4
While others were still exploring the stability of the scree that blocked the access to the valley, Nanja crossed it as fast as she could.
Also from the two walls of the gorge boulders and stones had come loose and crashed into the valley. But four horses grazed on the banks of the brook; their journey had not been in vain.
Part of the birch grove was completely buried. A scree avalanche had thundered across another part of it and the trees lay uprooted and broken on top of each other. Exactly where the men had built their shelter. But it had been early evening when the earth began to tremble; certainly the men had not yet gone to sleep.
One of them sat at the edge of the wood, leaning against a boulder: Tamati. His right arm was hanging limply down; his shirt was in tatters and bloo
