LITMIR.BIZ

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but the old ram resisted. The druid’s face became more serious after each failed attempt.

      “Leave him be,” Nill said. “He’s stubborn, old, but generally quite harmless.”

      The druid growled deep within his throat. “No being capable of withstanding a druid’s allure is harmless. Where did you find him and what have you spent the summer doing?”

      Nill shook his head uncertainly. “He just appeared. There was a bit of a question of whose responsibility the herd was, but I managed to convince him. From that moment we took care of the herd together. I sat by the slope and he stood atop the hill. And when I brought the herd to the stables for the night he brought up the rear.”

      Dakh-Ozz-Han began to move again, taking his eyes off the ram. Nill waved at the ram in a sheepish kind of way and then ran after the druid. Even a simple farewell was too much for him at the moment. Nill felt as though his entire tidy life was crumbling into little pieces, none of which seemed to fit together any more.

      It’ll all work out, he thought.

      The old ram stood there like a sentinel. Only after the boy and the druid had vanished behind the next hill did he raise a hoof.

      Nill walked where he had walked a hundred times before, and even when they had long since left the familiar terrain the landscape was unchanged. A web of tough, dry grass covered the bleached, naked stone of the hilltops. Lonesome black bushes that nobody and nothing could get rid of dug deep into the rock with their roots. This was the home Nill knew, a place for tough and frugal people, for rams, small rodents and scratch-birds. Where the old caverns had crumbled in the white rock now lay deep gorges between the hills that had become fearsome swamps over time. These holes were both a blessing and a terror to the shepherds. In the hottest of summers the herds could always find enough water here so as not to die of thirst, but more than one animal had slipped on the steep slopes and been caught in the bog below.

      The hard, triangular grass that grew in the mud at the bottom of these basins was difficult even for the rams to digest, so thirst was the sole motivator for their trips down into the gorges. But for humans, the grass as well as the morass in which it grew in had a different advantage, because it was an excellent building material. Still, the bricks had to lie in the sun for a long time, until the stench had left them. Both animals and humans valued a small strip of good, solid earth between the wet trenches and the bare hilltops. The grass there grew more readily and certain herbs gave the air an agreeable aroma.

      The path stretched on, and one day passed like the last. Slowly the dried grass became more yellow, the bushes grew more verdant, isolated birdsong contained speech, and the air was thick with the smell of earth and grass, as though it wanted to fill their lungs completely.

      “Have you noticed?” Nill asked the druid.

      “What’s that, my boy?”

      “All nature is suddenly richer and fuller.”

      The druid smiled. “No, I hadn’t noticed. Nature is always rich and full.”

      Nill grimaced at this answer and stayed silent for a while. He tramped grumpily after the old man, who was ascending and descending the hilltops with ease. Whenever Nill stopped for a moment to marvel at something he had to run to catch back up to the druid.

      “May I ask you something?”

      Dakh-Ozz-Han turned his head slightly, not enough to lose any of the smoothness in his step, and said shortly: “What is it?”

      Nill ran a few more steps to get beside Dakh and started talking immediately. “Is there a difference between a druid who comes and a druid who goes?”

      “Yes,” Dakh acknowledged with a smile. Nill waited for more, but the druid seemed to consider the question answered.

      “But why is that, and how do you do it?”

      “For druids it is like for all other people. They come with their wishes, hopes, expectations or intentions, and they go with their disappointment or happiness, in great sadness or lost in thought. But why do you ask?”

      “That wasn’t what I meant. When you came to our village, all nature bowed before you. The animals and even the wind foretold of your arrival. You brought the people out of their houses, sent the hounds to their dark hiding places, and the earth trembled at your every step. Now I feel that nature is celebrating, and you walk so lightly that you don’t even leave footprints.”

      The druid smiled again. “When a king arrives, his people carry the banners before him, fanfares are sounded and drums are beaten. Messengers foretell of his coming, and children and young women lay out flowers and petals to honor him. Everyone sees the herald, because they highly anticipate him. Yet the thief arrives in the neighbor’s dress, the spy stays unrevealed. I came like a warlord and went like a thief. Out here, in the wilds, I move unseen, and I will enter Ringwall as an unloved envoy.”

      Nill listened in silence. He had always gone as he had come. Or had he?

      Apart from a short rest at noon they had wandered for a full day again. The grass covering the hills was still yellow, sporadic groupings of bushes lent sparse protection from the sun and fresh water was so rare that they had to live off their own rations most of the time. They slept in the small forests that had now begun to cover the hills more frequently. Nill, who had never seen trees this large before, had noticed that the druid always set up his night camp at the edge of the crest, where it was densest. All the more surprised was he when he saw that tonight, Dakh-Ozz-Han had decided to sleep among the roots.

      “Look up, boy,” the druid muttered as he noticed Nill’s bemused gaze. “This here is a dry-pine. They water the forest floor from the edge of their crests, unlike most others that do so with their skyward branches and limp leaves.”

      They had been traveling for quite a few days now, each passing much like the last. The only pleasant thing was that their luggage was becoming ever lighter, as they had to live off their provisions. The banis they drunk was reaching its end. It was made from the underground bulbs of the alwrag-weed, diluted with water. Fresh banis was easy enough to make, but for that they needed water. They had long passed the swamp-holes, and the riverbeds in the area ran dry. Dakh, too, seemed worried about the water situation.

      “I have not witnessed drought like this for a very long time,” he said as they packed up their things the next morning, shaking the cold dew out of their hair and quilts. “We will have to make a detour, and I do not like the thought of that at all.”

      “We’ll make up for the time lost,” Nill tried to calm him, but Dakh merely scowled. They did not have to go far. In the early afternoon they came across a wide hollow that was completely covered by a dense forest.

      “We will find fresh water here,” the druid said gruffly, pointing at the trees with his staff. “Unpack our things, we will stay here.”

      The curt tone in his voice was new to Nill. He did not understand, either, why Dakh had decided to rest so early. Still, he obediently opened their knapsacks and took out the most important things. But then he could no longer contain himself. “Why don’t we just go into the forest and fill up our water skins? We’d have enough fresh water then.”

      “Because.”

      “That’s no answer.”

      “If you long for a good beating, go ahead,” the druid growled. “Now keep your mouth shut and do as I’ve said.”

      You’ll have to catch me if you want to beat me, Nill thought as he spread out his quilt a safe distance from the druid. He was upset. He had witnessed Dakh as boisterously friendly, withdrawn and silent, thoughtfully morose and with a sunny smile on his face. He had never seen him this irascible. While Nill was still pondering how to treat this new Dakh-Ozz-Han, he noticed that Dakh’s mighty chest was rising and sinking rhythmically. The evenness of his breaths told Nill that he had fled to the world of dreams.

      If he wants to sleep, he’ll sleep, thought

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