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10

Stark said to the others, "Wait." He went forward slowly. Gerd paced at his right knee. Grith trotted out of the pack and came on his left. The seven other hounds came behind him. He rode with his right hand high and his left holding the rein well away from his body. Up on the hill one of the men snatched the yelling boy from his beast.

Stark went half of the distance between them and stopped. He counted eight purple cloaks. They did not move for a long while, except that the man who held Jofr cuffed him once, hard. The hounds sat in the sand and lolled their tongues, and no one reached for a weapon.

They know us, N'Chaka. They fear us.

Watch.

One of the men on the hill picked up his rein and moved down the slope.

Stark waited until the man halted before him. He was much like Ekmal, sinewy and blue-eyed, sitting his tall beast with the limber grace of the desert man whose life is made up of distances. His face was covered. The pendant stone on his brow that marked him a chief was a lighter purple than his leather cloak.

Stark said, "May Old Sun give you light and warmth."

"You are in the country of the Harm," said the chief. "What do you want here?"

"I wish to talk."

The chief looked from Stark to the Northhounds and back again.

"These are the deathhounds of the Wandsmen?"

"Yes."

"They obey you?"

"Yes."

"But you are not a Wandsman."

"No."

"What are you?"

Stark shrugged. "A man from another world. Or if you wish, a demon, as the little Ochar said. In any case, no enemy to the Hann. Will you make truce according to your custom and listen to what I have to say?"

"Suppose I do that," said the chief, "and my people do not like what they hear."

"Then I shall bid them good-bye and go in peace."

"You swear this?"

"By what? The word of a demon? I have said what I will do."

The chief looked again at the hounds.

"Have I a choice in the matter?"

Stark said, "No."

"Then I will make truce and the Hann shall hear you. But the hounds must not kill."

"They will not unless weapons are drawn against us."

"None shall be drawn." The chief held out his right hand. "I am Ildann, Hearth-Keeper of the Hann."

"I am Stark." He clasped the chief's wiry wrist, felt his clasped in return and knew that Ildann was testing his flesh to see what it was made of.

"From another world?" said Ildann scornfully. "Many tales have come up from the south and down across the mountains, but they're no more than tales told round a winter fire. You're flesh and blood and hard bone like myself—no demon, and not a man either by our standards, but only meat from some Southron sty."

Stark's fingers tightened on the man's wrist. He said softly, "Yet I lead the Northhounds."

Ildann looked into Stark's eyes. He looked away. "I will not forget that."

Stark released his grip. "We will go to your village." The two groups joined uneasily together, side by side but not mingling. And Jofr said incredulously, "Are you not going to kill them?"

"Not immediately," said Ildann, watching the hounds. Gerd gave him one baleful glance and a warning growl.

The village was in a wide valley, with a glimpse of mountains farther on beyond its rim of hills; not great mountains like the barrier range, but a curiously gnawed-looking line of peaks. In old times there had been a river here. Now it was dry except at the spring flooding, but there was still water in deep tanks dug in the riverbed. Beasts walked patiently around great creaking wheels, and women were busy with the preparation of the soil for the spring sowing. Herds of beasts cropped at some dark scanty herbage that looked more like lichen than grass; perhaps it was something in between, and Stark wondered what sort of crops grew in this place.

The women and the beasts alike were guarded by bowmen in little watchtowers set about the fields. And Stark saw the outlines of old cultivation abandoned to the sand and wrecks of old waterwheels beside dry holes.

"Your land draws in," he said.

"It does for all of us," said Ildann, and glanced bitterly at Jofr. "Even for the Ochar. Old Sun grows weaker, no matter how we feed him. Every year the frosts are with us longer, and more water stays locked in the mountain ice, so that there is less for our fields. The summer pastures shrink—"

"And every year the Runners come in greater numbers to eat up your villages."

"What have you, a stranger, to do with our troubles?" Ildann's gaze was fiercely proud, and the word he used for "stranger" bore connotations of deadly insult. Stark chose to ignore them.

"Is it not the same for all the Lesser Hearths of Kheb?"

Ildann did not answer, and Jofr said impudently, "The Green Cloaks are almost wiped out, the Brown and the Yellow are—"

The man whose saddle he was sharing slapped him hard across the side of his head. Jofr's face screwed up with pain. He said, "I am an Ochar, and my father is a chief."

"Neither statement is a recommendation," said the man, and cuffed him again. "Among the Hann little whelps are silent unless they are told to speak."

Jofr bit his lips. His eyes were full of hate, some for the Hann, most of it for Stark.

The village was protected by a wall that had watchtowers set at irregular intervals. The beehive houses, little more than domed roofs over cellars dug deep in the ground for warmth and protection against the wind, were painted in gay designs, all worn and faded. Narrow lanes dodged and twisted among the domes, and in the center of the village was an open space, roughly circular, with a clump of gnarled, dusty, leather-leaved trees growing in the middle of it.

In the grove was the mud-brick house that held the Hearth and the sacred fire of the tribe of Hann.

Ildann led the way there.

