Return to Eden

the pleasures of the trail. They had been walking for some days, to the count of more than half the count of a hunter, when Hanath found the signs of others along the trail they were following.
    "See—here and here, they have bent the twigs as a sign for those who came after them. And that could be a track."
    "An animal track," Kerrick said.
    "That too, but Tanu have come this way as well." Morgil was down on all fours and sniffing at the ground. "They have, they must have gone there by the water."
    The trail here skirted a vast bay, then crossed a river. Instead of staying with the rutted track they went along the river until Morgil smelled the air.
    "Smoke!" he shouted. "There are Tanu here."
    It was dusk before they came to the other sammads, the same ones that had been left behind when Herilak and his sammad had gone south. They called out and the hunters came running, the sammadar Har-Havola in the lead.
    "We searched, never found you," he said.
    "You did not go far enough south," Kerrick said.
    "We are far enough south here. There is no snow in the winter, the hunting and fishing are good."
    "And your death-sticks—they live?"
    "Of course. One was stepped on and died. The others are as they always were."
    "Then we have much to tell you. Our death-sticks died, but we now have others."
    Har-Havola was distressed. "You must speak to us of this. Come, we will eat, there will be a feast. There are many good things to eat here and you will try them all.'
    They stayed one day, then another with the sammads, until on the third day it was decided that they must leave. "The trail is long," Kerrick said. "And we must go to the north and return as well."
    "When next we hunt we will go to the south," Har-Havola said. "We will find your sammads on the island you have spoken of, tell them we have seen you. But we will keep our death-sticks from theirs as you have warned. May your journey be short, may you return in safety."
    They went on through the heat of summer. Yet the fall of the year was coming closer every day, and every day they were that much further north. It was cool before dawn now, the dew lay thick upon their sleeping skins. When the deep ruts of the track they were following led to the shore, the ocean lay before them, slate gray under a gray sky. They sniffed the salt spray blowing in from the breaking waves and Armun laughed out loud.
    "It is cold and damp—but I like it."
    Hanath shouted with pleasure and hurled his spear in a high arc, far down the beach where it stuck upright in the sand. He dropped his pack and ran to get it, Morgil shouting and running after him. They came back, panting and happy.
    "I'm glad we made this journey," Kerrick said. "Even if the Paramutan aren't there, it was still worth coming."
    "They will be there. Did not Kalaleq say they would return, that no ocean was too wide to stop him?
    "Yes—and he also said if he had no boat he would swim the ocean. The Paramutan are great braggarts."
    "I hope that they come."
    They followed the beach towards the north, building their fire that night in the lee of the sand dunes. The rain that began to fall after dark was cool and the fog that rolled in from the sea was damper and even cooler. Autumn was not too far away.
    In the morning Kerrick stirred the fire and put the last of the wood upon it. The salt-encrusted driftwood crackled and burnt fiercely with yellow and blue flames. Armun spread their skins before it to dry. The two hunters still lay wrapped in theirs, reluctant to emerge. Kerrick poked them with the butt of his spear and elicited only groans.
    "Up!" he called out. "We need some more wood for the fire. Beasts of great laziness—emerge!"
    "You had better get it yourself. Armun said.
    He nodded agreement and pulled the wet madraps onto his feet, then trudged to the top of the dune. The rain had stopped and the fog was burning off, clear rays of sunlight touched color from the sea. There was fresh seaweed, shells and other debris at the high tide mark. Any wood there would be too wet. But there was an entire dead tree further along the beach. He would break some branches from that. Kerrick sniffed the sea air and looked out beyond the breakers and spray. Something dark rode up on a wave, then was gone. He dropped to the sand—was it an uruketo? What were Yilanè doing this far to the north? He shielded his eyes and tried to find it again among the whitecapped waves.
    There it was—but not an uruketo at all.
    "A sail!" he