ã€ŠSeer Walks Outã€‹


 Chapter 1 - Choosing

    ¡°Power,¡± I said. ¡°It will give you power.¡±

    An ash leaf twirled down, yellow against the dark hides on the drying frames. Hawk watched it fall. ¡°What sort of power? Power to kill?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± I said. In the end, what other kind of power is there?

    ¡°Do you really mean I could kill a couple of those Valley bastards just with this ¨C power? That would be great. Even my father¡­¡± ¡­would approve. That¡¯s what he meant.

    And that¡¯s Hawk for you. Always wanting his father¡¯s approval, never getting it. And never getting it because he¡¯s always wanting it. You can play him like a Singer plays a harp.

    ¡°If they speak true¡­¡± I let my voice drop. ¡°if the Spirits speak true, you could destroy the whole Valley camp in one go. Truly. When I say power, I mean ¨C Power. Power not even your father could ignore.¡±

    Chiefs never ignore power, even from their sons.

    Hawk''s wide mouth opened and closed again. He spun round on his heel, looking out across the dancing floor to nowhere, and then looked me in the eyes again.

    ¡°We should take someone else.¡± He paused and shook his head. ¡°There ought to be three of us.¡±

    This was a nasty one. I put on my thoughtful face, and waited.

    ¡°I will be the leader,¡± he went on, ¡°you will be the shaman; there should be a third, to help us and fight back to back with us, and also to stand between us. There¡¯s always a third in the tales.¡±

    That was true; there always was a third in the tales. So what? This was real life, Hawk, not the Singer¡¯s tent. I decided to play for time.

    ¡°I must consult the Spirits,¡± I declared. ¡°They named you; it may be that they gave you words of omen. Let us speak of this again; here, between the Singer¡¯s tent and the drying frames, at sunset tomorrow ¨C but till then and in all other places, speak to nobody. The Spirits insisted on that ¨C you must give no hint to anyone.¡± I held my hand out flat. He laid his hand on mine, palm to palm, his tanned skin to my pale skin, and nodded. It was the best I could hope for; at least now he wouldn¡¯t let it out deliberately ¨C he was far too superstitious.

    Next day I listed every single human being in the whole Tribe, and considered every last one of them.

    First, I crossed out all the girls and women ¨C why set up competition for myself?

    Then I crossed out everyone who couldn¡¯t lift a spear ¨C we needed a fighter.

    Then I crossed out everyone who was hand-pledged ¨C we didn¡¯t want someone who was worrying all the time about what his woman was doing at camp behind his back.

    It didn¡¯t leave many. I went through them over and over again, every now and then checking I hadn¡¯t forgotten anyone. And eventually I got it down to a single name.

    ¡°Stack,¡± I said to Hawk that evening. ¡°The Spirits pointed to Stack.¡±

    ¡°Stack?¡±

    ¡°Stack.¡± If you say the same name over and over, it begins to sound stupid. ¡°The Spirits were very clear; your words were inspired. Then the casts pointed again and again to the same person. There is no mistake.¡±

    ¡°But ¨C¡±

    ¡°I agree it¡¯s a surprising choice ¨C I would never have thought of him myself. Even so, if the Spirits say so, they must be right.¡±

    ¡°Yes, I suppose they must.¡± I could see the thoughts sorting themselves out under that cropped yellow hair. ¡°And he is solid and strong. Good with a club. Not fast, though, and quite a bit shorter than me.¡±

    Most people are shorter than you, Hawk. On the other hand, most people are solider. ¡°No, not fast, but a good lad to guard your back. And he can use a sling.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s true. Not as well as me, of course.¡± He looked at me sideways. ¡°You won¡¯t mind, will you? The only girl with two men?¡±

    Oh, for the Stones¡¯ sake! ¡°I am not a girl,¡± I said coldly, ¡°I am a shaman. Your shaman, if you and Stack agree. And no, I do not mind having to drag along two boys.¡± I mean, what does he think¡¯s going to happen? In a year or so, perhaps, when they¡¯re braves (braves! Huh!) and I¡¯m a woman. But even then, they¡¯ll be braves and I¡¯ll be a shaman. No problem.

    Anyway, Stack did agree ¨C I never expected anything else. So two days later, both Hawk and Stack ¡®happened¡¯ to go out hunting, and I went out into the woods carrying my full shaman kit. I imagine somebody noticed and wondered, but no one asks a shaman what she is doing ¨C except her mother, and mine never asked anything as long as there was mead to hand.

    We met at dawn, in Two Oaks Glade. Hawk was waiting for me, neat and tidy, skin oiled, spear in hand; Stack was late, hadn¡¯t even got round to putting his loincloth on, and was wiping his mouth as he came. Of course.

    Hawk struck a chieftainly pose. ¡°Very well, Stack, Smo¨C¡±

    ¡°Seer-of-hidden-things,¡± I interrupted. ¡°I am Seer.¡±

    ¡°But surely your mother ¨C¡±

    ¡°My mother is shaman to the Longwood Tribe, and so to them she is Seer-of-hidden-things,¡± I declared. ¡°I am shaman to this tribe, as you are chief, and so to this tribe I am Seer-of-hidden-things.¡±

    ¡°To this ¨C tribe ¨C yes, I suppose we are a tribe. I see.¡±

    An idea planted, and a little more control gained. I felt quite pleased with myself.

    Hawk struck his pose again.

    ¡°Very well, Seer, Stack. Now we all know why we¡¯re here and what we¡¯re doing, so ¨C¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t,¡± said Stack.

    Well, it wasn¡¯t fair to expect anything else, was it. I¡¯d only told him twice already.

    ¡°We¡¯re going to find the Power Hills,¡± I sighed. ¡°You¡¯ve heard of the Power Hills?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± said Stack.

    Even Hawk winced at that. I gritted my teeth and put on my declaiming voice.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    ¡°The Power Hills are two hills, to the eastward, in each of which a great power is buried ¨C no,¡± I said before Stack could interrupt, ¡°I don¡¯t know what kind of power or how it is to be used. Such matters will be revealed to us at the proper time.¡±

    ¡°But we need all the power we can get,¡± said Hawk. ¡°Our Tribe¡¯s getting weaker and weaker, especially eastwards. We haven¡¯t even been able to hold the Valley Tribe for the last three or four years ¨C let alone get back what they¡¯ve taken.¡±

    ¡°So we¡¯re going to bring the power back from the Power Hills and sort things out,¡± I finished. ¡°OK, now?¡±

    Stack shrugged. He¡¯s good at shrugging; he puts in lots of practice.

    ¡°Anyway,¡± said Hawk, ¡°we need to plan our route as far as we are able. We are headed eastwards ¨C that¡¯s right, isn¡¯t it, Seer?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± I struck a pose of my own and shook a rattle. ¡°Eastwards, across a great river, two hills are set. So the Spirits have declared.¡±

    Hawk nodded. ¡°But we need to avoid the Valley Tribe. We¡¯re too few to be sure of winning a fight, and even if we won they could easily wound us enough to stop us going on.¡±

    Stack looked unhappy at this, and I wasn¡¯t surprised; Stack has always been too big ¨C especially in width ¨C to be worried about a fight. The exact opposite of Hawk, in fact. He even has black hair where Hawk¡¯s is yellow.

    For once, though, I agreed with Hawk¡¯s caution ¨C cowardice, his father would have said, but there you are ¨C so I thought I¡¯d better back him up a bit.

    ¡°Your words are wise,¡± I said, lifting my hand in a formal blessing and looking up into his face. ¡°You are our chief ¨C lead us.¡±

    ¡°Ah.¡± Hawk shrank slightly, and looked around ¨C as if he didn¡¯t know the place blindfold. His eyes went to each of the two oaks, then around the ash and pines and spruce that filled in the rest of the view, and then down to the shrivelled nettles and fireweed and rottenstone that covered the ground. His foot kicked at some stunted heather. ¡°Er ¨C when you say great river, there is the great river running through the Valley Tribe¡¯s land.¡±

    ¡°Much bigger,¡± I asserted. ¡°Big enough for a sandbank actually in it.¡±

    ¡°It gets bigger as it flows south, and I believe it used to have a sandbank in it down there. When it was our river.¡±

    ¡°Much bigger,¡± I repeated. ¡°And east, not south.¡±

    ¡°So we¡¯ll need to cross it, and that will be easier northwards, then. But we must avoid the Valley scum.¡±

    ¡°Northeast, then,¡± I declared. ¡°Northeast, and keep high. Then we¡¯ll avoid everyone.¡±

    Hawk nodded, and Stack looked sulky. No surprises there, then.

    We set off. More or less.

    Not ten minutes after we''d climbed into the pines and spruce, it''s ¡°Look! Pigeon!¡± followed by ¡°Just hold these, would you!¡± and I get two packs shoved into my arms as my two brave hunters vanish into the trees. And half an hour - half an hour! - later, they reappear without even a feather! I was not pleased, and said so.

    ¡°But we''ll need to hunt,¡± said Hawk in a tone so reasonable that I wanted to hit him.

    ¡°Not much game this high up,¡± added Stack, equally reasonably.

    ¡°So we''re going to have to take every chance we get,¡± said Hawk. ¡°And it was your choice. You wanted to avoid people, and the reason this way avoids people is that there''s nothing to hunt.¡±

    I gritted my teeth. ¡°But we''ve got some dried stuff with us.¡±

    ¡°Strictly for emergencies ¨C unless you like chewing tent-ropes.¡± Hawk laughed, and Stack laughed with him. I didn''t.

    But I wasn''t getting anywhere, so I shrugged and left them to it. Consequently they spent most of the day hunting squirrels and pigeons, instead of moving forwards, while I spent most of the day dozing in the sun. No, I wasn''t going to help: firstly, hunting was their job, not mine, secondly, the spruce branches were scratchy and they had loincloths to protect them, which was more than I had, and thirdly - why should I!

    Yes, I was still angry. How were we ever going to find the Power Hills if we moved at that rate?

    I did finally drag them on a little bit, and so we camped under the topmost peak of Rockline Hill, in one of the little folds just to the northwest. The trees were thin and draughty, and what little dry ground there was had knobbly roots in all the wrong places, but there was water to drink and our fire was hidden from casual view.

    After the huge meal of two squirrels and a pigeon which was all my great hunters had caught after all that effort, I danced the boundary of our little camp three times, paused, faced east, and shook one of my rattles.

    ¡°The camp should be safe from evil spirits,¡± I declared, ¡°but I wish to be sure. This is the third night since the Sunfall Feast when the Spirits spoke, and the first night of our journey. There are ceremonies I must perform if we are to travel safe from evil. Sleep quiet, but be watchful. I shall return before dawn.¡±

    And before either of them could ask awkward questions, I turned and marched off northwards ¨C until I was out of sight; then I turned southeast, down into the Valley.

    There¡¯s a flat place deep against the mountain that¡¯s holy to the Valley tribe. I found their shaman there.

    ¡°Hi,¡± I whispered.

    She glanced round. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s you, pet. It¡¯s all right; there isn¡¯t anyone, now. Sit yourself down and have yourself some mead. It¡¯s five days old ¨C just perfect.¡±

    ¡°Thanks.¡± I sat down by the fire and took a good swig at the skin. ¡°How¡¯s things, Lady?¡±

    ¡°Not too bad, pet. A couple of braves have had a little bit of a reminder about respect for shamans, but otherwise no problems. And how¡¯s your dear mother getting along?¡±

    I frowned. ¡°Oh, fine. Just fine.¡± I picked up the meadskin and hit it on the ground, gritting my teeth. ¡°Just. Fine.¡±

    She looked at the meadskin and nodded. ¡°Well now, I can¡¯t say I¡¯m that surprised. Your dear mother always was fond of a little drink. And yourself, pet?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m fine as well, thank you. But I thought I might have a go for the Power Hills.¡±

    She frowned, and hesitated. ¡°On your own, pet? You¡¯ve no chance.¡±

    ¡°No, no. Got two strong boys with me ¨C Hawk and Stack.¡±

    She nodded. ¡°Well, well, I still don¡¯t think you¡¯ve very much of a chance, pet. But I suppose your dear mother wants you out of her way?¡±

    Her voice had an edge to it that I didn¡¯t understand, but I decided she was making a joke and laughed. ¡°It was my idea, not hers, Lady.¡±

    She laughed too. ¡°Well now, I don¡¯t suppose she¡¯s that sorry! But anyway, pet, have you got far on this little quest of yours yet?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ve just started,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯re up on Rockline, and we¡¯ll be moving northeast tomorrow, I expect.¡± At the same snail''s pace, probably.

    She looked away. ¡°And you¡¯d like safe passage till you¡¯re out of Valley reach, pet. Pity. The Valley could do with a bit of fun, and I¡¯d¡¯ve guessed the Longwoods could as well, the way things are.¡±

    ¡°Why? My mother says the Longwoods are reasonably in hand at the moment. That¡¯s why I¡¯m chancing the trip.¡±

    ¡°The Valleys are a little bit restless ¨C they¡¯ve been whingeing about the Travelling Folk, and how much they take for the spearheads we get. And there¡¯s other things as well.¡± She paused, fiddling with a salve pot. ¡°But it¡¯s not serious, they¡¯re just a bit bored. We just need a bit of excitement of some sort with your lot; but whatever it is, pet, we need it soon. A tribe without an enemy is a tribe without a chief.¡±

    I nodded ¨C but I was surprised; I hadn¡¯t realised things were so far gone with her Tribe.

    ¡°We could do with your lot catching a Valley brave or two, tell your dear mother,¡± she went on, ¡°but if that can¡¯t be managed, ours could catch a couple of yours instead. If there just happened to be a couple of hunters wandering loose around the place ¨C say around Rockline Hill.¡±

    I assumed she was joking, and pretended astonishment. ¡°Surely that¡¯s not a threat? Between shamans?¡±

    She looked shocked. ¡°Oh please, tell your dear mother I wouldn¡¯t dream of threatening another shaman!¡±

    Well, that was a nasty little putdown: as far as she was concerned, I was not a shaman. And I¡¯d thought we were friends.

    She carried on, innocent as honey. ¡°But if the Tribe is a little out of hand, I can¡¯t be sure that accidents won¡¯t happen, pet.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± I said, gritting my teeth, ¡°of course you can¡¯t. So what do you want?¡±

    So of course I had to go all the way back to Longwood Camp to tell them I¡¯d had a vision that some Valley braves were planning a raid and this was how the Spirits said it could be intercepted. Etc., etc., etc. It was a bit crude by my standards, but we needed that safe conduct through Valley land.

    Fortunately, my mother didn¡¯t interfere, even though for once she was sober enough for me to pass on the Valley shaman¡¯s message. Made a change. After all, that was the reason I¡¯d set up this little expedition: I bring power back for the Tribe and if I play it right it¡¯ll be enough to persuade my mother to retire completely at last and leave me properly in charge ¨C as I should be. Or at least, she can¡¯t be. You can¡¯t see hidden things through the bottom of a meadskin.

    And when I did my little speech, I could see she¡¯d been wrong about this too, and the Valley shaman was right; it was time we had an incident. After all, nothing serious would happen: we¡¯d capture a couple of the Valley braves alive, torture them till we got bored, then kill one slowly and send the other one (minus most of his body parts) to tell the Valley what happened. Then in half a year¡¯s time we¡¯d arrange an incident the other way round.

    It kept everyone on their toes, got rid of some surplus population, and gave each tribe an enemy. And a tribe without an enemy is a tribe without a chief.

 Chapter 2 - Fire

    I did get back to the others before dawn ¨C just. Hawk was already stretching.a long arm out from under his cloak; Stack of course was still sleeping. Sleeping like a log, except that Stack does everything like a log.

    ¡°There is much evil abroad in these woods,¡± I panted. ¡°Bad spirits must have learned of our journey. I have fought most of the evil off, and the rest will not hurt us by day, but it has taken much of my strength. We must not be on this hill at nightfall.¡±

    Hawk nodded, rubbed his eyes and began pulling himself together. I toed Stack in the ribs until he woke, and then collapsed against a tree. I wasn¡¯t pretending, for once; I was exhausted. They let me sleep for a couple of hours unguarded ¨C thank you boys ¨C while they caught some breakfast. Then we set off again.

    Nearby, just above where we had camped, there are two long furrows in the ground, less than half a pace wide and about five paces apart, but running together at that same separation for thousands of paces. Southwards they cross almost over the very top of the next hill, and then fade out; northwards they go down into the Grey Bog and beyond our Tribe¡¯s knowledge. Between them there¡¯s just thin twiggy stuff, fireweed and grey grass; as though the furrows have drained the goodness out of the soil. They are strange, I admit, but they must simply be natural; what tribe would spend so much effort over so long a period digging for no purpose? And while the Elders ¨C if they ever existed ¨C are said to have had strange powers, again, why waste those powers on something so futile?

    Anyway, they make a way which is easy to follow and quick to walk. And therefore tempting for an ambush; which is why we call it the Deathway, and why we¡¯d avoided it so far. But I had convinced the others we needed speed, Stack said he wasn¡¯t worried anyway, and I was sure everything was safe, so we chanced it.

    Wrong.

    One stone thumped off Stack¡¯s hipbone and the other caught my shoulder, almost snapping my collar bone. We leapt back against the only defensible point ¨C a pair of tree trunks that had fused together to above man height. Stones flew at us; just two stones. Were there really only two attackers?

    And I would have something to say to the Valley shaman if we ever got back.

    Hawk and Stack crouched down, shoulder to shoulder, their packs in front as shields, Stack¡¯s left shoulder against the tree, Hawk¡¯s spear under his armpit with its butt jammed against a tree root. It all went very quiet. I tucked myself in behind them, and considered.

    The wind was blowing along the Deathway from us to them, and the whole patch was ankle deep in dead pine needles. I crawled out from behind Hawk, opened my firepot, and lit the needles. The result was most gratifying: a huge bank of thick smoke rolled out along the track, smothering the bushes and trees ¨C and everyone in them. Three voices were soon coughing their lungs apart, and three blackened figures stumbled out of the smoke, hardly able to hold up their spears.

    My two boys seemed frozen to the spot, so I ran out and snatched our enemies¡¯ spears from their hands.

    ¡°Kneel!¡± I commanded.

    They were in no state to disobey.

    Apparently we couldn¡¯t just kill them because it hadn¡¯t been a fair fight. (I will never understand how boys¡¯ minds work.) So I fetched their stuff, while Hawk stripped off their loincloths to blindfold them with, and Stack tied their thumbs together behind their backs with thongs from their packs and tied more thongs chaining them together elbow to elbow ¨C a bit overcomplicated, I thought; I¡¯d¡¯ve just tied them together by their wrists. Then we picked up some sticks and beat them till they ran. We managed to run them to a viciously steep slope, and then we didn¡¯t need to beat them any more ¨C they had to run down or fall down. They did very well. They got a good ten paces down before one of them tripped and brought the others down, rolling and somersaulting and sliding and bouncing down a hundred paces down until the slope levelled out. We were a good way away at the top of the slope, but we reckoned there were at least one broken arm, one broken ankle, and one dislocated shoulder, and probably a couple of broken ribs and collar bones. And Stack¡¯s thongwork had paid off, too; they seemed to have real problems untying themselves or doing anything with their hands ¨C they couldn¡¯t even manage to get the blindfolds off, at least while we were watching.Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!