People came out of the houses, away from the wells and wineshops, the market stalls and the washing stones. Even those who had been in the fields came in, until the space around the Hearth-grove was filled with the purple cloaks of the men and the bright-colored skirts of the women. They all watched while Ildann and Stark and the others dismounted and Halk's litter was set carefully on the ground. They watched the grim white hounds, crouching with their eyes half-closed and their jaws half-open. The veiled faces of the men were shadowed beneath their hoods. The faces of the women were closed tight, expressing nothing. They merely watched.

Ildann spoke. A tall woman with proud eyes came out of the Hearth-house, bearing a golden salver on which lay a charred twig. Ildann took up the twig.

"Hearth-right I give you." He marked Stark's forehead with the blackened end of the twig. "If harm befalls you in this place, the same must befall me." He replaced the twig, and the woman went back to tending the Hearth. Ildann spoke to the crowd.

"This man called Stark has come to speak to you. I do not know what he has to say. We will hear him at the second hour after Old Sun's setting."

The crowd made a muttering and rustling. Then it parted as Ildann led his guests away to a house that was set apart from the others. It was larger than most and had two sides to it, one for the chief, the other for guests. The Hooded Men were semi-nomadic, herdsmen and hunters spending much of the summer on the move after game or pasturage. The bitter winters shut them perforce between walls. The rooms of the guesthouse were small and sparsely furnished, gritty with the everlasting dust but otherwise clean and comfortable enough.

"I'll keep the boy with me," said Ildann. "Don't worry, I'll not waste a fat ransom just to satisfy my spite. Your beasts will be cared for. Everything needful will be brought to you, and I'll send a healer if you wish, to see to your friend there. He looks like a fighting man."

"He is," said Stark, "and I thank you." The small room had begun to smell strongly of hound, and the minds of the pack were uneasy. They did not like being closed in. Ildann seemed to sense this.

"There is a walled enclosure through that passage, where they can be in the open. No one will disturb them." He watched them as they filed out. "Doubtless you will tell us how it is that these guardians of the Citadel have left their post to follow at your heels."

Stark nodded. "I wish the boy to be there when I speak."

"Whatever you say."

He went out. Halk said, "I wish to be there, too, Dark Man. Now help me out of this damned litter."

They got him onto a bed. Women came and built fires and brought water. One came with herbs and unguents, and Stark watched over her shoulder as she worked. The wound in Halk's side was healing cleanly.

"He needs only rest and food," the woman said, "and time."

Halk looked up at Stark and smiled.

At the second hour after Old Sun's setting, Stark stood under the trees again. Gerd and Grith flanked him to right and left. The remaining seven crouched at his back. Ashton and Gerrith were close by, with Halk in the litter. Ildann stood with the principal men and women of the village, one hand resting firmly on Jofr's shoulder. The Hearth-grove and the open space were lighted by many torches set on poles. The cold dry desert wind shook the flames, sent light snapping and flaring over the folk gathered there, waiting silently, all of them now cloaked and hooded against the chill so that even the faces of the women were hidden.

Ildann said, "We will hear the words of our guest."

His eyes, in the torchlight, were intensely alert. Stark knew that he had spent the last few hours pumping Jofr dry of all the information he possessed. The boy's cockiness had gone; he now appeared angry and doubtful, as if the water had got far too deep for him.

The faceless, voiceless multitude stood patiently. Wind rubbed their leather cloaks together, rattled the tough leaves of the trees. Stark rested his hand on Gerd's head and spoke.

"Your chief has asked me how it is that the Northhounds, the guardians of the Citadel and the Lords Protector, have left their posts to follow me. The answer is plain. There is no longer a Citadel for them to guard. I myself put it to the torch."

A wordless cry went round the crowd. Stark let it die away. He turned to Ildann.

"You know this to be true, Hearth-Keeper."

"I know," Ildann said. "The Ochar boy heard, and saw. This man is the Dark Man of the prophecy of Irnan, which has been fulfilled. He and his hounds brought four Wandsmen captive into the wayhouse, and they told Ekmal and his folk that the Lords Protector are fugitives and homeless. There will be no more keeping of the Upper Road by the Ochar, and their lament is very loud."

The cry that came now from the crowd was one of savage pleasure.

Jofr shouted at them furiously. "The Wandsmen have promised us! The Citadel will be reuilt. My father has sent the Swiftwing, and all the clans of the Ochar will come against you"—he stabbed his finger at Stark—"because of him!"

"That is likely," Stark said. "And I tell you that the Wandsmen would pay a high price for me and for my comrades." He placed his left hand on the head of Grith. "But you would first have to overcome the hounds. Ildann, ask the boy how many Runners were killed by the pack? He saw the bodies."

"I have asked him," Ildann said. "At least half a hundred."

"So you see," Stark said, "that reward would not be easily won. But I can offer you another and greater reward. I offer you freedom from the greed of the Ochar, who want your lands. I offer you freedom from the oppression of the Wandsmen, who support the Ochar. I offer you freedom from the Runners, who eat up your villages. I offer you freedom from hunger and thirst. I offer you Yurunna."

There was a startled silence. Then every tongue began to wag at once.

