line up and die.
A third male feinted. And she thought, Come out of there, you! Come out here where I can-
It wheeled and charged her, nearly falling making so sudden a turn.
She did not stop running, but neither did she try to evade its angry, angling charge. She froze mentally, unable to think what to do.
Pobuda flung past, leaping over the kropek. She planted her javelin in its shoulder as she leapt. A second later Gerrien was on the beast's opposite flank, planting her own javelin as the kropek staggered and tried to turn after Pobuda. It tried to turn on Gerrien, then. Barlog jabbed it in the rear. It sprang forward, ran farther from the herd.
Then it halted and swung around, right into Marika. She had no choice but to jump up, over, as a big, wide mouth filled with grinding teeth rose to greet her.