When they got to the Fiery Grove, the skern stopped to rest. It had taken a long time to get there, far longer than reaching somewhere you could see should take. Perhaps they were weak, Guff thought.

But no. If anything, they had proven themselves once again. The sky was dotted with dragons now, circling the farms and boarded-up ruins on a hunt of their own. They hadn’t been there before. They were almost certainly looking for the pair of exiles after the raid on the plateau.

“Take heed and be satisfied,” Venn had reassured him as they had scraped half-underneath a mighty tub of berries to allow one of the giants of the air to pass. “It means they see us as a danger.” Guff hadn’t felt like a danger as they skulked about the earthworks of their prey. Skulking was for levin and cussocks. Yet, the fact that they had made it to this copper copse unseen at all, crossing busy roadways where the undergrowth was broken completely and sliding through their clutter whilst parties foraged a mere twenty tails away, showed they could turn the tables to sneak up on anything, even the king of Jiharu.

At least, he thought so.

The Fiery Grove was a pleasant surprise. The mouse-men had left the ground beneath the towering trees unmolested, and no destroyer set paw there. Perhaps they appreciated the beauty of a little patch of nature to remind themselves of where they had come from. For Venn and Guff, it was just good to feel under cover and in control again with the tools they knew how to use.

For one, they were hungry. Their blood ran cold, and they need not eat for days, but the energy of the last few had drained them. They stalked off gladly about the stands of ferns, taking advantage of the shadows of the greater plants and pouncing upon unsuspecting prey. Guff took down a blue deer as it paused to drink by a puddle. Venn only managed one of the babies as they ran squealing from their mother’s demise. But there was enough for now, and as they tore up the flesh, they were content. Over his larger prize, Guff teased his friend about how he would have to use his new-found creeping powers to hide from all the females when they returned, if they were to see hunts like his today. The goal of all his kin was so ingrained that for a moment he had completely forgotten they were clanless exiles in a foreign land.

“I wonder if the hunters still sit on our bank,” Venn mused. Surely the meat pile had run dry by now, even with that awful rationing. “They cannot sustain themselves on mudworms for long.” He thought of Guff and himself then. The deer was tasty and filling, yet somehow, he felt empty still. There was something more to levin-meat than mere flesh. He wondered if they could go on much longer without revealing themselves. The fire of the hunt was throbbing in his limbs once again. Perhaps it had never gone, only briefly satiated by the ending of the few cowards that had gotten too close, but even now he had actually ate of them little. He looked on across the never-ending farms eagerly, straining for Jiharu. The idea of leader-meat, sweetened by idleness as they told others to enact their follies, seemed to spread to Guff too as they gazed out, and it made them burn.

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They wallowed in the ferns for two nights, digesting their meals and recovering their strength. Then, they crept out eastward under a blazing sun that made the leaves of the grove smoulder like fire. The levin were still there, toiling in the orchards, but there were fewer dragons to dodge now. Perhaps they had thought they had scared the skern away. Underestimating them would be this union’s downfall.

The air grew drier as they walked, more like the exiles’ homeland. It made the going easier. Also easier was the slight downhill slope they found beneath their claws. Guff remembered their captive’s brief words and shivered with delight. “Down we go, into a valley, and what do we seek? A river and bridge,” he hissed. “We’re almost there.”

They were. The sun had not appeared to fall at all before they saw the line of dark green ahead, and midway along it, an arch of rock. “It’s like the driftwood bridge downriver from the Thorn Bog they used at home, only... permanent,” Venn observed. He looked suspiciously at the towers that lined the path down to the structure. There was no old brickwork there, only full wood. “This may serve our kind and ourselves. We pick out a place for a new burrow nearby, and we hunt and hunt and hunt until the foul heart of this pretentious place is plucked out. Maybe we can spread the word of the ample pickings here, summon youngling females, and rule this valley with an iron claw. Venn and Guff, clan masters. And a whole land of levin, living complacently in the open, in terror beneath us.”

“What about home?” Guff said hesitantly. “If we stop the raids, won’t they take us back?”

“No,” said Venn, “and why would we need them? The fields run with more prey here than ever walked upon the Endless Meadow in all time.”

“And the dragons?” ventured Guff.

“The dragons,” hissed Venn, “are temporary. Like us, they seek only power for themselves. Do you think they will stay to defend their pathetic allies once they see them falling, and the offerings of whatever they desire running dry?”

Emboldened, they looped round to the bridge. But for all their ambition, they gave the watchtowers a wide berth.