The Bracken Woods blood thorns [m]

the man's eyes opened, muscles forced to slowly relax beneath the touch of frigid water which lapped to his shoulders. a moment later, cen grunted in agreement and shifted to make room for red leaf.

he watched her closely with his stoneblue eyes, trying to ascertain if she would shiver a long while or adjust swiftly to the temperature. "it was not a hunt." but his voice was idle, not hard; cen relaxed under her ministrations, allowing red leaf to work each traveltight knot from his flesh.

the sharadoii were closer to the sea, but their land was warm, fed by freshwater. the storms of ice which blew across the fertile valley were terrifying in magnitude, and yet the sharadoii had no fear of the long blizzards driven by ocean-salt. perhaps she had bathed in such streams after winter, cen considered, enjoying the mental image of water sluicing its way along the strong muscles of her back the way it did now over her shoulders and arms.

but the lanzadoii made no shelters in the open. red leaf had tasted this way only for a short while, once they had traveled southeast along the cousin river for many, many days. cen felt that their time in the bracken woods might have made her forget that the honor of the caribou hunters was to be in every element that the Ice Raven saw fit to send Their children.

soon she would know, cen thought. soon she would understand. the terrain would become hers to read, to look out across a plain and know it was not so flat nor short a journey as it seemed. earth dipped, rolled, sank. the sun seemed to circle across the sky. a wolf wandering alone might never find their way out of that endless, endless plain.

GLACIER MAP

her body would harden on the long hunt, and cen would see if her sharadoii and sea hunter blood made her weak. a smile toyed at the edge of his mouth; did red leaf know of her fish-eater lineage? it was no matter to the man; she was sharadoii to him. but now she would be lanzadoii, and would forget the taste of other meat and other ways. her people tucked their women into homes shaped by tree and stone. 

but his children would be born among the caribou, and their first shouts of life would be to sky and plain and wind. 

"your words are improving," cen said, translating the more complicated word. "getting better." his eyes lingered on the droplets of water gathering at the hollow of her throat. "it was not a hunt," he said again. "you have not yet been part of a lanzadoii hunt."