Herilak’s gaze was just as unswerving. He did not move nor point his spear, but in his silence he communicated an unspoken message. They would go their way, he would go his. If he were attacked he would kill; the longtooth knew what spears could do. The yellow eyes watched steadily and the creature must have understood because it turned suddenly and went back down the hill. Now it would feed, and the others made way for it. But before it sank its muzzle into the warm flesh it glanced back up the hill. Nothing waited under the trees. The spear-animal was gone. It lowered its head and ate.
A blizzard trapped Herilak inside his furs for two whole days. He slept most of the time, trying not to eat too much of his dwindling store of food. But it was eat or die from the cold. When the storm finally lifted he went on. Later that same day he had the good fortune to find the recent tracks of a rabbit. He pushed his spear under the strap across his back and notched an arrow into his bow. That night he feasted on fresh meat by his fire. Ate his fill and more again, staying up late, nodding half asleep as he roasted the remainder over the blaze.
There was less snow on the ground this far south, but the midwinter frost was just as hard. The frozen grass of the riverbank crackled underfoot. He paused when he heard something, cupped his ear and listened closely. Yes, the distant whisper was there. The sound of surf, waves beating upon a beach. The sea.
The grass did not crackle now as he went forward, spear ready, eyes that saw everything. Ready to face any danger.
But the danger had long since gone. Under a gray winter sky he came upon the meadow with the bones of the mastodons resting there. A cold wind, cold as death, sighed through the high-arched ribs. The carrion scavengers had done their work, then the crows and sea birds had followed and feasted well. It was there, just beyond the mastodons, that he found the first of the Tanu skeletons. His jaw clenched hard, his eyes narrowed to slits as he realized that more and more skeletons littered the river bank. It was a slaughtering yard, a place of death.
What had happened here? Dead, all dead, an entire sammad, that was clear from the beginning. Skeletons of adults and children lay where they had dropped. But what had killed them? What enemy had fallen upon them and had butchered them? Another sammad? Impossible, for they would have taken weapons and tents, would have driven off the mastodons, not just killed them along with their owners. The tents were still there, most of them wrapped and loaded onto the travois that lay beside the mastodons’ skeletons. This sammad had broken its summer camp, had been leaving when death had sprung upon them. Herilak searched further, and it was in among the bones of the largest skeleton that he saw a glint of metal. He lifted the bones aside with respect and took up the red-rusted form of a skymetal knife. He brushed away the rust and looked at the patterns on the metal, patterns that he knew so well. His spear fell to the frozen ground as he held the knife with both hands, thrust it up into the sky and howled with grief. Tears filled his eyes as he bellowed aloud his pain and anger.
Amahast, dead. The husband of his sister, dead. Their children, the women, the tall hunters. Dead, all of them, dead. The sammad of Amahast was no more.
Herilak shook the tears from his eyes, growling with rage as hot anger burned away the sorrow. Now he must find the killers. Bent low he traced his way backwards and forwards, searching for what he did not know. But searching carefully and closely as only a hunter can. Darkness stopped him and he lay down for the night beside the bones of Amahast and searched for Amahast’s tharm among the stars. He would be there, that was certain, one of the brighter stars.