    It was a really good laugh. But we had to leave them and get on.

    ¡°So even our shaman thinks our chief can¡¯t fight,¡± remarked Stack.

    Oops.

    There were a dozen things I could have said to fix the situation. I managed not to think of any of them.

    ¡°I can fight,¡± retorted Hawk. ¡°I can fight you if you want it. Do you want it?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± Stack began to inflate himself, in that stupid way boys have when they¡¯re trying to look big. ¡°I want it! I want it now!¡±

    ¡°OK!¡± I called. ¡°No weapons, we¡¯ll draw a square, and the first one to touch ground outside the square loses, and agrees the other one is chief. You swear by the Spirits. OK?¡±

    ¡°OK!¡± they both trumpeted. Hawk threw his things over to one side, Stack his things to the other, while I drew a square in the pine needles and desperately tried to think of a way out. Before I¡¯d finished they were already circling, face to face, fists clenched. I swore. It didn¡¯t matter which one won; we¡¯d lose the other: and I had to admit Hawk had been right; we needed to be three.

    And I thought that was my biggest problem. I was wrong. I had forgotten the fire.

    Or rather, I had assumed it had gone out, since the smoke and flame had died, and I was so engrossed by our games with our captives and then the stupidity of my boys that I never bothered to check.

    Until there was a sudden roar behind us, a great roil of smoke on our backs, two foxes legging it out of the scrub across the clearing and out, and a crackling noise not far enough away. We all jerked round to see. Then, before we¡¯d thought, a huge wild boar crashed into the clearing, galloping right at Stack. Stack tumbled almost out of the way, spinning to the ground as the boar slammed into him. Hawk seemed to freeze for a split second, then dived for his weapons. He threw his knife into the boar¡¯s shoulder, then dropped to one knee and held a spear butt to the ground as the boar turned. The boar flung itself at him, onto the spear, slid right up the shaft, and gnashed its tusks at Hawk¡¯s shoulder. Hawk twisted himself one way, trying to push the spear the other way, but the boar twisted as well, still impaled on the spear, and landed on top of Hawk, biting at his face. But now Stack¡¯s spear took the boar in the ribs, and rolled the boar clear. It landed on its back, and Stack smashed its head in with his club.

    The boar was dead. The fire wasn¡¯t.

    It seems longer when you tell it, but killing the boar had taken less than half a minute all told. I ran towards the smoke, and dragged the dead branches back away. The lighter stuff I flung aside into the woods; the heavier I dragged to one side. Stack saw what I was doing and took over the heavy branches ¨C one-handed ¨C while I swept as much of the dead leaves and needles aside as I could.

    A little bit of fire reached the clearing for us to stamp out, and a crackling noise moved on past us to our right, but nothing flared up again. I imagine the evening rain put it out.

    Stack had no more than a wrenched shoulder where the boar had first hit him, but Hawk was badly gashed; four or five of the hoofcuts on his body were nasty looking, and the tusks had got him in the shoulder and down from the cheek across the jawbone. Work for me. My stitching must have hurt, but Stack was watching so Hawk never made a sound. He did drop a tear once, but said I was tickling him, staring at Stack to dare him to contradict.

    Boys.

    Anyway, I stopped the bleeding, put the skin back and generally fixed him up, but he would carry the scars for life. As a matter of fact I think he was quite proud of them. Even I thought the one on his jaw made him look tougher, more grown up, sexier almost. I wasn¡¯t stupid enough to say so, of course.

    When I¡¯d finished, he stood up. So did Stack.

    ¡°Thanks,¡± said Stack, gruffly. He held out his hand.

    Hawk took it. ¡°What for?¡±

    ¡°You fought well.¡± It was like squeezing water from a rock, but Stack said it. ¡°You saved my life. Thanks¡­ chief.¡±

    Hawk put an arm round Stack¡¯s shoulders and they embraced. ¡°You fought well, too. You saved my life. Thanks.¡± Then he pushed Stack away, and looked in his eyes. ¡°Not chief. Friends. Shoulder to shoulder, spear to spear.¡±

    ¡°Spear to spear,¡± echoed Stack, and they embraced again.

    Meanwhile I was trying not to be sick at this ludicrous display of sentimentality, and wondering what it implied. There¡¯s no such thing as equality. How was this going to work out if Hawk wasn¡¯t recognised as Stack¡¯s chief? Would Hawk act as chief anyway? Would Stack take over as leader? Would either of them even notice?

    Was it my chance to take over as shaman and chief? No, not yet, I decided. One day, but not yet.

 Chapter 3 - Elfstone

    Hawk¡¯s wounds didn¡¯t seem to keep him awake that night. Perhaps being stuffed to the eyebrows with fresh boar meat is good for wounds ¨C though I doubt it.

    ¡°Right,¡± he said after breakfast, all businesslike. ¡°We need to sort out what we¡¯ve got and what we don¡¯t need.¡±

    The boys each had: one hunter¡¯s loincloth (Hawk¡¯s was fawnskin, Stack¡¯s was hare); one sling; one spear; one pack containing dried meat, salves (of my making ¨C therefore top quality), spare thongs for the spearheads, a skinning knife, and a scraper; a firepot tied underneath the pack; a dozen or so slingstones in an outside fold; one deerskin cloak, double layered, rolled and strapped on top. Hawk also had a dagger. Stack also had a club, its head weighted with a stone.

    I had: a few leather straps tied round me for sticking feathers in; my pouch tucked into my waist strap; one firepot tied underneath my pack; one deerskin cloak, also double layered but getting a little short for me, rolled and strapped above my pack; and my pack itself. I¡¯m not telling you what was in that ¨C that¡¯s shaman business, not yours.

    We had acquired recently: a fresh boar hide; some boar tusks; some cooked boar meat; three more cloaks, two made (badly) of deerskin and one a patchwork of hides ¨C hare and squirrel mostly; three more packs, also badly made, contents more or less as above, except the salves weren¡¯t half as good as mine; three slings, one with a snapped thong; and three spears.

    Two of the spears were good ¨C top quality flint, very sharp, beautifully shaped, better than anything in our tribe. If they came from the Travelling Folk they must have cost a manheight of skins at least, and good deerskins at that. Hawk and Stack took one each, and untied the flints from the other spears ¨C you can cut new shafts anywhere, but spearheads are serious.

    The cloaks, on the other hand, were rubbish ¨C but then, everyone knows our women are far better at skinwork than the Valley women. We dumped them.

    The boarskin was a pity, but it was very heavy and we had no easy way of curing it. We dumped that too, but we kept the tusks as a trophy.

    The food and salves were just about worth keeping; we divided them between us.

    That left one small item.

    ¡°What is it?¡± asked Hawk.

    ¡°It¡¯s an amulet of guard,¡± I answered. ¡°Don¡¯t touch it ¨C it has power.¡± I shook a rattle over it and muttered a bit.

    ¡°How much power?¡±

    ¡°Oh, very little, just enough to protect against the weakest of Spirits,¡± I answered confidently. ¡°But we should not risk wasting what power it has.¡± I looked around, and shook the rattle in the four directions and the five directions. ¡°There will be a full moon tomorrow night ¨C that will be the proper time for me to examine it. Till then ¨C¡± I slipped it into a pouch ¨C ¡°I shall keep it safe. It won¡¯t harm me, and under my protection it will not harm you.¡±

    Hawk nodded, as if he understood every word.

    That morning was worse than ever. I just could not keep their minds on the journey. One would see a squirrel, or a couple of crows, and out would come the sling and bang would go an hour. Or they¡¯d get tired ¨C tired! Hunters getting tired! ¨C and we¡¯d sit down for a rest at a spring. I¡¯d guess that we did an hour¡¯s worth of actual travelling that morning, maybe less. And we¡¯re sitting down for a bite of boar meat and crushed rowan berries and Stack says, ¡°Are we nearly there yet?¡±

    ¡°No,¡± I said. ¡°We¡¯re not. We¡¯ve hardly started. We¡¯re nowhere remotely near the Power Hills. And the way you two travel, we¡¯ll never get there.¡±

    Stack and Hawk looked at each other, and made ¡®understanding¡¯ faces. I think Hawk murmured, ¡°Girls!¡± I could have strangled them.

    Then Stack stood up, and looked out. ¡°Do we have to cross the Grey Bog?¡±

    We could see it below us, beyond the shadow of the hill, sombre in the light. Huge patches of rottenstone daubed the slope below us, the dull red fading into the purple of heather and dead weeds, and more rottenstone blotches reddened the eastern fringe of the Bog, to our right; but over the wide steaming plain between even the sun was drained of colour.

    Hawk shuddered.

    ¡°I hope not,¡± he said. ¡°But Seer says eastwards, and that¡¯s north.¡± He looked at me.

    Oh so it¡¯s Seer now, is it, not just Girl? Never mind, they¡¯ll learn soon. ¡°Yes,¡± I answered. ¡°Eastward.¡±

    ¡°But if we go eastwards from here, we¡¯re going back into the top end of the Valley Tribe¡¯s lands.¡±

    ¡°They don¡¯t seem to go there much,¡± said Stack. ¡°It¡¯s mostly a big patch of rottenstone. Useless hunting, treacherous under foot.¡±This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    ¡°They say there¡¯s pits there you can fall into and never get out of, pits the size of a tent.¡± Hawk paused. ¡°It¡¯s not that I¡¯m frightened of the Valley Tribe, or of the pits, but it would be slow going.¡±

    ¡°Yes. Very slow. We¡¯d be losing a lot of time.¡±

    This from two boys who¡¯d been dragging their feet every step of the way! I could hardly keep a straight face. Not frightened! Huh!

    ¡°If I remember right,¡± I murmured, ¡°there is a way north, but not across the Grey Bog - further to the east. Maybe we could take it, then go east and then south, till we¡¯re back on the line.¡±

    Hawk and Stack looked at each other.

    ¡°South once we¡¯re past the Valley Tribe. That might work.¡± Hawk almost looked as if he believed himself.

    Stack looked doubtful, but he nodded.

    But Hawk was away in his own thoughts. ¡°I¡¯ve done it twice, so I should be able to find it again. There¡¯s a bowl in the hills ¨C biggish, with a very boggy patch in the middle that floods in winter. Then ¨C¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s just do it,¡± I said.

    The woods were cold and silent that afternoon. Rain dripped down to us through dark branches. We made steady enough progress in difficult land. The trees were thick pines and spruce, hard to push through, harder to navigate. There were few paths. We found the bowl in the hills; it was flooded already, but it felt depressing in the autumn rain, and even Stack didn¡¯t try to bring down a duck. Then we got lost a couple of times, but eventually we were working steeply downhill, northwards, towards the wet valley. Pines changed to oaks, and pushing through spiky branches became clambering under a dark roof, shaking down the yellowed leaves whenever we stumbled against a tree trunk.

    Finally the ground levelled out, and began to squelch underfoot. A path appeared, and took us to the Endstone.

    Stack almost touched it, but he snatched his hand away at the last moment. ¡°Why is it called the Endstone?¡±

    Everyone looked at me, of course. Lore is always a matter for the Shaman or for the Singer, and I am the Shaman. Whatever that old pegbag in the Valley Tribe thinks.

    ¡°It marks the end of the Longwood Tribe lands,¡± I declared. ¡°Before the Valley Tribe pushed in, we held Flat Valley, the Divided Hills, and everything between them from Grey Bog to High Bog. The hills north and east were held by the Mistwater Tribe, but Grey Bog itself was held by the Pools Tribe, and its shores as far as the Endstone; in those days the Endstone marked where our lands ended and theirs began.¡±

    My voice began to singsong.

    ¡°Then the Widehills Tribe came down and fought the Longwood Tribe, and took from us Flat Valley, and the Widehills Tribe took the new name of Valley Tribe to spite us. But we held them at the valley¡¯s edge, and they feared to challenge the Mistwater Tribe for the rich forests northwards, so instead they tried to take Grey Bog from the Pools Tribe, and they slaughtered the Pools Tribe, but their ghosts came and cast the Valley Tribe out of the Grey Bog. And since then none live in or dare to claim the Grey Bog as tribal land, neither the Longwood Tribe, nor the Mistwater Tribe, nor the Valley Tribe. All is empty, disputed, forgotten.¡±

    Stack shuddered. ¡°Is the Endstone haunted?¡± he asked.

    How can you haunt a stone? It¡¯s just a piece of scenery. And as for the Endstone, there¡¯s twenty or so just like it I could show you whenever you want. They¡¯re all roughly square, all the same whitish, coarse rock, all with the same mineral vein in the middle of their tops. (The colour of rottenstone, but much harder, and when you scrape at it, it goes grey and a bit shiny.) It¡¯s just the nature of that particular kind of rock.

    I danced around it, shaking a couple of rattles and crooning.

    ¡°No,¡± I affirmed, striking a confident pose. ¡°There are no ghosts here. The Endstone is not haunted.¡±

    ¡°Unless it¡¯s by Valley hunters,¡± drawled Hawk. ¡°They come into the Grey Bog now and then, and sometimes they don¡¯t go out again. But they call it the Elfstone.¡±

    ¡°Why?¡±

    Stack was full of questions all of a sudden, wasn¡¯t he? We¡¯ve had more words out of him in ten minutes than we had all the rest of the trip so far.

    I shook a rattle. ¡°They whom we call Elders, they call Elves,¡± I intoned.

    That shut him up at last. Nobody asks questions about the Elders. Except a shaman. A shaman asks lots of questions. Like: How did Hawk know what the Valley Tribe call the Endstone?

    I didn¡¯t ask it aloud ¨C but I didn¡¯t forget it.

    Near the Endstone there¡¯s a boggy spring that quickly becomes a boggy stream. Thanks to our chief¡¯s wonderful memory and almost miraculous instinct for these things, we followed the stream for half an hour or so down its right bank, got stuck, struggled all the way back to the Endstone, and followed the stream again down its left bank. It was filthy going; sticky mud sometimes well over our ankles, fighting through birch, alder, sallow, osier and even an occasional ash and lime on the rare dry patches. And the flies! We couldn¡¯t stop; as soon as we did we began to sink deeper and the flies began to feed. Even my two strong hunters didn¡¯t want to rest.

    After a couple of hours all told, we were on drier ground, looking over a long narrow pool. The slope down was only about fifty paces, but the slope up the other side was much longer, and all open grass as far as we could see in the mist. There was some good forest to the right and left, though.

    ¡°We can¡¯t go any further today,¡± Hawk declared very firmly, and for once I agreed. We¡¯d done very well, compared with past days.

    I shook my rattle around a bit, and drew out a camp, in the shelter of three ash trees and a birch thicket. We couldn¡¯t get a fire going at all, and the boar was finished, so we had only dried rations. We chewed cold, smoked meat and then tried to sleep, but the ground was so wet we had to make a thick bed of birch sticks and cover it with one of the cloaks.

    While they were stacking the branches, I remembered the amulet. It was a tube of elder wood, only a thumbjoint long and a third of that across. The ends were sealed with beeswax. When I¡¯d picked out the wax I found what I expected.

    If you¡¯ve never seen it, Elderskin is quite hard to describe; thin and fragile like birch bark, but rougher and whiter, like the thinnest possible kid leather in texture. I believe it must be the bark of a tree that grows in some distant land ¨C it burns like bark. The Elders are said to have written the markings on it, as we write on kidskin or birchbark, but the symbols are not our symbols. If they are symbols, if it is writing, and if the Elders ever existed.

    This one was thicker than most, and marked on both sides. It told me nothing except that some superstitious idiot had cut a bigger piece of Elderskin into several separate slips, and made each slip into an amulet. Big deal. I put this particular slip back in its tube, sealed it again, and hid it among my things.

    Then the bed was ready and we curled up together shivering under the other two cloaks, covering our faces with bracken against the flies. Not a good night.

 Chapter 4 - Encounter

    We woke suddenly, all together, having been convinced we would never get to sleep. There was something resembling dawn, clouds of tiny flies and gnats were biting us, we were covered in dead leaves, and sluggish mist oozed out of the birch thicket. We still couldn¡¯t manage to keep a proper fire going, only a column of thick smoke; so when Stack brought back a couple of coot we had to eat them almost raw. They were horrible, but better than going hungry ¨C or so Stack said. I did find some mint at the water¡¯s edge that was still green enough to chew, though, and that helped a lot. And the smoke did keep away the gnats. Nothing kept the flies away.

    In the end we wrapped ourselves in our cloaks; melting to death was preferable to being bitten to death. Just.

    ¡°Left or right?¡± Stack muttered.

    ¡°Right,¡± said Hawk.

    It wasn¡¯t far, and the path was surprisingly dry right up to the end of the pool. There, a tumble of boulders and stones blocked off all but a trickling overflow that tumbled straight into another pool, even narrower, that wound round a low bluff and out of sight.

    ¡°Now this needs care,¡± said Hawk, striking his chieftain pose. ¡°We must hold hands and watch where we put our feet. The rocks are very unstable for some reason.¡±

    He looked at me, so I answered.

    ¡°Because it¡¯s artificial. The Pools Tribe dammed the river with stakes and rocks, because pools have more fish in. That is why they were called the Pools Tribe. There is a series of pools all the way down to Flat Valley.¡±

    ¡°Can we fish them?¡± Stack licked his lips.

    ¡°We haven¡¯t time,¡± I declared. ¡°And anyway it¡¯s not safe to hang around too long.¡±

    Stack went back to looking sulky.

    ¡°But we should do more than hold hands,¡± I went on. ¡°We should tie our hands together. It¡¯s safer.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve been across before?¡± Stack glanced from me to Hawk and back.

    ¡°A long time ago,¡± I said.

    ¡°I¡¯ve been across twice,¡± Hawk added, ¡°but they were a long time ago, too. It¡¯s said¡­¡± his voice tailed off.

    ¡°What¡¯s said?¡± demanded Stack.

    ¡°It¡¯s said that the ghosts of the Pools Tribe take shapes like birds, birds with flint beaks that can peck through your skull.¡±

    He looked to me for confirmation, but I wasn¡¯t having any truck with such Singer¡¯s tales. ¡°We aren¡¯t hanging around the pools, though, this time,¡± I replied. ¡°We¡¯re going straight across and up into the trees again.¡±

    It wasn¡¯t too bad. We all slipped at least once ¨C Stack twice, which was a bit tricky since he was in front ¨C but the others always held. The other bank was much steeper, but therefore much drier, and we were soon climbing up among nice trees again. Instantly warmer, and instantly more comfortable. Funnily enough, I hated the openness of the crossing: I felt everyone was staring at me from miles away. And from the way the others pulled their cloaks round them, I¡¯m sure they felt the same. Nasty.

    But now at last we were away from the flies, and could stop braising in our cloaks. As I rolled mine up to pack, sweat was still dripping from it onto the dried leaves around me.

    We pushed up along something like a path ¨C and very welcome; the thickets of birch and bramble under the willows would have been very hard and prickly going. It took us northeast, over a low shoulder, and into a clearing ¨C not a glade, a deliberate clearing. And in the exact centre, between three ash stumps, a stake was set, with a human skull impaled on it.

    My boneheaded companions ran forward ¨C presumably they wanted a closer look; I jumped back into the trees, and crouched behind some bushes. I was, of course, correct: eight or so braves appeared round the edge of the clearing, spears pointing inwards. Stack and Hawk stood back to back, spears ready, as the circle closed on them. They would be lucky even to scratch an opponent before they died.

