Some of the Skarmer began moving upslope. Seen through lenses, the motion was magnified, menacing. Irv scuttled backward even while the rational part of his mind insisted he was in no danger. That did not stop his retreat. It did make him keep the binoculars trained as he backed away.

The tight knot of Minervans he had been watching broke up in the advance. He saw what they had been gathered around:

Frank Marquard’s crumpled corpse. The sight came as no surprise, but it was like a kick in the belly all the same.

Irv scrambled onto his bike and raced back toward Athena.

Ternat wished Dordal had been budded as a mate, so he-no, she, he would have been; this was almost as complicated as remembering half the humans were mates-could have died young, while budding six offspring as idiotic as himself. Reatur’s eldest refused to perform the mental gymnastics he knew he needed to make the last arm of that sentence point in the same direction as the rest.

“Is this still our domain, eldest, or is it Dordal’s?” one of the males with him asked.

Ternat considered. He had come this way earlier in the year, trying to convince Dordal that the Skarmer threat was real! All he had succeeded in doing was convincing Dordal that Reatur thought it was real, and so could be raided with impunity. “Still ours, Phelig,” he answered, hoping he would make a better warleader than he had an envoy.

The male’s eyestalks drooped in disappointment. “Then we have to leave that fence alone?”

“I’m afraid so.” Ternat had had an eye or three on the enclosure, too, until he decided where they were. “Don’t worry. It won’t be long.”

That proved even truer than he had expected. The sun was falling west through clouds toward Ervis Gorge when the war band came upon a pen that had been thrown down. Snow had fallen since then, to cover any tracks, but Ternat still caught the rancid stink of massi voidings. He did not have to see to follow the trail. It led north. “Anything’ from here on, we can take back with us. Either Dordal’s males stole it from us, or we’ll steal it from them,” Ternat shouted. His comrades cheered.

No formal post marked the border between Reatur’s domain and Dordal’s. On either side of the border that was not marked, though, males knew who their clanfather was. The ones on Dordal’s side knew to run away when a large band of strangers came up from the south.

The scent trail grew stronger. Ternat began to wonder if he and his males were walking into a trap. He doubted whether Dordal had the wit to set one, but one of the northern domain master’s bright young males-say, a male much like Ternat- might.

Sure enough, not long after the idea crossed Ternat’s mind, a male pointed casually toward a large boulder off to the side of the path. Just as casually, Reatur’s eldest turned an eyestalk in that direction. Someone was peeking out at them.

“Let’s go on a little ways and then rush back,” Ternat said after a moment’s thought. “That way we’ll stand between the spy and his friends, so he won’t be able to run to them.”

As if unaware, the males ambled past the boulder. Ternat swung an arm down. Shrieking, brandishing their spears, the raiding party reversed themselves and ran to catch the male who had been watching them.

“Take him alive!” Ternat yelled. “We need answers.”

Had the spying male fled, he would not have got far, not with nine eighteens of warriors after him. But he did not flee. Indeed, Ternat wondered if he could flee. Even after he widened himself in submission, he was one of the thinnest males Reatur’s eldest had ever seen, and one of the filthiest as well.

He was not blue with fear under his dirt, though, and Ternat understood why a moment later, when he cried out, “Hurrah! You’ve come to get the beasts back!”

Anticlimax, Ternat thought. Having been all keyed up to fight or pursue, here he was, greeted as a savior. Lowering his spears-surely there could be no harm in one starveling male- he said,” ‘Back’? You’re one of Reatur’s herders?”

“That I am-Elanti the massiherder, at your service. I’m glad you fellows came at last. I was getting right hungry, skulking around here so’s I could keep one eyestalk on the animals.”

“I believe that,” Ternat said. “Phelig, give him something to eat.” While Elanti fed with every sign of ecstasy, Ternat quietly asked the warriors, “Does anyone know if he’s truly ours?”

Eyestalks writhed as the males stared at Elanti and at one another. A male named Ollect, whom Fralk knew to be from the northern part of the domain, said, “He’s ours, eldest. He’s been herding massi up here near the border for a long time.” A couple of other males spoke up in agreement.

Elanti stopped gobbling for a moment and said reproachfully, “Eldest, eh? Reatur’d know who I was without asking.”

That, Ternat thought, was probably true. “The domain master knows all sorts of things I must learn one day,” he answered.

“Hmm. Not stuck up about it, anyway.” Elanti popped yet another chunk of dried meat into his mouth. When it was gone, he said, “Dordal’s thieves have my massi, well, suppose you’d say Reatur’s massi, but I’m the one herds ‘em-in a little valley not far from here, along with some herds of their own. They’ve also got males posted on both sides of the trail there, so’s they can jump on anybody coming straight up to take them home again.”

“Sounds like the cursed robbers,” Ternat said, forgetting he had been thinking it would take someone much like him to set an ambush.

“There’s more,” Elanti said. “I’ve had a lot of eyestalks on the land hereabouts lately, and a bit before then, too.” Ternat suspected he meant he had done some smuggling over the border; he turned all his eyes away from Elanti for a moment to show he did not care. The herder sounded relieved as he went on, “Happens I know a way that gets you round the far side of one of those bands. You hit ‘em from a direction they’re not expecting, nip in and grab the beasts, then deal with the other band-”

“Yes,” Ternat said slowly, liking the scheme. “If you’re right, Elanti, the clanfather will make you rich for this.” And if you’re wrong, he did not add, you’ll never betray anyone else again. The herder ought to be able to figure that out for himself.

Evidently he could. “Don’t much care about being rich,” he answered. “Getting my massi back, that’s the important thing, them and maybe a few of Dordal’s better ones to pay me back for the trouble I’ve had. Maybe even more than a few.”

“You’ll get them,” Ternat promised, carefully not wiggling his eyestalks at the greed in Elanti’s voice. After all this was over, he told himself, detailing someone to watch the herder for a while would be a good idea. Elanti might have more stashed away somewhere than Reatur did under the clan castle.

But all that was for later. Now he and the war band followed Elanti away from the plain, inviting trail of the massi toward the other path the herder said he had found.

Lamra looked down at herself, all around. Half the time, she thought the six big bulges that almost hid her feet looked ridiculous. The other half of the time, she hardly noticed them. They had been part of her so long that she was used to them.

She tried to remember what she had looked like before the budlings began to grow. Like any other mate, she supposed. It was hard to believe that. When she stopped peering at herself, she could see several nearby. It was even harder to imagine she would ever look so straight-up-and-down again. The humans kept saying she might, but then humans were pretty hard to imagine, too.

She had trouble playing now, she who had once been among the swiftest and most agile mates. Because she had grown so clumsy and slow, the others hardly tried to include her in their games anymore.

She wondered if the idea that she would probably not be around much longer also made them want to stay away from her. She doubted it. Few mates could think far enough ahead to conceive of death as anything but a word. She had trouble doing so herself. She was not aware of a time when she had not been, so would she not always be?