They only had time for a couple of hours of sleep, and set out again the next morning as soon as it was light. Tarvos and Daphnis were happy and laughing as they walked, making Fornjot and Geirrod smile to each other with almost equal happiness. They all felt that they were almost home. They wouldn't get there that day, they knew. They'd have to spend another night in whatever cover they could find, but the day after they would arrive back at Festival City to the delight and jubilation of all six tribes. Tarvos thought that his father would probably still be there, waiting for his son to return, but he was prepared to find that he'd returned to Gunnlod village, being eager to begin the preparations for the long march north. Even if that were the case, though, it would only delay the reunion for a couple more days.

  The first trace of doubt crept into their heads as they approached the Now and Then River and heard the sound of rushing water ahead of them. Then they topped the last rise and saw that the gentle trickle they'd crossed a few days before had become a raging torrent that was carrying entire trees at breakneck speed to the sea, five hundred miles away.

  "We're not getting across that," said Fornjot.

  "I would say not," Tarvos agreed. "Amazing. Two years ago that river was completely dry. Nothing but mud cracking in the sun. Gyre, you know this area better than we do. Are there places we can get across?"

  "There are several fords," Geirrod replied, "but that's after a normal heavy rain. This is the mountain ice melting. The stories say that it'll be like this for months until the last of the ice has gone."

  "What about up north?" asked Fornjot. "Where the river is narrower."

  "You'd have to go all the way up into the mountains. Above the waterfall. That's where the quatzels live. We don't want to go there."

  The others nodded. The flying predators were the stuff of nightmares, being easily capable of carrying a man away to their mountain roosts to be torn apart by beak and claws. "So how do we get back home?" asked Daphnis.

  "We don't," Tarvos replied. "We go north, west of the mountains. We go to the Summer Lands and wait for the rest of her tribes to join us there."

  Daphnis stared at him. "Just the four of us?" she asked. "It's a dangerous enough journey for a whole tribe. We'd never make it."

  "There's said to be a pass through the mountains just north of Thunder Peak," said Fornjot. "If we could find it, we'd be north of the river and we'd be able to go back south to Six Tirbes territory."

  "Has anyone been to this pass since the last long winter ended?" asked Tarvos.

  "Not that I know, but there are stories of people using the pass in the last long winter. It's wide and easy, they say, with plenty of food and game and friendly tribes that welcomed them. We should try to find it."

  Tarvos nodded thoughtfully. "We've got to go that way to begin with, no matter what trail we choose. North, then?"

  "North," Fornjot agreed. Geirrod and Daphnis nodded.

  "North it is, then," said Tarvos, and they turned their backs on the turbulent, swollen river.

  ☆☆☆

  Skoll's reaction to the swollen river was just the opposite of that or the Six-Tribesmen. He was delighted by it, to the point that he was able to forget the pain in his head for the moment. "They're not getting across that," he said with satisfaction.

  "So which way will they go?" asked Suttungr.

  "Either north or south," Skoll replied. "If they go south, the river joins others until it becomes wide and slow. It might be possible to swim across it even in this condition. Tarvos may not know that, though. Their tribes are located further from the river. They have little knowledge of it."

  "So they'll go north then," said the bandit chieftain.

  "Possibly. My tribe has little knowledge of those lands."

  "Fortunately we do," said Sutrungr. "The benefit of being nomadic is that you see more of the world than if you live in cities, hiding yourselves behind dykes and fences. We were camped north of here before we moved to the river, and we know of places where the river can be crossed, even when flooded like this. Ten days north of here the river goes through a narrow canyon. The tribe that lives there has built a bridge across it."

  "I don't think Tarvos and his friends know about that place," said Skoll, though. "The six tribes share maps of the areas they know, and this bridge does not appear on any of them. And if they don't know about it, they won't head for it." He scanned the horizon with his eyes. "I think they will go west of the mountains. There's a pass they know about that will take them to the path their tribe will take for the migration to the Summer Lands."

  "We can't take too long chasing them," said the Chief. "The Hammerhorn tribe must also go north. We must catch them quickly, so I can go back and take charge of the departure."

  "We will catch them soon. We're gaining on them rapidly."

  "We don't even know if they came this way," the Chief pointed out impatiently. "We've seen no sign. No trace of their passage."

  "There are only so many places they can go. They will want to return to their tribes, and there are only so many ways of doing that. I think they will head for the mountain pass. That's what I would do."

  "You had better be right," said Suttungr. "When I swore vengeance upon them I was speaking in the heat of the moment. We cannot allow our wounded pride to harm the tribe. In three days I and my men will turn back, and if you still want to pursue them you will do so alone. If you decide to part from us, you will do so forever. Do not try to return to my tribe without a wife, or we will kill you."

  "We will find them," promised Skoll. "Even if the insult they did us no longer burns you, it does still burn me." He fingered the peeling skin of his scalp as the pain returned.

  "It burns, but the Chief of a tribe has responsibilities that cannot be ignored. Three days, Skoll. We either find them or you decide whether you wish to become clanless."

