They returned to the village to find the whole tribe outside the dyke waiting for them. Anthe, the wife of Siamaq, was at the front with his other two children, staring anxiously at the returning hunters. When she saw her husband and the bundle he was holding in his arms, wrapped in rex hide, she ran forward and fell to her knees before him. The others gave them a wide, respectful space as the family huddled and wept together.

  Gunnlod, the leader of the tribe, came forward to meet them, and beside him was Narvi, Tarvos's younger brother. Unclothed, like the hunters, except for the leather sling around his neck. Tarvos smiled in amusement to see him pretending to be a hunter who hadn't had time to get dressed as the sounds of turmoil brought him jumping out of his sleeping furs. Tarvos imagined that his father had had to physically restrain him from chasing the warriors out of the village.

  "We killed the beast," said Alvaldi, stopping before the clan leader. He opened the fold of rex hide he was holding to show him the bloody rex teeth it contained. Thirteen teeth. One for each member of the hunting party and one for the chief. Later they would be drilled so they could be strung on their trophy necklaces.

  "Beli is avenged," said Gunnlod. "The honour of the Robin Hood clan is restored. It is good." He took the largest tooth, then looked down at the boy, staring enviously at it. Gunnlod reached down to ruffle his tangly black hair playfully. "Don't worry, young warrior," he said. "Soon you will have a trophy necklace of your own with many teeth and finger bones hanging from it."

  "I should have gone with them," the boy complained. "I'm taller than Tarvos was when he went on his first hunt."

  "You know the law," Gunnlod told him. "You are not a man until you have seen twenty one warm seasons. That doesn't change just because you are tall for your age." The boy stared down at his feet dejectedly.

  "And how did my oldest son conduct himself in the hunt?" Gunnlod then asked, looking at Tarvos.

  "Your son is already a fine warrior," Alvaldi replied, clapping a hand on Tarvos's shoulder. "Soon he'll be ready to lead a hunt of his own. One day he may be the finest warrior the tribe has ever seen."

  "Good, good," said Gunnlod, beaming. "Now wash the dust from your bodies and get dressed before you catch a chill. It's too cold to be standing there in your bare skins."

  "The cold nights will soon be behind us," said Tarvos, though, looking up at the star shining down at them.

  "Yes," Gunnlod agreed, also glancing up at it. "It has been forty eight warm seasons since the last great summer ended. A new great summer is coming and all the tribes will have to move north. Soon these grasslands will be nothing but desert."

  "When do we leave?" asked Alvaldi.

  "Not too soon," Gunnlod replied. "If we leave too soon we will arrive at the summer lands to find them still covered by the great ice sheets."

  "But if we wait too long another tribe might claim our territory," Alvaldi replied. "We will be left chasing welkies and grats, unless we want to make war to take it back."

  "No tribe will break the covenant," said Gunnlod firmly. "We have learned the lessons of our ancestors."

  "But if they do?" asked the hunter. "If all our summer villages, lying unattended as the ice leaves them, are just too tempting for some other tribe to resist?"

  "Then we will show them no mercy," said Gunnlod firmly. "And not only will their finger bones adorn our trophy necklaces but their heads will hang from our huts and their women shall bear our children. Let there be no more talk of such things, though. Go to the sweat tent. Scrub yourselves clean and go have some breakfast. You've earned it."

  The hunters all bowed their heads to him and then entered the village, through the gates this time as the gatekeepers opened them wide. They walked past the three circles of huts to the centre, where the larger buildings stood, made of stone rather than mud slapped on woven grass. There was a man in the stocks, Tarvos saw. Jerrisaxa, the son of Erriapus the stone carver. He was being pelted with moldy jabfruit by a group of children and looked quite miserable.

  "After you left we looked for the reason the beast was able to enter the village without being seen," Gunnlod explained. "He will not fall asleep on guard duty again."

  "If Siamaq gets his hands in him, his next sleep might be the final one," said Alvaldi without pity.

