Abandoned at birth, the Brothers of the Ikkuma Pit know no mothers. They fend for themselves, each training their Little Brother to survive - until they grow into men and it's time for their Leaving Day. No boy knows what's beyond the forest. No Brother who left has ever come back. Until now . . . `An imaginative world with the glint of originality . . . richly conceived' Sunday Times `The writing [is] sharp and funny, the boys [are] an arresting mixture of toughness and tenderness' Guardian