  He then turned and beckoned for his men to follow him. Skoll glared at the back of his head, his hands clenched into fists, before he also followed.

  ☆☆☆

  "The fastest way to get where we want to to," said Tarvos as they walked back through the shrivelled trees, "is through the Spine. The same pass where we were ambushed. If the bandits got there ahead of us, intending to ambush us, then they won't know that the river is impassable. They will long since have decided that we went another way and left."

  "The bandits may watch that road constantly," said Fornjot. "Waiting for foolish travellers that they can ambush."

  "How often do travellers come this way?" asked Tarvos, though. "The bandits would be waiting a long time. They wouldn't think it was worth their while. We were simply unlucky. If the bandits followed us to the river, though, then they'll know we'll want to come this way and we need to stay ahead of them. I think we have no choice but to take the fastest route."

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Perhaps we could ambush them," suggested Daphnis with a grin.

  "Too dangerous," said Tarvos, though. "If they're chasing us, they'll be expecting an ambush. They'll scout out the high rocks before venturing in. No, if we go that way we just get through it as fast as we can. What do you think?"

  "The bodies of our fallen brothers will still be there," said Fornjot sadly. "Left for the skylords and the carrion bugs. We could give them a proper funeral pyre, as they deserve."

  "And create a column of smoke that will tell the bandits exactly where we are," said Tarvos. "No, we leave them. Their spirits have moved on to the spirit world. All that's left is meat. We have to think of our own survival."

  "Speaking of survival," said Geirrod, "the bandits left their spears and equipment with the bodies. I feel naked without a spear in my hand when a pack of groths might turn up at any moment."

  "Only if I can find my own spear," said Fornjot, looking unhappy. "I'm not taking a dead man's spear."

  "You're superstitious?" said Tarvos with a smile. "You're Robin Hood clan. We don't do superstition."

  "You should not mock superstition," his clan mate replied. "If not for superstition, the bandits would have taken our spears, along with everything else."

  "Thiazzi, our plethsmith, told me once that the bandits got their superstitious fear of our spears because our first spears weren't very good," said Tarvos. "We'd only just discovered how to make plethin, and the first recipes made it hard but brittle. We figured out how to use them without breaking, but when bandits stole some of them they broke in battle and they thought that the spirits of their former owners had cursed them. So you see? Nothing supernatural about it. Bandits are just idiots."

  "The spirit world is real," Fornjot reminded him, though. "You can see it if you eat the roots of the dreamflower."

  "You see lots of things if you eat dreamflower root," said Tarvos with a smile. "Angrboda saw a gooth that spoke to him, warning him that his brother was a shoveltust wearing a human skin."

  "Messages sent by the spirits can be hard to interpret," said Fornjot with a perfectly straight face. That made Tarvos laugh out loud while his clanmate glowered at him. He drifted to the side as they walked, a little apart from the others, and stared up at the highlands ahead.

  "So we're taking the path?" said Daphnis.

  "Unless someone has some other reason why we shouldn't."

  "I want a spear," said Geirrod. "I left mine by the side of the bandit's river. I want another, and it's crazy to just leave them lying there."

  "Daff?" asked Tarvos. Daphnis nodded back.

  "Forn?" asked Tarvos, but the other man just walked in silence.

  "I'll take that as a yes," said Tarvos. "The path it is."

  ☆☆☆

  The bodies of their former comrades were covered by carrion creatures as they approached, but they leapt into the sky with cries of indignation as the humans approached. Tarvos tried not to look at what the scavengers had done to his friends as they came close, and the three men took scraps of bloodstained clothing from the corpses to lay gently over their faces.

  "We can't just leave them here," said Fornjot, tears in his eyes as he looked down at all that remained of Albiorix.

  "They're past caring," said Tarvos, laying a gentle hand on his shoulder. "They're in the spirit world now, being greeted by joyful ancestors. We'll see them again when our time comes." Fornjot nodded sadly, but he stayed by the side of his friend for a while longer.

  The spears were right where their former owners had left them, and both Tarvos and Fornjot were able to reclaim the weapons they'd left Festival City with while Geirrod picked up the spear that had once belonged to Alvaldi, kneeling beside the older warrior as he asked permission to take it.

  "Do you know how to use that?" asked Tarvos as Daphnis took the spear of Hyrrokkin.

  "She does," Geirrod replied. "She's almost as good with it as I am."

  "I'm better than you with it," his sister replied with a sideways look at him.

  "You think you are because I let you win sometimes..."

  He was unable to finish the sentence as Daphnis gasped in alarm. The three men spun around to see what had startled her and saw that one of the corpses, one of their former comrades, was sitting up, gradually climbing to its feet. Tarvos gave a cry of joy that the man had survived after all, but the sound died in his throat when he saw just how damaged the corpse was. The skylords had torn its stomach open, leaving entrails trailing around its knees, and its face was gone, torn away by the scavengers. A jolt of superstitious fear shot through him, but then he almost laughed aloud in relief when he saw what was happening.

