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Four

Kal and Galli thrashed farther into the forest, desperate to put as much ground as possible between them and their pursuers. Broken-winded, they stopped for a moment to take stock of the situation.

"What now?" said Galli between deep draughts of the mountain air. "We haven't gained much on them . . . It won't take them long to find a way across the gorge . . . pick up our trail . . . What do we do now?"

"The stitch in my side . . . a minute . . . give me a minute." Kal stretched, lifting his arm over his head. "There, it's better now . . . Got to think. We have to find a way to throw them off. It's our only hope. And we've got to warn the others. We have to get away from here, tell Wilum and father, and get the men together. I guess I have no use for these now." Kal slid Wilum's quiver, full of arrows, from his shoulder. "A pity I lost the bow—"

"Quiet! Listen, listen."

"Why, I can't hear anything but my own breathing."

"Exactly. There should be more bird song and other chatter. Did you hear that screaming jay? . . . There it goes again. Something's not right. We're being followed, I think. No, I'm certain we are."

"How did they get across the gorge so quickly?"

"Probably the same way we did."

"I didn't think of that. You'd think those short stubby fellows would never make it, all weighted down with their chain mail and armour."

"You'd be surprised. The weight they pack isn't all flab. But I don't think it's them. I bet it's my blood countrymen. I don't know how we're going to shake them. But we do have one advantage."

"What's that?"

"We know the terrain far better than they do. Let's go."

Even as he said it, Galli was off, leading Kal back and forth up the mountainside. It was difficult going, for they did not linger on any of the travel-worn paths. Once they doubled back in a loop and found solid evidence that they were being followed by three men who wore the soft leather footgear of trackers. Whenever they came to a stream, they waded in it for some distance, usually as long as their feet and legs could take the chilling stricture of the cold. This bought them a bit of time at least, for the Telessarians would have to cast upstream and down to rediscover their trail.

But, how to shake them? Kal racked his brain for possibilities. Never before in the Holding had he had to deal with woodsmen who were Galli's equals or, as in this case, superior to him. These were men of Telessar, born and bred in a wilderness land, preternaturally keen at sensing every shifting nuance of the fields and forests, their skills having been honed to exquisite sharpness from boyhood by the elders of their race.

"What if we made a stand somewhere and fought it out with them?" suggested Kal, as they plodded through a mire that oozed around their ankles.

"These men are trained, battle-hardened killers, the absolute cream of the Gharssûlian army. Did you see them in the camp? As lean and muscular as whippets. And three of them, mind you, to our two. We wouldn't stand a chance . . . That Ferabek, though, he gives me the shivers right down to my very bones. So does his magician friend. If he had come any closer, I think I would have jumped out of my skin. There's some deep evil there. I thought for a while there that Ferabek was weaving a spell around me, drawing me into his web like a spider. Then I found that, every time my mind turned to the Great Glence and the orrthon, the power emanating from him waned. I could feel my own mind coming back to me. Scary. I don't wonder he's Overlord of so much of Ahn Norvys and that he had even Enbarr eating out of his hand like a simpering half-man."

"What I felt exactly," Kal said.

They fell to thinking for several paces.

"But these trackers . . ." Kal broke the silence. "If we can't fight them, why don't we try to stay one step ahead of them and go back down the mountain for help? We could sound the alarm along the Edgemere Road and raise a clutch of Holdsmen with their longbows in no time. They would be more than a match for them."

"I don't know . . . If we can stay ahead of them—I'm afraid my delaying tactics are just child's play to them and that they're taking our measure and slowly gaining on us. All told, I'd say we're in a tight fix."

They trudged on for a spell through the woods, which would normally have lifted their hearts with gladness after the rigours of winter. But instead every shadow and rustle of leaves served as an unsettling reminder that they were being stalked. The sun had already surpassed its midday mark, and both were weary, hungry, and footsore.

"Wait . . . I have an idea."

"What?

"Do you know Scathe Fell?"

"Of course I do. You know I do," Galli snapped.

"You know the talus slope on Scathe Fell? The rockslides?"

"Sure, it's dangerous and it can't be climbed. What possible good is that to us?"