    I, meanwhile, had shoved several bone whistles into my mouth, stuck a couple of rattles into my waiststrap and daubed fresh mud on my face and body. Then I leapt forward into the circle, one full cartwheel, one back somersault and one forward somersault, both standing, all the while blasting on the whistles. This brought me almost face to face with one brave; I shook my rattles in his face and girned at him; he fell back. Leaping, crouching and bobbing, I danced sideways round the circle girning, whistling and rattling in each face, and each one fell back in turn. Still crouching, I made for the post; there I straightened slowly up, arched my back almost till my pigtail was trailing on the ground, rendered one last titanic whistle and rattle blast, and fell forward, crouching and silent.

    I slipped the whistles out of my mouth, then straightened up. I put a hand on Hawk¡¯s shoulder.

    ¡°Your turn, chief,¡± I whispered.

    He strode forwards, spear held upright.

    ¡°Who leads here?¡± he demanded.

    One of the strangers stepped forward. ¡°I, Beech-leaves-falling son of Full-fishing-net, am leader of this band. Who are you that steps on the lands of the Mistwater Tribe?¡± His voice had an odd accent, but his spearpoint at Stack¡¯s gut made it easy to follow.

    Hawk turned a little to face him. ¡°I am Hawk-on-high-bough son of Rope-tight-woven, chief of the Longwood Tribe. I lead this band, Beech-leaves-falling son of Full-fishing-net of the Mistwater Tribe. Here at my shoulder are Stack-of-strong-timber son of Lifts-rock, and our shaman, Seer-of-hidden-things.¡±

    Beech-leaves-falling¡¯s eyebrows rose a little. ¡°We rarely have the honour of a visit from your Tribe, Hawk-on-high-bough son of Rope-tight-woven of the Longwood Tribe, even though we share a border. The Pools Tribe have cut between us too often.¡± The Pools Tribe? So they weren¡¯t destroyed after all! And the Mistwaters now claim the pools and the stream. Interesting. I wondered if the Valleys agreed. ¡°I ask you to accompany us to our camp, that you may meet our chief, Strong-deer-hide son of High-beech-tree, chief of the Mistwater Tribe.¡±

    We had no choice: it was better than being killed. Probably.

    The camp was an hour¡¯s dawdle away through ash and oak woods, on a shelf in the hillside between two streams, and a good bit higher than the Grey Bog. It was big, too ¨C twice the size of our camp. I tried not to look at the stake in the middle of the dancing floor.

    The chief turned out to be a generously proportioned ¨C all right, he was as fat as a boar; the skin of his belly flopped forwards in folds onto his knees. Also he was loud, and welcoming in an ¡®I may still decide to eat you¡¯ sort of way. He sat on his high seat on the edge of the dancing floor, and had had time to get his formal stuff together: a fringed cloak, a tasselled and ochred spear, and his collar.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    Especially the collar. Even his magnificent chins couldn¡¯t hide it: two fingers wide, twisted and engraved, and gold. Pure, solid, shining gold.

    Now, we aren¡¯t savages; we¡¯ve seen gold before, in fact our last Chief had a gold ring that went to the fire and the earth with him. And I know gold is just another kind of stone, and presumably the Mistwaters are nearer to wherever it¡¯s dug out of than we are, but even so, there was no way our chief was ever going to be wearing a collar like that. It would have cost more than the whole tribe. Yet nothing else here was particularly rich or costly; just normal, really. So how had he come by it?

    ¡°Hawk-on-high-bough son of Rope-tight-woven,¡± he mused, after the formalities had been gone through. ¡°Rope-tight-woven. That would be Rope-tight-woven son of Oak-stands-alone? We have met, I believe, a long time ago, before he became chief. He has other sons, I hope?¡±

    I was glad to see that Hawk did not rise to this deliberately tactless remark. ¡°The Spirits have been generous to my father. He has five sons living, and seven sons prepare for his coming to his Spirit chieftainship ¨C long may they have to prepare.¡±

    The chief smiled, at least around the mouth flab. ¡°You understand, I would gladly give hospitality and a safe passage to friends, and even to strangers; but I will not do so to enemies of my Tribe. Now, Longwood Tribe is too close to us to be strangers. We even claim to have a border with one another, though it is rare for a Longwood brave to dare to approach it. So are you friends of the Mistwater or enemies?¡±

    Accurate facts, accurate argument, friendly tone, gratuitously insulting phrasing. It was easy to see how he¡¯d become chief. I hoped, I really hoped Hawk wouldn¡¯t rise.

    ¡°It is true that we rarely see Mistwater braves at the Endstone,¡± Hawk replied, very even toned, ¡°and I for one wish we met more often. But I have heard that the Valley Tribe is enemy to the Mistwater Tribe, as they are to the Longwood Tribe, and my enemy¡¯s enemy is my friend.¡±

    The chief relaxed conspicuously, and therefore so did the others. He spread his hands out sideways, and drew himself up.

    ¡°That is a wise argument, from a wise son of a wise chief.¡± There were murmurings of agreement all around. ¡°But¡­¡± he folded down again. ¡°But it has to be said that a brave of the Pools Tribe could say as much, for they most certainly are enemies of the Valley ¨C and yet they are enemies of ours, too.¡± He paused. The camp was very quiet. ¡°I can not remember, Hawk-on-high-bough, Chief¡¯s son of the Longwood Tribe, are the Pools Tribe enemies of the Longwood Tribe, or are they friends?¡±

    The very trees fell silent. There was not a sound in the camp, in the forest, in the air. What would Hawk answer? Hawk was not chief; he had no right to commit the Tribe to war: but he was the chief¡¯s son; he could commit the Tribe to war. A mere leader of a hunting band would never have been asked, or would have had every right to brush the question aside. Hawk could not. What would he do?

    ¡°Great Chief of the Mistwater Tribe, I too can not remember. We have no Singer with us, but we have a shaman ¨C Seer-of-hidden-things, remind me, are the Longwood Tribe enemies of the Pools Tribe?¡±

    That¡¯s right ¨C pass the buck. A real chief¡¯s trick. Your father would have been proud.

    I¡¯ll get you back for this, Hawk.

    So I cartwheeled a couple of times, backflipped, bounced round in a circle at the half-crouch tooting a whistle, and then stood up high, reaching my arms to the sky and rattling. I felt it looked impressive, and it gave me time to think.

    ¡°In the beginning!¡± I shrieked. It sounded good, so I did it again: ¡°In the beginning!¡± Then I dropped to a more comfortable pose and changed to a lower rasping voice. ¡°In the beginning the Longwood Tribe took the Longwood for our own. We fought for our land and held our land that the Spirits had allotted us. Thus fought we the Pools Tribe for the northern hills of the Longwood, and we defeated them, but we could not take more than the hills and when we fought in the valley of the Grey Bog, they defeated us.¡±

    I spun around, rattling rattles. ¡°So the Chiefs met at the Endstone,¡± I intoned, ¡°and oaths were sworn that the Endstone would be the boundary between our lands and theirs. But no word was spoken of alliance or friendship, only of the Endstone.¡±

    I dropped pitch again, but kept the intoning. ¡°Then time passed and time passed, and the Spirits were angry with the Longwood Tribe, and they took land from us. West and east they took land from us. And in the east it was the Valley Tribe that the Spirits called to chastise us and they took Flat Valley from us, and since that day we have ever been enemies. But it is not said in any tale that the Pools Tribe sent any braves to fight for us, nor did we ask for aid from them, for between us was neither alliance nor friendship, but only the Endstone.¡±

    I danced a bit, and then took up the tale. ¡°Then the Valley Tribe had taken all that the Spirits allowed them, but they wanted more, and they attacked the Pools Tribe and defeated them, and took their land. But it is not said in any tale that we sent any braves to fight for the Pools Tribe, nor did they ask for aid from us, for between us was neither alliance nor friendship, but only the Endstone.¡±

    I knelt down and spread my arms over the dust of the ground. ¡°And we heard and we believed that the Valley Tribe slaughtered the Pools Tribe, leaving not one alive, and that the whole Pools Tribe had gone to their ancestors.¡± I bowed my head, intoning a few phrases of the Song of the Fallen. ¡°Then our braves would sometimes pass the Endstone, and they found none of the Pools Tribe to meet in friendship nor fair fight, but only tales of ghosts and of birds with flint beaks. And thus it stood, and thus it has stood to this day, that no more news of the Pools Tribe has come to the Longwood Tribe but this, O Chief¡¯s Son.¡±

    I somersaulted to my place and fell silent. There you are, Hawk! Make what you can of that!

    Hawk turned back to the Mistwater chief, and struck a big pose.

    ¡°I thank you, Seer-of-hidden-things, shaman and speaker, for your wise words. Thus it is seen and heard, most wise Chief Strong-deer-hide son of High-beech-tree of the Mistwater Tribe, that we have never had friendship with the Pools Tribe, but since we had believed them destroyed from the earth, and since until this very day we had no news of them, it is hard to say that we are enemies. But since they are your enemies, if we were your friends than they would be our enemies too, for friends stand shoulder to shoulder. But such matters are for great chiefs like yourself and my father to decide, not for a humble brave, however much he might welcome such friendship.¡±

    ¡°And you would welcome such friendship?¡±

    When the alternative is being tortured slowly to death. Mm, hard call.

    ¡°For my part, I would. But I fight my Tribe¡¯s enemies, and my Tribe¡¯s enemies are those the Longwood Chief declares as enemies.¡±

    ¡°So I need a better token than your word if I am to treat you as friends, and allow you passage through our lands. I wonder now, what would be a suitable token? Perhaps the Spirits may guide my choice?¡±

    An obvious cue. And on cue, there was a rustling behind him, and a shaman came dancing out.

    The Mistwater shaman. I hadn¡¯t seen her for years, and her style came fresh to me. Much less acrobatic than me, more still patches in her dance ¨C they worked, though, because she had an ominous quality about her that made her stillnesses ominous too. Her masked face was long and narrow, her breasts were large enough to need cross-binding, her skin was greased, so that she had alternate patches of glossy tan and white dust, and she was tall and heavy boned ¨C but then I knew she was something like twice my age, so it wasn¡¯t surprising.

    Her voice, when it came, was really effective. Unearthly screech, yet quiet; you felt as though you were listening to a grave opening. I began to feel I still had a lot to learn about being a shaman. I remembered the last time I¡¯d seen her ¨C my mother took me with her when the last Mistwater shaman died and this one was sent through the fire and the water to the shaman¡¯s tent. She¡¯d seemed so clumsy, so mechanical compared to my mother. Now I suspected the comparison might go the other way: she was good. Very good.

    ¡°The Spirits!¡± she intoned. ¡°The Spirits! You call on the Spirits for so easy a matter! So give them an easy task.¡± She laughed, like a grinning skull. ¡°They spoke of birds with flint beaks ¨C they know so little! Let them bring you such a bird ¨C let that be their token and let such be the token for all of their Tribe who wish to step on Mistwater land. The Spirits have spoken!¡±

    She vanished behind the Chief¡¯s chair again.

    Chief Strong-deer-hide smiled and stood up. ¡°The Spirits have spoken,¡± he declared. ¡°For today you may eat and sleep here. Tomorrow my braves will take you to our border with the Grey Bog, and nor you nor other of the Longwood Tribe shall again enter our land without such a token. No doubt the Spirits will send word to your Tribe of all our words today.¡± In other words, his shaman will speak to the Valley shaman who will speak to my mother. I only hope she¡¯s sober enough to understand.

    Do you know, just for one moment then, I actually missed the old lush.

 Chapter 5 - Testing

    <h1 style="font-family: &quot; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px"> </h1>

    Next morning we were standing at the bottom of a grassy slope, looking at a wall of reeds taller than we were. Mist flowed over our heads, and soaked in among the reeds. Our hosts had walked us here and left us without a word ¨C and with empty bellies; their chief¡¯s assertion that we could eat and sleep was taken very literally.

    The flies were a nuisance, but not as bad as they had been. I don¡¯t think they liked the mist.

    Hawk sighed. ¡°Any ideas?¡± he whispered. ¡°Stack? Seer?¡±

    Stack put a finger to his lips. I gestured right, and mimed tiptoeing.

    We tiptoed along the edge of the reeds, and even there we were often in the mud above our ankles. After just a few minutes we could see the mud widening out, the bank becoming less and less well defined. Hawk stopped again, and waved us back.

    So ten minutes after we got to the marsh, we were in exactly the same place, but with muddier legs and more fly bites. Wow.

    Hawk turned to Stack. ¡°I don¡¯t believe we¡¯re going to get anywhere like this. I want to know what it¡¯s like through the reeds. I¡¯m going to have to make a noise, so we live with it.¡± He started dumping his gear on the grass. ¡°You and Seer stay here for the moment, and see if I disturb anything.¡± He was empty-handed and naked now; he picked up his spear, waved, and strode into the reeds. They closed behind him.

    Stack sat down against the last tree; I sat in a corner of the slope in the breeze, hugging my knees. We waited. There were no sounds, no movements. Nothing. We waited.

    There were some particularly nasty flies ¨C if that¡¯s what they were; they looked more like a giant gnat ¨C that whined as they attacked. It made it worse, knowing they were coming for you but unable to spot the bastards till they landed. By which time it was usually too late.

    After nearly an hour a brown, long-legged bird stepped out of the reeds, apparently saw us, and stepped back in again. Only a few seconds later we heard splashing, then a pause, and then Hawk came out of the reeds, mud to his armpits.

    ¡°The reeds are thickest at the shore,¡± he said, ¡°and as the water gets deeper the reeds get thinner. There¡¯s no one about, though, and nothing much to hunt either ¨C no animals of any sort.¡± He tossed a mud-plastered lump onto the grass. ¡°I did manage to get a bittern.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s a bittern?¡± asked Stack.

    A good question. I also looked up at Hawk, as if expecting enlightenment. He blushed.

    ¡°It¡¯s one of these.¡± He pointed at the mudlump ¨C though if you looked carefully you could see some mud-coloured feathers and a pair of mud-coloured legs. ¡°They¡¯re not bad eating. A bit fishy.¡±

    ¡°Of course,¡± I said innocently. ¡°I remember the word, now. The Valley Tribe catch them, don¡¯t they. Of course, I¡¯ve never eaten one ¨C the Valley Tribe don¡¯t exactly trade with us that much.¡± This was a barefaced lie. I had eaten bittern with the Valley shaman (that twofaced lying toad¡­) and I¡¯d liked it. A bit fishy, but that just gave it some spice. However.

    ¡°So you have dealings with the Valley Tribe behind our backs?¡± asked Stack, as if it was the most innocent question in the world. ¡°You know their words, and you eat their food. Interesting.¡±

    I nodded. ¡°His father must trust him a lot to let him act like that. I must remember to talk to him about it when we get back.¡±

    Hawk¡¯s face didn¡¯t seem to be able to make up its mind whether it wanted to blush or go pale.

    ¡°It¡¯s not like that!¡± he shouted. ¡°It¡¯s just that ¨C when you¡¯re out hunting ¨C you come across a few things ¨C like birds and things ¨C I mean¡­¡± He paused. ¡°I don¡¯t have dealings with the Valley Tribe.¡±

    ¡°You don¡¯t?¡± My eyebrows were higher than my headstrap.

    ¡°Perhaps not with the whole Tribe, just with a couple of his friends,¡± suggested Stack.

    ¡°No!¡± Poor Hawk shouted the word at us. ¡°By the Spirits, I don¡¯t have dealings with the Valley Tribe, I don¡¯t have friends in the Valley Tribe, I swear it!¡± He turned away, and began plucking the bittern savagely.

    Stack and I looked at each other behind his back. Our faces said the same thing ¨C Liar! And he¡¯d sworn by the Spirits. I couldn¡¯t let it pass in the long run, but this was not the time.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

    The rest of the day was one complete wipeout. Hawk and Stack both went out ¨C separately ¨C searching the marsh, and found nothing. I wasn¡¯t going into that mudbath; that¡¯s hunter¡¯s work, not shaman¡¯s. I sat in the sun and lazed ¨C that is, I invoked the Spirits continuously on our behalf ¨C until I felt hungry, and then I found some berries and ate them all. Why not? They were the hunters. It was their job to find food for all of us.

    Unfortunately they didn¡¯t find anything bigger than a beetle ¨C or at least, they didn¡¯t kill anything bigger than a beetle. The local ducks appeared to have miraculous powers of escape, according to the stories my skilful hunters told when they came back. Of course I believed them. I told them that I had been trying to get the Spirits to aid us, but I had not been able to reach them, that they seemed angry. Hawk gulped when I said this, which confirmed my suspicions.

    Since we had no food, the evening was a long time passing. Stack and Hawk were not exactly not talking to each other, but every word seemed to have splinters along its edge. I just lay back in peace and wished it could last for the whole trip.

    As the sun set the flies and gnats and all the other wildlife came to bother us. I had gathered some wood for a fire, through boredom rather than selflessness, and its smoke helped keep some files off. And following Stack¡¯s advice I plastered all exposed surfaces with mud. It helped too. A bit. But when those two curled up in a heap of bracken I was itching too much to sleep, so I got out some of my paraphernalia and began a vigil, twenty paces or so up the hill; out of the main fly zone, but near enough for the boys to hear my chanting.

    I dropped off to sleep after an hour or so, and then woke up some time after midnight. I was itching worse than ever, I had a crick in my neck, I was cold, and I was in a filthy temper. I stood up, shook myself, and walked down to the others.

    ¡°Stack!¡± I hissed, touching his cheek with a fingertip. ¡°Stack!¡±

    He rolled over. ¡°Uhh?¡±

    ¡°Stack!¡± I hissed again. ¡°Wake up! Quietly!¡± He didn¡¯t seem to be listening, so I shook his shoulder. ¡°Don¡¯t wake Hawk!¡±

    He turned right over, and struggled to sit up. ¡°What¡¯s the matter?¡±

    ¡°The Spirits have spoken to me.¡± I held his eyes with mine. ¡°They are angry because Hawk swore by them when he was lying.¡±

    ¡°He was lying, then?¡± Stack¡¯s smirk almost met behind his neck.

    ¡°Definitely. And the Spirits are demanding recompense.¡±

    ¡°What? They want his life?¡± Stack was genuinely appalled, I thought, which was reassuring. Whether he was appalled at the idea of killing a companion or appalled at the idea of being out in the middle of nowhere with just a shaman for company I couldn¡¯t tell, but either would do me.

    ¡°No, not his life. But the strongest Spirit hereabouts is the Lady of the Flies. She is demanding that he be given to her until he confesses.¡±

    ¡°And when he does?¡± Stack¡¯s eyes were like saucers.

    ¡°Then I must go back to Her and ask her will ¨C if I can understand Her.¡±

    ¡°If you ¨C what do you mean?¡±

    ¡°They speak strangely here. The Mistwater Tribe did ¨C remember? Well, She is even harder to follow ¨C all buzzes and whines. But he must be exposed as food for Her servants, to the thumbnail, and when he admits his guilt I must go back to speak to Her, to learn how he can purge his guilt.¡±

    Stack seemed to have even more trouble than normal thinking at that time in the morning. But eventually he spoke. ¡°To the thumbnail? What does that mean?¡±

    Actually, I didn¡¯t know; it had just sounded good. ¡°I think it means that not even a thumbnail sized patch of skin must be covered or protected,¡± I answered. ¡°But it might mean that even the extremes of his body must be available. She is not a spirit you ask unnecessary questions of.¡±

    Stack was breathing rather hard. ¡°So he will have to be hung up ¨C we can¡¯t just peg him out on the ground.¡± He looked over to where Hawk was still blissfully asleep, and began digging into his pack, picked out a couple of thongs, tied a slipknot in one, and tiptoed over to Hawk.