  There was a coating of glistening slime around the corpse. A bonecreeper, digesting what was left of the flesh and using the bones for support. Beside it was the abandoned skeleton of a fleethorn, possibly the same one they'd seen by the river.

  "The creature outgrew its old skeleton and needed a larger one," said Fornjot.

  "Well, stop it!" cried Daphnis in outrage.

  "Why?"

  "That's Thrymr. He was a friend of ours. We can't let that thing use his bones like that."

  "Why not? He doesn't need them any more. He's in the spirit world now. His flesh is going to be eaten by something. Skylords, groths. Why not a bomecreeper?"

  "It's disrespectful. What if it wanders back towards his village and a member of his family sees him?"

  "How will they know it's him? It could be anyone's bones."

  The head with its bare skull of a face turned towards him, almost as if it had heard him. Then it began walking away, the sun gleaming on the coating of jelly that covered it. From the back it was almost possible to believe that their friend was alive again and was setting off to scout the way ahead.

  "We know," pointed out Daphnis.

  "So we don't tell anyone."

  "We should kill it. Stop it defiling the body of a friend."

  "It's not defiling it. Not any more than any other kind of scavenger anyway. I agree that a proper funeral pyre would be better, but that's just not possible right now..."

  His words were cut off as a tremor shook the ground. Boulders rolled down from the highlands on either side and the four travellers hurried back to the entrance of the narrow pass, all of them staring at the rocks piled high on either side that might come crashing down at any moment. The tremor was subsiding before they were half way there, but they continued to run, not stopping until the ground opened up again and they stumbled out into the dying forest.

  The tremor turned out to be nothing more than a preshock, though, and a moment later the ground was shaken by a much more violent tremor that threw them from their feet. They lay there as the ground leapt and bounced under them, and a fissure opened up beside Tarvos's head that made him gasp and roll to the side where he grabbed hold of Geirrod in terror. From the pass came the thunder of boulders crashing and breaking, and billowing clouds of dust came rolling out towards them.

  Gradually the tremor came to an end, and they climbed back to their feet as the dust continued to settle around them. "Everyone okay?" asked Tarvos.

  "I think so," said Fornjot. He was looking around at the dying trees, several of which had toppled over as the dry, compacted soil under them had been shaken to powder. Then he gave a start. "People!" he gasped. There are people over there."

  Everyone instinctively crouched down. "Did they see us?" asked Daphnis.

  "I don't think so. I think we were hidden by the dust in the air."

  By unspoken consent they hurried back into the pass. They had to step around boulders that had rolled down into the path, and as they went further they had to climb over them as they completely covered the ground. When they reached the place where the bodies of their former comrades lay, Tarvos was pleased to see that they were completely buried. The carrion bugs would still be able to reach them, of course, but at least they were decently hidden from sight.

  "How many?" he asked.

  "Four, maybe five," Fornjot replied.

  "Bandits?"

  "Yeah, and Skoll was with them."

  Tarvos saw Daphnis's face go white, and he took her hand to give it a reassuring squeeze. "Are you sure it was him?" he asked. "How far away were they?"

  "Quite a long way, but it was definitely him. There's no mistaking that great, shaggy mop of hair. And I thought it was a little lopsided, as if it had been burned off on one side."

  "That was him all right," said Daphnis. There was a tremor in her voice as she said it, and she edged closer to Tarvos as she walked.

  "Then this is our chance to ambush them." said Fornjot. "We can climb up into the rocks..."

  "They're still unstable," said Tarvos, though. "They could shift as we climb them. We could all he crushed under a landslide. Maybe further on, if we get to a place where the ground hasn't shifted as much."

  "Let's just move," said Geirrod. "If they did see us, they'll be coming at a run. Five of them, you said?"

  "I saw five," Fornjot replied. "There may have been more of them."

  "Let's not take the chance," said Tarvos. "Let's get out of here."

  Further down the pass, though, they got a shock when they saw that the way ahead was completely blocked by fallen boulders. "Can we climb over that?" asked Daphnis.

  "We might have a better chance going that way," said Fornjot, pointing to the right. The wall of the canyon had collapsed in the earthquake, they saw, leaving a gap littered with loose rocks. There didn't seem to be anything beyond it, as if the ground dropped into another canyon.

  "Looks treacherous," said Tarvos. "We'd have to be careful not to break an ankle. And if Skoll and his new friends arrive while we're half way up, they'll be able to see us clearly."

  "And we don't know if there's a way out that way," said Geirrod. "It may lead to a dead end."

  "If it does, we turn and meet our pursuers," said Tarvos, "and we fight. We might win, and even if we don't, we'll go down fighting and go to join our friends in the spirit world."

  Daphnis nodded fiercely and stared at Geirrod, who gave a reluctant nod. "Forn?" said Tarvos.

  "Let's do it then," Fornjot replied. "And let's do it fast. The others have to be close behind us."

  Tarvos nodded and led the way, picking his way carefully up the steep, treacherous slope. Above them, the sky darkened as clouds began to gather and a brisk wind began to blow.