Behind them the lights faded, died away, and darkness returned. The Yilanè had learned after the massacre on the beaches. They would not be attacked at night again.
When Kerrick and Herilak reached the sammads the darts and hèsotsan that had been retrieved from the battle had been loaded onto the travois; the retreat began once again. Herilak spoke to the sammadars as they walked.
Four hunters had not returned from the battle in the forest.
They went slowly, far too slowly to escape the attack that would surely come in the morning. They were all weary after two nights of traveling with little sleep. The mastodons screamed in protest when they were goaded on. Yet still the sammads stumbled forward, for they had very little choice. If they stayed, they died.
The ground was rough, rocky, and uphill most of the way. Their progress became slower and slower and well before dawn it ground to a halt. Sorli brought the message to Herilak.
“It is the beasts. They will not go on, even when we push spears into them.”
“Then we stop here,” Herilak said with great weariness. “Rest and sleep. We will go on again at sunrise to the next position.”
A chill wind came up at dawn and they shivered as they rose wearily from their sleeping furs. They were dispirited and still exhausted. Only knowledge of the sure advance of the enemy drove them forward once again. Armun walked at Kerrick’s side in silence. There was very little that could be said now. It was enough to put one foot in front of the other, to prod on the protesting mastodons.
A hunter stood beside the trail, leaning on his spear, waiting for Kerrick to come up to him.
“It is the sacripex,” he said. “It is his wish that you join him where he leads.”
With great effort, ignoring the throbbing pain in his leg, Kerrick broke into a shuffling run that took him up the column, past the travois and marching sammads. The small children were walking now, the babies being carried by the mothers and older children. Even partially relieved of their loads the mastodons still stumbled with fatigue. They would not keep going much longer.
Herilak pointed at the hills ahead when Kerrick came shuffling up to join him.
“They have found a wooded ridge up there,” he said. “Very much like the one we stopped them in yesterday.”
“Not… good enough,” Kerrick gasped, fighting to catch his breath. “There are too many of the enemy. They will get around us again, push us back.”
“They may have learned their lesson. Even murgu aren’t stupid. They will hold back. They know they will be killed if they attack.”
Kerrick shook his head in an unhappy no. “Tanu might do that. They might see others die, be afraid for themselves. But not the murgu. I know them, know them too well. The Yilanè who are riding the large beasts, they will stay to the rear all right. They will be safe. But they will order the fargi to attack just as they did before.”
“What if they refuse?”
“They can’t. It is impossible for them. If they understand a command they must obey it. That is the way it is. They will attack.”
“Murgu,” Herilak said, and his lips curled back from his teeth with distaste as he said it. “Then what are we to do?”
“What else can we do but keep going?” Kerrick asked helplessly, his mouth gasping open, his skin ashen with fatigue. “If we stop here in the open we will be slaughtered. We must go on. Find some hill that we can defend, perhaps.”
“A hill can be surrounded. Then we will surely die.”
The track they were following rose sharply. They needed all their breath now to scramble up it. When they reached the ridge above they were forced to stop. Kerrick was bent double, racked with cramps. Behind them the slow procession toiled up the slope. Kerrick straightened up, gasping, and looked ahead, up the rise, they must climb to the hills beyond. Then stopped motionless, mouth gaping, eyes wide.
“Herilak,” he shouted. “Look there, up ahead, up on those higher hills. Do you see that?”
Herilak shielded his eyes and looked, then shrugged and turned away. “Snow. Winter still holds fast up there.”
“Don’t you understand? These murgu can’t stand cold. Those creatures that they are riding on won’t walk in the snow. They can’t follow us up there!”
Herilak raised his eyes again — but this time there was the light of hope in them. “The snow is not that far away. We can reach it today — if we keep moving.” He called out to the hunters who were leading the way, waved them back, issued new instructions. Then sat down with a satisfied grunt.
“The sammads go on. But some of us must wait behind and slow down those murgu who follow after us.”
There was hope now, and a new chance for existence heartened the sammads. Even the mastodons sensed the excitement, raised their trunks, and bellowed. The hunters watched the column turn, start up the rise to the high hills, then they moved out after them.
Now they would hunt the murgu the way they hunted any deadly animal. The sammads were well out of sight when Herilak stopped the hunters at the top of the valley. Littered about among the scree here were large boulders.
“We will stop them at this place. Let them get in among us. Then shoot, kill. Wipe out the ones that lead. Drive them back. Seize their weapons and darts. What will they do after that happens, margalus?”
“The same as they did yesterday,” Kerrick said. “They will keep contact with us along this front, while at the same time they will send fargi out to swing around the the ridge, to take us from the sides and rear.”
“That is what we wish them to do. Before the trap is closed we will pull back—”
“And set more traps for them! Do it again and again,” Sorli cried out.
“That is correct,” Herilak said, and there was no humor in his cold smile.
They sought places to hide behind the boulders, along both sides of the valley. Many of them, including Kerrick, slept as soon as they lay down. But Herilak, the sacripex, lay unsleeping and alert, watching the track from behind two carefully placed slabs of rock that he had struggled into place.
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.