“No. Well, yes and no. It is softened in some way. You get used to it.”
“Why don’t they roast it properly?”
“Because…” Kerrick stopped in his tracks at the thought. “Because they don’t make fires. I never realized that before. I guess they don’t need fires because where they live it is always warm. Sometimes at night when it is cool, or on wet days, we wrap—there is no word for it—warm things around us.”
“Skins? Fur robes?”
“No. Living creatures that are warm.”
“Sounds disgusting. The more I hear about your murgu the more I detest them. I don’t know how you could bear living with creatures like that.”
“I had little choice,” Kerrick said grimly, then walked on in silence.
Herilak joined them soon after they had reached their stopping place for the night.
“The trail behind is empty. They have turned back.”
“Cooked meat!” Ortnar said, smacking his lips together. “But I wish we had brought the fire with us.”
These words touched a memory that Kerrick had long forgotten. “I used to do that,” he said. “Keep the fire in the bow of the boat.”
“That is a boy’s work,” Herilak said. “As a hunter you must make your own fire. Do you know how to do it?”
Kerrick hesitated. “I remember seeing it done. But I have forgotten. It was so long ago.”
“Then watch. You are Tanu now and must know these things if you are to be a hunter.”
It was a slow process. Herilak broke a branch from a long-dead and dried tree, then carefully cut and rounded a length of stick from it. While he did this, Ortnar searched deeper in the forest and returned with a handful of dry and moldy wood. He shredded and pounded this into a fine powder. When Herilak had finished the stick to his satisfaction he scraped another length of the wood flat, then drilled a shallow hole in it with his spearpoint.
When the preparations were done Herilak took Ortnar’s bow and wrapped the bowstring about the carefully fashioned stick. He sat on the ground, held the length of wood steady with his feet, then placed the pointed tip of the stick into the hole in the wood and began to draw the bow back and forth to make it spin. Ortnar pushed some of the powdered wood into the hole while Herilak spun the stick as fast he could. A tiny thread of smoke twisted up, then died away. Herilak gasped with the effort and sat back.
The next time he spun the stick the wisp of smoke became a tiny spark of flame. They dropped more wood-dust upon it, blew carefully, cupped it between their hands as the flame grew, laughing with pleasure. They built the fire high, adding more and more wood, then let it die back to a bed of glowing coals. Soon the meat was roasting in the coals and Kerrick breathed in the cooking odors that he had completely forgotten.
They burnt their fingers on the hot meat, hacked off great pieces, ate and ate until their faces ran with grease and sweat. Rested, then ate some more. Kerrick could not remember having eaten anything so good in his entire life.
That night they slept with their feet to the banked fire, warm and content, their stomachs full.
Kerrick woke during the night when Herilak got up to put more wood on the fire. The stars were bright points of light in the black sky, the star-group of the Hunter just above the horizon in the east. For the first time since their escape Kerrick was at peace, feeling the security of the hunters on both sides of him. They had not been followed. They were safe from the Yilanè.
Safe from the Yilanè? Would that ever be possible? He knew as these hunters did not how ruthless their enemy was. How strong. The raptors would fly and find every Tanu in every valley and meadow; nowhere could they be safe. The armed fargi would attack again and again until all the Tanu were dead. There was no possible escape. Nor could he sink back again into the blank escape of sleep.