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  “The same.” He turned to Tassida. “Tass,” he proposed calmly, formally, “travel with us, be our comrade again.”

  She seemed taken aback, and edged away from the fire. “I—I don’t know.”

  “I promise you, I will not importune you in any other way.” He turned to me. “Dan?”

  It was a promise not lightly to be given, but I nodded. “As a comrade, Tass,” I told her. “Just as we were before.”

  “You know that is not possible,” she said.

  “As close as we can make it, then. Tass?”

  “I don’t know,” she muttered. “I must think. Or listen. To whatever it is that guides me.” She walked off into the darkness.

  She was gone all night, though I awoke from time to time and fed the fire to keep it blazing, making of it a beacon to guide her back to us. I daresay she knew the way well enough without it. Kor poked at the fire from time to time also, and prowled about, and he was up before the dawn, waiting. Which was well thought of, because it was not long after first light that Tassida came back and began gathering her gear stealthily, as if she did not wish to awaken us, though in fact we were awake already.

  Kor stood up and faced her, his eyes grave. Only then did she speak in answer to his mute question.

  “I must go my own way,” she said softly.

  “And what way is that?” he asked just as softly.

  “For the time, back the way you have just come. I wish to see this pool of vision.”

  I had come stumbling to my feet. “We could show you.”

  “No. I will find it.” She turned away, whistling for her gelding.

  “Why off so early, Tass?” I was honestly puzzled—my wits are not at their best when I am half-asleep. “It is not yet sunrise! Stay awhile, eat with us.”

  “No. My thanks, but no. I am going now.” The handsome black Calimir appeared at her side, his white legs and mane and white-spotted belly glowing eerily bright in the dim light.

  “Let me get you a packet of meat, then.”

  I started rooting about for something to wrap it with. But Kor stood motionless where he was, and his voice when he spoke was low.

  “You are frightened of us.”

  I listened for a snort, a scornful reply, but they did not come. There was nothing from Tass but silence.

  “Frightened of us, since we know you for a maiden! Tass, why? What have we ever done to you but honor you?”

  I straightened to look at her, food forgotten. She was strapping on her wolfskin riding pelt, tying her pouches to it, fastening the cordgrass bridle, all in haste, as if she were fleeing from a real danger, and her eyes in the dim light looked haunted.

  Kor took a step forward, and she froze as if he had rendered her too terrified to move. But his gaze caught hers, and she answered him.

  “Nothing,” she said, her voice so struggling we could scarcely hear it. “You have done nothing to hurt me. You just—are.”

  “Are what?”

  She jerked her head away from his glance and vaulted to the horse’s back. Kor caught hold of her reins, and I stepped to his side. “Careful,” I warned, trying to ease what was happening with a jest. “She’ll have her knife out in a moment.”

  “No!” Tass seemed jolted into speech at my words. Protests spilled out of her, and tears started from her eyes. “Dan, that was an accident—I thought you knew! I wanted only to cut the reins and get away—”

  “I know, I know!” I hastened to reassure her.

  “I never meant to hurt you.” But she brushed away the tears impatiently with the back of one hand.

  Kor stood beside me, holding the reins so hard that his knuckles whitened, and abruptly he asked a strange question.

  “Tassida. Who gelded Calimir?”

  She stared dumbly at him, and I turned to stare too. His changeable eyes were dark, purple-gray and stormy, and as deep as the stormy sea.

  “You have told us there are no other tribes but the six I know. No person of any of them would geld a stallion, not even those slave-keeping Fanged Horse scum. And Calimir is not a fanged steed nor yet a curly-haired Red Hart pony. You have told us that horses of beauty, of the old breed, run wild on the dry plains east of the thunder cones. You must have caught Calimir there. But who gelded him?”

  I looked back at her, seeing a trapped fear, seeing a secret too terrible to speak, and I felt a chill.

  “Do you not think you owe us some small measure of truth?” Kor demanded.

  Slowly, as if she could not help herself, she drew her knife of sharp blackstone. “I deem—you already know. Turn loose my reins.”

  Neither Kor nor I moved. “She did it herself?” I murmured to him, too stunned to speak louder.

