Second in the Travellers series, in this book Hagar dies of old age and Ish continues to trade with teh Metal people and falls in love with Tara. Ish dreams of staying in one place so Ish becomes a farmer and develops a self sufficent farm at Lake top. He returns to the trading place of the metal people to collect Tara, her father Dinny and brothers so that they will return to live happily ever after at the farm. When he gets there he finds that the Salt People (with whom the metal people traded) have massacred everyone. Ish witnesses Tara being shot by an arrow and he exacts revenge by shooting the assailant and then proceeds to steal a greenstone dolphin pendant from his neck. To escape the Salt people's leader (Squintface), Ish flees south with Taur, a mute bull man who he befriends. Taur is mute because the salt people cut out his tongue and castrated him and kept him as a slave. But nowhere is there refuge from the brutal Squint-face. Across the ice of Cook Strait lies the South Land - can Ish and Taur find peace there? The book ends with Taur being shot to save Ish. I found that i enjoyed the start of the book, but became fairly bored with the story after Tara was murdered, so skim read the rest. ( )