"Easy, Galli, easy. Listen. Here's a thought. Why don't we lead them on right to Scathe Fell? We'd take the path under the talus slope and the trackers would be sure to follow. If we could time it so we climb around it and get to the top of the scarp when they're right down below, we could set a few tons of rocks rolling down on them. It would be impossible for them to get away in time. I've seen what a rock avalanche can do. It was on Rocky Scaur one time. What a sight! Set off by one of the rams in our flock. Ended up killing about half a dozen of our ewes. If we could get them where we want them, they wouldn't know what hit them."

"Well, it's not far from here. It's worth a try. A long shot, but it might work."

With a lighter step the two turned their feet higher up into the mountains, heading directly for the leeward face of Scathe Fell, which was situated on the lower hillsides that stood guard, like pickets, before the steep pinnacles beyond. Unmantled by snow, the Fell itself resembled a squat craggy troll compared with the alpine giants that towered over it. Crowning its expansive girth lay a flat top strewn with rock amid gnarled oaks and pines.

As they passed higher into the glencelands, the trees became more sparse, small and twisted, stark against painted floral meadows already blooming with the quick-growing grasses on which the Holdsmen pastured their summer flocks. Sometimes the shriek of a lammervulture broke the stillness over the dwarf pine and wolfwillow. Now they were able to trace the outline of Deepmere, a deeply tinted patch of cerulean blue far below them. Once Galli detected a flicker of movement not much below them at a place they had passed just a short while ago.

"There they are. Did you see them?" Galli pointed. "I'd say we have about half an hour on them at most. We're almost at Scathe Fell, though. I'd be surprised if this works. They're not stupid."

"Timing, this calls for good timing. We have to make it to the top of the Fell before they reach the bottom of that scree."

"Then we'd better pick up our heels."

The two broke into a laboured jog against the grade. Their path neared the lower base of the Fell, then climbed steeply, staying close to the sprawling granite mass that rose on a shallow but still forbidding slope to its slanting pate.

"Can they still read our sign on all this rock? Now we don't want to lose them."

"Don't you worry about that. It would take more than this mess of rocks to test their skill. Cast an eye behind you," replied Galli, pointing again. Outlined on the horizon strode the three Telessarian scouts. They made their way at a pace that seemed effortless, as if they could smell blood and were closing in for the kill. It did not seem to matter to them that they could be seen by their quarry. Then, as they turned a corner, the threesome disappeared from sight. For a bit, their way narrowed to a grassy path that clung to the bulking mass of Scathe Fell, its outer rim dropping off sharply to a foaming alpine stream. Following its bends and turns, they reached a rocky terrace, hardly broader than a ledge and tinted a brilliant pink by thousands upon thousands of flowers.

Kal and Galli picked their way along the path, crossing the course of loose stone, heedful of the tons of rock that could come sliding down on them. Galli spotted a mountain goat that peered down on them from the top of the Fell, perched on the very edge of the escarpment.

"I hope that billy's not thinking about leaping down," said Kal.

"Probably not. It's a long jump onto the scree from where he is. Not too many animals would care to make it, except if they're forced."

Clearing the threat of rockslide, they came to a natural archway, just barely passable. They ducked through and picked their way for several steps over a pile of rubble that littered the path. On the other side of the debris they quickened their pace, aiming to reach the prospect overlooking the scree as fast as possible. It remained their only chance to turn the tables on their hunters. They were disturbed to find that the trail did not ascend directly to the flat area atop the Fell, which became too steep here for any animal to scale. Precious time was lost as they followed the leisurely ascent of the path diagonally across the stout ramparts of the Fell, calling on strength and endurance they scarcely realized they still possessed.

Winded and gasping for breath, they reached the top. Galli lurched on ahead, startling the goat. The animal bolted by him towards the far end of the hilltop. Kal threw himself down doubled, heaving to catch his wind, then struggled up and staggered to where he could look out over the slope. Galli was already busy searching for the right kind of rocks for them to roll over and trigger their avalanche. One fair-sized rock lay poised on the edge already. The Telessarians were still nowhere in sight.