    Ten minutes later, Hawk was spread-eagled naked in the air, his wrists tied well apart to a branch above his head, his ankles spread with a strong stick ¨C unsharpened ¨C tied between them, the stick wedged across a couple of rocks so that he could take the weight off his arms.

    That was bad enough, but you wouldn¡¯t believe what Stack wanted to do. I had to go into a full-scale trance to keep Stack in control. The only good point was that I hoped Hawk knew Stack was being unnecessarily vicious to him, and I was trying to stop it.

    ¡°He must hang there until the sun is fully up,¡± I declared. ¡°He must not now be touched or disturbed in any way ¨C in any way ¨C until then. Wake me before you do anything ¨C anything at all. Do you understand?¡±

    Stack was staring at Hawk, mouth open and close to drooling. He waved at me as if to brush me aside ¨C and suddenly I remembered his skill with the three we caught on Rockline; and also a year or so back seeing him watch a Valley captive being tortured, and enjoying the sight very obviously.

    ¡°Unless you want the Lady of the Flies to demand you as food as well.¡±

    That got through. Stack turned to me, his mouth still hanging slack. ¡°Might she?¡±

    ¡°If She thinks you¡¯ve disobeyed Her, or overstepped Her marks ¨C whatever they are ¨C or are using Her for your own benefit¡­ She is not a Spirit to cross, believe me.¡±

    I turned away, burrowed into the bracken heap, and slept.

 Chapter 6 - Proof

    I awoke a little after sunrise, and I was appalled. Hawk was completely covered in flies, gnats and biting insects of every possible kind ¨C every scrap of skin was crawling with insects. You certainly could not have put a thumbnail between them. I¡¯d only expected him to be bothered with a few files and unable to brush them off, like a deer in a clearing; I hadn¡¯t imagined anything this bad.

    Stack was still where I¡¯d left him, but in a little snoring heap under a cloak. I kicked him awake, and despite his protestations insisted on untying Hawk. We laid him on a cloak, and threw water over him until the flies were all washed away. His body was swollen and fiery red from head to toe, and he was tossing about. I didn¡¯t like it at all. Stack helped me move him to the water¡¯s edge and bury him in the cold mud, which did seem to help at first; his eyes opened and he muttered some words that seemed to make sense; but his pulse was all over the place, and a couple of times I had to thump his chest to convince myself his heart was still going.

    This was awful: the sort of thing you do to a captive enemy, not to one of your own. Still, I wasn¡¯t going to let Stack see how I felt.

    ¡°As I said,¡± I told Stack, ¡°The Lady is not a Spirit to cross. I do wonder if She wants you to take the ordeal as well ¨C you were so anxious to serve her, She may want you as one of Her servants in the Realms.¡±

    Stack turned white.

    ¡°Certainly if She takes Hawk,¡± I went on, trying not to show I was enjoying myself, ¡°She will probably feel She needs a companion for him. She likes Her servants in matched pairs.¡±

    Stack stared down at Hawk, and Hawk stared back at him, Stack¡¯s mouth opened and closed several times. But from then on he was very helpful with Hawk.

    Hawk pulled round slowly, and by the afternoon was reasonably coherent and a better colour. I shook a couple of rattles at him.

    ¡°So,¡± I said. ¡°Do you admit you lied? And that you invoked the Spirits to bless a lie?¡±

    Hawk opened his mouth. We waited. Finally, ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°You do have dealings with the Valley Tribe behind your father¡¯s back?¡±

    ¡°No, no!¡± He was struggling to sit up, but I eased him back. The water lapped around his body ¨C and my feet. It was definitely cool enough to do him some good, but I moved my feet to dry land.

    ¡°Not with the Tribe!¡± he went on. ¡°Just with one ¨C with one girl.¡±

    I heard Stack sniggering behind me. I was having trouble myself.

    ¡°A girl?¡± I said, and stared at the very hairless area between his legs. ¡°Aren¡¯t you a bit young for that?¡±

    He looked away. ¡°Oh, it¡¯s not like that. She¡¯s just a friend.¡±

    No, she wasn¡¯t. There was more to it. I just kept silent, meaningfully.

    ¡°She ¨C we met by accident once, when I was out hunting duck. She was gathering reeds. We looked up and saw each other, and we both smiled. She asked if I was from the Longwoods, and I said yes, and she asked if I was going to hurt her, and I said no, and it went on from there. We¡¯ve met a few times since, in the same place. We¡¯re just friends.¡±

    I still kept silent, and gestured to Stack to keep quiet, too.

    Eventually Hawk cracked wider. ¡°But¡­¡±

    I raised an eyebrow.

    ¡°She is so ¨C I don¡¯t mean she¡¯s sexy, or that I want her to my tent, or any of that, I mean, you¡¯re right, I am too young, but she is¡­. She is beautiful. No ¨C I don¡¯t quite mean that ¨C she is beauty.¡±

    Oh, don¡¯t make me weep! Has he been trying some of my mother¡¯s mushrooms?

    He stared at me. ¡°You must know,¡± he went on. ¡°You must understand. You¡¯ve walked in the Spirit realm. You must have seen such beauty as we can¡¯t grasp. Surely you understand!¡±

    Well, if I had walked in the Spirit realm, which I haven¡¯t because it doesn¡¯t exist, then I don¡¯t believe it would turn me into a total slushwabbit. I had never heard such sentimental, wishy-washy, glutinous, sick-making flump in my whole life.

    I nodded, my face sober. ¡°Yes,¡± I said, ¡°I understand. But you must have known ¨C you must both have known how dangerous it was.¡±

    ¡°Yes, I suppose we did. We even joked about it. But¡­¡±

    ¡°But,¡± I echoed. ¡°Well, let¡¯s leave it there. I must walk in the Spirit realm again, now, myself, and see if they ¨C She ¨C is satisfied.¡±

    I walked away up the hill until I was out of sight and hearing. Then I laughed and laughed and laughed.

    Once I was back in control I dug a flint chip out of my pouch and slashed my arm three times ¨C long, shallow cuts that bled nicely. Then I walked back down to the others.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

    ¡°She is placated,¡± I reported. ¡°It took some doing, but She is now prepared to let the matter drop.¡± I slumped down as if exhausted. ¡°And no, Stack, she doesn¡¯t want you so you can stop worrying. Is there any drinkable water?¡±

    Stack stopped staring at my arm and leapt to his feet. Hawk¡¯s eyes followed him, with a look in them I couldn¡¯t work out. Then Stack came back with a drink of spring water, and the moment passed.

    ¡°Thank you,¡± I said. Then I pretended to notice that my arm was dripping blood and dug out some salve. It soon stopped the bleeding ¨C as I say, my salves are the best.

    Hawk was getting better by the minute, but he still was obviously unfit for serious work, and anyway it was late. Stack went hunting and brought back two duck ¨C a clear sign the Spirits had relented, I pointed out ¨C and so we ate a reasonable supper. The flies weren¡¯t so bad that night, either, and on the whole we slept well.

    Next morning Hawk was back to his normal self ¨C except he was covered in spots and had a big swelling on his left arm ¨C and both the boys were obviously determined to find these flint-beaked birds; but I had been thinking.

    ¡°The Spirits want us to move from here,¡± I declared. ¡°But they did not speak clearly where we are to move to.¡±

    Hawk looked around. ¡°Well, not east ¨C that takes us out of the marshes,¡± he said. ¡°We go west.¡±

    Stack nodded. I was puzzled: Stack was being almost humble, and Hawk had taken command. Surely after Hawk had been so punished and humiliated yesterday it should have been the other way round?

    ¡°But we¡¯ll need to find somewhere out of the wind,¡± Hawk went on. ¡°It¡¯s much colder today, and I don¡¯t like the clouds.¡±

    Nor did I, and I was cold too; mind you, they were at least wearing loincloths, and their cloaks were longer than mine as well, so what they were complaining about I don¡¯t know. I shook a rattle at my shadow. ¡°Westwards, then,¡± I declared.

    We duly worked westwards, and the further we went the more trees appeared at the edge of the water, and the further away from the water¡¯s edge we had to go to find dry footing. After five hundred paces there was a proper fringe of alders and sallows, and the grass on the hillside was dotted with bramble patches and gorse bushes. Then a stream came down across our path, and reeds filled its mouth, breaking the line of trees. The valley of the stream was deep cut, giving us shelter from weather, but it was easy to walk up to the ridges on either side if the flies were a nuisance.

    ¡°Perfect,¡± declared Hawk. ¡°Shelter and fresh water. We camp.¡±

    Except we didn¡¯t ¨C I did. The other two just dumped their things at my feet, waved, and pushed out through the reeds and out of sight, leaving me to gather bracken and build shelters. Thank you very much, boys.

    Stack got back first, with no less than five duck. Tiny ones, mind, not a kind I¡¯d seen before ¨C but very tasty. You¡¯d¡¯ve thought Hawk must have smelt them cooking; he turned up just as I was biting into the first one.

    ¡°I¡¯ve found something!¡± he burst out. ¡°I think it¡¯s a fish trap. Look!¡±

    He lifted this black gungy thing out of the water; as the slime dripped off you could see it was a wicker basket, cone shaped, about twice the length of his arm, and a quarter of that across at the mouth.

    ¡°See,¡± he went on, ¡°the fish swims into this wide bit, and it doesn¡¯t notice because it¡¯s wide, and then the wide bit gets narrower and it can¡¯t turn round.¡±

    He waved it around in the air in front of him, apparently to demonstrate how it worked. There was a thump, and the basket spun from his hand and landed two paces away. All three of us froze for a second, then we flung ourselves into the long grass.

    And waited.

    Nothing more happened.

    Eventually Hawk crawled over to the trap and picked it up. Then we all crawled up the little valley until we were out of sight of the marsh, and stood up, staring at the trap ¨C and at what had hit it.

    A bird is something that has feathers and flies through the air. This had feathers and it flew through the air, but I¡¯m not sure I¡¯d call it a bird. For one thing, it had a flint beak.

    ¡°So the Lady has forgiven you,¡± I said. ¡°I¡¯ve heard of these but I¡¯ve never seen one before.¡±

    ¡°I have,¡± said Hawk. ¡°The Valley Tribe call them ¡®arrows¡¯. I believe you throw them with a piece of bent wood with a string tied across it, but I don¡¯t quite know how. The Valley Tribe don¡¯t use them themselves ¨C they¡¯re said to be pretty useless in thick woods like ours. It¡¯s a tribe the other side of them that use them.¡±

    ¡°This is from your girlfriend again, I suppose?¡± Stack asked, rather bitterly I thought. I looked at Hawk too, all innocent.

    ¡°Maybe!¡± Hawk was on the defensive at last. ¡°But if you¡¯d paid attention to the Singer you¡¯d¡¯ve heard of them too.¡± He looked me in the eye. ¡°That¡¯s how you¡¯d heard of them, isn¡¯t it.¡±

    ¡°Oh, they¡¯re part of the general lore that Singers and Shamans both share,¡± I answered, ¡°and it¡¯s not just the Valley Tribe that call them ¡®arrows¡¯. The stick you throw them with is called a ¡®bow¡¯. They work like a dart, but they go much further and much harder. And,¡± I pulled out the arrow and studied its tip, ¡°you can get much more poison on them because the tip is so much bigger.¡± I scraped a tiny flake of black from the flint, rubbed it between my fingers and smelt it. ¡°Wolfsbane. Of course.¡± I wiped my fingers very thoroughly on the damp grass.

    ¡°Of course.¡± Hawk looked round. ¡°How far can you throw these things?¡±

    ¡°So the tales say, a hundred paces. To kill.¡±

    ¡°A hundred paces? By all the Spirits! You mean they could hit us from that hill over there?¡±

    ¡°So the stories say.¡± I put the arrow down ¨C very carefully. Wolfsbane is no joke. ¡°They may be exaggerating, of course, but you saw how hard and deep it went into the fish trap, and the thrower was nowhere to be seen. And it¡¯s no use wrapping your cloak round you,¡± I looked at Stack who was doing exactly that. ¡°These arrows will go straight through any cloak. So the stories say.¡±

    Hawk jumped to his feet. ¡°We must get away from here, now,¡± he exclaimed. ¡°We must get this back to the Mistwater chief.¡±

    ¡°Our stuff is all down by the water,¡± I pointed out. Slightly huffily, I admit. I¡¯d spent all day gathering bracken, pulling down poles and building shelters while they¡¯d been out enjoying themselves, and it had all been a total waste of time.

    ¡°Ah.¡±

    Apparently this little point had escaped his notice. I pushed my advantage. ¡°Obviously a hunter¡¯s going to have no problem slipping down there unseen and bringing the stuff back up here,¡± I paused. ¡°A real hunter, that is.¡± I looked from Hawk to Stack and back again.

    They both looked at me with clenched lips, seemed about to say something, and then dropped to the ground and wriggled off into the grass.

    I waited.

    Eventually they came back, running crouched over. Stack had my pack and Hawk the rest of my stuff ¨C as well as their own, of course.

    ¡°Good,¡± declared Hawk. ¡°Let¡¯s go.¡±

    ¡°Just a moment, just a moment,¡± I said. I opened my pack and spent a little time just checking it was all there. The more he fretted the slower I went.

    At long last I decided I¡¯d squeezed as much revenge out as I possibly could.

    ¡°Let¡¯s go,¡± I said, and walked off.

 Chapter 7 - Acceptance

    We walked the last bit nice and slowly, so they had plenty of time to set up a reception. It was almost dark when we arrived, and the ring of fires had been lit around the dancing-floor, making the chief¡¯s gold collar gleam and glitter under his three chins. We walked into the ring, stopped and bowed. Then Hawk walked in front, holding the arrow high in the air with both hands. He looked quite good ¨C really chiefly.

    We paused in front of the chief¡¯s chair. Hawk bowed, still holding the arrow.

    ¡°I, Hawk-on-high-bough son of Rope-tight-woven, leader of this band, son of Rope-tight-woven son of Oak-stands-alone, chief of the Longwood Tribe, greet you, mighty chief, Strong-deer-hide son of High-beech-tree, chief of the Mistwater Tribe. Here at my shoulder are Stack-of-strong-timber son of Lifts-rock, and Seer-of-hidden-things. I bear with me the token that you appointed for my return, great and mighty chief Strong-deer-hide son of High-beech-tree, chief of the Mistwater Tribe, and lay the token at your feet.¡±

    He bowed again, and this time lowered his hands. He laid the arrow on the ground and stood up straight.

    ¡°It has been thrown at us in war,¡± he went on. ¡°It is the proof you so wisely demanded that the Pools Tribe regards the Longwood Tribe as enemies. So it is seen that your enemies are our enemies, great chief, and your wisdom and depth of vision are made manifest even to such as us.¡±

    The chief signalled to one of his braves to pick the arrow up for him. He turned it end to end, and finally stared at the tip.

    ¡°Yes, indeed; this is of the Pools Tribe. Is there anything left undone by these our guests? Are the Spirits content?¡±

    The Mistwater shaman danced out, and suddenly froze. The light of the torches flickered all over her greased body and shining limbs. We all held our breath. Then she spoke.

    ¡°They are content,¡± she wailed, in a whisper that could be heard throughout the camp. ¡°They are content. They are content.¡±

    What I tell you three times is true, so they say.

    ¡°Let us rejoice in the wisdom of our chief, and the vision of the Spirits, and the faithfulness of these visitors!¡± she screeched softly, and vanished again behind the chief¡¯s chair.

    The chief stood up, threw the arrow into the middle of the floor so that its point stuck deep into the earth, and looked around the camp. ¡°Are the Tribe content?¡± he shouted.

    Everyone rattled or shook spear, shield or anything to hand. I took this as a Yes, and so apparently did the chief.

    Hawk strode forward and picked up the arrow.

    ¡°And let this be the token for any of our Longwood Tribe that they are welcome here, and let this be the token for any of this Mistwater Tribe that they are welcome among us!¡± he shouted. The Tribe shouted back ¨C but I was watching the chief.

    I had understood him to be asking for a new arrow for every visit ¨C a pretty tight restriction on inter-tribe contacts. Now Hawk was suggesting a free-for-all ¨C and to judge by his face, he knew what he was doing. Would he get it?

    ¡°A wise son of a wise father!¡± the chief repeated. ¡°Your father and I must meet ¨C and meet soon. May it be a glorious meeting of friends and a mark of a new friendship between our tribes!¡±

    Neither yes nor no; better than Hawk deserved. And I wondered what our beloved chief would make of his despised son Hawk negotiating on his behalf. Hawk seemed to be putting a brave face on it, but I hope the same thought was in his mind.

    My mind was chewing over a quite different thought, as it had been most of the day: what had I got wrong? Surely I had just put Hawk through a humiliating and painful punishment; surely he should be feeling humble, and Stack should be feeling smug? Yet here was Hawk acting even more arrogantly and Stack practically snarling like a dog with his tail between his legs. Somewhere I¡¯d dropped a real treetrunk of a mistake ¨C but I couldn¡¯t see what. Still, it could have been worse ¨C at least they weren¡¯t being slushy.

    Anyway, we were now officially guests of the Mistwater Tribe. It meant we got food and drink.

    Stack was first at the food, of course. But even he was looking round between mouthfuls.

    ¡°It¡¯s a big tribe,¡± he mumbled, spraying deer fat over us both.

    Hawk nodded, swallowing. ¡°And so many old people!¡±

    I wondered at that, too. Our tribe is small, because we don¡¯t hold that much land any more; so the shaman makes sure the numbers of babies who live is kept in control. And old people are just a drain on resources ¨C we can¡¯t afford to carry passengers; so a shaman makes sure that no one grows old ¨C except the chief and the shaman, of course.

    It may seem heartless, but it is simple necessity. Remember, it¡¯s not the individual that matters, but the tribe. And really, it¡¯s the human race as a whole that truly matters in the long run, not the tribe, not the individual.

    Except, of course, when I¡¯m the individual.

    But here, there were several wrinkled faces around the fire, and several mops of grey hair. Was the shaman not doing her job? Or was there some other reason ¨C had they found a use for these people?

    Time for a courtesy visit to the shaman ¨C especially as she might invite me to sleep in her tent.

    ¡°So you are Seer-of-hidden-things?¡± she said. ¡°Your mother is dead, then? I am sorry.¡± Her thin face looked hollow without the mask; her dark hair picked up the dark circles round her eyes.