  "There will be no more killing," said Gunnlod, though. "Our village has lost two people already. He will spend three days in the stocks, and his trophy necklace will be taken from him. That will be the end of it." Alvaldi nodded his acceptance of the man's sentence.

  The sweat tent was beside the iron foundry and the lysery, so that they were all close to the charcoal stockpile. Inside, Eggther, the wife of Gunnlod and mother of Tarvos, was already pouring water on the hot stones to fill the tent with steam. She left as the hunters went in and then, when the sweat began breaking out on their bodies, the wives of the married hunters went in. They shed their own clothes, and began scraping their husbands' skins with plethin blades. Those that weren't married were scraped down by brothers or sisters, and Tarvos was attended to by Narvi who, against proper protocol, had gone in with the hunters as if he were one of them. His misdemeanour brought only smiles of amusement from the hunters, though. The boy knew exactly what he could get away with.

  "Who'll scrape my back?" he asked as he dragged the bone scraper down Tarvos's shoulder blades with a little more force than was necessary.

  "You could ask Kari," said Tarvos mischievously as he scraped his legs. He grinned as the blade dug deeper into his skin. Kari would probably be only too willing to scrape the boy's skin, he knew, while taking the opportunity to write an insulting message on his back in indelible may juice. No-one knew for sure what the boy had done to annoy her, but the girl had been taking every opportunity to get back at him for it ever since.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  When the scraping was done the hunters remained there for a few minutes longer, letting the sweat unblock their pores and the heat soothe their aching muscles. Eggther came in after a few minutes with a basket of new rocks that had been heated in the furnace outside. She put them on the pile and poured water over them. More billows of steam filled the tent as she made her way quietly back out.

  Eventually, though, the hunters grew restless and left the tent to return to their huts, where they dressed in their fleetskins and moccasins and ate a quick breakfast. Then they set out to get back to the normal business of village life. When he wasn't out hunting, Tarvos was apprenticed to the plethin maker, and when he got to the lysery he saw that Thiazzi was already there, pulverizing reeds on a large block of stone with an iron hammer.

  "Ah, Tarvi," he said as the youth drew near. "Back from your mission of vengeance?"

  "He won't be snatching any more of our children," Tarvos replied. "You weren't there to welcome us back."

  "I told you what happens if you leave a vat of reeds unattended," Thiazzi replied with a crooked grin. He scratched the thick, grey beard that covered his face. "Let it go cold and it goes rancid. No good for anything. Unfortunately I'd started a batch when the beast attacked. I thought I'd get an early start to the day."

  He nodded towards the cauldron, made of black steel, that stood behind him. Inside, crushed reeds had been boiling for hours, heated by the charcoal fire beneath it. Now, though, the fire had been allowed to die down, and as the water cooled an amber-coloured liquid rose to float on the surface. The liquid, called lyse, was the essential ingredients in the creation of plethin; a substance that could be poured into molds and that, when it set, became as hard as amber and could be carved and shaped into whatever form one wanted. The shafts of their spears were made of plethin, as were their wagons and various small hand tools around the village.

  "The water should be cool enough now," said Thiazzi, picking up his hammer again. "Skim it off before it sets and get the oil started. Then clean out the cauldron ready for the next batch." He nodded down at the reeds he was crushing. "I want to get this lot cooked as well before the end of the day."

  "Looks like good, thick lyse," said Tarvos, picking up the skimming ladle. He dipped it in the water and drew it carefully across the surface, picking up a strip of lyse with as little water as possible. He transferred the lyse to a wide-mouthed clay jar, then returned the ladle to the cauldron to get some more.

  "What's this lot going to be?" he asked as his master carried on pounding the reeds with the hammer.

  "Eh?" the plethsmith said distractedly.

  "What are you going to make with this harvest?"

  "Aegaeon wants wagon timbers. As many as we can supply. I told him we'll be wanting to make timbers for ourselves before long." He glanced up at the star that continued to shine above them even now that it was full daylight. "All the tribes will be wanting to make new wagons now that the long summer is approaching."