  “She must have.”

  “I saved his life, raised him from a tiny foal!” Tass cried suddenly. “He followed me like a dog, he was as gentle as a dove. But when his neck began to swell, he grew hot and mettlesome, and I didn’t—I couldn’t—”

  “Didn’t want him acting like a stud,” said Kor, his voice careful, colorless.

  “You can see he does not hold it against me.” She was weeping, her knife gripped hard in her hand.

  “Of course not,” said Kor bitterly. “The creatures who befriend us, they are patient, mute, forgiving, they do what we ask of them without needing to understand. The horses, they let us ride them to war, through fire, beyond exhaustion unto death—”

  Her head lifted with a snap at his tone, and her dark eyes flashed. She spun her knife briefly and raised it.

  “Unhand my reins,” she ordered.

  Kor let go and stepped back. His compliance seemed to startle her so that she did not ride away at once, but lingered, sheathing her stone blade.

  “Do not think too badly of me,” she said softly at last, glancing at both of us equally.

  “I cannot think too badly of you ever,” I said, though an odd sort of weight lay on my chest, hindering my breathing. “Gentle journey.”

  “Gentle journey,” Kor echoed me.

  “And the same to you both, and—good fortune of all sorts.…” She seemed about to say more, but then, abruptly, she wheeled Calimir and set off at a canter toward the east. I raised my hand in an awkward salute, and she returned it just as she disappeared between giant pines.

  Kor and I kept a numb silence as we went about the business of breaking camp. Nor did we eat. Not until we were mounted and riding westward did we begin to speak.

  “I would never have guessed it of her,” I said to Kor.

  “You are trusting.”

  “Fool, most folk say.”

  “Special sort of courage, say I. But I have been a king for too long, and I always wonder, and suspect.…”

  “She could be killed for it if folk knew. Stoned at the stake. Abomination …”

  He made no reply except to shrug.

  “It’s as well she would not lie with you,” I said, trying to jest but not truly jesting. “You might have found yourself—altered. In the mid of night.”

  He grimaced by way of answer. We rode on for a while, edging up the flanks of the mountains, making our way toward the Blackstone Path and the Blue Bear Pass.

  “Why did you speak of it?”

  “I wish I knew.” Kor sounded wry.

  “You have more courage than I.”

  “Less. I think I wanted—to stop loving her.”

  Sakeema, his honesty. Understanding pierced me.

  “It makes no difference,” I said softly after a moment. “Loving goes on.”

  “I know. To my dismay.”

  Chapter Three

  Daily we wound our way higher on the long shoulders of the mountains. Yellow pine gave way to dense spearpine and aspen amid spines of rock. The going was hard, but we saved many miles by slanting our way north and westward toward the Blackstone Path, which would take us over the mountains. The name of it came not from the mountain stones, which were granite gray, but from the knife blades made of obsidian, the bl
ack stone, which my tribefellows would chip and carry to the Seal and Otter peoples to trade for fish oil—along the coast even flint was scarce, and folk made their knives of shell and bone. The Blackstone Path snaked steeply up to a high nagsback, scarcely to be called a pass, between the Chital and Shaman peaks. It would be a hard way for the horses, and for us, but we had decided to attempt it this time rather than brave the gentler Shappa Pass, where so much misfortune had befallen us.

  Autumn comes early to the high slopes. Aspens were turning yellow by the time we neared the trail.

  Kor made the best of traveling companions: steadfast, seldom complaining, dryly amusing at times, at other times content to be silent for half a day or more, giving the mind a chance to rest itself in dreams. What endeared him even more to me, every day’s journey gave him fresh cause for wonder. My mountains amazed him at every turn anew, and his eyes sparkled as he looked about him. He gazed days on end at the yellowing of the aspens amid evergreens, and at the alp, the high meadow far above, already touched by frost or an autumn moon, glowing the color of embers beneath gray-blue crags.

  Blue sky, white snowpeaks, green pines, and the smaller trees so yellow they seemed to shine as we came within sight of the Blackstone Path. A slate-blue hulk squatted amidst the boulders that marked the way upward to the pass. Kor frowned at the sight of the Cragsman.