    ¡°No, no,¡± I replied. ¡°But while I¡¯m with the expedition I am its Seer, so I am Seer-of-hidden-things for now, Lady.¡±

    ¡°Oh, call me Speaker.¡± She had only just got in herself; she took off her straps, and wiped the grease and dust off herself with a fawnskin. ¡°After all, I first met you when your grandmother was alive ¨C but you will not remember.¡±This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    ¡°You remember Nan ¨C I mean, my grandmother?¡±

    She laughed. ¡°Oh yes. Not a lady it is easy to forget!¡± She paused. ¡°You must have been, what, six when she died?¡±

    ¡°Six. Yes.¡± I had to control my voice. Her death still hurt a little, even after so long, but the moment passed. ¡°No, my grandmother¡¯s not someone you forget.¡±

    ¡°But I have seen you since she died. You last came to visit a few years ago, did you not, with your mother, when I became Speaker-for-the-spirits.¡± She paused. ¡°Expedition, did you call it? They are hardly able to look at each other without growling.¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± I smiled. ¡°They¡¯re coming along pretty well.¡±

    She waved me towards a bench, and sat down herself on a stool. ¡°You have managed to split them up so that you can control them better?¡± she said, leaning back against a ring pole and wriggling her shoulders into comfort.

    ¡°Not split them up completely,¡± I answered hastily, ¡°but yes, they play off against each other quite easily, now.¡± No, I know it wasn¡¯t strictly true at the moment, but I didn¡¯t want her to think me a total fool, and it had been true for most of the trip.

    She nodded as if she approved, and yet¡­ Well, perhaps I was imagining things, I told myself.

    ¡°And that was how the Spirits told you to play it, I suppose,¡± she went on, and looked up at me.

    ¡°If anyone asks,¡± I smiled. ¡°I have had the Spirits¡¯ approval at every stage!¡± I waved my hand airily. ¡°Very convenient.¡±

    ¡°Of course.¡± Her voice was smiling, and so was her face; but she didn¡¯t seem to be. ¡°And you have had the Spirits¡¯ help in other ways? I did hear you had a little trouble on the way, up on Rockline.¡±

    How did she know that? One way leapt to the mind.

    ¡°You¡¯ve heard from the Valley shaman, then?¡± I asked casually. ¡°Friend of yours?¡±

    ¡°Not of yours, I should think!¡± She looked at me. ¡°Dropped you right in, I gather. I can not say that I am surprised.¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s done it to you, has she?¡± I felt a little relieved at the idea I wasn¡¯t the only one she¡¯d fooled.

    But the Mistwater shaman just shrugged. ¡°No, not quite, but I have never trusted her all the way. She was too close with your mother, I thought. Especially when they were talking about who would take over from your mother. I thought that she was pushing too hard.¡±

    It was as if I¡¯d been clubbed. ¡°But ¨C but I¡¯m her daughter! Of course I¡¯ll take over ¨C I mean, what are you talking about? It¡¯s not true! It¡¯s not! It¡¯s not! You¡¯re lying! It¡¯s not true!¡±

    She stood up, walked over to her quern and threw some knitbone leaves onto it. Then she picked up a pestle and began grinding ¨C or rather, crushing ¨C the leaves down. Meanwhile I was gibbering.

    Eventually she must have decided I¡¯d waited long enough. ¡°Daughters do not have to follow their mothers. After all, a shaman might not have a daughter. Or the daughter might not want the job.¡± She tested the paste with a finger, added a smear of fat, and then carried on grinding. ¡°Or a shaman might decide that her daughter is not up to it. Any of these things. Then she can adopt a substitute. Let us say, the daughter of a nearby shaman. One who is truly well trained, with a wide knowledge of herbs, deeply spiritual of course ¨C¡± her voice paused briefly ¨C ¡°skilled at brewing mead, and above all, polite and well-behaved.¡±

    ¡°Butterwort-leaves!¡± I exclaimed. ¡°You mean Butterwort-leaves! But ¨C but she¡¯s a total doormat!¡±

    ¡°Precisely! She will do whatever her mother ¨C whatever the Valley shaman tells her. The perfect shaman for the Longwood Tribe.¡± She examined the paste again, sucked her teeth, was apparently satisfied ¨C though I wouldn¡¯t¡¯ve been ¨C and then scraped it off the stone and filled a little pot, while I tried to get my brain working.

    She looked up at me, right in the eye. ¡°But she does brew good mead ¨C far better than you. Your mother holds that you deliberately water it.¡±

    ¡°I know, but she thinks that of everyone. Or else that they steal it.¡± I was beginning to think again. ¡°Look, Speaker, if Butter takes over, it¡¯s the end of the Longwood Tribe. She¡¯ll poison the lot in one go. And if my mother declares Butter as her heir, the Valley shaman will see that Butter takes over soon.¡±

    ¡°And if you are not there, Butter will be your mother¡¯s heir, whether she declare it or not.¡± She scratched a mark onto the jar, and called out. A girl stepped very softly out from the shadows beyond the fire; a pale, skinny girl, a shade younger than me, shy and soft at first sight but with an air of hidden strength. ¡°You have not met Birch, have you! Seer-of-hidden-things, may I bring to you Birch-twigs, my second daughter. Birch-twigs, offer your respect to Seer-of-hidden-things, first daughter of the shaman of the Longwood Tribe.¡± We touched palms, Birch and I, and then the girl took the little pot and left the tent.

    ¡°Your second daughter?¡± I asked. ¡°The Spirits have been kind to you?¡±

    ¡°Oh, yes. I have three daughters living. The other two are out gathering some things for me. They should be back soon. If you would care to share our tent tonight, Seer-of-hidden-things, you will meet them.¡±

    ¡°Your generosity honours me, Speaker-for-the-Spirits¡± I answered. The formality gave me a chance to keep thinking. ¡°So any of three daughters may be chosen to follow you! The Spirits indeed do you honour.¡± And it seems a little excessive, surely? All hell will break loose when it comes to the point.

    She smiled ¨C my thought must have shown in my face. ¡°Not as much honour as may seem. My eldest ¨C she is a woman, now ¨C her heart has never been in the Stones. I and our chief, we have been talking, and we think she will walk to his third son¡¯s tent. And my youngest is only seven. She will be good, though. Already she is better at finding and identifying herbs than either of her sisters, but I do not hold her to beat Birch here at preparation and brewing.¡±

    Birch was indeed here ¨C I¡¯d never heard her come back. My respect for the girl went up another notch. And it wasn¡¯t difficult to work out what her mother was trying to sell me. But I needed time to think.

    ¡°How did your tribe take back the Pools and the Pool Stream?¡± I asked. Rather a sharp change of subject, but it was the best I could manage.

    ¡°We did not plan to. But as we pushed the Pools Tribe ¨C what are left of them ¨C deeper into the marsh and away from our fishers, so we discovered that we held the causeway at the head of the stream ¨C where you crossed three days ago.¡± Was it only three days! ¡°Once we held that, we of necessity held the stream banks on your side, and so the Valley Tribe held no safe crossing of the stream above Stoatsback, and therefore no reason to come this far.¡± She began grinding down some more knitbone ¨C just as badly as the first lot. I couldn¡¯t stand it any more.

    ¡°Here, let me do that,¡± I said, and took the pestle from her.

    ¡°Oh, thank you.¡± She straightened her back, and then began picking over a basketful of dried rose hips. ¡°Yes, it never came to a big fight, but after a few little incidents the Spirits led the shamans to meet, the chiefs exchanged messengers, and now the Valley Tribe never come past the Pitlands, while we do not cross the Pool Stream except at the Causeway. And I believe your tribe could now claim all the land on your side between the Endstone and Stoatsback, in other words practically the whole of the Pitlands, so the Valley really has had a bloody nose.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know,¡± I mused, grinding the individual leaves and watching them merge together and fade into the paste. ¡°It¡¯s all useless land. I don¡¯t suppose one hunter a year would bother to visit.¡±

    She looked up. ¡°Really? Then they should. There is a lot more there than meets the eye.¡± She went on with her berries. ¡°Of course, mostly open-ground game ¨C rabbits, hare, that sort of thing ¨C and your tribe works happier in trees.¡±

    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s true.¡± The paste was already far finer than her first lot. I picked out the mat of fibres and wrung the paste out of them and back into the mortar. ¡°Do you need any more knitbone?¡±

    ¡°Are you finished already?¡± She leant across me and tested the paste. ¡°That is ¨C just excellent. No, but ¨C would you mind doing some coltsfoot and lungwort, please?¡±

    ¡°Coltsfoot root or leaves?¡± I reached for the baskets.

    She looked me straight in the eye. ¡°What would you use?¡±

    ¡°Root, every time. And if it¡¯s for a stubborn cough, which it likely is, I would add a little squill.¡±

    She tossed a squill bulb to me, and I began to work.

    ¡°Your mother was right about your skills, anyway.¡± So I¡¯d passed that test ¨C not that I¡¯d doubted it. ¡°Perhaps I should get you to teach my daughters.¡± She tidied the berries away and began on the evening meal. And I tried to do some thinking; and failed. Failed miserably, as they say. I never really knew what that meant till then.

 Chapter 8 - Tribe

    I did not sleep well that night. I could not get over what my mother had done ¨C how she¡¯d betrayed me. And I¡¯m her daughter ¨C her only daughter! I kept on trying to think what to do, what my next step should be, and always my mind came back to my mother¡¯s betrayal before I could get to a decision.

    In the end, of course, I fell asleep. And when I woke, a new thought was sitting in my head: how did I know? Why should I believe Speaker? Perhaps she is lying, and my mother hadn¡¯t rejected me! But then I remembered how the Valley shaman had treated me, and how that fitted, and then I began to remember other things¡­ And I knew it was true.

    So I had a decision to make: either I went back and confronted my mother, and snatched back my position; or I went on with the quest for the Power Hills and¡­ and maybe then went back home. But I couldn¡¯t go back home now, could I? Even if I went back, it wouldn¡¯t be home anymore, not knowing what I knew¡­

    Loneliness fell over me like a skin dropped on a bed. I wept.

    When I stopped weeping, I turned over, and reached out to the loneliness, and then inside myself. There was strength there. I took hold of the strength, dried my eyes, stood up, and walked over to the hearth.

    When Speaker saw me she reached over to the water jar and scooped out a bowlful for me. I washed the last tearstains off my face and felt human again.

    ¡°Bad night, is it?¡± she said. ¡°Nothing to be ashamed of, Seer my girl. Have some food ¨C you will feel better for a full stomach.¡±

    I nodded; I didn¡¯t quite feel safe talking yet.

    Then she put her arm round my shoulder, and I snuggled against her, and had another little cry. Then I did feel better. Mind, I could have done without her seven-year-old running in, shouting ¡°Big Hug!¡± and launching herself into us from a dizzy height.

    ¡°Thank you,¡± I said, helping Speaker back to her feet; at least it meant I noticed her eyes. ¡°You look tired, too.¡±

    The seven-year-old prodded me in the solar plexus. ¡°Mummy was up all night talking about you to the Spir ¨C¡±

    ¡°Now you run along and find me some stone-pine, there¡¯s my good girl!¡± Speaker patted the kid out of the tent and turned back to me.

    I was keeping an eye on the ashcakes. She prodded a couple, found one that was cooked, tossed it between her hands until it was cool enough to handle, then broke it and offered me half.

    I am not a total fool, even after a night like that. I paused, thought¡­

    After all, whoever was lying to me, or whoever was telling the truth, taking Speaker¡¯s offer gave me the most options; it put me in some sort of control. If I just left things, anything could happen ¨C and I¡¯d begun to realise just how far away the Power Hills might be. But I was committed to the journey ¨C and to Hawk. And to Stack as well, of course.

    I had to go on, and worrying about what I¡¯d come back to was silly.

    ¡­and I took the ashcake half.

    ¡°Your generosity honours me, Speaker-for-the Spirits.¡± I touched the bread to my forehead. ¡°My tent is open to you, Speaker-for-the Spirits, and I offer you my service.¡± I ate a little of the bread. ¡°Except that this time, I mean it.¡±

    She nodded, and pushed a pot of preserved raspberries towards me. ¡°Because the purity of my intentions shines so clear that you can do no other than trust me.¡±

    I laughed. ¡°Or to put it another way, the journey to the Power Hills has turned out to be far longer than I had expected, and I see now that I should not have left my mother without support. Support which the maid Birch-twigs can well give, if she and you so choose. Lady Speaker-for-the-Spirits, Shaman of the Mistwater Tribe, I ask of your grace to release the maid Birch-twigs to be a support to my Mother, Seer-of-hidden-things, Shaman of the Longwood Tribe, for as long as she is needed.¡±

    ¡°To that I assent, Lady Seer-of-hidden-things, but who believes what is spoken in secret. Let us step outside into the hearing of the whole Tribe.¡±

    Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. It took nearly two hours, I¡¯d had only three mouthfuls of ashcake, and I still hadn¡¯t had a proper drink.

    When at last I got back to breakfast Speaker sat down with me again, and we shared the rest of the ashcakes ¨C those few that her daughters hadn¡¯t scoffed in the meantime.

    We aren¡¯t savages; we know what bread is. But it was odd to have so much bread and so little else; in the Longwoods it¡¯s always the other way round ¨C for us, bread is a treat. But then we don¡¯t have so much of the grains and roots you can use for breadmaking ¨C our land doesn¡¯t grow them so well as theirs, I suppose. It¡¯s just the way it is.

    And then Speaker went out on her rounds, and I went with her, and Speaker and I talked. And by the time we got back to her tent I felt much better.

    And I could almost forgive my mother. No, that¡¯s not right ¨C I could almost imagine possible ways in which I might ¨C just might ¨C one day forgive her.

    But I couldn¡¯t forgive the Valley shaman, and I could never forgive the mead.

    Anyway, eventually we started talking about important matters.

    ¡°So you see, I thought I had humiliated Hawk; but he¡¯s suddenly got confident, and it¡¯s Stack that¡¯s acting all humble ¨C and resentful. I don¡¯t understand.¡±

    Speaker nodded. ¡°Yes, of course. Don¡¯t you see? You¡¯re still thinking of what you meant to happen, not what did. You meant it just to be humiliating, but it was not so; it was intensely painful and terrible, and frightening to see and to imagine. Yes?¡±

    ¡°Yes¡­ I suppose¡­¡±

    ¡°And Hawk endured it, and lived. Yes?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°And Stack was frightened of it ¨C so frightened you could threaten him with it and he cooperated. Yes?¡±

    ¡°Oh.¡±

    ¡°And now you understand. Hawk knows Stack was frightened of an ordeal that Hawk has come through. And Stack knows Hawk knows. Of course Hawk has gained confidence; of course Stack feels humiliated. And Stack we see can not handle humiliation.¡±This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    I picked up a hazelwood scraper, dug out the last of the honey and worked it into the lotion. ¡°There¡¯s no way back from this, is there. I can bring Hawk down, but I can never build Stack up again.¡±

    ¡°Exactly. Only Stack himself can do that ¨C and he has not. That is his real failure.¡±

    ¡°How could he? Offer to take the ordeal himself?¡±

    ¡°And face down his fears. Yes. Or acknowledge a limit, but accept that everyone has limits. Or see that there is a difference between accepting an ordeal, and being forced to undergo an ordeal as Hawk was. Or ¨C well, any of a number of ways.¡±

    ¡°But not sulking like a two-year-old. Yes, I see. So I¡¯ve caused too much damage for him to be able to recover.¡±

    ¡°To see it another way, you have had revealed to you a weakness, a vice in Stack that you had not suspected, and which even he may not have been aware of. It is valuable; you will know now what Stack¡¯s limits are, and you will never again make the mistake of thinking of him as perhaps a chief.¡±

    I was about to say something, then I stopped, thought about it, and started again. ¡°It¡¯s not what he¡¯s done that will stop him ever being Chief. It¡¯s not a punishment. But the vice that has always been in him made him act as he did and also will stop him ever being Chief. You¡¯re right. I¡¯ve gained vital information.¡±

    ¡°And so now you will only build up Hawk as a possible chief. Which is very fortunate.¡±

    I filled the little pot, and looked up, puzzled.

    She lifted an eyebrow. ¡°Ah.¡±

    The penny dropped. ¡°Oh you¡¯re as bad as the Chief¡¯s wives!¡± I exclaimed. ¡°I do not have a crush on Hawk, any more than I had a crush on Spider or Chip! In fact, I deliberately chose him because I didn¡¯t want him ¨C no, I mean ¨C Oh!¡± and I flung a big handful of deadnettle into the quern and began grinding it down. Very hard.

    ¡°So what should I do about it?¡± I said, once I trusted my voice.

    ¡°Decide who they are.¡±

    That did not make sense. I waited.

    ¡°First, you must acknowledge that if your party is to succeed ¨C indeed if your party is to survive, you must be united. You must work together, not against each other. I know that playing boys off against each other is fun, but you can not do it and live.¡±

    She was sounding like my aunt. I hit the deadnettle even harder.

    ¡°Well?¡±

    ¡°grmmnnnf.¡±

    ¡°I beg your pardon, but I did not quite¡­¡±

    ¡°Oh all right. I suppose so.¡± I may have said that a little too loudly, but even so it appeared to be acceptable.

    ¡°Very well. Birch, my dear!¡±

    ¡°Yes, mother!¡±

    The voice was less than a handbreadth behind my right ear. I jumped so hard I hit myself in the chin with the pestle, tumbled backward off the stool and brought down a whole stack of dishes and jars around and on top of me. I was lucky I hadn¡¯t knocked myself out.

    How that girl did it I can not tell you. I would have sworn that that tent held just the two of us.

    ¡°Birch, my dear,¡± continued Speaker, rather obviously trying not to laugh, ¡°please find the hunter Stack-of-strong-timber, who was of the Longwood party ¨C you remember?¡±

    ¡°The heavy, square hunter with the warm dark skin, strong brown eyes, black hair, two teeth knocked out by a deer hoof, tattooed bands across the backs of both hands, and a scar across one shoulder blade, Mother?¡±

    Speaker¡¯s eyebrows shot up. ¡°Yes, indeed. You appear to have observed him very carefully, my dear. Well, please find him, make him walk the camp boundary three times with the sun, then lead him in here. And we,¡± she turned to me, ¡°have five minutes to look our best. Let us hope it is good enough.¡±

    To judge by his face when Birch finally led Stack into the tent, our best was definitely good enough. Birch left him standing in front of us, without telling him what to do. He hovered a bit, then noticed a stool conveniently ¨C and deliberately ¨C placed to hand.

    ¡°You are not fit to sit before the Spirits!¡± Birch¡¯s screech in his ear had exactly the effect on him it had had on me. The stool tangled itself round his legs and he finished up spread across a generous section of the tent floor.

    ¡°Why are the Spirits wasting our time with this clown?¡± hissed Speaker loudly. ¡°He shows no respect. Why do we not scrape him into the dungheap?¡±

    ¡°Be patient, Lady, I beg thee,¡± I answered in a well-projected whisper. ¡°He has started ill, true, but let thou see if he shows respect now. Only then let thou judge him.¡±

    Poor Stack finally disentangled his legs from the remnants of the stool, and flung himself down at our feet in a full grovel, face firmly in the dust.

    Speaker let him simmer for a good minute. ¡°Very well, I see he can show a small semblance of respect if he choose.¡± She lifted her voice. ¡°You may kneel, boy.¡± Stack rolled back onto his heels, but kept his head bowed. ¡°You are the hunter Stack-of-strong-timber son of Lifts-rock of the Longwood Tribe?¡±

    Stack nodded, very very fast.

    ¡°The Spirits are angry with you, Stack-of-strong-timber son of Lifts-rock of the Longwood Tribe, do you understand?¡±

    Stack nodded, very very fast.

