Winter in Eden

Herilak remained awake; the others slept.
    "They learn, the murgu learn," Herilak said with some bitterness. "In the beginning we could spear them at night, cut them down and kill them. Now we cannot reach them at night. Nor during the day. They stay Winter in Eden - Harry Harrison
    secure and do not advance until we have gone. Then they come on, slowly, but always closer."
    "How close are they now?" Sanone asked.
    "They surround us, on all sides. Not within sight, not yet, but still there, four days' march in any direction.
    The circle is not complete; they have separate armed camps, but all of them are invulnerable. If we attack one they stay inside and do not move. But while we do that the others come closer. One day they will all be here and the valley will be surrounded and that will be the end."
    "Then we must leave before it is too late, before we are trapped."
    "Go where?" Herilak's eyes were wide with mixed feelings, their whites glowing in the firelight. "Is there any place that is safe from them? You are the mandukto of the Sasku, you lead your hunters and women.
    Do you know of any place of safety to lead them to now?"
    Sanone shifted uneasily before he spoke. "Across the desert to the west. It is said that there is water, green grass on the other side."
    "Do you wish to lead your Sasku there?"
    The fire crackled and a log fell in and it was a long time before Sanone answered. "No, I do not wish to take them away from this valley. We have always lived here. It is fit and right that if we are to die that we should die here."
    "I do not wish to die—but I am tired of running. So are my sammads. I will lead them away from here if they wish to go, but I think they feel as we do. The time for running has ended. Sooner or later we must stop and take a stand against the murgu. Let it be sooner. We are all tired."
    "The water in the river is lower than it should be. This time of year the rains in the mountains fill it to the banks."
    "I will take some hunters in the morning, follow it back toward the hills. Do you think this is some murgu doing?"
    "I do not know. But I fear."
    "We all fear, mandukto. The murgu drift toward us like the snows of winter and are just as hard to stop.
    One of the women saw green vines growing down from the cliff tops. She said that she could not get close but they had the look of murgu poison vines."
    "The cliffs are high."
    Winter in Eden - Harry Harrison
    "The vines grow long. When I sleep I dream of a death song. Do you know what that means?"
    Sanone's smile was cold and grim. "You do not need a mandukto to read that dream, strong Herilak. I hear death songs too."
    Herilak looked up grimly at the stars. "When we are born we begin dying. I know my tharm will be up there one day. It is just the closeness of that day that chills me more than this wind. Is there nothing we can do?"
    "Kerrick once led us against the murgu, led in victory."
    "Do not speak his name. He has gone and left us to die. He will lead us no longer."
    "Did he leave you—or did you leave him, strong Herilak?" Sanone asked quietly.
    Herilak stirred with quick anger and started to speak in anger—but was silent. He lifted his hands and clenched them into hard fists, then opened them again. "If a hunter had asked me that, had spoken to me in that manner I would have struck him. But not you, Sanone, for you can look inside someone and know what their secret thoughts are. Since all in my sammad were destroyed I have been two people inside one skull. One of them boils with anger always, wants to kill, heeds no council, rejects all friendship. That is the Herilak who turned away from Kerrick at the time when he needed my help. But that is done. If he were here I would have words for him. But he is gone, dead in the north. Now that we are in this valley with murgu all about us I find that my anger is dying and I feel one person again. But this is perhaps a little late."
    "It is never too late to walk the correct path to Kadair."
    "I do not know your Kadair. But in a way you are right. Ermanpadar blew the spark that became my tharm. My tharm will glow in the stars very soon."
    "The track is stamped into the rock for us to see. We can only follow it."
    The fire died down to a bed of glowing coals and the wind grew stronger, hurtling down the valley from the north. The stars were bright and sharp in the clear night sky. The sammads and the Sasku slept and the murgu grew closer with every passing day. Sanone looked at