  "They can make their own, can't they?" Tarvos ran the ladle around the inside edge of the cauldron, gathering up the last of the lyse. Then he looked at the contents of the jar. It was nearly half full. The reeds had been particularly rich this time.

  "They can make as much as they want, but ours is better. Stronger, more durable. All the tribes know it. Because I am the best. And one day my son will he the best as well, when I've taught him all I know." He paused in his hammering to look across at the younger man. "You might be a creditable plethsmith yourself one day if you remain diligent. You are already more skilled than the dolts most villages have making planks and timbers for them."

  "I'll be clan chief one day," said Tarvos, though. "I'll have no time for making plethin."

  "A man should always have a trade he can fall back on. What will you do if someone challenges your father and wins?"

  "The only man who could beat him in a fair fight is Alvaldi, and he would never challenge him. My father is the best man to be the chief and everyone knows it."

  He carried the jar of lyse across to the mixing tank. The lyse was already beginning to grow yellow and more viscous. He would have to be fast if he was to begin the second stage of the process before it grew too stiff to use.

  "Aye, he is," Thiazzi agreed. "No man could deny it, but what about you? Maybe someone'll think they'd make a better chief than you."

  "We won't find out for many seasons yet," Tarvos replied. "My father is still young. He has thirty seasons ahead of him at least." The thought depressed him, though, reminding him of the reason for his father's premature ascension. The fever that had taken his grandfather, the previous chief, less than two warm seasons before.

  The holding tank was full of thick, yellow oil, mainly made from shoveltusk blubber although smaller quantities came from livestock and even the vermin they regularly caught trying to steal their food. Across the village, Tarvos saw some of the hunters readying a wagon to go out and fetch the body of the rex they had killed. Its meat was far too tough and bitter to eat but it could also be rendered down for oil just like anything else.

  Tarvos looked again at the lyse he was holding in the jar, measuring its volume with his eyes. Then he opened a tap in the side of the holding tank, allowing some of the oil to flow through into the mixing tank. Thiazzi came over to watch as he did it. This was one of the critical parts of the process. He wanted to make sure Tarvos got it right.

  "A little more," he said when the younger man turned off the tap. "The lyse is rich today. It'll convert more oil than usual, I think."

  "Okay." Tarvos opened the tap again, allowing more oil to flow through while keeping a close eye on his master. After a few seconds Thiazzi raised a hand and Tarvos closed the tap.

  "Quickly now," the plethsmith then said. "Before the lyse loses its potency."

  Tarvos poured the lyse into the mixing tank, but as he was shaking the last drops of the precious liquid from the jar the ground began to shake. The two men grabbed hold of the edge of the holding tank as the oil slopped and splashed around inside it, some escaping over the sides to wet the baked clay as it dribbled down to the ground.Skollm somewhere came the sound of a pot falling and breaking into tinkling fragments.

  The two men waited for the earth tremor to subside, and then they both looked up into the sky at the daylight star. "Caelus, the Lord of Mischief, likes to remind us he's here," said Thiazzi, scowling at the wasted liquid soaking into the muddy ground. "As he will again and again oveseedhe coming months, no doubt. Never mind that now, though. Stir the oil before it ruins."

  Tarvos nodded and began stirring it into the oil with a long metal paddle. The lighter yellow of the lyse was quickly lost from sight amongst the darker, richer yellows of the oil but Tarvos kept stirring until he mixture started to turn a rich, dark brown. He gave it a couple of extra stirs for good measure, then left the paddle lying against the side of the tank as he stepped away. The critical part was over. Next would come the addition of several minor ingredients with heatings, stirrings and coolings according to a recipe the plethsmiths of the Robin Hood clan had worked out over several centuries. A recipe that none of the other clans had so far managed to equal.

  That would come later, though. First the mixture had to be allowed to rest for a while as the lyse continued to work its magic on the oil. In the meantime Tarvos returned to the cauldron to empty it and ready it for the next batch of reeds that his master was still pounding with the hammer.