Peter’s mount ran faster than he thought possible. Her head stretched out before her as her legs pounded over the snow. Her exquisite balance meant her body stayed level as the ground undulated beneath her and they shot like an arrow.

They crested the hill with Storm and her mount close behind. The grazing beasts cackled in alarm and scattered as the pair shot amongst them and skidded to a halt in their midst.

All looked quiet except for the commotion their arrival had caused.

‘What’s happened?’ said Vale. ‘You look like you’re running to a fight.’

‘We thought we were,’ said Peter.

‘I’m so sorry Bloom. Cloud has been killed, said Storm. ‘And many of the herd she guarded.’

Bloom slipped to the ground, her mount collapsing by her side as if to comfort her.

‘We need to be on guard. They may come back.’

‘Who? Who did this?’ said Bloom.

‘Blackbirders. The aliens.’

‘But we saw no sign,’ said Bloom. ‘Heard nothing.’

Vale moved his mount close to Peter’s. He held his lance in his hand as if he sought an enemy to fight. ‘What do you know? You called them this before.’

‘I do not know how they can be the same as met before,’ said Peter. ‘But I am sure they are the same. I recognized them. I understood their speech. And I saw their skyship. The flying structure that attacked us.’

Vale looked around. The cloud hung low in the sky with mist amongst the trees. ‘Could that huge flying thing hide amongst the cloud?’

‘Yes. It could be close, But it rides the wind. There is none, so they need beasts to tow it.’

‘Show me,’ said Vale. ‘Take me to Cloud.’

Peter and Vale retraced their path with Beech and Bloom close behind. Each had drawn their lance but peter knew that if they faced weapons fired from a skyship then the lances would be no use. And these blackbirders had worse weapons than he had ever seen on Eoth.

Guns of some sort.

While Bloom and Beech attended to Cloud, Peter and Vale searched the ground for signs of the attackers. They found only the grazing animals tracks, and the great swathes of snow that had been pushed over to reveal the dried grasses and bushes that lay under the snow. It proved hard to see even the tracks of Cloud’s mount.

Vale grunted. Then dropped to the ground where he bowed down on his hands to examined the ground.

‘I know this print,’ he said. ‘But all our slow beasts are at camp. The only others would be those of the River Clan. They could not kill like this.’

‘What do you mean by slow beast?’ Peter did not quite catch the word but sensed a meaning underneath it.

Vale studied him. ‘Your words are strange. You describe their motion true enough. Great beasts three times the height of our mounts at the shoulder. Large legs and short necks and a powerful build. They are covered with great long fur-feathers that we value for fiber. But we used them to move our camp when the season changes.’

Peter studied the footprint. He had no idea what creature Vale described, but the print looked a lot like what a gharumal would leave. The huge towing beasts had been used on Eoth to drag skyships along tow paths.

Could they have brought one here too?

‘This is what they might have used to move the skyship when the winds failed them,’ Peter said. ‘Did anyone hear their cry? If the beast is what I know then it gives a cry that is long and deep.’

‘Perhaps. Slow beasts often low in that manner. But the calls of man and beast do not travel well in these snow-bound lands.’

The tracks led into the whiteness and Peter realized the mist had deepened. Then followed their own back to Cloud. She had been wrapped and now lay behind Bloom’s saddle webbing. Together they made their way back to where they had left the others to round up the grazing herd.

They made a sombre group as the mist gathered around, pressed close by the grazing beasts who seemed happy to move in a flock when guided by the mounts.

That the mounts could kill them in a moment did not seem to occur to the grazers. Peter guessed beasts and men had grown used each other as they worked across the landscape.

The return took longer than he could have expected. The mist grew thicker as the light dimmed with the ending of the day. They stayed to their outward path still visible even after the drifting snow.

As they came to the camp the last light of the day gave the mist a warm glow that defied the chill Peter felt. Drops of water had beaded on the felted clothing Vale had given him that morning.

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They herded the bedraggled grazing animals into their stockade far from the carnivore mounts stabling. Peter could not see how many had been gathered up. Several herds he guessed from the mumbling sound that came from all sides.

He turned his mount to return to the stable under the rock, when he heard a familiar sound.

That’s a gharumal. Unmistakable.

He remembered when he and Maggie had first heard it on the wind when hiding on Zenska while storm clouds gathered. Here though he could hear a higher chord within the deep rumbling call. The beast could not be far.

His mount ambled through the mist as it swirled with their passing as he search for the sound. The cry came again closer now.

Just on the other side of the stockade.

The mist shifted and Peter saw a shadow, the huge outline of a beast. He slid to the ground.

‘Stay here girl,’ he told his mount. ‘I don’t want to startle this one.’

And he walked closer. The smell came to him then and the shadow stepped closer, a head dropped but could not reach his level.

The long fur-feathers blurred the outline of the body, but the square features of the beast could not be mistaken for any other.

‘A gharumal. What the heck? How did you end up here. You’re meant to be on Eoth?’

‘And what makes you think you’re elsewhere?’

Peter whirled at the croaking voice close by his shoulder.

He stood face to face with a blackbirder.

‘Liruq. I’ve been wanting to meet with you.’

They raised their two thumbed hand in greeting and Peter saw then.

‘Quevantaq.’

