There was a loud murmur of interest then and movement among those listening as those to the back tried to get a clear view of Kerrick. They pointed out his lack of hair and the shining ring about his neck, and the skymetal knives that hung there. He stared straight ahead and said nothing. When they were silent again Kellimans spoke.
“These are days of death for the Tanu. The winter kills us, the murgu kill us, other Tanu kill us.”
“Is it not enough to be killed by the murgu? Must we fight one another?” Herilak asked.
“It is the long winter and the short summer that we must battle against,” Ulfadan said. “We came to this place because the deer are gone from the mountains. But when we tried to hunt here the bowmen of many sammads from beyond the mountains drove us away. We have little food now and in the winter we will starve.”
Herilak shook his head sadly. “That is not the way. The murgu are the enemy, not the Tanu. If we battle one another our end is certain.”
Kellimans nodded agreement as Ulfadan spoke next. “I believe as you do, Herilak, but this is not of our doing. It is the other sammads you must speak with. If it were not for them we would hunt and not starve. They come from beyond the mountains and they are many and very hungry. They push us back and we cannot hunt. They would see us die.”
Herilak dismissed his words with a chop of his hand. “No, that is wrong. They are not the cause of your woes. The hunting must be just as bad beyond the mountains or they would not have come here. The Tanu have two enemies. The winter that does not end — and the murgu. Together they are uniting to destroy us. We cannot battle against the winter. But we can kill murgu.”
Others raised their voices then and joined the argument, but were silenced when Fraken began to speak. They respected the old man’s knowledge and healing powers and hoped that he could show them some answer to their problems.
“The murgu are like the leaves and as numberless as leaves. You tell us that they have the death-sticks. How can we fight against creatures like this? And why should we? If we risk death fighting them — what do we win? It is food and not warfare that we must have.”
There was a murmur of approval when he finished speaking. Only Herilak seemed to disagree.
“It is food you must have, revenge that I will have,” he said grimly. “A way must be found to kill these murgu to the south. When they are dead there will be good hunting down the coast.”
There was much discussion and crosstalk after this, but nothing could be decided. In the end Herilak signed to Ortnar and they rose and left. Kerrick watched them go — but hesitated to follow them. His lust for revenge did not match theirs. If they did not call to him maybe he would not have to join them. He could stay here by the fire and join the talk with the other hunters. Perhaps he might even stay here with this sammad and hunt and forget the murgu.
But this was not the answer. He knew what the others here did not. He knew that the Yilanè would not forget him nor the rest of the Tanu. Their hatred ran too deep. They would send out the raptors and find every sammad and would not rest until they had all been destroyed. Ulfadan and Kellimans and their people feared only the winter and their hunger and the other Tanu — when the certain killer was just over the horizon.
No one took notice when Kerrick picked up his spear and left. He found his two companions at a fire of their own and he joined them there. Herilak poked at the fire with a stick, looking deep into it as though searching for an answer among the flames.
“We are only three,” he said. “We cannot fight the murgu alone — but we will if we have to.” He turned to Kerrick. “You know about the murgu — which we do not. Tell us of them. Tell us how they wage war.”
Kerrick rubbed his jaw in thought before he spoke. Slowly and hesitatingly. “It is not easy to talk of. You will have to know about their city first, and how they are ruled. You must understand the fargi and the Yilanè and just how they go about doing things.”
“Then you will tell us,” Herilak said.
Kerrick found it difficult at first to speak of things in Tanu that he had never thought of in that language. He had to find new words for scenes he was familiar with, new ways of describing concepts totally alien to these hunters. They questioned him over and over again about things they could not understand. In the end they had some idea of how the Yilanè society worked, although they had little idea why it did so.
Herilak stared in silence at his clenched fists where they rested on his thighs, seeking to grasp the meaning of what he heard. In the end he had to shake his head.
“I will never understand the murgu and I think that I will not try. It is enough to know what they do. The large bird flies high to watch us, then returns and tells them where a sammad is so they can attack it. Is that right?”
Kerrick started to protest — then changed his mind and nodded agreement. The details were not important as long as they had some understanding of what the Yilanè were doing. “When they know where a sammad has stopped they prepare an attack. Fargi with weapons go out on the boats. They come from the sea suddenly and kill everything as you know.”
“But you spoke of more than that,” Herilak said. “Do they not camp on the shore the night before they attack?”
“Yes, that is the way that they do it. They stop as close as they can, spend the night, then leave their food supplies behind them in order to attack at dawn on the following morning.”
“Do they always do it this way?”
“Always? I don’t know. I’ve only been with them twice. But, just a moment, that doesn’t matter. The way they think, the way they do things, they would do it the same every time. As long as something is successful they will not change it.”
“Then we must find a way of using that knowledge to destroy them in turn.”
“How will you do that?” Ortnar asked.
“I do not know yet. We must think about it and plan until we find a way. We are hunters. We know how to stalk our prey. We will find a way to stalk and kill the murgu.”
Kerrick had been silent, lost in thought, seeing the destruction of a sammad as no one else could. He had once been on the shore when the attack had come, could still feel the horror when the dark forms had appeared from the sea. But he had also been there with the attackers, traveled from Alpèasak. He had watched the preparations for the attack, had listened to the orders and knew exactly how it all had been done. Now he had to combine these two opposite points of view and find some way of turning things around.
“Turn it around,” he said aloud. Then shouted it again when they looked up at him. “Turn it around! But in order to do that we will need Ulfadan and Kellimans and their sammads. We must explain to them, make them understand and help us. Here is what we will then do. We will march south with the sammads and hunt. The hunting will be good and there will be much food. But once we go south our presence is sure to be discovered by the murgu, for they will be told about us by the great bird. But we will keep close watch and when we see the great bird we will also know what is going to happen. When we see the bird we must send out hunters to watch the beaches. Then we will know when the attack is coming and we will be ready. Instead of running we will fight and kill them.”