It was long after dark and Armun was torn by worry and fear. The sun had set and they had not returned. Should she send Harl to see what was happening? No, best to stay together. Was that a shout? She listened and heard it more clearly this time.
“Harl, watch the children,” she said, seizing up her own spear and hurrying back along the rutted path.
There Kerrick was, coming along slowly, a dark bulk over his shoulders. Ortnar, hanging limply.
“Is he dead?”
“No, but something is very wrong,” he gasped out the words for he had carried the motionless body a long way. “Help me.”
There was little they could do other than cover the unconscious hunter with furs, make him comfortable under the shelter. There was foam on his lips and Armun wiped it gently away. “Do you know what happened?” she asked.
“This is the way I found him, just collapsed in the mud. Can you tell what is wrong with him?”
“There are no wounds, no bones seem to be broken. I have never seen anything like it.”
The clouds blew away and the night was clear: they dare not light a fire. They took turns sitting by the unconscious figure, making sure he stayed covered. Near dawn Harl awoke and offered to help, but Kerrick told him to go to sleep again. When the first light filtered through the leaves, Ortnar stirred and moaned. Kerrick bent over him when he opened his right eye.
“What happened?” Kerrick asked.
Ortnar struggled to speak and the words came out slowly, mumbled, for his lips were twisted. Kerrick saw that not only was his left eye closed but the entire left side of his face was slack and unmoving.
“Hurt… fell down…” was all he could say.
“Drink some water, you must be thirsty.”
He supported the big hunter’s dead weight as he drank. Most of the water dribbled down his chin because of his slack lip. After this Ortnar slept, a more natural sleep, and his breathing was easier.
“I knew one like this in our sammad, when I was small,” Armun said. “She was like this with the eye closed, the arm and the leg on the same side unmoving. It is called the falling curse and the alladjex said it was because she had a spirit of evil inside her. “ Kerrick shook his head.
“It is the wounds in his feet. He pushed himself too hard. He should have rode.”
“He will now,” Armun said, calmly practical. “We will spread some of the branches on the travois, then tie him on. We will be able to go faster.”
Ortnar was too ill to make any protests about being carried. For some days he lay as one dead, waking only to drink and eat a bit. As the days grew warmer the game became more plentiful — and more dangerous. There were murgu here. They killed and ate the small ones — but knew that the giant flesh eaters were out there as well. Kerrick walked always with his bow ready and an arrow notched — and wished often that their hèsotsan had survived the winter.
Ortnar could sit up now and hold his meat with his right hand. He could even hobble a few steps leaning on a crutch Kerrick had cut for him, dragging his useless left leg.
“I can hold a spear in my right hand still — that is the only reason I stay with you. If there were other hunters here I would sit under a tree when you left.”
“You will get better,” Kerrick said.
“Perhaps. But I am a hunter, not a drag-leg. It is Herilak who has killed me. Before I fell my head was on fire, here, where he struck me. It burned there and through my body, then I fell. Now I am half-dead and useless.”
“We need you, Ortnar. You are the one who knows the forest. You must guide us to the lake.”
“I can do that. I wonder if your pet murgu are still alive?”
“I wonder, too.” Kerrick was glad to talk of something else. “Those two are like — I don’t know what. Children who have never grown up.”
“They look grown up enough to me — and ugly.”
“Their bodies, yes. But you saw where they were kept. Locked away, fed, watched over, never allowed out. This must be the first time that they have been alone and on their own since they came out of the sea. The murgu take the males and lock them away even before they learn to talk. If those two are still alive after the winter it will be something to see.”
“It will be something better to see them dead,” Ortnar said bitterly. “All of the murgu dead.”
They traveled only at night as they moved steadily south, concealing themselves and the mastodon under the trees during the day. Hunting was good: raw fish and stinking meat only a bad memory. They were lucky in that none of the bigger murgu ranged the thick forest and the smaller ones, even the flesh eaters, fled before them. Ortnar was watching the trail carefully and found where they had to turn off toward the round lake. This path was narrow and overgrown and had not been used for a long time. It was impossible to follow it at night so they were forced to travel by day, hurrying across the infrequent open places, looking worriedly up at the sky.
Kerrick led the way, spear ready, for Ortnar had said that they were getting close to the lake. Going cautiously and as silently as he could he looked about carefully under the trees and into the shadows. Behind him he could hear the distant cracking of branches as the mastodon pushed through the forest. Ahead of him there was the snap of a breaking twig; he froze.
Something was moving in the shadows. A dark figure, a familiar form, too familiar…
A Yilanè — armed!
Should he try to reach his bow? No, the movement would be seen. She was coming closer, stepping into the sunlight.
Kerrick stood and cried out.
“Greetings, mighty hunter!”
The Yilanè spun about, staggered back, mouth gaping with fear, struggling to point the hèsotsan.
“Since when do males kill males, Nadaske?” Kerrick asked.
Nadaske stumbled back and sat down heavily on his tail, signing fright and death-approaching.
“Oh ustuzou who talks, you have brought me to the edge of death!”
“But not over the brink as I can see. You are alive and I am happy to see that. What of Imehei?”
“He is like me — strong and alert, and of course a mighty hunter…”
“And a fat one too?”
Nadaske made motions of rejection and anger. “If I look fat to you now it is just because of our prowess in the forest. When all the good meat was gone we grew lean before mastering the craft of the hunt and of the fishing. Now we excel — there is something horrible coming!”
He raised his hèsotsan, then turned to flee. Kerrick called out to stop him.
“Dispose-of-fear, entertain-joy. My comrades come with a great beast of burden. Do not flee — but do go to Imehei now and tell him what is happening so he does not shoot us for our meat.”
Nadaske signed agreement as he waddled quickly off down the track. There was more cracking as tree limbs broke and the mastodon pushed up beside him.
“We are very close,” he called out to Armun. “I have just talked to one of the murgu I told you about. Come ahead, all of you, and do not be afraid. They will not hurt you. They are — my friends.”
It sounded strange when he said it like that, in Marbak, but it was the closest word that he could think of for the concept of efenselè. Family, that would be a better word, but he did not think that Armun would take to that very kindly. Or even saying that the murgu were part of this sammad. He hurried ahead, anxious to see and speak with the two males again.