When the first outriders appeared he passed the word back to wake the sleepers. Soon the valley rumbled with the heavy tread of the uruktop. Yilanè on tarakast rode out ahead of the main group, leading the way. They moved up the hill and past the unseen Tanu, and had reached the crest before the slower uruktop had moved well into the trap.
On the command the firing began.
The slaughter was terrible, far worse than that of the day before. The hunters fired and fired and screamed with joy as they did. The Yilanè above them were brought down, the corpses of their towering mounts falling and slithering into the deadly chaos below. The uruktop died. The fargi riding them died. Those that tried to escape were shot down. The front ranks of the attackers were destroyed and the enemy fell back to regroup. The hunters pursued them, sheltering among the fallen, using the weapons of the dead against the living.
Only when the warning was called out by the sentinel on the ridge did they retreat, running up the valley well out of range of the enemy weapons. They followed the ruts made by the travois, going higher, ever higher, into the hills.
Twice more they ambushed the murgu. Twice more trapped them, killed them, disarmed them. And fled. The sun was dropping towards the horizon then as they stumbled up the trail.
“We cannot go on much longer like this,” Kerrick said, swaying with exhaustion and pain.
“We must. We have no other choice,” Herilak told him grimly, putting one foot steadily in front of the other. Even his great strength was feeling the strain. He could go on, but he knew that soon some of the others might not be able to. The wind was cold against his face. He slipped, steadied himself, and looked down.
Herilak’s victorious shout cut through the fatigue that gripped and numbed Kerrick. He looked up, blinking, then his gaze followed the pointing finger towards the ground.
The track was muddy, churned, and there was a massive mound of mastodon dung heaped upon the deep footprints. He could not understand what Herilak was shouting about. But there were white flecks in the mud and more white on the ground around.
Snow.
It stretched up the hillside before them. Cut with the muddy track the sammads had made. Snow. Kerrick ran, stumbled, to a snowbank beside the track, dug out handfuls of cold white snow and threw them into the air while the others laughed and shouted.
On the top of the ridge they paused, knee deep in the drifts. Looking down at the first of the Yilanè outriders. They reined back their mounts when they reached the sloping field of white.
Behind them the horde of attackers stopped as well. They milled about as the mounted Yilanè joined, conferred, separated again.
They moved then. Not forward, but back down the slope. Slowly and steadily until they had vanished from sight.
* * *
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The ice that had covered the river had broken, had piled up in jams, until these in turn had been carried away in great floes that had been washed down to the sea. Though spring had arrived there was still ice rimed along the shore in shielded places, snow drifted into the hollows of the banks. But in the meadow, where the river made a wide loop, a small herd of deer were already grazing the thin blades of new yellow-green grass. They looked up, ears twitching, sniffing the air. Something disturbed them for they made off among the trees in long, graceful bounds.
Herilak stood in the shadow of the tall evergreen, smelling the pungency of its needles, looking out at the campsite that they had left in the autumn. The grip of winter was broken; spring was earlier this year than it had been for a long time. Perhaps the ice-winters were over. Perhaps. There was the creak of leather bindings behind him in the forest, the quick trumpet of a mastodon. The beasts knew the landscape, they could tell where they were; journey’s end.
The hunters came silently from the trees, Kerrick among them. They could stop moving now, make camp here at this familiar place, build brushwood shelters. Stay in one place for awhile. With winter just ended, they could put off thinking about the next winter for some time yet. Kerrick looked up at the white bird passing high overhead. Just another bird.