LITMIR.BIZ

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vision – a slender man, much shorter than one of the People, with dark hair and big eyes like an owl. He was travelling with a mule and earning his living as a herbman.

      ‘So he shouldn’t be too hard to find,’ Nananna finished up. ‘When I scryed him out, he was leaving Elrydd and making his way west. Now, the rest of you leave us while I tell the banadar the secret riddle.’

      Carefully avoiding Calonderiel, Dallandra left the tent along with the men and went over to Enabrilia’s tent, which stood nearby. Enabrilia was cooking soda-bread of Eldidd flour on a griddle while Wylenteriel changed the baby. Enabrilia broke off a bit of warm bread and handed it to Dallandra.

      ‘I’ve got something to show you later,’ Enabrilia said. ‘We traded a pair of geldings for some marvellous things yesterday. A big iron kettle and yards and yards of linen.’

      ‘Wonderful! I should take some of our extra horses over to the Round-eyes, too.’

      The Eldidd merchants left the alardan the next day, taking away fine horses and jewellery and leaving behind a vast motley assortment of iron goods, cloth, and mead. The alardan settled down to its real business –trading goods among itself, and sorting out the riding orders for the long trips ahead to the various winter camps. Just at twilight, Dallandra took an Eldidd-made axe and walked about a mile to a stand of oaks where she’d spotted a dead tree earlier. In the blue shadows under the old trees, all tangled with underbrush, it was cool and quiet – too quiet, without even the song of a bird. Suddenly she was aware of someone watching her. She raised the axe to a weapon-posture.

      ‘All right, come out,’ Dallandra barked.

      As quietly as a spirit materializing, a man of the People stepped forward. Dressed in clothes pieced out of animal skins, he carried a long spear with a chipped stone blade, the shaft striped with coloured earths and decorated with feathers and ceramic beads. Round his neck on a thong hung a small leather pouch, also elaborately decorated. One of the Forest Folk, come so close to a gathering – Dallandra lowered the axe and stared in sheer surprise. His smile was more a sneer as he looked her over.

      ‘You have magic,’ he said at last.

      ‘Yes, I do. Do you need my help for anything?’

      ‘Your help?’ The words dripped sarcasm. ‘Impious bitch! As if I needed your help for one little thing. That axe-head is made of iron.’

      Dallandra sighed in sudden understanding. The Forest Folk clung to ancient taboos along with ancient ways – or so the People saw it.

      ‘Yes, it is, but it hasn’t hurt me or my friends. Honest. No harm’s come to us at all.’

      ‘That’s not the issue. The Guardians are angry. You drive the Guardians away with your stinking filthy iron.’

      To Dallandra the Guardians were a religious principle, not any sort of real being, but there was no use in arguing philosophy with the Forest Folk.

      ‘Have you come to warn us? I thank you for your concern, and I shall pray for forgiveness.’

      ‘Don’t you mock me! Don’t you think I can tell you despise us? Don’t you dare speak to me as if I were a child, or I’ll–’

      When he stepped forward, raising the spear, Dallandra threw up one hand and summoned the Wildfolk of Aethyr. Blazing blue fire plumed from her fingers with a roaring hiss. The man shrieked and fell on his knees.

      ‘Now,’ she said calmly. ‘What do you want? If you just want to lecture me, I’m too busy at the moment.’

      ‘I want nothing, Wise One.’ He was shaking, his fingers tight on the spear-shaft for comfort. ‘I brought someone who does need your help.’

      When he called out, a human man crept forward from the underbrush. His dark hair was matted; his tattered brown rags were filthy. He fell to his knees in front of her and looked up with desperate eyes. He was so thin that she could see every bone in the hands he raised to her.

      ‘Please help me,’ he stammered out in the Eldidd tongue.

      Dallandra stared at his dirty face. On his left cheek was a brand, bitten in deep to his flesh, the mark of some Round-eared lord. A bondsman – fleeing for freedom and his life.

      ‘Of course we’ll help you,’ Dallandra said. ‘Come with me. Let’s get you fed first.’ She turned to the spearman. ‘You have my sincere thanks. Do you want to eat with us, too?’

      For an answer he rose and ran, slipping back into the forest like a deer. Weeping a low animal mutter under his breath, the Round-ear staggered to his feet. When they reached the alar, the People clustered round with shouts and oaths. Wylenteriel pressed a chunk of bread into the man’s filthy hands and got him a bowl of ewe’s milk to drink – the roast lamb and spiced food would have only made him vomit.

      ‘One of the Forest Folk brought him in,’ Dallandra said. ‘They must have been waiting for the merchants to leave.’

      ‘I heard your people help such as us,’ the bondsman stammered. ‘Oh, please, I can’t bear it any more. My lord’s a harsh man. His overseer flogs us half to death whenever it suits him.’

      ‘This lord is probably coming after him, too,’ Dallandra said to the crowd in Elvish. ‘I wish Halaberiel were here, but we’ll have to work something out without him.’

      ‘My alar’s riding west.’ Gannobrennon stepped forward. ‘We’ll take him with us, and we’ll leave tonight.’

      ‘Good, but what if the Round-ears ride in looking for him?’ Elbaladar said. ‘We’d better break up the alardan.’

      At this a round of arguments, suggestions, a babble of good advice and drawbacks, broke out. Slowly Nananna came out from the tent and walked over. At the sight of her, everyone fell silent.

      ‘Elbaladar is right,’ Nananna said. ‘We’d better break camp tonight. I can contact Halaberiel through my stones and tell him the news.’ She paused, looking around at the assembled people. ‘I need four or five young men to join my alar. We can’t ride fast, and so the Round-ears might catch up with us.’

      Quickly the news spread through the alardan: they were rescuing a Round-ear slave, and the Wise One had given her orders. The People gobbled down the feast, then packed up gear and struck tents by firelight and the rising moon. A few at a time, the alarli cut their stock out of the common herds and disappeared, moving on fast into the silent dark grasslands, until the vast meadow stood empty with only the crushed grass and various leavings to show where the alardan stood. Just after midnight four young men brought their stock and their possessions over to join the Wise One’s group, the last two tents left of hundreds.

      ‘I can ride for a few hours tonight,’ Nananna said. ‘I want to turn back east. If the Round-eared lords find anyone, it had best be me.’

      They made a hasty sparse camp two hours later on the banks of the river that flows out of the Lake of the Leaping Trout. In the morning they forded the river and turned dead-south through the grasslands. Enabrilia and Dallandra led the travois horses while Wylenteriel, Talbrennon and one of their new recruits herded the stock in the rear. The other three rode in front, hands on sword-hilts, eyes constantly sweeping the horizon, ready to ride between any Round-ear and Nananna. Towards noon, the trouble came. Dallandra saw a puff of dust heading towards them that soon resolved itself into six horsemen, trotting fast over the grasslands.

      ‘Good,’ Nananna said. ‘Let’s pull up and let them catch us. Dalla, you do the talking.’

      Dallandra handed her the rope of the travois horse and rode up to the head of the line. The horsemen shouted and turned their horses, galloping the last half mile up to the alar. At their head was a heavy-set blond man in the plaid brigga that marked him as an Eldidd lord; behind him were five of his warband, all armed and ready. The lord checked his men some twenty feet away from the alar and rode on alone to face Dallandra. He looked sourly over the small party; she could see him noting well the armed men – six of them counting young Talbrennon.

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