Skoll and the bandits stared in dismay at the scene in front of them.

  They had left the Spine behind them after following the river through a maze of narrow canyons, some of which had clearly been opened by the recent earthquake. The river's original course had become blocked by fallen boulders, and the water had risen until it had flooded the entire floor of the ravine, forcing the bandits to follow a precariously narrow ledge high above the lapping water with an almost sheer drop to the left and a cliff rising to their right. Eventually, though, the water had found a way out, falling down the eastern edge of the Spine in a series of tall waterfalls. Following it, the bandits had made their way back down to the grasslands that formed a part of Six Tribes territory, where they had found a village.

  The village definitely belonged to the Six Tribes. The style of clothing and architecture was unmistakable, but the villagers seemed to be completely at ease, with none of the extra vigilance that might be expected if someone had warned them there were bandits in the area. They were loading belongings and provisions onto twenty large wagons in preparations for the long journey north and they were quite relaxed and at ease doing it. Men and women were in pairs, chatting amiably to each other as they carried bags and boxes, while nearby dozens of muskrils grazed contentedly on the yellowing grass while they waited to be hitched. There were guards on watch, making sure nobody came to harm while they were outside the village's dyke and fence, but they were complacent, hardly paying attention to the surrounding grasslands as they leaned on their spears and took bites out of Jabfruit, licking the juice from their fingers in between spitting out the pips.

  "Your wife and her friends didn't come this way," said Suttungr with a sour look at Skoll. "They must have gone the other way."

  "They probably didn't know there was a village this close to the ravine's exit," said one of the bandits with a hole in his face where his right eye had been. Skoll didn't know his name and hadn't bothered to find out. "They probably thought they had a day's travel ahead of them before finding friends and feared we'd catch them along the way."

  "So let's go get 'em," said Skoll impatiently. "They may not have reached the other end of the ravine yet."

  "You follow them if you want," said Suttungr without looking at him. "We are returning to our camp, and the fastest way is south. You'll come with us if you still want to join our tribe."

  Skoll stared at him in disbelief. "They escaped from your camp under the noses of your entire tribe. They humiliated you, made the Hammerhorn tribe a laughing stock..."

  "I have not forgotten," the Chief told him, his eyes narrowing. Around him the other bandits gripped their spears more tightly, looking nervous as they edged closer, forming a ring around Skoll. "I still burn with shame and fury, but my responsibility is to the tribe. They are waiting for us to return so that they can also migrate north. I don't intend to keep them waiting."

  "They have my wife!" said Skoll, feeling the anger rising inside him again. The anger that, when it grew into a full blown fury, took complete possession of him, driving away his own will and replacing it with an uncontrollable need to kill and destroy. That anger had taken two lives already. Men of his own tribe whose only crime had been to laugh at him in mockery of his poor knife-throwing skills.

  "Pick yourself another wife," Sutrungr told him. He pointed to the village. "There are young girls right there, waiting to he claimed. We'll wait until nightfall. You can sneak in there, pick yourself any young girl you fancy..."

  "I already have a wife," said Skoll. He could feel himself starting to tremble. A familiar redness was beginning to come over his vision. Around him, the other bandits were backing away, their eyes widening. They suddenly looked very small to Skoll, as if they were bugs he could sweep away with his hand. "I will have other wives. One wife is far from enough for a man like me, but first I will have her. She shamed me, mocked me, when she ran away from me. I'll teach her what it means to do that. I'll teach her!" He took a step closer to Suttungr. "And you're going to help me."

  The Chief's face turned pale with fear. He also suddenly looked very small to Skoll. With a visible effort, though, Suttungr drew himself to his full height and stepped forward as if trying to intimidate the larger man. "I withdraw my invitation," he said. "You have no place in my tribe. Go chase your wife. We will return home..."

  Skoll lashed out with his fist and Surrungr flew backwards, blood flying from a torn lip. The other bandits moved forward with their spears, but Skoll fixed them with such a look of fury that they froze to the spot, unable to do anything but stare in fear. Suttungr tried to rise to his feet, but Skoll kicked him in the head, the soft moccasin making a thud like someone slapping a side of wet meat. Skoll then dropped to his knees astride the Chief's chest and pounded his face again and again with his fists while the bandits simply stared, each of them too scared to attract such mad fury to themselves.

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  Gradually the madness faded and sanity returned to Skoll. Beneath him, Suttungr was dead, his face nothing but a pulped mass of red meat. Skoll's hands and the whole front of his body were covered with splatters of blood. He rose to his feet and turned to face the bandits, who backed away in fear.

