A scouring wind cut across the dry plains, lifting the thin sandy soil and whirling it into dark clouds. Here scarcely anything grew: it was as if the surface of the world had been cut clean by a great blade passing close across it, stripping away all topsoil and every seed.

To the right of the marchers, not far away, lay a line of low rounded hills, blue-gray and barren. To the left an endless flatland stretched away toward the horizon. There was a sharp edge to the air, and its flavor was an acrid one. Yet the day was significantly warmer than any that had preceded it. This was the third week of the march.

In the stillness of the afternoon came a strange grunting sound, a distant dull noise like none that anyone of the People had ever heard.

Staip turned to Lakkamai, who marched beside him. “Those hills are talking to us.”

Lakkamai shrugged and said nothing.

“They’re saying, Go back, go back, go back, ” said Staip.

“How can you tell that?” Lakkamai asked. “It’s just a noise.”

Harruel had noticed it too. He paused and turned, shading his eyes against the glare. After a moment he leaned forward into the wind and shook his head and laughed, and pointed to the hills.

“Mouths,” he said.

His eyes were extraordinarily keen. The other warriors shaded their eyes as he had done, but they saw only hills. “What do you mean, mouths?” Staip said.

“In front of the hills. Big peculiar animals sitting there, making that barking sound. They don’t have any bodies,” Harruel said. “Just mouths. Can’t you see?”

Koshmar by now had seen also. Coming to Harruel’s side, she said, “Look at those things. Do you think they’re dangerous?”

“They just sit there,” said Harruel. “If they don’t move from the spot they can’t hurt us, can they? But I’ll go over and check them out at closer range.” He turned. “Staip! Salaman! Come with me!”

“May I go too?” Hresh asked.

“You?” Harruel chuckled. “Yes. We’ll toss you in, and see what happens to you.”

“No,” said Hresh. “But may I come?”

“Keep back out of harm, if you do.”

They went loping across the plain toward the hills, the three warriors and Hresh, who was hard pressed to keep up with them. At close range the grunting, barking sound was oppressively loud, sending a shivering vibration through the ground, and it was clear to everyone now that Harruel was right about its origin. At the foot of the line of hills sat a row of perhaps a dozen immense blue-black hump-shaped creatures spaced equidistantly at wide intervals. They seemed to have no limbs or bodies at all, but were mere immobile giant heads with dull staring eyes. In a steady, regular rhythm they opened the vast caverns of their mouths and emitted their booming, croaking cries.

All across the plain, small animals were moving toward them as though gripped with hypnotic fervor by those dull flat sounds. One by one they strode or crawled or hopped or slithered unhesitatingly toward the great heads, and up over the rims of their dark red lower jaws, and into the black maw beyond.

“Keep back,” Harruel said sharply. “If we get too close we may be drawn in like that too.”

“I don’t feel any pull,” said Staip.

“Nor I,” said Salaman. “Just a little tickle, maybe. But — Hresh! Hresh, come back!”

The boy had edged forward until he had moved out in front of the warriors. Now he was walking out across the plain toward the heads in an odd jerky way, shoulders twitching, knees rising almost to his waist with each step. His sensing-organ was twisted around his body like a sash.

“Hresh!” Harruel yelled.

Hresh was no more than fifty paces from the nearest of the heads now, moving as if in a dream. The rhythm of the booming sounds picked up. The ground shook violently. With an angry toss of his head Harruel rushed forward and caught the boy around the middle, snatching him off the ground. Hresh stared at him with unseeing eyes.

“One of these days your curiosity will kill you,” Harruel said annoyance.

“What? What?”

“The boy’s in a daze,” Staip said. “That sound — it was sucking him right in—”

“I feel it too, now,” said Salaman. “It’s like a drum summoning us. Boom — boom — boom—”

Harruel looked back and stared in fascination and horror. Salaman was right: the sound had a kind of magnetic force, pulling in creatures from all over the plain to be devoured. Bending suddenly, Harruel snatched up a rock the size of his hand and hurled it furiously toward the gaping mouth. But it fell short by five or ten paces.

“Come,” he said, his voice loud, rasping. “Let’s get away from these things before it’s too late.”

Back toward the marchers they ran, Harruel carrying Hresh lest he be hypnotized a second time and go dashing off again to his doom. Behind them the sound of the great heads grew louder and more insistent for a time, then faded with distance.

When the men reached the tribe they found everything in chaos and confusion. A new attack of bloodbirds had commenced. The fierce white-eyed creatures had come suddenly out of the darkness to the east in a dense swarm and were whirling and shrieking above the tribe, darting down to thrust with their razor-keen beaks. Delim was struggling with one that had engulfed her entire head in its beating wings, and Thhrouk was fighting with two at once. Lakkamai, hurrying forward, pulled the bloodbird away from Delim and tore it in half. The woman crouched down, holding both hands to an eye streaming with blood. Harruel chopped the air with his spear, skewering one and then another. Koshmar cried encouragement, fighting among the others. The dull booming of the far-off mouth-creatures still could be heard, and the wild piercing cries of the bloodbirds above it.

The battle lasted ten minutes. Then the birds disappeared as quickly as they had come. Six of the tribe had been wounded, Delim the most seriously. Torlyri bandaged her eye, but she would not have the sight of it again. Harruel had sustained two deep gouges on his spear-arm. Konya too had been injured. Everyone was weary and dispirited.

And now night was coming on. The last light of the dying sun drenched the flatland in a flood of crimson.

“All right,” Koshmar said. “It’s too late to continue. We’ll pitch our camp here.”

Harruel shook his head. “Not here, Koshmar. We need to get farther away from those mouth-things. Can you hear them? The sound they make is dangerous. We’ll have people going to them in the night, walking right into their jaws like sleepwalkers, if we stay here.”

“Do you mean that?”

“We nearly lost Hresh,” Harruel said. “He was heading straight for one.”

“Yissou!” Koshmar contemplated the great heads on the horizon for a moment, frowning. Then she spat and said, “Very well. Let’s move on.”

They marched until it was too dark to go any farther. The booming of the great heads was only faintly audible here. Aching, sore of foot, blistered of soul, the People dropped down in relief in a place where a feeble stream seeped from the sand.

“It was a mistake,” Staip said quietly.

“Leaving the cocoon, you mean?” Salaman asked. “You think we should have stayed? Taken our chances against the ice-eaters?”

Harruel glowered at them. “We were right to make the Coming Forth,” he said firmly. “There is no question but that it was the right thing to do.”

“I meant coming this way,” said Staip. “Koshmar was wrong to bring us out into these miserable plains. We should have turned south, toward the sunlight.”

“Who knows?” Harruel said. “One way is as good as another.”

In the darkness there were strange sounds all night: hissings, cacklings, far-off shrillings. And always the distant throb of the giant heads, booming their song of hunger as they waited by the base of the barren hills for their helpless prey to come to them.