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are like me. They are not like you others,” said Monkey. “My blood did that.”

CHAPTER FOUR
    For a long while the Moonhawks gazed at the great green valley below them. At last Suth gathered his wits, looked at the sun, and saw that in a very short while it was going to be dark. Hungry and thirsty though they were, this was not the time to explore.
    â€œNight comes,” he said. “We must find a lair.”
    He began to lead them back up the slope, but before they had gone many paces Noli said, “Wait,” ran to one side, put Otan down, and kneeled. She took hold of what looked like two small grey stones, lying against each other amid a jumble of other stones. Carefully she twisted them loose. They were held to the ground by a thin tough root, which broke after several turns. Stoneweed. She nibbled around its base until she was able to pull up a flap of thick rind. She took a suck for herself, and another, which she gave, mouth to mouth, to Otan, then passed the plant to Suth. He sucked a little of the dense, oily juice and gave it to Tinu and the little ones. They took their turns without squabbling.
    He felt cheered. It was a good sign. Stoneweed was always a lucky find, anywhere. Its juice was strong, and gave strength, as well as quenching thirst, though if even a grown man drank a whole one he would become dazed and stupid.
    They climbed back almost to the ridge, looking for some natural lair, but the ground was too open for that, so they huddled against a boulder. Suth and Noli slept with stones in their hands, but nothing disturbed them.
    In the early dawn they rose and went back down to the place where they had stood last evening, and again gazed down on the strange green bowl. There was a new smell in the air, an odd reek, like smoke, but not any smoke that Suth had smelled before.
    â€œDid Moonhawk send you a dream?” he said.
    â€œNo,” said Noli.
    He was disappointed. The more he gazed at what lay below, the more he was afraid. It wasn’t ordinary fear, such as fear of a big wild hunter, or fear of Bal when he was angry. Nor was it like a night fear, fear in a bad dream before the horrors begin but the dreamer knows that they are coming.
    There were spots in the old Good Places where he had felt a little like this. Tarutu Rock was one. The Kin walked quietly when they came there, and didn’t shout or laugh, because it belonged to Little Bat. They would ask her goodwill before they laired there or drank at her dew trap. This place was something like that, but the feeling was far stronger. He stayed rooted where he was, and Noli did the same.
    It was Ko, too young to feel such things, who started down the slope. At his movement a basking lizard scuttled off a rock. Further off a ground rat rose on its hind legs to look, then dived into its burrow. That broke the trance. If there was such game here, there must also be water.
    â€œCome,” said Suth, and led the way, peering to the left and right and sniffing the air for danger.
    Between the dry slope and the start of the forest lay a belt of scrub—coarse bushes, sometimes growing impenetrably close together, sometimes more scattered. There was no knowing what might be lurking there, let alone in the dark, strange shadows beneath the trees, so Suth led the way along the edge of the belt, moving warily, looking at everything. Where the ground was soft, he stopped and studied it for tracks. He saw several—the scuttlings of ground rats, the slots made by small deer, and the spread prints with a groove between them, where a lizard had passed, dragging its tail. He saw no large paw prints, but he was sure that where there was so much to hunt there must also be hunters. He picked a way around the edge of the soft patches so that the Kin left no tracks of their own. Even on the hard ground, the earth felt faintly moist beneath his feet, as if there had been a heavy dew, though they had slept dry out in their lair