She heard it again: the same sound that had probably awakened her in the first place. And this time she knew what it was: hand-forged steel arrowheads clinking faintly in a quiver, like coins in a pocket. The dilemma of the Digger hunter being that those shafts had to be held loosely enough to be fluidly drawn and nocked, but not so loosely that they jangled with each footfall. In measured strides across level ground, their kit might make no noise, but in a breathless predawn descent of an uneven slope, things might work themselves loose. As that aural picture sharpened in her mind, she could sense footfalls too, and hear bodies pushing through brush. The party, she guessed, was more numerous than the jangling quivers.