  "I am the Chief now," he told them. "You obey me or you get what he got. Understood?" They nodded numbly.

  "We are following the fugitives. We're going to get my wife back and we're going to kill the others. Any of you want to challenge me?" They shook their heads, their eyes on his feet in submission.

  "Good. Let's go."

  He turned back the way they'd come, but then stood there while the bandits filed past him in a nervous, anxious silence, their eyes fixed on the ground in front of their feet. Skoll then followed behind, where he could keep an eye on them as they retraced their steps back into the canyons and ravines of the Spine.

  ☆☆☆

  At about the same time, Tarvos was also gazing out at the scene in front of him.

  They had reached the western edge of the Spine, and ahead of them the ground dropped away to a vast plain that just a few weeks ago had been dense woodland. Almost all the trees had now collapsed, though, their sappy trunks lying flat on the ground as the water that had given them strength had been withdrawn to the system of roots and tubers, deep underground. Stored safely for the duration of the long summer until the time, fifty years from now, when the planet would cool again and greenery would once again cover the ground.

  Most of the dying trees were hidden from sight by the fast growing springtime plants, though, taking the opportunity between the decline of the trees and the coming of the dunes to grow, flower and set seed. Their entire life cycle only lasted a couple of weeks before they also died, the species surviving the heat of the summer as millions of dry seeds. Tarvos and the others had that long to travel to the northern edge of where the desert would be if they weren't to end their days as bones bleaching in the sun.

  They'd travelled enough for one day, though. The sun was getting low ahead of them. Soon it would be dark. "We should make camp here," said,Tarvos. "Enoy the relative safety of the Spine for one last night before we go out there."

  "Agreed," said Fornjot, "although something to eat first would be nice."

  "A day or two without food will do you good I think," said Geirrod, patting the other man's stomach with a grin. Fornjot batted his hand away as if it was a bug.

  "We'll catch something tomorrow," Tarvos promised them. "Tomorrow evening we'll eat like the First Fathers themselves.

  "If we're still alive," said Daphnis. "Down there, getting food won't be a problem. The problem will be becoming food."

  Tarvos nodded. There were rexes down there, and a mere four humans stood no chance against one of them. From here on, their journey would be a lottery. A constant rolling of the dice for the months it would take to rejoin their tribes. Tarvos sighed. Maybe Fornjot had been right. Maybe they should have fought the bandits. They might all have died, except for Daphnis of course, who would only wish she were dead. But if they had won, those of them who were still alive would have had a much shorter journey back to the safety of their tribes.

  No regrets, he told himself. I made my choice. Now I have to live with it. Around him, the others were already looking for a relatively level place where they could lie down together, each taking warmth from the bodies cuddled close on either side. Geirrod found a place, and they went over to it, but they didn't lie down yet. Instead they sat with their backs against a rock to watched the sun go down and the stars come out.

  Tarvos took the dead Storyteller from inside his tunic and looked at it thoughtfully, wondering what stories has once been stored inside it. More heroes going on epic adventures. People who had lived generations before even the time of the First Fathers but whose lives were now lost forever. The thought made him sad, and he touched the spot on the side that made the first Storyteller come to life.

  He almost dropped it in astonishment as rows and columns of images appeared on its square, flat face, most of them the same as the ones on the first Storyteller. He cried out, making the other stare at him, and they gaped in amazement when they saw what had happened. "It's alive!" said Geirrod. "But it was dead before."

  "The sun brought it back to life," said Tarvos excitedly. "It must have. I had it inside my tunic. A corner was poking out between the buttons. Just enough to see the sun."

  "Make it tell a story," said Daphnis. "A story we've never heard before."

  Tarvos looked at the icons. "That's the one that makes it speak," he said, pointing to a blue rectangle in the top right corner. It had the word 'Journal' under it. He had no idea what that meant. He touched it, his finger shaking with nervous energy, and all the icons disappeared to be replaced by rows of numbers down the left hand side. He frowned uncertainly. "That's different," he said. "Did I do something wrong?"

  "How do you touch a box wrong?" asked Geirrod. "Touch one of them."

  "We don't know what will happen..." protested Tarvos, but Geirrod was reaching across and, before Tarvos could stop him, his finger had touched the top-most number. All the numbers vanished and the surface was covered by rows of text in the language of the First Fathers. Tarvos could read it, but he didn't need to because at the same time a man's voice came from the device, reading the words aloud.