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11

The pilgrim standard led the way east. A man whose hereditary honor it was rode ahead of the company with the tall staff that bore a pair of outstretched wings. They were wrought in gold with fine workmanship, but they had grown frail with long use, and the wings had been several times broken and clumsily mended. The standard rendered the party safe from attack by members of other tribes. The purple cloaks of the riders drew a streak of somber color across the drab land. They made excellent time. The winds touched them gently. It was always so, Ildann said, when they rode to the gatherings.

Jofr was quiet, glancing frequently at Stark with a certain pointed hopefulness.

Old Sun watched Stark, too, a dull eye full of senile malice. I'm none of yours, Stark thought, and you know it, and you're thinking of the Springfire, like the boy. He laughed at his own fancy. But the primitive N'Chaka did not laugh. The primitive N'Chaka shivered and was cold, smelling danger on the dim air.

The primitive N'Chaka did not place much faith in visions.

He let the Northhounds run pretty much as they would, keeping Gerd or Grith always by him. Before many miles a pack of Runners appeared. The party was too strong for them to dare an attack. They hung on beyond bowshot, hoping for a straggler or an injured beast. Stark let the eager hounds go at them, and the Hann were impressed. That was the first time the hounds killed along the way. It was not the last. The Runners cared nothing for the pilgrim standard.

Early on the third day a grim wall of mountain rose out of the plain, dark and jagged and alone. It had a look of thunder about it even though the sky was clear, and there was a cleft in the middle of it, like a narrow gate.

At the foot of the cleft, enclosing a kind of bay, a thick stone wall had been erected. Within the wall were the tents and banners of a considerable encampment.

The cavalcade halted, straightened lines, shook dust from cloaks. Purple banners took the wind. A trumpeter set a curved horn to his lips and blew a harsh neighing call of three notes. Stark called the pack to heel. The company moved on toward the wall.

In the wide space between it and the cliff five camps were set up, each one separate with its own staff and its banners, red, brown, green, white and burnt orange for the Ochar. Jofr leaped and cried out; his mount was held tightly so that he could not run.

In the center of the space was a structure of stone slabs perhaps six feet high and twice as broad, with three upright stones set in it, and the whole blackened and stained and cracked from the heat of Old Sun's spring feasting. At least ten cages were dropped haphazardly around the base of the structure, each one holding a man.

Cloaks of the five colors turned out to see the Hann come in. It was a minute or two before they saw Stark and the hounds, and a minute or two more before they believed what they had seen. Then a great cry of anger burst out, and the motley-colored crowd surged forward. The hounds bristled, close around Stark.

Kill, N'Chaka?

Not yet . . .

Ildann held up his arms and shouted. "Wait! It is for the Fallarin to say what shall be done. It has been foretold that they will blood this man a chief . . . Listen to me, you sons of offal! This is the Dark Man of the Southron prophecy, do you hear? The Dark Man! He has brought down the Citadel!"

The crowd stopped its surging and began to listen. Ildann's voice rang against the cliffs, crying the good news.

"The Citadel has fallen. There'll be no more keeping of the Upper Road—it's dead as a lopped branch above Yurunna, and the Ochar are lopped with it!"

Red, brown, green and white roared with fierce, astonished joy. The roar was followed by a babble of voices. And then, out of a knot of orange cloaks, a tall man spoke. "You lie."

Ildann thrust Jofr forward. "Tell him, boy. Tell the almighty Romek, Keeper of the Hearth of Ochar."

"It is true, Lord," said Jofr, and bowed his head. "I am Ekmal's son, from the north house—" He stammered out what he knew, and the whole crowd listened. "But the Wandsmen promised, Lord!" he finished. "The Citadel will be rebuilt. And my father has sent the Swiftwing among the clans . . ."

He was drowned out by another roar from the folk of the Lesser Hearths. Stark could see that each of their numbers was less than that of the Ochar. He estimated some hundred and twenty of the orange cloaks, with Ildann's sixty the next largest. All together, the Lesser Hearths did not greatly surpass the Ochar. The Yellow Cloaks were not in yet, but he doubted that they would add more than another twenty or so. These were chief's escorts, the men of honor, but they were probably a fair reflection of the relative numbers of fighting men available to the tribes.

