Six months after the bell fell into the lake, Ysabet, Chaska, Lilt, and Pip came down out of the upland passes by the slow drovers’ track as the spring grass was turning thick and green along the ditches.
They were in no hurry. Nobody was riding behind them with a black stone cage, and nobody was waiting ahead with a temple warrant. Lilt walked beside the cart track wearing the salvaged light metal pack-frame Chaska and Kiv had bolted together, carrying two rolls of oilcloth maps, a sack of clean quarry clay for Pip, and the half-covered wooden straw box where the old Bent Reed mouse rode whenever the ruts grew bumpy.
Pip walked on its own six small legs beside Ysabet’s left boot. Its grey-brown hide had filled out smoothly over its ribs during the winter rests, and the two short, rounded stubs of horn above its eyes twitched cheerfully whenever they crossed a damp culvert. Suth’s repaired wooden long-legged beetle rode tucked into the strap of Ysabet’s satchel, its twig forelegs clicking faintly against the leather when the wind blew.
In the second week of spring, they turned off the main road into the broad river meadow where Iskren’s Unbound camp had pitched its seasonal tents.
