Cadillac took a deep breath to fill out his chest, stretched his arms

out sideways then brought them together above his head.

His shadow did the same.

It never failed to fascinate Cadillac. The shape of his shadow pleased

him. It was different from the shadows cast by most of the others in

his clan. It had a sleek, smooth outline, with long straight arms and

legs, and the shadow's hands had only one thumb and four fingers - like

the shadows of the sand-burrowers that Cadillac had never seen but whom

Mr Snow had described.

The hidden enemy far to the south by the Great Water who sent out the

iron snakes and the cloud warriors -' from whom he must always flee.

Cadillac M'CalI, now eighteen years old, belonged to one of the many

clans of She-Kargo Mutes that roamed the Central and Northern Plains.

According to Mr Snow, their ancestors had come from beyond the dawn on

the backs of giant birds whose beating wings made the noise of a mighty

waterfall.

They had landed at a place called O-haya, by the side of a great

lake.

To celebrate their arrival, they had killed and roasted the birds and

feasted on them all summer long then, when winter came, they used the

frozen waters of the lake to build a great settlement full of towering

pillars of ice that glowed with all the colours of the rainbow and

whose tops were lost in the clouds.

In the War of a Thousand Suns, the city had melted and flowed back into

the lake.. Every living thing had perished except for an old man

called She-Kargo and an old woman called Me-Sheegun and their

children.

She-Kargo had fifteen sons, all of them brave warriors, tall and strong

as bears; the old woman had fifteen beautiful daughters.

She-Kargo's sons and Me-Sheegun's daughters crossed wrists and bound

their bodies together with the blood kiss and their children, and their

children's children, grew strong and multiplied, and moved westwards

into the lands of the Minne-Sota, the Io-wa, Da-Kota, and Ne-Braska,

killing all who resisted them, and making soul-brothers of all those

who laid the hand of friendship upon them.

They triumphed because their warriors were braver, their wordsmiths

wiser, and their summoners more powerful.

And thus it was that-the Plainfolk grew strong in number and gave

thanks to their great mother-goddess, Mo-town.

Cadillac went to his chosen place among the rocks at the edge of the

plateau where the M'Call clan had set down their huts to wait out the

growing time. From the ragged edge of the plateau the ground fell away

steeply, ridged and hollowed as if clawed by the talons of a giant

eagle. Lower down, the ground evened out, flowing in a gentle curve to

join the rolling, orange grass-covered plain that stretched towards the

rim of the world. Beyond that lay the hidden door through which the

sun entered each morning. The pale blue that had quenched the golden

fireclouds of the dawn was deepening as the sun climbed higher; small

widely-spaced clouds, like a distant slow-grazing herd of white

buffalo, were beginning to form over the far edge of the plains.

Cadillac lay back against the warm rock face and let his eyes roam

across the unbroken stretch of blue, searching for the tell-tale flash

of silver light that he had been told would signal the presence of a

cloud warrior. As Mr Snow's chosen successor, Cadillac had no need to

act as a sentinel. Over a hundred of his clan-brothers were perched on

the hilltops that lay around the settlement; young warriors - known as

Bears - were on guard, day and night; some watching the sky for cloud

warriors; others, the ground, for any marauding bands from rival Mute

clans seeking to invade the M'Call's summer turf. Some manned hidden

look-out posts on the high ground, others patrolled the area around the

settlement in small mobile packs that doubled as hunting parties.

Cadillac continued his search of the sky. Not because he felt

threatened but because he was consumed with curiosity.

As a Mute, he had every reason to fear the sand-burrowers; the

mysterious people who lived beneath the earth and killed everything

upon it whenever they emerged from the darkness; yet in spite of their

awesome reputation - or perhaps because of it - he yearned to confront

them; to challenge them.

So far, they had not ventured into the lands of the Plainfolk. But the

Sky Voices had told Mr Snow that the time of their coming was near.

The first sign would be arrowheads in the sky; the birdwings that

carried the cloud warriors on their journeys. They were the far-seeing

eyes of th