The Ochar closed their ranks, groups of them flowing together out of the press until they formed a solid block of color. They spoke among themselves; and the eyes of Romek, hard cold blue above his facecloth, sought Stark's.

The Lesser Hearths were stirred by currents of motion as men discussed and questioned and thought about the meaning of Ildann's words. Behind them all was the cleft. Shadows clotted thick there. Stark could not see into it. The wind made strange sounds passing through. Stark could imagine that it talked a secret language of its own, telling all that happened below. And if the wind talked, surely someone listened.

Romek stepped forward. He questioned Jofr, making him tell again the story of how Stark and the hounds came to the wayhouse. Then he said:

"It seems certain that this outlander has done a great wrong. Since it touches us, it is for us to deal with him."

"And take him back to the Wandsmen, no doubt," said Ildann, "to make your masters happy."

"He is nothing to you," said Romek. "Stand aside."

"You're forgetting the Northhounds," said Ildann. "Surely you know them? But try if you like."

Romek hesitated. Nine pairs of baleful eyes regarded him. Ildann shouted again to the red cloaks and the white, the brown and the green.

"The Dark Man has brought down the Citadel. Now he will bring down Yurunna."

"Yurunna!" they cried. "How? How?"

"If we will join our forces together, he will lead us. If the Fallarin blood him. Only if the Fallarin blood him! He is not of our race, and his feud is only with the Wandsmen. Because of that feud he offers us Yurunna. Yurunna! Food, water, safety from the Runners. Life! Yurunna!"

It sounded like a battle cry.

When he could make himself heard, Romek said, "That would mean war with the Ochar. We would sweep the desert clean."

"Perhaps not!" shouted the chief of the Brown Cloaks. "And if we should take Yurunna, the First-Come would be the Last!"

Hate was in the laughter that followed. Old and bitter hate. Romek heard it. He took it as a thing of pride. He looked at the Northhounds, and he looked at Stark, and he nodded his cowled head.

"All this will happen only if the Fallarin blood him. Very well. Let him go to the Fallarin and ask them for windfavor. And when they've heard him out, we shall see where he goes—to Yurunna, or to the Spring-fire."

"He will go to the Fallarin when he is bidden," said Ildann.

"No," said Stark. "I will go now."

"But you cannot," said Ildann, all bravery gone from his voice. "No one enters there without permission."

"I will," said Stark.

He rode forward with the hounds beside him. The sound in their throats was like muted thunder, and the Hooded Men stood back to let them pass. Stark did not look back to see whether Ildann came with him. He moved without haste past the place of the Spring-fire and the cages where the victims waited, stripped of cloaks and wrappings so that he could see their despairing faces white as snow except for a ludicrous band of brown across the eyes.

He moved toward the cleft, the narrow gateway in the cliff.

Ildann did not follow him into that windy darkness. The way was only wide enough for a single rider, and very steep. The soft furred paws of the beast and the pads of the hounds made only the smallest scuffling on bare rock. It was cold there, with the tomb-chill of sunless places, and the wind talked. Stark thought that he could understand the words.

Sometimes the wind laughed, and the laughter was not friendly.

Things, said Gerd.

I know. There were galleries high up under the ragged streak of sky. He was aware of movement there, crouchings and scuttlings. He knew, although he could not see them, that there were piles of boulders ready to be sent crashing on his head. Watch.

N'Chaka! Cannot watch. Minds not speak. Cannot hear!

And the wind talked.

The cleft ended at a wall of rock that had a single opening through which one man might pass.

Stark left the beast. Beyond the opening was a stair that spiraled sharply upward into darkness.

Stark climbed, the hounds behind him, alarmed, muttering, their breathing loud in the closed space. At length he saw the top of the stair and a tall thin doorway with light on the other side.

A creature sat in the doorway looking down at him from under slitted eyelids.

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Framed