  “I hope there is no toll to pay this time,” he muttered.

  But what could the Blue Bear require of us? Pajlat’s steppes lay far away—no Fanged Horse raiders could be waiting in ambush. We knew better than to consort with the deer folk. And the Cragsmen had done no more than laugh at us before. Though Cragsmen were stony-hearted, capricious.…

  And hard as the crags. Folk said they took form from the bones of the mountains themselves. And they could send great shards of mountain down on us, I knew. But an odd sense, something more sure than daring, was growing in me. It was as Kor had said the night we had clasped hands in blood brotherhood: we two together could do anything. Our handbond gave us strength and our swords gave us might. Ventures of any kind held few fears for me.

  The Cragsman rose, clambering over the boulders with thick legs the color of granite in shadow, thudding down to bar our way as we rode up to him. As we sat our horses, his head was on a level with ours. I noticed the greenish, lichenlike growth of his hair. I saw his bare, massive chest, gray-blue and mossed with fur, broad as two shields. He stood spraddle-legged and scowling.

  “Get down,” he said.

  I made no move to dismount. “We want but to pass,” I said evenly.

  “Something about you two displeases me. I smell enmity. Get down.”

  Kor shrugged and swung down from Sora. More reluctantly, I slid off of Talu. The blue giant scanned us.

  “You.” He pointed at Kor. “I challenge you. Fight.”

  Kor’s mouth came open, more in astonishment than in fear, though the prospect of single combat with a Cragsman was fearsome enough. “But that is absurd!” he protested. “I am of the Seal Kindred! We deal fairly with all. How can you call me your enemy?”

  “You wear my people’s bane at your belt. Both of you do. Made of my ancestors’ bones and of their blood. I see it, I smell it. I will kill one of you, and then I will kill the other. Fight.”

  The Cragsman emphasized the challenge with a lift of his knobby club. I got hold of the horses by their bridles, one in each hand, as they reared, lifting me off the ground—my weight constrained them to stay with us yet awhile. Kor sprang back from the Cragsman’s blow, not yet drawing his sword.

  “I have never done anything to you or your people! Nor do I wish to begin now.”

  The Cragsman gave forth a roar that seemed to bend the sky and quake the distant peaks. “Take him, Kor!” I shouted at the same moment. “And do not hold back—strike to kill! Nothing less stops these louts.”

  His sword sprang into his hand. The red stone on the pommel blazed like fire.

  “I will pulp you with a single blow!” the Cragsman bellowed, swinging—the club was nearly as long as Kor was tall. But Kor stepped deftly under the stroke. A canny fighter, Kor. He had learned to fight with wit when he was a stripling facing far larger challengers in combat, challengers for his kingship. Still, I trembled as I watched. It was as the Cragsman had said: if he landed but a single blow on Korridun, he could kill him.

  Kor did not wait for that mischance. He struck even as the club swung. With all his might, with speed beyond any I had ever seen in him, in anyone, he struck, and the weight of the downswinging club, the might of the Cragsman’s blow, only aided him. Even as I blinked he had severed the huge hand that wielded the club, and the Cragsman roared again, a terrible roar of agony.

  Kor’s sword rose again, faster than I could follow, this time to strike at the giant’s throat. Almost before the riven hand had struck the ground the blade swished again. But the Cragsman had fallen backward from the shock of that first stroke, and I had been wrong when I had said that nothing less than death would stop these louts of stone. This one scrambled and staggered away, gulping and roaring, “The bane—the bane—my people’s bones and blood.…”

  Kor stood where he was, staring down at the abandoned hand at his feet, and I came up to stand beside him. A thick, sluggish, yellow-green flow was creeping from the veins of the wrist, and as we watched the stuff changed color, growing at the same time darker and more bright, and hardened into a shining shape as of puddled water. I stooped and picked it up—it flashed in the sun as did our swords, but with a brownsheen glint. Still, it was of the same strange stuff, very smooth, hard and chill—what had Tass called it? Metal. I had never seen such a thing before, or known that the swordstuff came from the Cragsmen. The few times my people had managed to kill one, it had been by sending a rockslide down atop him.

