"I wondered how you did that," Jondalar said, then he paused, obviously thinking. "My brother would have wanted to learn about it. He was a spear maker. He could make a good straight shaft, but he understood the properties of wood, how to bend and shape it. I think he would have understood your process, too. Perhaps knowledge of your methods is one reason Wymez was so quick to grasp the idea of heating flint to make it more workable. He is one of the best workers of flint I've ever known."

"You're a good flint man, too, Jondalar," Tarneg said. "Even Wymez speaks highly of you, and he doesn't praise easily. You know, I've been thinking. I'm going to need a good flint worker for Aurochs camp. I know you've been saying you are going back to your home, but it sounds like a long trip. Would you consider staying if you had a place to stay? What I mean is, how would you like to join my Camp?"

Jondalar's forehead furrowed as he tried to think of a way to refuse Tarneg's offer without offending. "I'm not sure. I'd have to think about it."

"I know Deegie likes you, I'm sure she'd agree. And you wouldn't have any trouble finding someone to make a hearth with," Tarneg encouraged. "I've been noticing the women around you, even the red-foots. First it was Mygie, now all the rest of them find reasons to visit the flint-workers' area. It must be because you are new around here. Women are always curious about men they don't know." He smiled. "I've heard more than one man wishing he was a tall, blond stranger. They'd all like to get a red-foot interested again, but it's Danug's turn, this time." Tarneg smirked knowingly at his young cousin.

Jondalar and Danug both looked uncomfortable. Jondalar stood up, and looked away to shift attention elsewhere, and in an incidental way, he noticed that around these two men, he was not exceptionally tall. The three of them were near the same size, and Danug still had some growing in him. He was going to be a second Talut. But there were all sizes of men at the Meeting, just as there were at Zelandonii Summer Meetings.

"Well, I wish you would think about Aurochs Camp, Jondalar. Now that Deegie and Branag are finally going to be joined, we'll be building this fall, though I haven't decided yet whether to make a single lodge, like Lion Camp, or the smaller individual ones for each family. I tend to be old-fashioned. I like the big ones best, but a lot of the younger people want a place with just their own relations, and I admit, when people start arguing, it could be nice to have your own place to go."

"I appreciate the offer, Tarneg," Jondalar said. "I mean that, but I don't want to give you a false impression. I am going home. I have to go back. I could give you a lot of reasons, that I need to bring back word of my brother's death, for example. But the truth is, I don't know why I have to go. I just do."

"Is it because of Ayla?" Danug asked with a worried frown.

"That's part of it. I admit, I don't look forward to seeing her sharing a hearth with Ranec, but I was trying to convince her to come back with me when we met you. Now it looks like I'll be going back alone anyway… I'm not looking forward to that either, but that doesn't change anything. I still have to go."

"I'm not sure I understand, but I wish you good fortune, and may the Mother smile on your Journey. When do you think you'll leave?" Tarneg said.

"Soon after the mammoth hunt."

"Speaking of the mammoth hunt, we should be getting back. They are planning it this afternoon," Tarneg said.

They started walking along the river that was a tributary to the major waterway near the settlement, and began clambering over rocks at a place where the walls narrowed in. Working their way out of the gorge around a precipitous ledge, they came upon a group of young men shouting words of insult or encouragement to two of them who were fighting. Druwez was among the spectators.

"What's going on here?" Tarneg said, wading into their midst and pulling the fighters apart. One was bleeding from the mouth, the other had an eye that was swelling shut.

"They're just having a… competition," someone said.

"Yes, they're… uh… practicing… for the wrestling games."

"This is no competition," Tarneg said. "This is a fight."

"No, honest, we weren't fighting," the boy with the puffy eye said, "just playing around a little."

"You call black eyes and broken teeth playing around? If you were just practicing, you wouldn't have to come here to this out-of-the-way place where no one would see you. No, this was planned. I think you'd better tell me what's going on."

No one volunteered an answer, but there was a lot of shuffling of feet.

"What about the rest of you?" Tarneg said, eying the other youths. "What are all of you doing here? Including you, Druwez. What do you think Mother and Barzec are going to do when they find out you were here, encouraging a fight? I think you'd better tell me what's going on here."

Still no one would say.

"I think we'd better take you back and let the Councils decide what to do with you. The Sisters will find some way to let you work off your urge to fight, and make a good example of you, besides. Maybe they'll even ban all of you from mammoth hunts."

"Don't tell on them, Tarneg," Druwez pleaded. "Dalen was only trying to stop them."

"Stop them? Maybe you should tell me what this fight is about," Tarneg said.

"I think I know," Danug said. Everyone turned to look at the tall young man. "It's because of the raid."

"What raid?" Tarneg said. This was sounding serious.

"Some people were talking about making a raid on a Sungaea Camp," Danug explained.

"You know raiding has been banned. The Councils have been trying to negotiate a friendship fire and establish trading with the Sungaea. I hate to think of the trouble a raid would cause," Tarneg said. "Whose idea was this raid?"

"I don't know," Danug said. "One day everyone was talking about it. Someone discovered a Sungaea Camp a few days' away. The plan was to say they were going hunting, and instead go and wreck their Camp, steal their food, and chase them away. I told them I wasn't interested, and I thought they were stupid to do it. They would just make trouble for themselves and everyone else. Besides, we stopped at a Sungaea Camp on our way here. A brother and sister had just died. Maybe it isn't the same Camp, but they probably all are feeling bad about it. I didn't think it was right to raid them."

"Danug can do that," Druwez said. "No one's going to call him a coward, because no one wants to fight him. But when Dalen said he wasn't going on any raid, either, then a whole bunch of them started saying he was afraid of a fight. That's when he said he'd show them he wasn't afraid to fight anyone. We said we'd come with him so they wouldn't gang up on him."

"Which one of you is Dalen?" Tarneg said. The boy with the broken tooth and bleeding mouth stepped forward. "Who are you?" he said to the other one, whose eye was already turning black and blue. He refused to answer.

"They call him Cluve. He's Chaleg's nephew," Druwez volunteered.

"I know what you're trying to do," Cluve said sullenly. "You're going to put all the blame on me just because Druwez is your brother."

"No, I wasn't going to put blame on anyone. I'm going to let the Council of Brothers decide. You can all expect to get a summons from them, including my brother. Now, I think you'd better clean yourselves up. If you go back to the Meeting looking like that, everyone will know you were fighting, and no one would be able to keep it from the Sisters. I don't have to tell you what will happen to you if they find out you were fighting about a raid."

The young men hurried to leave before Tarneg changed his mind, but they left in two groups, one with Cluve, the other with Dalen. Tarneg made a point of noticing who went with whom. Then the three of them continued back to the Meeting.