"After all this effort, I hope they show up for the party," gasped Kal with a lightheaded humour that arose from sheer exhaustion.

"They will. They most certainly will, or I'm not Galligaskin Clout."

"Whatever you are, Galli, you've got the strength and spit of one of your uncle's workhorses."

Galli smiled at his friend. "Here, give me a hand with this stone. The other one may not be enough. Let's get it as close to the edge as possible."

They had only just finished cradling the thing neatly on the very edge when Galli dropped to the ground, as if he had been poleaxed.

"Get down! Quick! . . . That was close. There's the first one. He hasn't seen us. They're coming. Don't want them getting suspicious. We have to give them enough time to get midway along the path."

Kal's heart pounded madly as they crouched together out of sight, shouldering the heavy rock, preparing to flip it over onto the nether slope. Neither of them dared to peek over the side. A minute rolled by and it seemed an eternity. Galli ventured a look.

"Come on!" he whispered. "Before they get too far along. Quick now. That smaller rock first."

The rock fell onto the slope and tumbled ponderously end over end, dislodging only a scattering of debris, until its momentum carried it over the edge of the terrace below. The Telessarians looked up in short-lived surprise, then one of them began immediately to nock an arrow to his bowstring.

"That one was too small!" screamed Galli. "We need the big one! Come on!"

Galli put his shoulder into it, and the great lichen-covered boulder keeled over on its side. With one last push they launched it over the edge just as an arrow whistled past Kal's cheek. They dropped to the ground and lay waiting in an agony of expectation. A low rumble like a rolling peal of thunder grew louder and louder. As the ground beneath them quaked, they were afraid they would be swept down in an awful jumble of crushing stone and earth. From below came the muffled shouts of the trackers. The clatter of falling rock subsided, and there ensued an eerie calm. They became aware of a staccato chorus of cheeps. A boulder near the top of the scree, displaced by the rockslide, had hidden a tiny bird's nest, now upended and exposed to the bitter mercy of the world at large.

It was Galli who was the first to slowly lift his head. "Re'm ena!" he exclaimed, a quaver in his voice. Kal looked now too. From the confused mass of rubble that littered the slope below there protruded the edge of a sword scabbard and a couple of grotesquely misshapen limbs—an arm and a leg that looked so rigid and lifeless they might have been petrified by some wicked spirit of the Fell. There was no sign of the other two bodies. Perhaps they had been swept off the terrace, which now lay submerged under rocky debris.

Galli whistled long and low. He turned to Kal. "Well, now," he said, "we've gotten rid of them, but how are the two of us going to get back down?"

"What do you mean?" asked Kal, who had turned to help the chicks, lifting their nest into a protected crevice in the rocks just as the alarmed mother bird alighted, scolding him.

"Look over there, towards that arched opening we had to duck through to get up here."

"Why, I can't even see it. It's full of rocks and rubble."

"Right."

"You mean we have to find another way down off the Fell?"

"Right again."

"But I've never heard of another way, have you?"

"No."

They sat for a moment, surveying the changed terrain.

"I'm so hungry," Kal said, "I could eat a horse. I need some food or I'll drop. Maybe we could find something before we worry about getting down."

They sat in silence, savouring the peace-filled quiet, as moments passed, until Galli, hugging his knees, rocked forward onto his feet and stood.

"You're probably right. Where we came up I thought I saw a damp area, probably a little spring or stream. Maybe there's something there."

"What wouldn't I give for a cool drink of water too. Come on, let's have a look."

Sure enough, there was the most delightfully cool spring percolating like a little fountain out of a dimpled fissure in a boulder stained purplish black by cushion moss. Once they had slaked their thirst, they gathered up handfuls of watercress and cuckoo-flower and munched, like rabbits, on the tender young leaves, washing them down with further draughts of chill clear water.

Refreshed somewhat, they turned their attention to their descent.

"I think that maybe it would be better if we split up for now. We haven't much time." Kal looked up with a frown at the sun, already declining from its midday strength. "Tell you what. I'll cast around on this side of the Fell, while you go up towards the other end to have a look. Maybe we'll find a halfways climbable route down. One thing's sure, we'll have to get going soon, even if we have to take a chance on that scree slope."

