“It is time to leave,” Kerrick said. “Perhaps the birds are returning to the swamp and you can shoot one.”

“Shortness of visit/shortness of life,” Nadaske said in a gloomy attempt to keep them longer.

“Soon again — with fresh meat, Kerrick said, turning away. He took up the hèsotsan, brushed a few grains of sand from it.

Stopped suddenly, very still.

“You see something I do not see,” Nadaske said, reading alarm into the curve of his body.

“I see nothing. Just some sand on this stupid hèsotsan.” He brushed at it with his fingers, then brushed it again.

The small gray patch would not come off.

Kerrick did not want to speak of what he had seen, as though in keeping silent the spot would vanish, might have never existed. Arnwheet approved of his silence as he stalked ahead. He shot his arrow at a basking lizard, came very close as it scuttled away into the grass. Then he sat in the bow of the boat all the way back, trailing his fingers in the water. Kerrick started to warn him with sudden memory of doing the same thing when he was a boy, the horror of the marag surging up from the sea. But that had happened a long time ago: there was nothing to fear from these shallow inland waters. They beached the boat, turned it over and Arnwheet ran ahead to the tent. Kerrick looked again at the hèsotsan. The spot was still there.

There was silence around their fire. Armun knew where they had gone and her disapproval was obvious in her every movement. This one time Kerrick did not attempt to talk to her, to make her forget their visit to the island: he was just as silent as she. Arnwheet, tired from the day, was asleep even before the first stars appeared. Kerrick kicked sand over the smoldering fire then went to the stream to wash his hands and arms. He rubbed them thoroughly, then did it all a second time. Though if he had brought the disease to the hèsotsan it was far too late for this. He shook them dry and went down the path to Herilak’s tent.

When he came into the clearing he saw that Merrith had moved her tent until it was just beside that of the sammadar. Darras sat now in the open flap of the tent holding a doll woven of straw. She was still a silent little girl, but she did smile at him even though she did not speak. The flap of Herilak’s tent was closed and he heard laughter from inside. He was going to call out when he realized that it was woman’s laughter. He had not known about this before. It was a good thing. He sat down on the fur beside Darras.

“I never saw that doll before.”

“My grandmother made it. I watched her do it. Isn’t she nice? Her name is Melde. That was my mother’s name too.”

“It is a very nice doll.”

He added some dry branches to the fire and stirred it until the wood crackled and the flames grew higher. The flaps of the other tent were opened and Merrith came over and sat next to him.

“Darras was telling me about her new doll. She is very happy with it.”

Merrith smiled and nodded agreement. “She is not the only one who is filled with pleasure.”

Herilak called out greetings and Kerrick went to join him. They sat in darkness before the tent looking at the woman and the little girl in the flickering firelight. Herilak seemed as happy as Merrith was. Kerrick was reluctant to spoil all this; Herilak had been grim and unsmiling for far too long. They talked of hunting, the other sammads, and of the Sasku valley. They did this until Merrith took the girl into the tent and the flap was closed.

“It may be very hot here in the summer, Herilak said. “But it is never cold in the winter. This island is a very good place for the sammads.”

“Will we ever go back to the mountains? That was what old Fraken talked of when dying.”

“Old Fraken was an old fool. I have heard you say that many times. There is still the winter that does not stop to the north.”

“I think that my death-stick has the sickness.”

Herilak was very still for a long time. When he finally spoke the grim unhappiness was back in his voice.

“It had to happen some day. We all knew that it would. This time we must get new death-sticks before the old ones die, keep them apart.”

“You mean go to the city again? Steal more of them? Kill more murgu?”

“Can you think of any different thing to do?”

Kerrick had no quick answer for this. He sat in silence, his hands clasped before him, wringing his fingers together so hard that his knuckles cracked. The moon rose above the trees and drenched the clearing with cool light. An owl drifted silently above their heads: a night creature called distantly in the forest.

“No,” Kerrick said with great reluctance. “I can think of nothing else. We know now where the death-sticks are. But if we are seen again…”

“You need not go this time. I know where the pit is now.”

“I am not afraid of going there!”

“I did not say that you were. I meant only that others can take the risk. You have done your part, and more, many times over.”

“That is also not important. What I fear most is our dependency on the murgu and the city. We will go now because we must, then one day we will have to go again. But one time when we go it will happen. Once when we are in the city we will be seen by the murgu. And what then?”

“You worry too much. Life is to be taken one day at a time.”

“That is no longer true. When we lived in the mountains and followed the deer you could say that. No longer. We are in a trap and there is no way out.”

“We will be a bigger hunting party this time. We will bring back many death-sticks.”

“No. Impossible. The risk is too great. Two hunters at most. And we will leave our own death-sticks behind here. Then, when we are distant from the sammads, we must wash ourselves and the skins we wear, many times. If there is a sickness it must not spread to the death-sticks we bring back.

“I do not understand your talk of washing and sickness.”

“Neither do I,” Kerrick said with a twisted smile. “But I was told about it by one who knew. This was before we met and I had been very sick…”

“Then it was a marag who told you this?”

“Yes. And after the attack on the city, then the valley where they grew special plants just to kill us, you can see clearly how much they know of living things. This marag of great knowledge told me that disease, infections, are spread by small living things.”

“I have seen grubs in wounds.”

“Living creatures even smaller than that, so small that you cannot see them. I know it is hard to believe, but I am just telling you what I was told. So perhaps what is killing the death-sticks passes from one to the other. I don’t know. But if we can stop it by washing ourselves then we must do it.

“Surely we must. And any hunter would smell better for a good washing. It will be you and I then. We will go.”

“No,” Kerrick said with sudden firmness. “You are a sammadar and I cannot tell you what to do. I will take one who will obey me, who will do as I order. We will go in silence and avoid the murgu. Avoid killing if we see any of them. If you were there, and that should happen, would you obey an order not to kill?”

“I would not. You speak the truth in that. But who would you take? Your sammad is small, the boy Harl the only hunter you have.”

“He is skilled and silent in the forest. He will go with me. That is the way it must be.”

“You are making a mistake—”

‘I might be — but it is my mistake.”

Herilak frowned angrily but could think of nothing more to say. The decision had been made. “When do you leave?”

“Very soon. This time we must go there and get the death-sticks, bring them back before the others that we have here die. They must be ready for us when we need them.”

There was little to add after this and they parted in silence.