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hunger driving them on. When their sleepy eyes began to close, Timoken pushed the carcass into the hollow beneath the tree, and the cubs crawled in after it. In a few minutes they were fast asleep. Timoken covered them with the moon cloak and went in search of Gabar, who had wandered off.
    He found the camel drinking from a stream. Timoken untied the bag of food hanging from the saddle, and pulled out some millet cakes.
    Gabar turned his head and looked at the boy. ‘You will have to kill,’ the camel said. ‘Those cubs will grow. They’ll eat you and me, unless you feed them.’
    ‘I’ll steal more carcasses,’ said Timoken. ‘I’m not afraid of hyenas.’
    ‘Hmf!’ The camel chewed a long twig. ‘It won’t be enough. And what about milk?’
    ‘Milk?’ Timoken looked at Gabar. ‘Do you mean …?’
    ‘Don’t look at me,’ said Gabar. ‘I shall never be a mother.’
    ‘But those cubs might need someone’s mother, that’s what you’re saying. They might need milk as well as food.’
    The camel blinked in agreement.
    ‘I will find a goat,’ Timoken said blithely. ‘There’s bound to be a goat somewhere.’
    Unconvinced, Gabar pursed his rubbery lips.
    While the cubs slept, Timoken lay on the fallen tree above them. In more than a hundred years of travelling he had never saved a life. The experience had changed him. If he had lived like an ordinary mortal, he would be dead by now. And so, it followed, would the cubs. Fate had brought them together, and now he felt bound to the small creatures he had saved. ‘Forever,’ he murmured to himself.
    Timoken closed his eyes and began to devise a way to carry the cubs. Nomads had given him a small bag for water, and now the big goatskin bag hung empty from the saddle. The cubs could be carried in it.
    Timoken chewed a millet cake, and then drifted off to sleep. He woke up to find Gabar’s nose in his face.
    ‘Family,’ said the camel, ‘you have forgotten something.’
    ‘What?’ Timoken answered drowsily.
    ‘You never sleep without a cover. The viridees will come back. The forest is not safe.’
    Timoken smiled. ‘You are right. But first, the cubs.’ He lifted the curtain of creepers and looked into the dark hollow where they slept.
    The moon cloak now covered the cubs completely. It had wrapped itself around them, and billowed gently with their heartbeats. The shining threads seemed to embrace the cubs, as though the web was claiming them for its own. One cub lay on his back; the others were curled on each side of him, their heads pressed against his. Seen through the veil of spider silk, the markings on their fur appeared like a scattering of stars.
    Timoken drew in his breath and sat back.
    ‘What?’ asked Gabar.
    ‘They have become …’ Timoken didn’t know how to describe what he saw to the camel.
    Gabar waited patiently for the rest of Timoken’s answer.
    ‘Enchanted,’ said Timoken, hoping that the camel would understand.
    He did.

Chapter Seven
Sun Cat, Flame Chin and Star
    There were five of them now. ‘A family of five,’ Timoken liked to say. But the camel did not agree. He was not entirely comfortable when the leopards were close.
    They were travelling through grassland that was neither forest nor desert. Gabar was happy on the dry, flat earth. There were waterholes and streams and sometimes a low, tasty tree. And the camel knew that Timoken could keep dangerous animals away with the loud sounds he made, in languages that Gabar couldn’t begin to understand.
    The cubs enjoyed riding in the big goatskin bag. Sometimes, they would peek above the rim and watch the world go by. But as soon as they caught the scent of a big cat, they would duck down into the bag.
    Whenever they passed a group of nomads, Timokenwould exchange dried fruit for a bag of goat’s milk.
    The first time the cubs tasted goat’s milk, they pronounced it very good.
    ‘As good as your mother’s milk?’ Timoken asked the cubs.
    ‘No,’ said the