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7
     
     
    Perrith summoned Torrin and they walked together where the waves washed in slow rhythm onto the sand.
    “This is what will happen,” said Perrith.  “You shall take with you a small band of your choosing.  Return to the mountain to see if the Asgal remain there.  We shall make rafts but will await your return, unless the Ummakil come near, then we shall cross the water.  This we must do whatever lurks there.  There is one more thing; I want Valhad to go with you.”
    “I had thought to take Turnal,” said Torrin
    “One only can go, for the risk is great and both must not be lost.  He is no hunter and many fathers would take no pride in him, yet there is some special quality he has.  When you meet the Asgal let him try the way of words, for he has a gift that may serve the tribe greater than arrows or spears.  He is precious to me Torrin, let him do this thing, but do all you can to bring him back to us.”
    “Perrith, I swear the greatest oath that any of us can make; I promise to you, on the lives of all the Vasagi, that I will do everything that can be done to bring him safely home.”
    “Torrin, no promise can be stronger than this you have made to me.  No oath is greater than that which you have pledged and I thank you for it.”
    They returned to the forest's edge where the domed tents were clustered and a fire smouldered.  Nagul lay close by, pale and sweating, while Casan propped his head and offered him water.  Torrin crouched down and took Nagul's hand.
    “Hunter…” he said softly.  Nagul's eyes opened a little.
    “Hunter, I have seen you kill the bull barak with a single spear thrust…”
    Nagul flickered a smile and nodded.  Torrin spoke again.
    “Will you let the sickness take you where the horns of the barak could not?”
    Nagul's eyes closed and there was no reply amongst his laboured breathing.
    “I am to go back to the mountain,” Torrin told Casan.
    Then Casan spoke softly, lest the dying man could hear her.
    “Seek for the imbas as you go, Torrin.  It grows on the shaded side of the rianna, like a clenched fist coloured as honey; perhaps if you are swift it will be in time for him.”
    “I will look at every tree we pass.  There is Varna too; her time draws near. Will you give her the herbs that soothe?”
    “Torrin, I will tend her, but she will take no potion that might dull her mind.  That is not the way of her.  Do you see?”  She motioned towards the trees of the forest and Torrin saw Varna carrying a burden of fruit she had collected.  He hurried to her but she would not pass the bundle to him.
    “I am neither weak nor sickly,” Varna told him, and she rested the load upon her belly as she walked.
    “Varna, I am to go back to the mountain.”
    She stopped and did not resist now when he took the burden from her and placed it on the ground.
    “If I was Perrith,” she said,  “then I too would send you.  For there is none better for the task, this we all know. But...”
     She looked where Nagul lay and bowed her head for a moment before summoning strength to continue.
    “But I fear that you will not return before the tribe crosses the water.  The Vasagi does not wait, we cannot wait, for those left behind.   When a hunter does not return we never know his fate and the wife must ask, to the end of her days, am I truly widowed?”
    “Varna,” he said, gently lifting her face to meet his gaze.  “As long as there is breath within me I shall seek my one true place, and that is with you and our child.  Only death can part us.  That is the oath I swore to you on the lives of all the Vasagi when you became my wife.”  He fingered the pendant that hung around his neck; it was finely carved from the rib of the barak that lies closest to the creature’s heart.
    “Here is the gift you made me to mark our promises,” he said, “and I shall wear it always.”  
    He held her as close as the unborn child allowed and then went, without looking