    ¡°No, that is not enough. Let us hear your voice, Stack-of-strong-timber son of Lifts-rock of the Longwood Tribe. Do you understand?¡±

    ¡°Y-yes, Lady.¡±

    ¡°And do you understand why they are angry?¡±

    ¡°N-no, Lady.¡±

    ¡°Very well, boy, let me try to explain so simply that even you will understand. Many days ago, the Spirits chose to appoint three of the Longwood Tribe to follow the tale of the Power Hills as far as it led, and perchance to bring back power to the Longwood Tribe. Do you understand?¡±

    ¡°Yes, Lady.¡±

    ¡°The three chosen each had an allotted position and purpose, and each was chosen for that purpose. The first chosen was this Lady who is my guest here, Seer-of-hidden-things, and she was appointed as your shaman. Yes?¡±

    ¡°Seer¡¯s our shaman, yes, Lady.¡±

    ¡°The second to be chosen was Hawk-on-high-bough son of Rope-tight-woven, and he was appointed as your Chief. Yes?¡±

    ¡°Yes, Lady.¡± There was a note of anger below the fear, even now.

    ¡°The third to be chosen was Stack-of-strong-timber son of Lifts-rock, and he was to be your Champion. Yes?¡±

    ¡°Champion, Lady? ¨C Er, I meant yes. Yes, Lady.¡±

    ¡°To each is appointed the proper reward: to the Shaman, the brightness of the Spirits; to the Chief, the honour of the camp; to the Champion, the glory of the battlefield. So it always has been, and so it should have been with you. Yes?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I see, Lady.¡± His back had definitely straightened, and I thought he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

    ¡°And yet you have neither fulfilled your purpose as Champion, nor allowed your Chief to fulfil his in quiet. On the one hand you have undermined him and criticised him and encouraged his humiliation in front of the rest of the Tribe,¡± all one of me, ¡°and on the other you have allowed your own pleasures and ambitions to make you unwary and left your Chief open to ambush and to attack from a wild boar. And there have been many other times when you have not ensured above all the safety of the Tribe but which the Spirits, in their mercy, have not permitted to lead to disaster. Yes?¡±

    ¡°Yes, Lady.¡± His gaze dropped again.

    ¡°And even your shaman you have criticised and patronised and come close to open defiance, so that she has had to threaten you with death just to get the least of your attention. Yes?¡±

    ¡°Yes, Lady.¡± Though he didn¡¯t sound sorry enough to me.

    ¡°In short, instead of being a true Champion, you have acted like a second Chief. Yes?¡±

    ¡°Yes, Lady.¡±

    ¡°And so the Spirits have humiliated you and criticised you and emptied you and left you useless and unwanted. Is that not so? Have they not taken away from you the pride and respect even of your own heart?¡±

    His head was down again, now.

    ¡°And do you now, at last, understand why?¡±

    ¡°Yes, Lady, I do.¡±

    ¡°Maid Birch-twigs, bring the hunter Hawk-on-high-bough son of Rope-tight-woven of the Longwood Tribe before us.¡±

    Soon all three of us were standing before the Cauldron, Hawk in the centre as Chief, Stack at his right hand as Champion, I at his left as Shaman. Speaker stood behind us both as prompter ¨C yes of course we¡¯d all heard these oaths sworn over and over again, but it¡¯s best to be sure.

    I began. ¡°I bear witness to the Tribe and to the Spirits that I am called by the Spirits to be Shaman to this Tribe, to speak for the Tribe to the Spirits, to speak for the Spirits to the Tribe, to see what can not be seen, to speak what can not be spoken, to walk between enemies and to stand between friends,¡± and I took a ladleful from the Cauldron and drank.

    Then Stack. ¡°I swear by the Spirits and before the Spirits that I will be Champion to this Tribe, to fight for the Tribe against our foes, to stand firm in our enemies¡¯ faces, to be watchful for the unseen pit, the hidden blade, the tripping noose, to set every life above mine, and value every death as my death,¡± and he too drank.

    And finally Hawk. ¡°I swear by the Spirits and before the Spirits that I will be Chief to this Tribe, to lead the Tribe to food and to water, to reward courage with glory, loyalty with honour, labour with gifts, honesty with freedom, evil with vengeance, to judge between the injured without favour, and to speak for the Tribe among the Tribes,¡± and he drank.

    Finally I tore off some bread and gave it to Stack to eat, he gave bread to Hawk, and Hawk gave bread to me.

    ¡°Very good,¡± said Speaker. ¡°Now you are truly a Tribe.¡±

 Chapter 9 - Beginning

    So what was all that mumbo-jumbo about? Why couldn¡¯t we just be a Tribe without all that swearing and eating and repeat-after-me-ing? I kicked a stone across the backpatch ¨C it just missed a drying frame. Pity.

    ¡°Seer!¡±

    I went to kick another, but it turned out to be just a clod, so I stamped on it instead.

    ¡°Hey, Seer! Can I have a word?¡±

    And if I were a half-competent shaman, wouldn¡¯t I understand why all that stuff mattered? And wouldn¡¯t I have thought of it and done it myself?

    I turned; Hawk recoiled. ¡°It¡¯s just a very quick word,¡± he said, through a very forced-looking smile. ¡°It¡¯s just that, Stack and me, we thought our Tribe should have its own name.¡± He blinked. ¡°I think I¡¯ll come back some other time. When you¡¯re ¨C er ¨C not busy.¡±

    ¡°Oh, no,¡± I shrugged, and sat down on a corner of the scraping block. ¡°No, It¡¯s OK.¡± I dragged my thoughts together as Hawk sat down next to me. ¡°We¡¯ve sworn in as tribal leaders, but obviously not of the Longwood tribe. So which tribe?¡± And why hadn¡¯t this been obvious? Stones, I felt useless.

    ¡°I thought maybe the Endstone Tribe, because that¡¯s neutral ground, we wouldn¡¯t tread on anyone¡¯s toes. But Stack thinks the Deathway Tribe, because that¡¯s where we fought our first battle.¡±

    I wasn¡¯t really bothered, not just at that moment, but it was nice sitting next to Hawk in the autumn sun, his skin against mine, so I fetched out the Stones and began to murmur the words of casting.

    ¡°Endstone!¡± I said aloud at last, and got a fairly weak No.

    ¡°Deathway!¡± I said, and got a very definite No.

    Hawk looked at me, and then past me and waved. Stack came over and stood next to him, looking down at me.

    ¡°The Stones don¡¯t like our ideas,¡± said Hawk. Stack nodded, and sat down next to Hawk.

    Right. I sat back in my ¡°I am communing with the Spirits¡± pose, and tried to think. And a question came to me: when did we become a Tribe?

    ¡°When did we become a Tribe?¡± I asked aloud. ¡°While we stood on Longwood lands, we were of the Longwood Tribe, whatever we said or did. When we crossed the Causeway we left the Longwoods. And when we crossed the Causeway we did so with tied hands, as one Tribe. And we crossed at the Chief¡¯s word, the Champion¡¯s lead, the Shaman¡¯s guide.¡±

    Hawk and Stack looked at each other.

    ¡°And also,¡± I went on, ¡°the Causeway links the Longwood and Mistwater lands, and we link the Longwood and Mistwater Tribes.¡±

    Hawk nodded and Stack shrugged, so I cast for Causeway, and got a Yes. Not the strongest Yes, but who cares?

    ¡°So we¡¯re the Causeway Tribe,¡± said Hawk.

    ¡°And you¡¯re the chief of the Causeway Tribe,¡± I said, ¡°and Stack is the Champion of the Causeway Tribe.¡±

    ¡°And you are Shaman of the Causeway Tribe,¡± finished Hawk. ¡°But¡­¡±

    Stack and I looked at him.

    ¡°But how long for?¡±

    Ah. I¡¯d been wondering when this was going to come up. ¡°Yes,¡± I said aloud, ¡°We hadn¡¯t really thought things through when we started, had we. We just did what the Spirits said and set out. We didn¡¯t think about how long it would take, or what the journey would be like.¡±

    ¡°And I think that was right; we were right to obey the Spirits without question. But now¡­¡± Hawk paused. ¡°Now I am truly a Chief, I have a duty to think things through. And I ask ¨C how long will it take? Stack, you¡¯ve been out with the Mistwater braves more than I have ¨C have they said anything?¡±

    ¡°They¡¯ve heard of the great river to the east,¡± said Stack. ¡°Ten or fifteen days away.¡±

    ¡°And it¡¯s already after Sunfall. We may not be back for Nightwatch.¡± I counted on my fingers. ¡°Sunfall to Nightwatch is probably ninety-one days this year, and Sunfall was ten days ago, so that leaves eighty-one. Then thirty days there and back to the big river leaves fifty-one.¡±

    ¡°We should be back,¡± Hawk nodded, ¡°but it only needs an accident, or a hard winter, or it¡¯s a different river. We may miss Nightwatch.¡±

    ¡°They say the people we¡¯ll meet are very strange,¡± said Stack.

    ¡°Should we turn back?¡± I had to ask the question; it had been hanging between the three of us for too long. It¡¯s a shaman¡¯s job to speak what can not be spoken.

    ¡°No.¡± Hawk¡¯s fist beat twice on his knee.

    ¡°No.¡± Stack came dangerously close to smiling.

    ¡°No,¡± I did smile.

    Next day Hawk thought it safest ¨C typical Hawk ¨C to consult the Mistwater chief about our Tribe¡¯s new name. We got a roaring laugh, so that was good, but he didn¡¯t stop at laughing.

    ¡°So where is your great Tribe proposing to move on to now?¡± The remaining chuckles rolled and wobbled through his great folds of fat.

    ¡°We shall take up again our search for the Power Hills, if the Spirits please, Great Chief, and so we propose heading East.¡± Hawk was being chieftainly, but the contrast with two days ago was stark; then, he¡¯d looked like a lad pretending to be a Chief, but now he looked like a Chief who happened to be very young. Somehow he¡¯d grown up since we first crossed the Causeway. Had we all?This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

    No, I don¡¯t believe it was the ceremony, though that may have helped. But now I looked, even Stack seemed less ¨C well, he seemed to have stopped sulking like a child and started sulking like an adult. And I wondered. Had I grown up at all?

    Anyway, the Mistwater Chief frowned. ¡°Ah, yes. I remember. Well, you are not the first to try. The first to come back, though, if you do.¡± He waved across the dancing floor, and a brave came over to us. Oldish ¨C his dark brown hair had grey streaks ¨C and so many scars he looked as if he¡¯d been nibbled by rats.

    ¡°I think you have been down eastwards these last weeks, Pole? Are conditions good?¡±

    The brave shook his head. ¡°Since the Valley Tribe tried to push back east last summer and failed, all the lands from the Walls north to below the Axeblows are in turmoil. There are opportunities for hunting, because everyone is fighting each other, and the animals are not disturbed, but nowhere there is safe to pass.¡±

    Hawk leaned forward. ¡°Great Chief, what is meant by the Axeblows?¡±

    The brave looked at the Chief, who nodded.

    ¡°There are four deep gashes in the land, each a day¡¯s journey from the next, each five day¡¯s journey long, each running north to south.¡± The brave was holding his fingers up, trying to explain it that way as well. ¡°Each has its own Tribe, and each hates the Tribe in the next, so if you are befriended by one, the next will kill you. The Tribes are fierce, but deceitful and cunning, and the passes between each gash are snared and trapped. To travel east it is necessary to pass south or north of the Axeblows. To attempt to cross them is death.¡±

    ¡°But south of these Axeblows is also dangerous?¡±

    ¡°Yes, but not so dangerous as crossing them. North of the Axeblows is said to be a wide, bare and difficult land with little game, and I have never hunted there - but if I would go eastwards at this time it may be I would go north of the Axeblows.¡±

    The Chief waved him away, and he bowed and left.

    ¡°A fool ignores knowledge,¡± quoted Hawk. ¡°But if I may presume still further on your generosity, Great Chief, what is the way around to the North?¡±

    Two days later, we were about to find out.

    Speaker and I danced the Blessing, I dusted myself down and threw my pack over my shoulder. Hawk glanced at me and at Stack, and we set off. Almost.

    ¡°Hawk-on-high-bough son of Rope-tight-woven, Chief of the Causeway Tribe, I greet you!¡± Fatty ¨C sorry, Strong-deer-hide son of High-beech-tree, Chief of the Mistwater Tribe ¨C was sitting on his chief¡¯s chair again, and in full regalia. ¡°I would speed you on your way with a gift, Great Chief!¡±

    Hawk hesitated, and then walked forwards. ¡°Great Chief, the gift of your good will and of your bountiful hospitality is far more than we could wish for. Be assured your praises shall be sung wherever any of our Tribe may camp.¡±

    Fatty smiled conventionally at the conventional reply. ¡°Nonetheless, I would give yet more, that there may be a symbol of our friendship for all to see.¡±

    A brave stepped forward and unwrapped a fawnskin. Hawk lifted up what was lying there: a collar. No, not a thick rope like the Mistwater Chief¡¯s, just a single thin loop, thinner than a pot string, but still ¨C gold. Hawk held it high for all to see, and then fastened it round his neck.

    That was some gift. Just generosity? Or¡­

    The Mistwater chief smiled all the way down his chins. ¡°And not only that, but a token of your bringing the Mistwater Tribe and Longwood Tribe together in friendship. Your father is blessed in his son, though he seems sadly unaware of his blessing.¡±

    Oh damn. That is not going to make Hawk any easier to control. Not that I was going to control him, of course; Speaker had explained all that to me. At length. Several times. But you never know, do you.

    But Fatty hadn¡¯t finished. ¡°And for your Champion, who has killed two boar and a deer in his short visit to us,¡± ¨C indeed! It¡¯s always a shock to find out that things have happened that I don¡¯t know about ¨C ¡°another small token of our esteem.¡± This was a knife. The blade was triangular, tiny, only a thumbjoint long; not flint, a dark shinier stone that I didn¡¯t recognise. Stack took it, kissed the blade, and tapped it on the back of his thumb, so that it could taste and recognise his blood. By the ease with which the blood flowed, the knife was deadly sharp ¨C perhaps even sharper than flint. Another generous gift ¨C I began to do some thinking.

    ¡°And finally, for your Shaman ¨C always difficult. But since you seek the Power Hills, and this seems to show two such hills, maybe this is a fitting gift.¡±

    It was a tube of elderwood, like the amulet we took from the Valley hunters, but nearly two spans long. The sheet of Elderskin inside, cracked and stained as it was, had four blocks of the Elder symbols, and what looked like a map with two hills on it. The other markings were not so easy to follow; I would have to study it at leisure.

    I bowed. ¡°May the Spirits walk before you, Great Chief of the Mistwater Tribe. I shall ever bring your generosity before the Spirits, that their blessing may be continually renewed.¡±

    ¡°And so I trust you will leave us with your blessing,¡± The Chief sat forward in his chair. ¡°I trust that you will honour all our tribes and their chiefs in everything you do, wherever you may go, and whatever you may hear.¡±

    Now I was really doing some thinking!

    A gift to a parting guest, yes, fine, very polite. But that means a packed lunch, perhaps, or at most a new firepot; not munificence on this scale! What was going on? And what was the meaning of that very curious final speech?

    To summarise, we were being bribed, but nobody told us what for. I wasn¡¯t looking forward to finding out.

    Anyway, finally we could go. Stack our Champion first, then me, our Chief at the rear, all right and proper, until we were all sure we were out of sight and could relax.

    The first day was in woods. And I found myself thinking it wasn¡¯t so very different from our own woods ¨C no, I must stop thinking like that. Not so very different from the Longwoods¡¯ woods. A little stab of pain dug into my stomach, and I glanced round at Stack and Hawk, looking for something familiar, something comforting. The moment passed.

    We were making good distance, even though none of us knew the woods; but then my boys weren¡¯t stopping every five paces like they had been doing a week ago. And yet this time they had every excuse; one thing that was different from the first part of our journey was the wildlife ¨C indeed, it seemed to me better than anywhere in the Longwoods lands. Every tree seemed to have a pigeon or a crow in it; we three times saw squirrels, and Hawk or Stack were forever picking up chewed pinecones or bits of bark and nodding meaningfully to each other ¨C without explaining anything to me; I gritted my teeth and tried to ignore them.

    We did stop for a good rest at noon. Hawk tossed a desultory pebble at a squirrel. It just laughed at him.

    Well into the afternoon, though, Stack suddenly froze, so we froze too. Then Hawk crept forwards, and he and Stack exchanged a series of gestures. Then Hawk turned to me, gestured my silence and stillness, and then both silently slipped off their packs and crept away northwest into the trees. There was a long pause, then a sudden crash and smash, then the noise of a large animal running in panic through the trees away from me, and finally a distant shout. Then another long pause, and then Stack and Hawk were coming back, dragging a young roe hind between them.

    ¡°Congratulations!¡± I said, and I meant it.

    ¡°Wind was right,¡± answered Stack, but he looked pleased. I hardly recognised him.

    ¡°Sharp of you to pick it out, though,¡± said Hawk. ¡°Anyway, let¡¯s get this deer jointed and packed. Or can we camp here?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s a bit early!¡± I said, but then I did the sums. ¡°Perhaps, though ¨C the nights are drawing in, after all.¡±

    ¡°Stream over there,¡± said Stack. ¡°We crossed it.¡±

    Close to the stream we found a stand of huge oaks, wide spaced but sheltering all the ground under them. A perfect campsite, if it had been drier. Hawk carried the deer; he dropped it on a patch of rocks with a sigh. Stack took out his new knife, and began to open the skin.

    ¡°Wow!¡± he exclaimed, and pulled the blade out again to stare at it. ¡°This is one sharp knife! It¡¯s like cutting leaves!¡±

    ¡°Fine!¡± replied Hawk. ¡°If it¡¯s as easy as that, you won¡¯t need any help.¡±

    So he and I set up a camp, while Stack skinned and jointed the deer. We ate well that night ¨C and it was good to be back to proper meat, without all that stodgy bread stuff. The ground was cold and damp, so we slept up an oak tree.

 Chapter 10 - Journeying

    A side effect of the deer hunt was that my boys had found an easier path; a pair of shallow ditches with poor land between, just like the Deathway ¨C which surely proves them both natural; it¡¯s possible to imagine the Elders doing something so weird once, but not twice! And like the Deathway, it was a little worrying to follow, even though we made really good progress. Perhaps too good.

    ¡°We¡¯re going north,¡± muttered Hawk. ¡°They said northeast. And surely if this path had been useful they¡¯d¡¯ve told us.¡±

    Stack was leading, but he stopped and nodded. ¡°Look, shall I scout ahead a bit ¨C see what this does?¡±

    Hawk nodded back, and Stack vanished. Only five minutes later he was back.

    ¡°Seer!¡± He tapped my arm. ¡°You need to see this.¡±

    I followed him along the path for just a couple of hundred paces, and then we took a little path left. Suddenly we were under a cliff, actually under an overhang of rock, by a trampled circle of earth.

    ¡°A holy place!¡± I exclaimed. ¡°Stack, keep out! Did you enter it when you found it?¡±

    ¡°No, no!¡±

    ¡°Good.¡± I shook rattles in each hand, and danced three full circuits with the sun, keening softly through my whistles, while Stack stood very still and watched me. Then I led Stack back to Hawk.