"Yurunna!" said Ildann fiercely. "You think we have not looked at that place, and often? You think we have not tried? In my father's time, in my grandfather's time . . . The walls are strong. There are many Yur to defend the walls, and they have great machines that scatter fire to burn men where they stand. They have the kennels where the demon hounds are bred, and even the whelps are deadly. How should we take Yurunna?"

"For the Hann alone, or for any of the Lesser Hearths alone, it would not be possible. For all the Lesser Hearths banded together . . ."

Voices rose, shouting about old enmities and blood feuds, raids and killings. The crowd became turbulent. Stark held up his hands.

"If your blood feuds are more important to you than the survival of your tribe, then cling to them! Let the last ember perish from your Hearth, for the sake of them. But why be so foolish? All together, you could be powerful enough to fight the Ochar, to fight anyone except Mother Skaith herself, and you have no choice but to run from her, and that is south. The cold drives the Runners down on you, and you in turn are driven to raid even as far as the Edge. Why should you suffer all this when Yurunna is there for the taking? Would it not be better for Yurunna to feed you, rather than the servants of the Wandsmen?"

There was an uneasy, mumbling quiet while they thought about that.

Ildann voiced the vital question. "Who would lead? No chief of the Lesser Hearths would endure to be made less than any other."

Stark said, "I would lead. I wear no cloak of any color and am at feud with none. I want neither land nor loot, and when my task is done, I leave you." He paused. "It has been foretold that a winged being will blood me among the Hearth-Keepers of Kheb."

Again he waited until the reaction subsided.

"The decision is for you to make. If you decide against me, then I will go and speak to the others. And now I have finished." He turned courteously to Ildann. "What will you have us do?"

"Return to your quarters and wait. We must talk among ourselves."

Back in the guesthouse, they did little talking among themselves. This was the strategy that had been discussed and agreed upon. As fugitives with no resources of their own, they could hope for very little in the way of success, or even survival. With a base of power, even a small one, the odds improved significantly. Yurunna was the bait. Stark had offered it. Now they could only wait and see what the tribesmen would do with it.

"It will go your way," said Gerrith. "Don't worry."

"If it does," said Halk, "well and good. If it doesn't, what has Stark got to worry about? He is no longer the Dark Man, no more fated. He can leave us and run alone back to Skeg. Animal that he is, he might make it. Or again, he might not. No matter. Bring me food and wine. I'm hungry." He lifted his hands and flexed them stiffly. "If we do march south, these must be ready to hold a sword again."

All that night Stark kept waking to hear the sounds of the village, droning and stirring like a disturbed wasp's nest. After Old Sun had been sung up and given wine and fire to begin his day, the summons came from Ildann. Stark went to the house of the chief, and Ashton and Gerrith went with him, as did the two hounds, who would not be left behind.

Ildann had sat all night with his village leaders, both men and women. His eyes were red-rimmed and blinking, but Stark saw in them a glitter of ambition and excitement. There was something else, too, and its name was fear.

"What do you know of the Fallarin?"

"Nothing," said Stark, "except that the name means 'Chained.' "

"They are the true rulers of this desert. Even the Ochar must bend their stiff necks and pay tribute, as we do."

He brooded. Stark stood patiently.

"They're a blighted race, the Fallarin. In old times the wise men knew how to change people in some sort They became different—"

"It's called controlled mutation," Stark said. "I've met others. The Children of the Sea-Our-Mother, who live in the water, and the Children of Skaith, who burrow under the Witchfires. Neither meeting was pleasant."

Ildann lifted his shoulders in a peculiar motion of distaste. "The Fallarin wished to be Children of the Sky, but the change was not . . . not as they wanted it. For centuries they have sat in their dark bowl in the mountains, talking to the winds. They are great sorcerers, with power over all the moving air when they wish to use it. We pay them when we sow, when we harvest and when we go to war. All of us. Otherwise they send the sandstorms—"

He looked up sharply. "Is it true, the foretelling of the winged man with the knife?"

"It is true," said Gerrith.

"Well, then," said Ildann, "if the Fallarin will blood you chief, giving you windfavor, the Lesser Hearths will follow wherever you lead."

"Then," said Stark, "I must find the Fallarin."

Ildann nodded. "Tomorrow I go on the spring pilgrimage to the Place of Winds. The Keepers of all the Hearths gather there, under truce. It is forbidden to anyone not of the blood to come there, but I will break custom and take you, if you wish. However, I tell you this."

He leaned forward. "The Fallarin have powers to overcome even your hellhounds, and if they decide against you, you'll end in the flames of the Springfire which is lighted there for Old Sun."

"That may be," said Stark. "Nonetheless, I will go."

"You alone," said Ildann. "The other men have no reason to go, and women are not permitted there. The occasion of the Springfire involves death, and according to our custom women have to do only with the things of life."

Stark did not like the separation, but there seemed no help for it, and Gerrith said:

"All will be well."

Wishing that he could believe that, Stark rode out of the village with Ildann and Jofr and sixty warriors, the Northhounds, a meager string of pack-beasts and two condemned men in cages, to follow the pilgrim standard to the Place of Winds.

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