"If that wouldn't be near suicidal! There must be a better way."

"Find it fast then. We'll meet back here at the spring as soon as possible. I'm going to poke around the path we took to reach the top here. Briacoil."

"Be careful, Kal," Galli said, as he turned on his way. "Briacoil."

Kal descended slowly onto the track that ran slantwise across the face of the Fell towards the plugged archway farther down. He got down on his hands and knees and peered over the side, on the lookout for any hint of a spot that might give them purchase for a return to the terrain below. Here he saw a way. It was close to the rock-plugged archway and marked a break in the forbidding sheerness of the rock, for it was buttressed by a series of outthrust skirting ledges that might allow for a precarious descent without the benefit of ropes and grappling hooks.

Down on all fours, engrossed in making rough mental measurement of the distances, Kal glanced at the ground near his hands as he pushed away a rock, sending it dropping over the edge. He shivered. A long shadow had fallen across his arm—the unmistakable silhouette of a figure gripping an upraised sword, creeping up from behind. During that first instant of recognition, an instant that seemed to stand out from measured time, he remained frozen, paralysed by fear, his heart thumping in his chest like a drumming partridge. Almost immediately, his numbed senses recovered, so that, hackles rising, he lunged to his right and let loose with a terrific yell, the battle cry of the Holdsmen.

"Haree-hoo-sai!" Kal roared, letting the rounded syllables drain away some of the tension and fear. Scrambling to his feet even as he turned around to meet the adversary coming at him with a shortsword, he demanded in a raised voice that was almost calm, "What do you want?" Trembling, he fumbled to draw his own sword.

It was one of the trackers, dishevelled and limping, but deadly earnest nonetheless, a queer, murderous glint in his green eyes. Kal lifted his sword to defend himself, and the Telessarian grinned. With a quick flick of his wrist, the man struck the shank of Kal's sword with his own, deftly knocking it out of his grip and onto the grass. Kal blinked at the sword where it lay. The man's eyes gleamed with amusement. Kal took a step back, and reached for the small hunting knife he had sheathed at his belt. Brandishing the puny blade, Kal stood facing the man, whose livid face, framed by his garland browmark, had twisted in contempt. Kal fought down the sour choking taste of fear. Here was a dangerous adversary, better armed, better trained, and as lissome as a hazel wand, even in his haggard condition. Advancing a short step, the wounded tracker began hissing out steely cold-blooded curses in some strange language.

They squared off, the Telessarian's shortsword weaving a languid sinuous pattern in the air. The man's long fingers, white-knuckled, gripped the hilt of the sword. His other hand, fingers splayed, was held out to the side. The eyes blazed with malice. The lips twitched over bared clenched teeth. Then came one—two probing feints. Kal had scarcely enough room to turn, let alone react to these thrusts. Another jab tested Kal's defences. For a split second he slipped and lost his balance, teetering on the steeply dropping edge of the path. Yet his adversary was only toying with him, deriving a grim enjoyment from drawing out his advantage, or else he would have seized this opportunity to press home a lethal thrust. In a moment would come the kill. There was bloodlust on the man's face as he forced Kal into a clumsy shuffle backwards up the path towards the top of the Fell.

Down fell the shortsword at Kal's shoulder—a great, unflinching blow. On instinct he brought up his hunting knife to parry the cutting edge. The shortsword glanced off the knife, knocking it from Kal's hand, so that it clattered to the path. In that instant, when the Telessarian's shoulders and body were being pulled by the arcing momentum of his sword, Kal saw his sole remaining chance.

Kal lunged at the attacker's chest with outstretched arms and drove him back. The tracker staggered off balance. Kal closed with the man, and the two fell to the ground locked together, grappling in the dust and stones of the pathway. The Telessarian let go of his shortsword, now useless at close quarters in a contest of sheer body strength. Kal could feel the lean wiry sinew of the tracker's arms and legs squeezing him like constricting bands of iron. He found himself no match for this seasoned veteran of Ferabek's campaigns of conquest.

