Jarõ was covered in snow. Black curls peeking from under his fur cap were sheathed in ice. His dark eyes blinked behind frosted lashes. The brown skins over his shoulders and wrapped around his legs were mottled in white. Boots were lost in an endless pool of snow. He was but a boy, a meager dozen summers behind him, but on his back he held the hope of his family.

Over his left shoulder hung a running hen and a rabbit on leather straps. The moon shone blue from the south, beyond the snowstorm. In its low light, Jarõ could see the conical roofs of his band’s earth-and-wood qohnektoše gathered at the edge of the scarp, where warmer airs rising from the terrace far below might spare them the bitterest suffering of winter.

On the fringe of his camp, Jarõ paused and caught his breath. The hushed fall of snow and hiss of the wind were broken by the muffled crackle of fires inside the qohnektoše. He was weary, his whole body aching. His family were in worse shape, many of them so starved they could barely wake. The folja, the great beasts his people hunted, had dwindled to nothing over the past season. No mammoths, no oxen, few nose-horns. Even the lions and bears had grown scarce. Their sister-clan to the north had died out five winters ago. Now, Jarõ’s own clan was dying.

In the heavy snow, Jarõ had stumbled into the north end of the camp. He trudged past the qohnekto where his dzigũ, his father Kalumã “Faithful Attention,” lived under his bobĩ-pijun, Jarõ’s eldest paternal aunt. Jarõ missed his father, he hadn’t spoken to him in weeks, but this was not where he lived. His primary duty was not to those in hunger around Kalumã, but those in his mother’s qohnekto.

Jarõ pushed south through the snow, past home after home filled with his suffering clan-mates. To his left, beyond a row of dark qohnektoše, the edge of the scarp was a white line with the dark hollow of the Great Valley beyond. Far below were the lands of foreign tribes, terraces descending toward the Great River. Peoples not bound by tradition to hunt only folja, and not suffering the harsh winters of the higher terraces.

As Jarõ caught sight of his mother’s qohnekto, he glanced to his right into the snow-blinded fields of his tribe’s land. There were the scrubby woodlands where he’d caught the rabbit and racing hen. There were the grasslands where mammoths and nose-horns once thronged in seasons past. Two days travel across that bitter slope was the enormous scarp that rose to the bleak plains of Vjisukinštrã, Allwinter, where it was forever cold. A land of monsters and giants.

Jarõ was near warmth and safety. He took courage at that. He shook snow from his body, reset the game on his shoulder, and pushed forward. He had food for his starving family. In that moment, despite that the meat was not folja, he felt himself their savior.

He pushed through the leather flap, into the qohnekto. A fire burned warm in the center, surrounded by prone bodies covered by skins. Jarõ’s melĩ, his mother, was asleep in a far corner, covered by a deer fur. He held the game out to his intĩ-pijun Hervjẽ “Honorable Heart,” his mother’s oldest sister who ruled the home as the eldest woman in the qohnekto.

“I have game,” he said. “It is not much, but we can gain our strength on it.”

He slid the straps from his shoulder, setting the racing hen and rabbit on the floor.

The man at Jarõ’s feet rolled from his covers, dark eyes squinting against the light of the fire. His voišũ-pijun Opolẽ “Strong Thrust,” his mother’s eldest brother, a renowned hunter who had slain mammoths with his spear in fairer seasons. The man glared at Jarõ’s game and lifted himself weakly to his knees.

With a hunter’s swiftness, he backhanded Jarõ. The boy fell back onto his hands and hips. Several of Jarõ’s family rolled from their covers to witness.

Opolẽ grabbed the game by the leather straps and heaved it into the fire with a fevered groan. Embers flew toward the smoke-hole as the rabbit and racing hen caught flame.

“Boy, we are Tjanrakũ,” the man whispered weakly, except the name of their tribe. Tjanrakũ, the “True Hunter-Killers.” That word Opolẽ put a growl on.

Jarõ put his hand on his cheek, his whole body hot. He tasted blood and glanced at Hervjẽ. Her lips were tight with rage.

Opolẽ grunted: “We do not eat ketjur like the Avdor.” The tip of his tongue lingered on the ends of ketjur and Avdor, to emphasize the dishonor. Ketjur for garbage animals. Avdor for “weak dog” people who were not Tjanrakũ. Foreigners who ate ketjur garbage.

Jarõ stared at his game burning impotently on the fire. So much struggle for nothing. He tried to control his breath and his words.

“If Tjanrakũše cannot kill foljã,” Opolẽ said, rolling back onto his side. He spoke the end of the word folja through his nose, to add honor. “It is better to die.”

“But, my voišũ,” Jarõ said. The man slapped his ox-skin cover over his shoulder dismissively. The boy’s aunts, uncles, and cousins fell wearily back into their beds. They were resolved to their starvation. The decision was made.

“Jarõ,” Hervjẽ said.

“I will not hear that name,” Opolẽ hissed from under his covers. It was a flattering name, given to the boy by the women. It meant “handsome.” He had not earned Jarõ, or its honorific ending, from the men.

