“I have heard of how long and hard the path was, Sorli. You and your hunters must surely be tired and in need of rest.”

Sorli waved a negligent hand. “The hunter who cannot walk the trail is no hunter.”

“It pleases me to hear that. Then the great hunter Sorli is not too tired to talk with Armun.”

Sorli narrowed his eyes as he looked at her, feeling that he was somehow being trapped. “I am not tired.”

“That is good, because my tent is far distant in the snow and there is something there that I must show you.”

Sorli looked around for aid, but there was none. The pine was being lit again and none of the other hunters were looking his way. “All right, to your tent, but the day is late and there are things to be done.”

“You are very kind to a woman alone.” She did not speak again until they had reached their destination and had entered the tent. She secured the flaps behind him, then she turned about and pointed to the sleeping infant. “That is what I wanted you to see.”

“The baby… ?”

“Kerrick’s son. Why did he not return with the rest of you to his son, his tent, return to me? Herilak will not speak of it and turns away. Now you will speak of it.”

Sorli looked about, but there was no escape. He sighed. “Give me water to drink, woman, and I will tell you. There is bad feeling now between Kerrick and Herilak.”

“Here, drink this. I know that — but you must tell me why.”

Sorli wiped his lips on the back of his sleeve. “The reasons why are hidden from me. I will tell you what happened. We burned the place of the murgu, and the murgu who did not die in the fire died also, I do not know why. They are murgu and therefore incomprehensible. Some escaped on a thing-that-swam. Kerrick talked with a murgu, would not let Herilak kill it. He let it escape. Then other murgu were found alive and these too Kerrick would not allow to be killed. Herilak was great in his anger at this and would not remain in that place and wished to leave at once. The road back was long, we knew that, so the decision was made to leave.”

“But Kerrick remained behind. Why? What did he say?”

“He talked with Herilak, I did not listen, it is hard to remember.” Sorli shifted uneasily on the furs and gulped down more water. Armun’s eyes sparkled in the firelight, her temper barely under control.

“You must do better than that, brave Sorli, bold Sorli. You are strong enough to tell me what happened that day.”

“My tongue speaks truth, Armun. Kerrick spoke of things that must be done in that place. I understood little. The Sasku seemed to understand, they remained when we left. We all returned with Herilak. We had done what we had come to do. The trail back was long…”

Armun sat with head lowered for a moment, then rose and unlaced the entrances. “My thanks to Sorli for telling me of these things.”

He hesitated, but she remained in silence. There was nothing he could add. He hurried out into the growing darkness, glad to be free. Armun sealed the tent again, added wood to the fire and sat beside it.

Her face was grim with anger. How easily these brave hunters had turned their backs on Kerrick. They followed him in battle — then left him. If the Sasku had remained with him he must have asked the hunters to stay as well. And there must be something important in the murgu city, something so important that it had come between the two leaders. She would find out about it in good time. The winter would be over and in the spring Kerrick would return. That is what would happen in the spring.

Armun kept herself occupied so that the winter would go faster, so she would not miss Kerrick too much. Arnwheet was now in his second year and unhappy at the confines of the tent. Armun had cured and scraped the softest deerskins, shaped them, then sewn them into clothing for him with thin lengths of gut. While the other babies his age were still being carried on their mothers’ backs he played and rolled in the snow. As was the custom, the other babies were being nursed until they were four, even five years old. Arnwheet was almost weaned by his second year. Armun ignored the dark looks and shouted remarks of the women: she was well used to being an outcast. She knew that they were just jealous of her freedom and nursed only to prevent more pregnancies.

So while their babies dangled out of their carriers and gummed their knuckles, Arnwheet grew strong and straight and chewed the tough meat with his growing teeth.

On a sunny, cold day, with no hint of spring in the air, she walked away from the tents with little Arnwheet trotting to keep pace. She carried a spear always now when away from the sammads — and was suddenly glad that she had it with her. There was something up ahead, in among the trees, making a mewling sound. She pointed the spear and stood ready. Arnwheet clung to her leg in wide-eyed silence as she tried to make out what it was. It was then that she saw the footprints leading from the trail, human footprints. She lowered the spear and followed them, then pushed aside the snowy boughs that shielded the boy. He turned about; his snuffling died away as he scrubbed at his face that was streaked with tears and blood.

“I know you,” Armun said, reached down with her sleeve to wipe his cheeks. “You are from Herilak’s sammad. Your name is Harl?” The boy nodded, eyes brimming. “Did you not come to my fire one night with the story of the owl you had killed?”

When she said this he began wailing again, burying his head in his arms. Armun lifted him with kind hands and brushed the snow from his skins. “Come to my tent. You will have something warm to drink.”

The boy pulled back, reluctant to go, until Arnwheet trustingly took his hand. They went back to the tent this way, each holding one of Arnwheet’s hands. There Armun stirred sweet bark into warm water and gave it to Harl to drink. Arnwheet wanted some too, but spluttered over the strong flavor and let it dribble down his chin. After Armun had cleaned the blood from the boy’s face she sat back and pointed at the bruises. “Tell me about these,” she said.

She listened in silence, Arnwheet falling asleep on her lap, and soon understood why the boy had cried when she had mentioned the owl.

“I did not know it was an owl. It was my first bow, my first arrow, my uncle, Nadris, he helped me to make it. The sammadar Kerrick said I did a good thing, for the creature that I killed was not a real owl but a murgu owl and it was right to kill it. That was then, but now the alladjex has said that it was wrong. That killing an owl is wrong. He has told my father that and now my father beats me and won’t let me sit by the fire when it is cold.”

The boy sobbed again at the thought. Armun reached carefully for the ekkotaz so she would not wake the sleeping infant, then gave Harl a handful of the sweet berry and nut paste. He wolfed it down hungrily.

“What you did was correct,” she said. “Old Fraken is wrong about this. The margalus Kerrick knows about murgu, knew that this was a murgu owl, knew that you did the right thing in killing it. Now go back to your tent, tell your father what I have said. What you did was a good thing.”

The wind was strengthening so she laced the tent flaps tight after the boy had gone. Old Fraken was wrong more often than right. Since her parents had died, since she had been alone, she had thought less and less of Fraken and his warnings and predictions from owl pellets. Kerrick had laughed at Fraken and his owl vomitings and had helped her lose her fear of the old man. He was stupid and foolish and caused trouble, like this thing with the boy.

Later that same night she awoke, her heart hammering with terror at a scratching on the outside of the tent. She groped for the spear in the darkness until she heard the voice calling her name. Then she blew on the fire until the coals glowed, added fresh wood and unlaced the flap. Harl pushed his bow and arrows in before him then crawled after them.