Kal squirmed in a vain attempt to escape the man's strength. They had rolled very near to the outward edge of the path, lying parallel to it. He pulled towards the drop with all his waning might. A dire fall, it seemed the only way to break the tracker's heavy grip. Kal found himself pinioned now beneath the man, who struggled to sit up on Kal's torso in a bid to pin down his arms with splayed legs. Kal was past caring. He needed air. He longed for a place light and free. Kal teetered on the very brink, one of his shoulders already in midair. The tracker had merely to spring to his feet and kick him over the edge. But he did not. It would make the killing too easy.

Kal's mind sharpened in this last moment of life. In the space of a heartbeat his distorted thoughts were brought to a focus. Already the tracker's strong fingers were clamping down over his windpipe. Once more, with his dying breath, he let loose the Holdsman's war cry, breaking for the briefest of moments the vise-like grip of the tracker's hands. With a mighty wrench of his shoulders, quivering with the strain, Kal lifted his own torso and the tracker's, turning himself over and heaving the two of them in a grim embrace out into the open space beyond the edge.

They dropped, but not far—perhaps five paces, to a rock-littered outcrop. Kal's twisting throw had spun their locked bodies over in the space of air. There was an abrupt thud and the sickening crack of shattered bone as a skull hit the solid rock that protruded jaggedly from the hillside. Kal's fall was cushioned by the broken body that underlay him. Shaken and winded, but unharmed, he wrestled himself free from the dead man's clasp, pushed himself away, and sat there in a huddle, collecting his breath, his wits, averting his eyes from the battered and lifeless heap beside him.

Minutes passed before he realized that he was stranded. He could not climb back up to the path from which he had fallen. The place was too steep, lacking holds for hand or foot. Galli was probably already waiting for him back at the spring. He couldn't be so far away that he was out of earshot.

"Galli, help me! I'm trapped here! Help!" He yelled again and again, pacing the ledge like a caged animal.

A head appeared over the brink of the path above.

"Kal! You all right? . . . Now how did you manage to get down there?" Galli looked down first at him and then the corpse.

A flood of relief washed over Kal which left him feeling weak, heavy-limbed, and slightly nauseous. He nodded in response to his friend's concern. A moment passed as he regained himself, lifting his eyes to meet those of his comrade.

"It's never been so good to see you, Galli. He took me by surprise. Somehow he managed to get clear of the rockslide and make it through the arch. Must have been hiding, waiting for us. He nearly did me in. We fell. He's dead."

They both stared at the broken body of the scout, the gore from his cloven skull staining the stones that broke his fall. Kal shuddered as the adrenal rush subsided and the grip of the suppressed and now pointless fear rose cold and acid in his gullet.

"We've got to get off this rock, Galli. We have to get down."

"Right . . . the trouble is I couldn't find anything at the top of the Fell. Nothing but steep-sided cliffs and awful traverses that even a mountain goat couldn't travel."

Kal shook himself, looking up to the face above him. "Well, then. Jump down, Galli—but fetch my shortsword first." Kal glanced over the edge of the rock shelf. "I think I've found us a way. I figure we might just be able to drop from ledge to ledge and make it down from here. Take a look yourself. What do you think?" asked Kal, a slight tremor still in his voice.

"It doesn't seem impossible," Galli said after considering for a moment the succession of outspreading ridges fanning out below Kal's feet. "Well, we don't have much of a choice, do we? You can't come up, so we go down." He turned to collect Kal's shortsword on the ground at his feet.

"Throw me down that hunting knife of mine, too. Up on the path. It should be there somewhere. I owe my life to it," called Kal, when Galli reappeared looking over the edge above him.

Galli got down on all fours and lowered his legs down over the lip of stone, until, facing the smooth rock, he was hanging only by his hands. Then, letting go, he slid and touched down on the ledge beside Kal.

"Well, we're in this together now, win or lose. What should we do about him?" asked Galli, nodding at the corpse, its eyes grotesquely bulged in a face distorted by the sardonic rictus of death.

"Nothing. Unless . . ." Kal paused, eyeing the body. "If we strip him of his clothes, we could use them tied together for a makeshift rope. Or maybe he has something on him that we could use?"