“Qjerfni,” Hervjẽ said, using his birth name. Green-faced. “It’s better you go stay the night in the qohnekto of your dzigũ/father.”

Jarõ glanced around at the faces of his mother’s family peeking weakly past their covers. He fought tears. To be sent to his father’s home was shameful. But, he knew, his loving aunt Hervjẽ likely wanted only to protect him from Opolẽ’s wrath. His uncle was a brutal man. Hervjẽ was mistress of her qohnekto, but Opolẽ was an honored folja-hunter with a reputation to defend.

Jarõ gathered his possessions and pushed through the leather of his family’s home into the bare winter.

The blue moonlight fell over the snow-caked cones of the qohnektoše, gathered near the scarp separating Tjanrakũ lands from the terrace of the foreign Avdor below. True, it was warmer near the scarp, but the cold was not the direst foe. Jarõ’s people had survived cold winters before.

Even if the folja reappeared, how could the Tjanrakũ hunt them in their weakness? The mammoths had not returned in the autumn. The oxen were gone. No one had seen more than a few nose-horn for years. The Tjanrakũ hunters had refused to hunt anything less than folja but, starving as they were, even a plenty herd would be safe from their spears.

The Dzijtrĩ clan of Tjanrakũ to their north had died out six winters ago, too stubborn to hunt garbage. Their emptied plateau was taken by Avdor from the lower valley, the Qještrã terrace, Allgreen lands of forests that never died. The winters are easier down there. The new Avdor to the north, accustomed to easier climates, might not fare any better than the Dzijtrĩ but, at the very least, they were not above hunting garbage.

Trudging north through the snows toward his father’s qohnekto, Jarõ was the only person out in the snowy night. The rest were too weary. In good years, every qohnekto would have a fire outside, surrounded by hunters drinking fermented hard water and sharing true chants and tales of hunting. Jarõ had not seen this in three seasons. The hunters were too weak. Even his young mates had been too feeble to join him on his hunt that day.

Jarõ felt the a moderate wind blowing up from the Great Valley below. Snow billowed upward over the edge of the cliff. Curious, he turned aside toward the scarp’s edge.

He stood at the top of the scarp. Countless man-lengths below was the wooded terrace of the Hvorlti, the Snake-Crawlers as his people called them, an Avdor tribe. In the spare moonlight, he could see the snow was lighter there, the winter milder. In the distance, he could see the twinkling lights of campfires, where Avdor men were doubtlessly sharing tales of hunting.

Past that, the falling snow obscured Jarõ’s vision, but he knew the terrace beyond, closer to the Great River, would be even warmer. There, the stories told, was the terrace of the Planter Kingdoms, and beyond that the river gorge of the Fishers.

Up the opposite bank, according to the true chants, were the lands of the dead where spirits dwelled. Opposite the terrace of Jarõ’s people would be his Tjanrakũ ancestors, hunting the same folja they had hunted in life, forever in the bliss of tradition.

He was not sure the true chants were true on this. What of the Dzijtrĩ whose lands were now occupied by Avdor? Whose ancestors dwelled in that opposing terrace? The Tjanrakũ had come down from Allwinter during the Colding many generations ago, twenty-four generations if the chants were true, driving the Hvorlti down the Antelope Trail to the terrace below. Did those warring ancestors live side-by-side on the opposite terrace?

His head felt heavy with these thoughts. Challenging the tradition of his hunter-age uncle had earned him a bloodied lip. Challenging the wisdom of the elders who kept the true chants could earn him exile. Then, how could he help feed his family?

Jarõ sighed and turned to climb back into his people’s camp. He pushed through the leather flap into the qohnekto of his father Kalumã. He had no game, nothing to offer but his presence. His aunts and uncles turned in their beds, smiling at him weakly. His father was asleep near the fire. Jam, his bobĩ-pijun, his eldest maternal aunt, waved him toward an empty spot between two other aunts.

It was much as his mother’s qohnekto. Everyone was exhausted, barely able to rouse themselves from resting.

“Hervjẽ sent me,” he told Jam. “I angered Opolẽ.”

“Oh, Jarõ. What have you done?” She nodded again toward the empty spot.

He shook his head. “Something dumb.” He set his stuff in the open spot. He looked at the fire, then back to his bobĩ-pijun. She smiled at him warmly.

He should not have brought ketjur home. Opolẽ was right. A true Tjanrakũ brought home folja or brought home nothing.

He looked at Jam. She saw the debate in his eyes.

“You look tired, sirkjilo,” she said. Addressing him not by either of his names, but as a male child of her family. “We have leaves and roots.”

He shook his head.

“We need more. If the folja will not come to us, I must go to the folja.”

He knelt over his stuff and separated out his hunting weapons. His spears, his throwing stick. He dug out a gourd for water, some raw flints for fire and spear-points, and a shoulder bag. He turned to Jam.

“Can I take some food?”

She nodded with a tight face. Her hand gestured toward an old mammoth-skull box against the earthen wall of the qohnekto. Jarõ walked over with his shoulder bag and scooped in some leaves and roots.

With a nod to his bobĩ-pijun, he walked to the leather flap of the qohnekto and pushed his way into the winter.