‘Indeed. I am Kituqarup — Sacred Ember. Though here they call me just Ember,’ the manisaur said. ‘How is it that you understand Thaluk young human? You have traveled far.’

‘You have no idea,’ said Peter.

The gharumal lowed again as he stared into the flashing aura of the manisaur and knew them to be a true manisaur then. They could not lie and Kituqarup did not as they flashed his identification pattern.

‘I am Peter. Liruq the Rock. But also Jupiter Drake when I command my outrigger on the seas of Eoth.’ He paused. It had been a long time since he had called himself anything other than just Peter. ‘What are you doing here? On this Planet?’

‘Eoth,’ said Kituqarup. ‘That is the Thaluk name. But here in the far southern lands they just call it the world.’

Peter realized Kituqarup spoke in Thaluk. He had never met a manisaur that had bothered to learn a human language.

‘Why do you speak like a human? And can you speak like the people here?’

‘I can. I do. It is seldom I get a chance to speak anything other than human tongues.’

‘But this can not be Eoth then.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because if we’re on Eoth the humans would have tulanvarqa, and you could speak quevantaqi to them.’

‘Yes. But you see, there is little need for us to do so. They speak their own tongue which I learned long ago. I have heard that you speak with them though. And they understand your Thaluk, do they not? While in time the god’s gift of tulanvarqa does work its magic, it does not always work how we wish.’

Peter rolled his eyes. All doubt fled. Only a quevantaq would speak like a poet when they could just talk plainly.

‘So I could speak to them in English?’ Peter said. ‘My own language? And they would understand?’

‘Yes. In time. But until then it would sow confusion. Continue with Thaluk, or learn their tongue.’

Peter realized he had gone off on a tangent. He did not care about the magic of tulanvarqa.

‘So we’re on Eoth?’ He stared at the shaggy gharumal. ‘Blackbirders with skyships. It makes sense now. I was just too dumb to see it. How many quevantaq are here, with the Snow Clan?’

‘Only me, exiled long ago, and I befriended these humans. Or they befriended me, for which I am forever grateful.’ Kituqarup sighed. ‘They are more and less than I had come to believe. This is the way of the world. But here at least I am wanted. You see. I am their shaman.’

Peter laughed. ‘That makes strange sense. They called me witch and a devil-eyed something or other.’

‘Come. They will sit for their night meal soon. We shaman should stay together. I am never truly welcome, but always cared for.’

‘Least we cast our evil eye upon them?’

‘Something like that.’ Kituqarup flashed their aura in a manisaur version of a laugh. Peter joined in, but sobered fast as it struck him.

If this is Eoth. Then when, and where, the heck are we?

‘Are you sure you are quevantaq?’ Peter said. ‘I’ve never seen your people eat meat.’

‘It is eat grazer flesh or starve,’ said Kituqarup. ‘Since the others attacked, these black ones you speak of. Since they took over the Snow Clan’s home lands, took their stores, and their crops, it has been meat or starve.’

They had taken a wooden plate of meat offered to them by a stout woman who cooked before a communal fire then entered a large tent. The rough floor of split logs wobbled under foot and Peter had to watch his footing. He saw then that Kituqarup had round foot coverings that hid his clawed foot.

Probably need the covering as much as mine. Plus they can take them off.

They had both removed their boots before stepping onto a carpeted raised area near a brazier. He sat amongst cushions and felt warm for the first time all day.

Kituqarup squatted in the quevantaq way and then picked at his meat between one thumb and fingers while he waggled the other as he spoke.

‘The lack of food will be the death of us. We should give up our lands and join the River Clan.’

‘Why don’t you?’

‘Ah. That is a tricky subject. Few wish to wed their daughters to the men of the clan.’

‘What?’

‘That is the price the River Clan ask for. To take the daughters of the people of the Snow and leave the men here without wives.’

Peter’s jaw dropped. ‘They’d do that?’

‘No. That is why we eat meat. The River Clan have food enough for all, but the price is too high. So Thorn and Vale and the rest try to take back their own lands. But the aliens are too strong, and they grow stronger.’

Peter nodded. He looked around the tent. Around ten meters across and four meters high and circular in shape, forty people had gathered to eat together. Though they gave Peter and Kituqarup a wide birth. That suited Peter fine. He had learned more from the quevantaq than he ever had from the taciturn Thorn and the closemouthed Vale.

‘But you would do so?’

‘I suggested it,’ said Kituqarup. ‘Neither side would ever agree but it created the basis for discussion. I believe I made a grave error of judgement. It is hard to understand you humans, even for one such as I who have lived amongst you for so long. You see, there is an even simpler solution, but even that Thorn will not agree to.’

‘What’s that?’

‘To give his daughter to the River Clan leader.’

‘What? As a slave?’

‘No. As a wife,’ Kituqarup said. ‘Look around young Liruq. These people are on the edge. Something will have to change. And soon.’

‘You heard of the blackbirder attack on the herds?’

‘The others grow stronger. But I fear the problems within the tribe more than attacks from outside. Such threats will draw the clan together, that is why Thorn led the raid against the aliens in these recent days. But that failure has renewed calls for him to give his daughter up.’

‘Wait. How many daughters does Thorn have?’

‘Just the one. She with the red hair and the fire in her heart to match.’

‘Sarah?’

Kituqarup cocked his head and his aura flashed as he considered the question.

‘Yes. Sarah Red-hair.’