    ¡°It¡¯s a holy place, a shrine,¡± I told them both, ¡°but the Spirits there are well disposed to us. But this explains why the Mistwaters didn¡¯t tell us about the path; it must be their shrine and they didn¡¯t want us desecrating it.¡±

    Stack and Hawk looked at each other ¨C they were doing that too much on this trip, I felt ¨C and then Hawk sucked his teeth.

    ¡°Very well, but I still think we¡¯re heading offline. We¡¯re too far north; we should go due east.¡±

    ¡°There was another faint path east, where the path to the shrine turned off,¡± said Stack.

    We took it. Again, it was only a hundred paces or so.

    ¡°A campsite!¡± Stack froze, and then slowly moved forwards. We followed, out onto the dancing floor.

    Nothing moved, not even flies on the midden. The skeletons of the tents looked unreal in the evening light; as usual it was almost impossible to visualise the completed tents from the ringbeams and ringposts, or even from the stacks of roofpoles alongside each tentstead. We wandered round, picking out the drying frames, the scraping blocks, the yarn pegs, the pot kiln. It was all very sad, somehow.

    ¡°Summer camp for the Mistwaters?¡± murmured Stack.

    ¡°Or spring.¡± Hawk prodded idly at some old bedding. ¡°That was young heather, once.¡± He stood up straight. ¡°But tonight, an autumn camp for the Causeways.¡± He sighed. ¡°We can stay here, in the Chief¡¯s tent!¡±

    ¡°How d¡¯you know it¡¯s the Chief¡¯s tent?¡± asked Stack, looking round. ¡°They¡¯re all the same size.¡±

    ¡°It faces north,¡± answered Hawk. ¡°so that when he sits outside in his high chair everyone else has the sun in their eyes.¡±

    Stack pursed his lips. ¡°I¡¯d noticed that, but you¡¯re saying it¡¯s deliberate?¡±

    I decided we¡¯d better change the subject.

    ¡°We need to ask permission from the Mistwater Spirits,¡± I said, ¡°but I am sure they will be friendly.¡± And I invented a special dance, bowing and sweeping close to the ground, slow and quiet and humble. It fitted the place.

    We spent a quiet, melancholy evening in the chief¡¯s tentstead, undisturbed by Spirits or anything else. A single sparrowhawk flew across just at sunset, but otherwise nothing moved.

    Once the boys were asleep I took the chance to look at my gift from Fatty the Chief. It was a map; it was on elderskin; the symbols were elderskin symbols ¨C but it wasn¡¯t original. The symbols on elderskin are always very hard edged, as though hammered in. These were very good, but they¡¯d obviously been done with an ordinary pen. It was a copy ¨C or a fake. I couldn¡¯t tell which.

    Either way, it taught me one thing: the trick of making elderskin did not die with the elders.

    I thought, and decided that I should assume provisionally that it was a copy, and get what information from it that I could, and not rely on the information but test it. Then as it passed or failed the tests, I would soon know if I could trust it or not. So I studied it.

    There were four big blocks of symbols, and half a dozen little groups that seemed to be labelling bits of the map. The map certainly showed two hills, but the big thing was a pair of lines that snaked down the middle, following each other but opening out as they went down the sheet. A river? The Power Hills were supposed to be eastwards across a river, and the two hills were indeed close to the right hand line. So east is to the right.

    Where the lines almost met at the top there was a strange symbol, straight across the bottom, up one side, across, down, across, up, across, down, across, up, across and down the other side. No, no guesses. But there was a smaller version with just two tops east of the more northern hill. And there was a similar symbol near the bottom of the left hand line, on the west bank to the south where the river was wide; it wasn¡¯t a bridge, then.

    Now the river ¨C if that was what it was ¨C was not straight; at one point especially it did a big bend left, westwards. Across the middle of the bend was a dotted line. And when I started to look, there was another dotted line just below the funny symbol to the north. They were surely too big for bridges. Were they fords?

    Finally, where the bottom funny symbol was, another line snaked northwards. A path? Or another river?

    I gave up, put the whole thing carefully away in my pack ¨C trying to avoid bloodstains from the deer meat ¨C and fell asleep. I dreamed of funny symbols paddling down rivers and crashing into fords, while hills drew wiggly lines up the page.

    It rained in the early morning, waking us gently; when it stopped, it left the air much cooler - I felt winter coming for the first time that year. I unpacked my cloak and put it on, and first Hawk and then Stack followed my example.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

    We packed up quickly, and got out. As soon as we left my spirits lifted.

    There was a path almost due east, to Hawk¡¯s obvious relief. It led through thick bushes, hazel at first, then gorse, and as we went we became surer and surer that we could hear rushing water. Soon it was as if we were standing in a noisy but completely invisible river.

    ¡°A ghost river!¡± Stack made the Sign. ¡°A river of the dead!¡±

    Hawk¡¯s hand clutched and clutched again at his spear.

    Honestly!

    I did some rattling, and then I burrowed under the gorse ¨C glad of my cloak against the prickles! ¨C and found what I expected.

    ¡°It¡¯s nothing to fear,¡± I told my two brave boys as they clutched their cloaks tight round them, ¡°it¡¯s just that the river goes underground. Come and see.¡± And I showed them where the rocks arched over the fast-tumbling stream, so that it flowed beneath our feet.

    ¡°Does it come out again?¡± asked Hawk, and we went to look: yes, it did. The bridge was three or four paces wide.

    ¡°Excellent!¡± Hawk seemed to have forgotten his recent wimpishness. ¡°This tells us where we are; they said we would come to a river, but that we would cross with dry feet ¨C this is obviously what they meant.¡±

    ¡°So we go due east from here, over a rocky hill, to another river which will be easy to cross, but not with dry feet. Then east still, up and over a steep hill, and across many streams and hills to the great pool set in the woods.¡± Stack recited.

    ¡°And that lake and the river that flows through it are the boundary of the Mistwater Tribe eastwards. There eastwards we pass through the lands of the Lake People, who are not a true Tribe, but are friendly to strangers. Should be easy enough. Come on, it¡¯s starting to rain and there¡¯s a clear path, let¡¯s go.¡±

    Rocky hill, was it? It seemed like climbing the side of a tent, and doing so under a thick grey blanket of cloud and rain that smothered every trace of sun, and therefore every trace of direction. We had no help from the hill either; every faint track died under a little cliff or sank into a bog. At least the gorse and scrub was above our heads, keeping the worst of the icy rain off us, and a rare birch or rowan gave us some clue to which way we were facing. After a final desperate struggle up rocks we reached the crest, and realised how fortunate we were; still higher cliffs towered above us in the cloud to our left. There was a shadow of a path across the open crest, and we ran along it from the vicious wind and rain on our backs, but as usual it died in the gorse bushes and stunted rowan. Then hawthorn and blackthorn and hazel and wayfaringtree and finally ash trees wrapped round us as we slithered and scrambled down to the next river.

    ¡°That was cold,¡± said Hawk.

    ¡°Really?¡± I said, ¡°I hadn¡¯t noticed.¡±

    Stack snorted.

    The river was deepset, quiet and fast where we hit it, but even I could hear noisier water upstream to our left. It turned out to be where two streams joined, making a wide shallow pool choked with boulders and fallen trees. I put a foot in the water and all but screamed at the cold.

    Stack tried it and leaped back; I didn¡¯t catch exactly what he said, but it wasn¡¯t a compliment. Hawk didn¡¯t even try.

    ¡°Now look,¡± I said when I¡¯d got my breath back. ¡°We¡¯ve been walking fast with our cloaks on, so our feet are warm. Of course the water will feel cold. We need to let our feet cool, and then take it gradually.¡±

    ¡°Oh, come on!¡± said Hawk. ¡°It¡¯s not that bad! We just need to plunge straight in and get used to it. It won¡¯t be too cold at this time of year, especially if we cross over there, where it¡¯s gravel. We just need to go for it.¡± Hawk, you will remember, had not tried it, so how did he know how cold it was? Typical.

    ¡°Yes,¡± I said as I raised an eyebrow at Stack, ¡°let us step bravely in our chief¡¯s footsteps, warmed by the print of his courage.¡±

    Hawk frowned, but I looked all innocent, so he couldn¡¯t say anything. He stepped up to the water¡¯s edge, hovered a bit, and then put a foot in the shallowest patch. I thought his eyes were going to pop out.

    ¡°H-h-it¡¯s h-all h-right! Not h-too bad at ¨C at ¨C at all.¡± He took another pace, so he now had both feet in. Tears streamed down his face. ¡°H-h-it¡¯s good h-h-gravel.¡±

    And Stack and I had no choice but to follow. After five paces I had cramp in both feet, my eyes were streaming, and my teeth ached. I still can¡¯t work out why my teeth came into it, but there you are. In the end I cracked; I just ran for the far bank, whimpering with the pain. Hunters aren¡¯t allowed to do that, of course, but their teeth were gritted as they struggled out onto the dry rocks next to me.

    To judge by the alder and willow that sheltered us, the ground itself was boggy; but it was covered in rocks and boulders that either had been swept down by the streams or had tumbled down the hillside in front of us, so even I had no trouble clambering over to dry ground and proper oak trees.

    ¡°I know it¡¯s early,¡± said Hawk, drying his feet on his cloak, ¡°but we¡¯ve done a good step today and that crossing took a lot out of us. And that hill in front of us does look steep. Why don¡¯t we camp here tonight?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± said Stack and I simultaneously.

    Stack found a flat area of land just a few paces up the hill, so flat that I wondered if it had once been a camp. I didn¡¯t say anything, of course; my boys would have had nightmares about ghosts and such if I had. But I was extra careful with my dance that night, just to cheer myself up.

    The night was cold and wet, but our shelter held up well. The next morning the sun shone into the clearing. I felt good again, and enjoyed a good breakfast of deer meat. We had a couple of days of meat left in our packs, even then.

    Even as we ate the weather closed in. The sun faded, the clouds thickened, and the rain came, first a light drizzle, then in spearshafts, and then back to steady unrelenting wetness. It had a chill in it that bit your bones, as if it were midwinter, not the middle of autumn. I packed up, warmed myself for the last time at the fire, wrapped my cloak tight around me, gritted my teeth, and strode out after Hawk into the rain.

    The striding didn¡¯t last. I¡¯d thought the last hill steep; it was a stroll compared with this one. We couldn''t stay together. I fought my own way up through the trees, sometimes clambering over boulders, sometimes working around little crags buried in dead branches, but usually just struggling upwards through soft ground covered in deep leaf litter lower down, or drifts of pine needles higher up, as oaks gave way to ash, ash to fir and spruce, to birch and pine and juniper. I was vaguely aware of the others doing the same; I was in no state to pay them any more attention than that. And the cold rain rained and rained, never pelting, but never slackening, soaking my cloak and drawing cold dribbles down my back and arms and buttocks and legs.

    In the end it was so steep that I was on hands and knees, dragging myself up the slope by the gorse branches, my useless cloak weighing me down with water, until Stack helped me collapse into a little bowl of grass, rimmed and roofed with gorse, and paved with animal droppings. Hawk crawled in a few moments later.

    ¡°Steep, that,¡± he said.

    ¡°I suppose you hunters do this sort of thing every day,¡± I answered.

    ¡°Huh!¡± said Hawk, and Stack snorted.

    I laughed, found a prickle-free spot to sit down, and glanced round the little dell. It was smelly, but it was dry and sheltered, so I didn¡¯t care, and nor did my boys, as far as I could judge.

    ¡°Wind¡¯s changed,¡± said Stack, pulling gorse prickles out of his hand.

    ¡°The rain¡¯s stopped,¡± I said, scraping as much water as I could off my cloak.

    ¡°It may hit us again when we cross the top,¡± said Hawk, scraping his own cloak off. ¡°I think we¡¯re going in the right direction, though.¡±

    ¡°Shade south?¡± said Stack. ¡°If it matters.¡±

    Well-greased deerskin doesn¡¯t hold much water, and at worst it¡¯s only the outer layer that gets really wet. After half an hour we had warm, dryish cloaks again, that felt like deerskin and not sandbags. Our packs were still heavy, but there was nothing we could do about them without a fire. And at last we had a way to follow; from the mouth of our little bowl a clear path led upwards through the gorse.

    After a hundred paces or so the boys went into a private huddle, staring at the ground. I stared too. ¡°What prints are these?¡± I asked. ¡°Is this a people path?¡±

    ¡°Not people, at least not often,¡± said Hawk. ¡°We don¡¯t recognise the tracks, but they¡¯re like deer.¡±

    ¡°Less pointed than our kinds,¡± said Stack.

    ¡°Probably the deer round here are a bit different, and that¡¯s all there is to it. But that print¡¯s odd,¡± said Hawk, pointing to a puddle. ¡°It¡¯s like a human print, but no toes.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s been a few of them,¡± added Stack. ¡°Anyway, let¡¯s get on while the rain¡¯s dropped.¡±

 Chapter 11 - Snow

    The path ran diagonally across the slope, through gorse bushes that grew more and more stunted the higher we climbed. It was too open for me; I began to feel there were eyes, out there, watching me climbing. Then suddenly the path turned sharply back, still climbing but crossing the slope on the other diagonal. There was no more rain; instead, there was¡­

    ¡°Snow!¡± exclaimed Hawk. ¡°Snow ¨C in autumn!¡±

    For me this was exciting; I¡¯d only seen snow three or four times in my whole life. I couldn¡¯t understand why Hawk and Stack weren¡¯t excited too.

    Hawk looked at me. ¡°Oh sure,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s fun to play in. But we¡¯re not playing. It¡¯s hard walking, very very hard.¡± He clicked his tongue. ¡°I remember two years ago. You lot were playing snowballs in camp, we were out trying to feed you. And wading through snow almost up to our knees.¡±

    ¡°Almost up to our loincloths,¡± added Stack.

    ¡°You were a lot smaller then,¡± I laughed. I tried to make a snowball, but it melted in my hand.

    ¡°You wait,¡± said Stack. ¡°You just wait.¡±

    The path crossed back and forth across the slope, and the snow began to fall more steadily, so that we could see only what was around us; the crest of the hill was lost completely in the dull grey. At last I was walking over lying snow, getting little cold icebergs squeezed between my toes. It still wasn¡¯t too unpleasant, though. Yes it was cold on face and knees and feet, but my cloak kept me warm enough, and the snow didn¡¯t soak as the rain had done; it just bounced and dropped off.

    But after an hour¡¯s walking there were no more sharp bends. The path began to wind more, and the slope, which was upwards to our right, that seemed shallower. And my cloak wasn¡¯t keeping out all of the chill any longer. I began to fret a little. How long could this go on? How high was this hill? We must already be far higher than anything in the Longwood lands. Are there hills that go on for ever?

    Then a black shadow loomed in front of us in the falling snow, and resolved itself into a high crag. Stack stopped us.

    ¡°This is like something out of a Singer¡¯s tale,¡± he murmured. ¡°There might be anything hiding in these crags. Let me go first.¡±

    I wasn¡¯t going to disagree.

    The path went right up to the base of the crag and turned right, close under the rock ¨C so close that the rock sheltered us from the snow. The crag wound round, and the path wound with it, over rocky steps and between fallen boulders, until it widened out across a rock platform and around a shoulder.

    A gale blasted me as I stepped round that shoulder. It ripped the cloak from my body, snapping the tie ¨C only my pack strap held the cloak long enough for me to grab it ¨C and the instant it left, the snow and freezing wind sucked every trace of heat from my bare body. On my hands and knees, my cloak and my pack a tangled mass in front of me, I crawled back behind the shoulder of rock, my naked skin burning with the cold. The instant I crawled back round the rock the wind dropped, and I collapsed breathless onto the bare slab.

    The others were in no better state.

    ¡°At least you¡¯ve got loincloths,¡± I said. ¡°All I¡¯ve got are two thin straps. Believe me, they¡¯re no protection at all.¡±If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

    Actually I had six thin straps; one under each knee, one above each elbow, one round my waist and one round my head; seven if you count the pack strap. The feathers had blown straight out, of course, but my pouch was still on my waist strap. I undid them all, put my pouch in my pack, did a quick, crude repair on my cloak tie, put my cloak back on, tied my head strap round the hood and across my forehead, tied my waiststrap around my waist outside the cloak ¨C I had to wrap the cloak round me very tightly to get it to reach ¨C and then joined the other four together and tied them round the cloak around my hips. Finally I put my head and arms through my pack strap and brought the pack back over my head to rest on my chest.

    Meanwhile the boys were reconstructing their own clothing, using slings, loincloths, spearthongs, anything to hand.

    We were still chilled to the bone, of course; the air was bitterly cold even out of the wind. We tried huddling together in a corner, but our feet were so cold we were beginning to lose feeling in them.

    ¡°We can''t stay here,¡± I said.

    ¡°We go on or turn back,¡± said Hawk.

    ¡°On,¡± said Stack.

    We tried to go on; we really did. We walked round that shoulder again, packed as close together as we could, gripping our cloaks closed, but the wind made it almost impossible even to see the path under our feet. We pushed forward maybe ten paces, and the wind dropped a little as we did; but then snow covered the path. Then Stack stepped into nothing; his foot went right through the snow and was hanging in the air. We grabbed him and held him as the snow crumbled away around him; his other leg slipped too and he was hanging by our arms over an unknown drop.

    We pulled him back onto the path, but that was enough. Half carrying Stack between us, we fought our way back over the crest, and down the long, slow, sheltered path to the bowl in the hillside.

    Hawk managed to kindle a fire. I gathered some handfuls of soft twigs and beat and rubbed Stack¡¯s legs and feet, trying to get some circulation going. The heat from the fire stung, but slowly the colour came back, even to Stack¡¯s legs. I had never experienced such cold, but I had been told about such cold, and I reckoned we¡¯d all had a very narrow escape. If we lived through the night, that is.

    We built ourselves a burrow from cloaks and gorse branches ¨C weird, but the spikes weren¡¯t sharp enough to get through even one deerskin cloak. We tried to roof it with ferns and leaves, but there weren¡¯t enough, so we piled on as many gorse branches as we could. When we finally crawled inside, three chilled bodies huddling together inside three cloaks, we could only hope for the best.

    When we woke up in the morning, we were warm; warm and snug in a grey world. Snow covered our burrow, far enough above us not to melt and soak us, close enough above us to hold all our warmth in. Slowly we uncoiled; slowly we each wrapped ourselves in a cloak; slowly we crawled out of our burrow into a white world under a grey sky.

    The wind was blowing up the slope on our side, and was no more than a breeze. The air was far less cold than yesterday, although it still had a chill bite.

    We tied our cloaks and packs around us, and set off. The path was snow-covered, but always easy to trace, and not slippery either, so we made good time. When we got to that rocky shoulder we all paused to check our clothes, but there was no need; if anything, the breeze dropped as we rounded it, and most of the snow had blown off the path down. I could see where Stack had broken through, though; the path did a sharp turn back on itself and Stack had obviously stepped on forward, past the point of the elbow. He would have fallen six feet or so onto a snowfield, so he wouldn¡¯t have died instantly, but how could we ever have got him back up?

