Sefe paused for breath, squinting ahead to where the footpath dropped sharply into the ravine the tribe had been paralleling across the Tox. The Crossing. His entire twenty-six years of life he’d walked this route. Now he was reduced to using his spear as a walking stick. He was the tribe’s healer, but that meant little these days. A straggling mother and child had passed him some time ago, leaving him to bring up the rear. Even if he survived the Crossing’s roiling water, he would not reach camp until long after everyone had bedded down. The tribe couldn’t linger, not even for the c8alspanir healer. Summer had been hard, with uneven rainfall and frequent sunstorms, and now the rival hunters had not come for the Autumn Trade. The Hunger would be long this year. He traced a finger over one of the raised scars along his jaw. Being marked as one of the Knowing – a healer – might protect him from rival tribe attacks, but was not assurance of long life.
