CHAPTER 7
Return to the MountainsBardek was not dead, but unconscious.
Negg and Millon squatted beside him silently for a long time, considering what to do. Their first reaction had been to leave him and find their way back to the marshlands, but they were not sure where the marshlands lay. Ahead of them the Kariva mountain range rose huge and mysterious. Its giant walls of rock could be shelter or prison. The two marsh dwellers looked at it with dread, but they knew that Bardek had a family and it would probably be to their advantage to keep him alive and take him home.
They made a kind of make-shift hammock out of the girl’s discarded cloak, rolled him over on to it, and carried him between them. His weight stretched the fabric to its limit and their arms began to ache. They had to st
