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as fast as her legs would carry her.

At the top of the path, Dara paused to catch her breath. Everything seemed normal. The meeting cave loomed ahead of her, lit within by the welcoming flicker of the clan fire. The mouth-watering smell of roasting roots and meat scented the air. But it was too quiet. She’d have expected the squeal of little kids’ voices and the low murmur of the adults as they crouched and sprawled on the sand around the firepit. Instead, the evening seemed to have fallen under a heavy, silent blanket.
    Hesitantly, Dara made her way over. There was not a soul to be seen anywhere. By the firepit, the evening meal had been hurriedly pulled from the coals and abandoned, the battered pots and pans piled together on the sand, steaming gently.
    â€˜Hello?’ Her voice echoed back at her. She closed her eyes and tried to reach, to locate everyone, but she was too perturbed to concentrate and all she could find was a vague, disturbed feeling, the aftershock of that previous wave, perhaps, resonating through the Earthmother like ripples on the surface of a pool of water.
    â€˜You’re in trouble!’
    Jaran was standing behind her, framed in the cavemouth against the night sky beyond.
    â€˜Where is everyone?’
    He ignored her question. ‘Xani sent me to find you. Come on.’ Without waiting, he turned and marched back outside and, cursing silently under her breath, Dara followed.
    â€˜What’s going on?’ she asked, but again her brother pretended not to hear.
    â€˜Didn’t you catch anything?’ he asked instead, as she fell into step beside him. ‘Xani’ll be pissed.’
    â€˜I got a hopper.’
    â€˜Shi. Where is it, then?’
    â€˜Down the bottom of the home trail.’
    â€˜Not much use to anyone down there.’
    â€˜I’ll go back and get it later. What’s happened?’
    Jaran shot her a sideways glance. ‘What makes you think something’s happened?’
    â€˜Come on! Everybody’s missing, dinner’s been pulled off the fire, and besides … I felt something.’
    Her brother stared at her, his brow furrowing with disbelief.
    â€˜Eh?’
    â€˜When I was down the bottom of the home trail. Something flowed through the Earthmother. Something awful. So I rushed back up.’
    â€˜Shi,’ he muttered. Even in the deepening twilight, Dara caught the roll of his eyes.
    â€˜I did, too. Just because you can’t …’
    â€˜Perhaps I just don’t want to.’ Jaran didn’t bother to hide his contempt. ‘Perhaps the whole idea of …’ he paused, rolling his eyes to emphasise his feelings on the matter, ‘… reaching is something Ma made up to keep silly girls occupied and out of everyone’s way.’
    â€˜Is that what Uncle Xani thinks?’ Dara shot back. ‘Because he’s such a good hunter, isn’t he? Even though he hasn’t picked up a spear in his life. Ever wonder why that is, Jaran?’
    â€˜Whatever.’ Jaran marched off again, quickly ascending the narrow path past the sleeping caves to the top of the escarpment, increasing his pace so that Dara had to scurry. Despite their physical similarities, which were many, her brother was already considerably taller than her, and now he used his longer legs to maximum advantage.
    â€˜Slow down!’ Dara finally snapped.
    Jaran didn’t even glance at her as he replied, ‘No time.’
    â€˜Why not? What’s happening?’
    â€˜You’ll see.’
    They wound their way around a couple of switchbacks until the path began to level out and they passed between the ‘sentries’ – two enormous granite boulders that marked the top of the escarpment. Usually Dara would have stopped there for minutes, pausing to look nightwards, out across the green carpet of the forest canopy below, or up into the endless nightvault. Jaran, though, ploughed relentlessly