  Kor stood woodenly beside me, and, glancing up at him, I saw that he was troubled, though not by the lump of strange stuff in my hand. He seemed scarcely to see it, and I laid it down and stood to peer at him.

  “It wasn’t me,” he said.

  “What wasn’t you?”

  “Zaneb—she has passions of her own. I was content to send him away. She struck to kill him.”

  Stiffly he raised the sword. Bright shards of brownsheen metal fell off the blade, striking the rocky ground with a faint ringing sound.

  “Sheathe her,” I said, and he did, and deeply breathed, and looked around him.

  So the swords had seen this same sort of combat before—when? And at whose side? For what purpose? To gather blood? To bring back bones of Cragsmen and make weapons of them? There was no time to speak of it.

  “Shall we go on?” I asked Kor slowly. “The lot of them might come roaring down on us for revenge.”

  “Or they might keep well away from us, if they are truly afraid. Perhaps Alar does not like Cragsmen either.”

  I felt my sword stir in its scabbard as he spoke its name, and that decided me.

  “To mount, then, and let us ride quickly.”

  We rode at the canter when we could, and we rode past dusk and late into the night until moonset, trying to put ourselves in an entirely different place. We rode out of spearpine and into blue pine and spruce. From time to time we heard bellowings far above, among the rocks that pierced the eversnow. They did not comfort us.

  With first light the next day we were on our way, pressing the pace all through the day. But by sundown we considered that we had fled far enough. The air was starting to thin, for we had nearly reached the tree line. We would need our strength for what lay before us. And we had heard no more bellowings, nor seen a Cragsman.

  We had nothing to eat except foragings, a few nuts, some bundleberries. “What I wouldn’t give for a handful of oatmeal,” I complained to Kor. “Or even a stinking fish.”

  I meant to make him smile, and partly succeeded. He quirked a wry half-smile at me.

  “Our horses eat meat,” I held forth, addressing earth and sky with my plaint. “Would tha
t I could eat grass and leaves!”

  “Go stalk us a deer,” he said mildly, “and I will make the fire.”

  I took my stand behind the last stunted spruce at the tree line, looking out over the highmountain meadow that stretched to the eversnow. High meadow had always seemed a magical place to me, and never more so than that evening, when the westering sun set it afire, sedges and hummocks of heather and leaves of stunted shrubs blazing red and orange and again red, so rich a red it seemed black in shadow but bright as blood in light. And there was a white mist also, rising out of the redness, and moving in the mist were the tree-shapes of antlers with the velvet fluttering about them—the harts would soon be in rut. I took the stable-stance, arrow nocked and bow at the ready, and waited for one to graze near me.

  It did not take long. A splendid stag drifted out of the mist no more than twenty paces from me and stood, head lifted, as if he were admiring the sunset world very much as I had been. For a moment I held fast to my arrow, telling myself that I would wait for a better shot, though in fact I could have killed him cleanly where he stood.… Truth was, his glance seemed so nearly human that my heart misgave me. But my stomach stirred, reminding me of hunger, and I thought of Kor waiting at our campsite, already preparing the cooking fire. I made sure my aim—

  Out of the mist bounded a hind, pure white, as white as the mist, and she leaped up to the hart, my quarry, and nuzzled him with her mouth. My bow sagged until my arrow pointed at the ground, and I let it fall limply away, for I felt weak. I had nearly slain an old friend.

  “Birc!” I called.

  Red hart and white hind gave a startled leap but then stood still, heads high, looking toward the sound of my voice. I walked out of my cover so that they could see me.

  “By all the powers, Birc,” I said, my voice shaking, “you should be more careful. I nearly killed you.” I had not at all been expecting to see him, for we had left him two mountains away, near the ill-fated Shappa Pass.

  The hart trotted up to me, great antlers riding on its stately head, very beautiful, dark brown eyes gazing into mine and glowing with joy. I reached out a hand in greeting, touched it on the neck, and there stood Birc in his human form, brown hair unruly on his forehead as of old. His shy smile broadened almost into a grin when I threw my arms around him and gave him the embrace of a comrade.