Galli shook his head, flexing the muscle in his jaw, his fists at his hips. "No," he said, "no, Kal, let him be. We can't dishonour the body, enemy or not. He's Telessarian. Let these stones be his funeral cairn."

"So be it, then, Galli," Kal said, shaking his head. "Either way, we've got to move down from here, and fast." He peered over the side to the next ledge below.

Galli paused a moment, looking around the barren ledge, then approached the body and, stooping over it, placed the dead tracker's hands on his chest. "Thy browmark be thy warrant," he intoned and quickly turned away.

The next half-dozen drops proved easy and straightforward for them, shorter and less precipitous than the very first stage of their descent. But then they reached an impasse. The next two ledges beneath them were so narrow that they could not possibly drop down onto either of them without losing their footing and falling backwards. What made the manoeuvre doubly unthinkable and dangerous was a pile of rocks on the first ledge, the ledge immediately below them, which would make their footing even more treacherous. They examined the problem from every conceivable angle for some sort of solution.

"What do we do now, Master Kalaquinn? We can't go back up and there doesn't seem to be a way down. In short, it looks like we're right royally crag-fast. Might as well be in some deep dar-rk dungeon in Pir-rian D'Ar-rba," he growled, "for all the good we're going to do anybody way up here watching cloud shapes and counting the lammervultures."

"Aye, and the sun. We can't see it now for the clouds, but the day's wearing on. There must be some way down. There has to be. And with the Scorpions fixing to slaughter us all—"

"What do you mean?" asked Galli.

"Didn't you hear Enbarr and Ferabek?"

"Hear them I did, but as to understanding, that's a different story. I'm afraid that Landros's lessons in Gharssûlian never really took with me like they did with you. It's a good thing you were there to catch what they were saying, or we wouldn't be much the wiser about what they're up to. You understood what they were talking about, didn't you?"

"I suppose I did, most of it."

"Well, I'll tell you, as far as I'm concerned, they were talking so fast I could hardly catch a word. And then there was that powerful spell that Ferabek seemed to cast with his voice, like being hypnotized. It was all I could do to keep my mind from slipping out of its moorings and floating away, let alone trying to understand what he was saying. I caught a phrase here and there though . . . Wilum . . . Wyrdlaugh Pass . . . King Colurian . . . the words for kill and slaughter, but I couldn't for the life of me make out much more than that."

"Well, in short, their plan is to kill every last person in the Holding. The two of us may be the only ones left, when everybody else has fallen to spear and sword."

"They want to kill everybody?"

"There were snippets of the conversation that weren't clear. But I'm sure about that part. It seems, as well, that Enbarr has given Ferabek reason to believe that Prince Starigan is still alive. He's desperate to get his hands on him so he can get rid of him and end the line of Ardiel forever. From what I could tell, Enbarr has somehow discovered where he is. He and Ferabek were about to talk about it some more, but then that chicken caused the ruckus in their camp. Anyhow, the main point is that they want to wipe out every last living soul in the Holding, and they want to do it this very night. And Wilum too. Ferabek wants him really badly, him and the Talamadh. But parts of what they were saying were quite puzzling. Wilum, he might have an idea of what to make of it, if we don't end up spending the rest of our days stranded here on this vulture's stoop."

Kal stared off into the middle distance, his eyes blank and unfocused.

"Oh, but I'm so tired . . ." He yawned. "Just a short rest. Maybe if we rest a bit we'll have a better idea what we should do next."

They both leaned back against the cliff face on the broad shoulder of the crag, while the stark rock walls towering over them echoed to the screeching of the birds. Kal closed his eyes and let his mind drift away, dismissing thoughts about how terribly long the odds against them seemed, even if they did finally find their way off Scathe Fell, an outcome that looked exceedingly unlikely at the moment. Time slipped as he fought exhaustion's sweet temptation to sleep and to forget—the Holding, the peril, Black Scorpions, and slaughter.

Kal could feel the radiant warmth of sunshine spreading over his closed eyelids and face. He swept away the cobweb shrouds of doziness from his mind and, looking up, saw that the sun had drifted from its screening banks of clouds. Slowly he got up. Galli lay huddled under his cloak fast asleep. The sullen greyness of the crags had given way to the sun's genial embrace, bathing everything in light. He gazed around him. All the rock had assumed different, clearer outlines. At the far end of the ledge, just past the point where it met the face of the scarp, there lingered a curious space of shadow. Kal crept closer and discovered a cleft, a fairly large one, somewhat wider than a chimney hole. Lying prone to inspect it, he found it ran diagonally underneath their ledge and met the narrow stone-strewn shelf below them at a place where it was obscured by an overhanging cusp of granite. The cleft was wide enough, he could tell, to fit a man and also, happily, narrow enough for a man to straddle with his body without falling.

He left the firm ground of the ledge and sidled slowly into the open recess. Down he slid by fits and starts, propping himself up with his arms and legs and the small of his back. The scabbard of his sword rattled against the rocks as he proceeded. Following the line of the shaft, he found he had passed the first of the close little ledges that had daunted them and was not far from the second when his way ended in a solid bottom of rock. Here he sat down and paused, with both his feet dangling out over the edge. Here he had a simple jump of perhaps a man's height to reach the narrow but firm ground of the second ledge. Turning around so that he faced Scathe Fell again, he slowly lowered himself down and almost stepped on the drooping crimson bells of a columbine that had nestled itself hardily into a crack. This was Ruah's flower, and Kal took it for a good omen. He could now see that with three or four more easy drops they would be down from Scathe Fell on more easily negotiated terrain.

Shouting louder and louder, he succeeded in wakening his friend. Galli shook off the drowsiness and rubbed his eyes to make certain it was truly Kal that he saw on the ledge below him.

"You're always turning up in the strangest places. How did you manage it?" he asked groggily.

"I was lifted down on a fellhawk's wings, while you were busy snoring. Look!" He pointed to a distant lammervulture riding a thermal high in the sky. "Make sure you're ready. All you have to do is hop on its back."

Galli started, glancing up at the sky, warily. Kal chuckled. No doubt, his friend's sleep-worn mind, susceptible to suggestion, was conjuring up images of the huge terrible birds that inhabited islands in the Cerulean Ocean, but only rarely ranged as far as the Holding. The only one he had ever seen was the fledgling Kal had found by chance on one of his rambles about the mountainsides.

"Wake up, Galli, really! I'm just joking. Just sit down and relax for a minute. The last thing I want to do is bring another Telessarian, even a half-blooded one, crashing down on me." Slowly Galli returned to his waking senses as Kal outlined his discovery. While Galli scrambled down, Kal poked around and found the remains, long picked clean, of what appeared to be a mountain goat that had met its death on the ledge. Kal was kicking at one of its horns just as Galli reached the end of the cleft and was making ready to jump down and join him.

"Whatever dreams you were just having must have passed through a Gate of Horn, not Ivory. You remember, don't you, how the old saying goes, 'False dreams of deceit are through Ivory borne, but dreams truthful and right pass through Gates of Horn.' Presuming, of course, you were dreaming of a way down this Fellside."

"Odd that you should say that. As a matter of fact I was."

"Mind you don't crush the columbine there at your feet. Though it's probably survived much worse treatment than a clumsy-footed Clout," cautioned Kal. "You'd think a beekeeper would mind flowers better. You know, Galli, I'm beginning to think you could sleep through just about anything. Must have been some dream you were having." Galli now stood safely beside him.

"You know, in my dream I pictured that we were safely down from here." Galli's enthusiasm kindled as he recalled the details of his dream. "But then we were running and we had a far way to go through forests and fields and all kinds of strange places I've never seen. We weren't in the Holding. I could tell. Then came nightfall. There was this most fantastic display of the Boreal Lights, flaming red, like long fingers of fire reaching up into the heavens. I've never seen anything like it, even the other night when they seemed so spectacular. And then we were separated somehow and you called out for me."

"And then what happened?"

"That's when I awoke and heard you shouting fit to wake the dead."

 

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Framed