    ¡°The Spirits are with us,¡± said Stack, looking me in the eye. ¡°We lost no cloaks when the wind blew them off us, they kept me safe here where I stepped through the snow, they protected us through the night.¡±

    I saw no reason to pass up such an opportunity! ¡°Thanks to my knowledge, we have treated them with respect,¡± I answered. ¡°We asked their permission to stay in the deserted camp. We respected the holy place. And most of all, you respected their holy place.¡± I took Stack¡¯s hand, and he nodded. ¡°You were kept safe at this corner because you respected their dwelling.¡±

    ¡°This is a tale we should tell,¡± he replied. ¡°Praise the Spirits.¡±

    I had begun to realise that Stack has these attacks of superstitious piety; they fit oddly with the rest of him. Never mind; they give me control, which is what matters. Except, as I promised Speaker, I¡¯m not trying to control them any more. Of course not.

    ¡°Truly, let the Spirits be praised.¡± I responded. Definitely a win for me, I felt.

 Chapter 12 - Failure

    Five minutes later I was feeling much less smug. We were standing at the end of the path, or at least, the snow stopped us tracing the path any further, and the wide plain ahead was a mass of anonymous white bumps and lumps.

    ¡°Which way now?¡± asked Stack.

    ¡°Eastwards to the Power Hills,¡± answered Hawk.

    ¡°Which is?¡±

    ¡°Ah,¡± replied Hawk. ¡°How can we tell, when there aren¡¯t any trees to read?¡±

    I nearly said, ¡°By the sun,¡± but stopped myself just in time. There wasn¡¯t a trace of the sun to be seen, even though the air was so much warmer than yesterday.

    Hawk looked around. ¡°That¡¯s the rock shoulder we came round when we hit the wind yesterday,¡± he mused. ¡°Now we climbed up the slope and that was east of where we crossed the river, so when we came over the crest we should still have been going eastwards. Yes?¡±

    Stack shrugged. ¡°Sounds reasonable. But you can see our track from that shoulder. We¡¯re a little south of that line. So east is that way.¡± He pointed slightly left of the way we were facing.

    ¡°Exactly. So let¡¯s go.¡± Hawk led us confidently forward across the plain.

    It all went well at first; but the lumps and bumps soon hid our backward track, and the crest was quickly out of sight in the mist. It was strange and intensely uncomfortable, feeling both so open and exposed, and yet so enclosed and blinded. We could navigate only by keeping in a straight line as far as possible, so we went over bumps, not round them, in order not to lose the line, and this was hard work in the soft snow. Then Stack stepped on a low bump that stood up and ran away, leaving Stack flat on his back.

    Hawk and I looked at each other and laughed our heads off.

    Three or four other bumps stood up and ran off, as well. They were weird looking animals; imagine a roe deer with a black face, but with everything except its face wrapped in a thick layer of fireweed seeds, or dandelion clocks ¨C and I mean thick; a thumb depth at least. They made a sort of ¡°Baa baa¡± sound as they ran, and they came together in a little huddle so they were obviously herd animals.

    ¡°What on earth are they?¡± I asked Hawk when we¡¯d stopped laughing and Stack had stopped swearing at us.

    ¡°No idea.¡±

    Stack shook off the last of the snow on his cloak. ¡°They¡¯re what made the tracks on the way up the hill.¡± He pointed into the snow, and Hawk nodded. ¡°They look good eating.¡±

    ¡°And their skins must be warm, with all that curly hair on them. Let¡¯s have a go.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll just hang arou¡­¡± I said to their vanishing backs. I dug myself a shelter in a snowdrift ¨C I was really getting the hang of this snow stuff now. Then I built myself a comfortable chair from stones and snow, and waited.

    The wait was very short.

    ¡°They¡¯re so tame!¡± exclaimed Hawk. ¡°They let us walk almost up to them ¨C it¡¯s as if they¡¯ve never been hunted!¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ve killed and skinned three, and cut out plenty of good meat.¡± Stack threw me a skin, and I buried my face and hands in its warm curls. When I stopped, my hands were soft and shiny, and all the chapped patches seemed to be healed. ¡°These are brilliant ¨C just amazing!¡± I exclaimed. ¡°The Spirits are showing us such wonders!¡±

    Amazing they were, but big they were not. Stack wrapped his fleece over his shoulders under his cloak; Hawk tied his round his waist by its legs; I borrowed Stack¡¯s knife and cut mine in half, and wrapped them round my legs, again tying them on by the leg skins. They smelled awful, but oh ¨C they were so warm!The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    We packed up the meat between us, and went on. There was still no scrap of sunlight, so we had to carry on by guess ¨C that is, Stack and I followed Hawk¡¯s guess ¨C but it seemed OK; we did indeed cross many small hills and streams, just as the Mistwaters had said.

    By lunchtime the air was warm and calm. There was no way to kindle a fire, but we rested for ten minutes and chewed some dried meat. It was warm enough to undo all those extra straps and ties, but still too cold to pack our cloaks away altogether. Never mind; I set out that afternoon feeling cheerful, and Hawk, I noticed, was actually whistling.

    It was easy walking. We disturbed no more animals. On the whole, I thought we were climbing; the air seemed to be getting cooler, and the snow stopped thawing so quickly as the day went on. It didn¡¯t matter. The new skins kept my legs so much warmer, I could have climbed ten times as high.

    Lateish on in the afternoon, as a few fresh snowflakes began to fall, and I was beginning to think about camping, we came to an crest where the snow had blown off brittle grass; beyond it a steep slope plunged into mist.

    We stood there for a moment, but Hawk shrugged. ¡°There¡¯s no choice,¡± he said, ¡°we¡¯ve got to go on anyway, and we need to find a campsite.¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s been nothing up ¨C¡± Stack began. Then a distant barking came out of the mist below us, and its echo followed it.

    ¡°Dog?¡± said Stack.

    We waited, but the hills were silent. Then five great black birds spiralled out of the mist at our feet and soared over us. One of them gave a soft ¡°krronnk¡±.

    We looked at each other. ¡°Could¡¯ve been,¡± I said. ¡°Perhaps,¡± said Hawk. Stack just shrugged.

    We stepped down into the mist. It was steep, snowy, slippery grass, with too many stones hidden in it, and it was trying to throw us off to the right. The mist came and went and came again; one second we were hidden even from each other, the next we could see twenty or thirty paces.

    Then the barking came again, much closer. And with it, a whistle, long and plaintive.

    The boys stood shoulder to shoulder, spears forward, and gestured me behind. The barking came again, on our left ¨C and was answered on our right. Hawk drew in his breath. ¡°A pack of dogs!¡± he muttered. Then the barking again, on our left and behind us, and a whistle ¨C this time a series of short toots. And barking answered; behind us and on either side. Only in front of us seemed clear.

    ¡°Move slowly forwards, as quiet as you can!¡± Hawk murmured. Stack nodded, and we all started to inch forward. At first everything seemed still; then the barking broke out again, two or three dogs to our right, just one left and a little behind us. We stepped cautiously forward and a little to our left. All was quiet. Perhaps they weren¡¯t after us at all? Perhaps we¡¯d just strayed into their path?

    Then we came to the stream.

    We met it at the end of a little ridge, so that the stream valley wrapped round us on three sides. It was deep cut just here, and there were sheets of ice on the banks and over all the rocks. We could not cross. We had to go along it, but either way meant going back.

    We sidled right, but an explosion of barking stopped us after three paces. We backed away, and tried left. This time, there was a low growl in the mist, above us. We stopped, and the boys readied their spears.

    ¡°If you lay down your spears, the dogs will hurt you not.¡± It was a man¡¯s voice, and must have been close to the growl.

    ¡°Or?¡± shouted Stack.

    ¡°Or the dogs will attack you, you will see them not in the mist, you will hold not your ground and you will break bones in the stream. Then you will die of cold in the water. Maybe not all of you, but some.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll take that chance, thank you!¡±

    ¡°Very well.¡± There was a series of whistles, and another growl from in front of us. The ground was soft with trodden snow; the boys had nowhere to wedge their spears. They tucked the shafts under their arms and gripped them tight.

    There was another whistle. A pause. Then Hawk fell forward, a dog on his shoulders and snapping at his head. Stack swung round, just as another dog leaped for him; he tripped and fell head first down the slope. I dropped to the ground, curling into a ball; I felt a dog leap clear over me. I wrapped my head in my arms and held my breath, expecting a bite every instant.

    A man strode out of the mist and picked up the two spears. He backheeled me ¨C his foot seemed to be covered with something ¨C and kicked Hawk.

    ¡°Get up!¡± he said. We did. Very slowly and with our hands very visible.

    ¡°The other one¡¯s down the brow,¡± he said over his shoulder. ¡°Get him up. Be careful. I think he¡¯s hurt not.¡±

    We could see Stack clinging like a spider to the grass, head downward. Another figure reached down and held his ankle, and he crawled back up.

    ¡°Good,¡± said the first voice. ¡°Now, hands in the air. Good. Walk. Downstream, and at our speed.¡±

    It took an hour, contouring along a steep slope, slippery with ice and snow. We went at their pace, which seemed deliberately slow; so I wasn¡¯t moving fast enough to keep warm, and I dared not drop my hands to hold my cloak closed. I was shivering long before we reached our destination.

 Chapter 13 - Prisoners

    There was a flat, open area, big enough for a dancing floor but without any post or even much sign of dancing. And there were no tents; instead on the far side there were two oblong walls, side by side and three paces apart, built of squared blocks of grey stone, dull against the white of the snow. Each wall had an opening in the middle like a cave mouth, big enough to walk into, and covered with a hide curtain just like a tent door. There were other square openings in the walls, but they didn¡¯t come down to ground level. The right hand wall was tatty and dirty, and there were baaing noises coming from it, like the baaing of the animals we killed on the hill.

    ¡°Ho-a Mother!¡± called out our second captor. ¡°Look what we found in Fennicle Bowl!¡±

    A woman, about my mother¡¯s age I guessed, heavy built but not fat, stepped out through the left hand hide door. ¡°Na na na!¡± she exclaimed. ¡°Savages!¡± As she spoke, a couple of children slid out alongside, holding tight to her, and then ran back inside. ¡°Oh, look at you two!¡± she went on. ¡°You¡¯ll catch your death, staying out on the hill all day in this! Put the savages with the other animals and come inside! The dinner¡¯s ready.¡±

    ¡°Hey no, wife!¡± exclaimed the first captor. ¡°They¡¯ve already killed some of our sheep. We can chance them not in the byre.¡±

    The woman sniffed. ¡°Leave them out here then, till the morning.¡±

    ¡°They¡¯ll die.¡± Our second captor prodded Stack with a forefinger. ¡°Keep your hands up!¡±

    ¡°I thought savages feel not the cold.¡±

    ¡°These do, wife. They¡¯re shivering already.¡±

    ¡°Oh all right. Bring them into the house. But be careful with them; never can you tell with savages, so my old mother used to say.¡±

    They pushed us through the door with our own spearbutts. Inside we saw that the wall went on round a space, just as tent hides do, but squareish instead of round. The floor was hard stamped earth, strewn with rushes and herbs. Blocks of stone had been set one on another at one end, where a fire was burning, so that they made a sort of tube for the smoke, up through the roof of split tree-trunks, moss and turfs. We clustered together just inside the door, but our two captors walked past us, kicking off the leather covers they wore on their feet. They flung their cloaks onto a wooden frame in one corner, and warmed themselves at the fire.

    They looked back at us.

    ¡°Throw your cloaks and packs on the maden with ours and come and let us see you,¡± ordered the older man. ¡°Not too close ¨C about there will do. And kneel.¡± So we did.

    Oh it was so good to feel a warm fire! It took me several moments to think of anything else ¨C and especially, to notice the sound of giggling.

    ¡°You can see his bum!¡±

    ¡°And his bellybutton!¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s got no clothes on at all!¡±

    ¡°Just got a strap round her waist!¡±

    ¡°That must be her dress and it¡¯s shrunk in the cold!¡±

    And so on.

    I looked round. Our captors were an oldish man and a much younger lad, maybe a year or so older than Stack and Hawk; obviously father and son. There were nearly a dozen other kids, all younger than the lad, and a cradle in one corner by the fire which looked to be in use. And all of them, from the father to the toddler, were covered neck to knees in cloth.

    Now I know what the woman said, but it¡¯s not true; we aren¡¯t savages. We¡¯ve seen cloth before; the Travelling Folk often bring it, and our Chief¡¯s ¨C no, the Longwall Chief¡¯s First Wife has a complete dress made of cloth, which she wears on special occasions. The idea of weaving isn¡¯t strange, either; leather thongs woven into hammocks, traps and hurdles woven from hazel twigs, and lots of others. But why wear clothes in camp? OK, we do wear some things: being a shaman I wear a few straps I can stick feathers and suchlike in for effect, and the Singer has some hand puppets and masks, and the Chief and the First Wife obviously dress to show their rank at special events, and most of the women like to strap on some dry moss during their periods; but cloth? There¡¯s no point.

    ¡°There you are, I told you so!¡± The woman bustled in from another door. ¡°Not even clothed like human beings! They¡¯re just naked savages ¨C just animals!¡±

    Kneeling down in the middle of the floor with the others I tried to pretend I didn¡¯t mind, that it was our captors who were stupid. It didn¡¯t work.

    The giggling and the pointing were interrupted by a meal; we got nothing, obviously. We just crouched down, glad to be warm, and wished we weren¡¯t so hungry.

    Why didn¡¯t we make a dash for it, while they were eating? Surely if we timed it right, we could even have grabbed our cloaks and packs? I don¡¯t know; I honestly don¡¯t know. But I couldn¡¯t even bring myself to suggest it. It just didn¡¯t happen.

    Eventually the meal ended, the table was cleared away, and it was our turn. The man and woman set a couple of chairs side by side facing the fire, and the older kids pulled a bench out and sat on it. The little ones just stood or sat on the floor, giggling and pointing out various anatomical details.

    I felt so humiliated I was near to tears.

    ¡°Now, savages, stand up and come into the middle where we can see you.¡± We stood up like guilty children.

    ¡°Do you have names?¡±

    Hawk spoke up. ¡°Yes we have names, of course we do. I am Hawk-on-high-bough son of Rope-tight-woven, chief of the Causeway Tribe.¡±

    More storms of giggles ran round the room.

    ¡°Those are names?¡±

    ¡°You can have not names like that!¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re stupid!¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s give Baby a name like that ¨C let¡¯s call him Turd-in-the-nappy!¡±

    Hawk was obviously struggling, but give him credit: he did keep going. ¡°Here at my shoulder are Stack-of-strong-timber son of Lifts-rock, and our shaman, Seer-of-hidden-things.¡± But he¡¯d lost all the strength he¡¯d gained these last days; he sounded like a wimpish boy again.

    And the giggles went on.

    ¡°What¡¯s a shaman?¡±

    ¡°She looks not different.¡±

    ¡°P¡¯raps it means a woman, but with no boobs.¡±

    ¡°Or a man with no balls and willy, like a wether but with the willy off as well.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯d be a she-man!¡± This caused howls of laughter. It was so stupid, but I felt myself blushing.

    The man leaned forward, rubbing his left arm with his right hand. ¡°So what is a shaman?¡±

    ¡°I speak to the Spirits on the Tribe¡¯s behalf,¡± I answered. ¡°And they speak to the Tribe through me.¡±

    The oldest boy laughed, but the man only snorted. ¡°The Spirits! Huh! You care not to give us a demonstration, perhaps? A weather forecast for the next six months, maybe? Or where I can buy fodder for less than old Chawo screws from me? No, I thought not.¡±The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°I speak when the Spirits speak, not when I choose.¡± It sounded so lame!

    ¡°So why were you on our hill?¡±

    Hawk seemed to shrink even further. ¡°We were travelling from the lands of the Mistwater Tribe on a journey eastwards to the Power Hills on the great river.¡±

    ¡°Really? Eastwards? So why were you walking north?¡±

    North? Great. Yet another failure.

    ¡°We ¨C we ¨C I don¡¯t know. We must have got lost in the snow.¡±

    The man sat back. ¡°Well, for your information I am Paedr of Torams, and this is my wife, Dair of Torams. You are in Torams Farm, north of the lands of the savages like you. My eldest son, young Paedr, you have already met on our hill.¡± The lad made an exaggerated bow, grinning from ear to ear. ¡°Paedr, fetch their packs and things over. Let us see exactly what they are carrying.¡±

    He tried to do it in a single trip, I imagine to show off; I was glad to see him fail.

    The father began by picking up Hawk¡¯s cloak. ¡°Hmm,¡± he murmured loudly. ¡°Deerskin, in two layers. And inside,¡± he unfolded it, ¡°a fresh sheepskin.¡± He squinted at it. ¡°From the Tumps heaf, I see. So it¡¯s our skin, from one of our sheep. Yes? Did you kill the sheep it came from, or did you find it dead in the snow? And if it was dead, why hide it under your cloak?¡±

    Hawk hesitated ¨C I hoped he wasn¡¯t thinking of lying ¨C and then spoke, slowly, heavily. ¡°Yes, we killed it. We didn¡¯t know it was yours; we believed it to be a wild animal.¡±

    ¡°A wild animal?¡± the man interrupted amid more giggles. ¡°A sheep, wild?¡±

    ¡°We didn¡¯t know it was a sheep,¡± Hawk answered, hands clenched. ¡°We have never seen a sheep before.¡±

    That was the final straw. Everyone around us, from the father to the smallest toddler, collapsed in laughter. We just stood there while they laughed at us. What else could we do?

    Eventually the laughter calmed down. ¡°Just to finish,¡± the man said at last, eyes streaming, ¡°if you knew not that it was a sheep, why hide it under your cloak?¡±

    ¡°It wasn¡¯t under my cloak to hide it.¡± Despair dulled every word Hawk spoke. ¡°It seemed the best way to use its warmth.¡±

    ¡°But what a pretty little collar!¡± He pulled Hawk¡¯s gold collar off his neck into the firelight, bending it badly. ¡°Gold. Well, maybe it will help pay for the sheep.¡± He put it on one side, and pushed up his sleeve to scratch at a bandage on his forearm.

    ¡°Now let us look in your pack.¡± He pulled it open and gazed in. ¡°Ah. Meat.¡± He pulled it out with finger and thumb and sniffed it. ¡°Sheep meat.¡±

    ¡°We thought it was wild!¡±

    He ignored Hawk, and went on checking the pack. ¡°Sa, it stinks in here¡­ more sheep meat¡­ and some ¨C er ¨C deer meat, I think, just left to bleed all over the pack¡­ crude flint spear heads¡­ a thrum of leather thongs, a knife ¨C poor flint, not very sharp¡­ a little pot filled with¡­¡± he opened it and sniffed, ¡°¡­some sort of salve, I think¡­ More pots like it¡­ A sling¡­ And what¡¯s this, that hangs outside your pack?¡± He opened it and sniffed, then poked his little finger into it. ¡°Ow! That¡¯s hot! What is this, please?¡±

    ¡°A firepot. You pack it tight with bracket, put a cinder from the fire into it and close it tight. It will stay alight for three or four days, enough to light another fire, and the bracket lasts for months.¡±

    ¡°And what is bracket?¡±

    ¡°Er¡­ it grows on the sides of trees.¡± There was surprise in his voice, which I didn¡¯t feel was tactful.

    ¡°It is a kind of mushroom, my lord,¡± I added.

    ¡°There, you see? It ben¡¯t all one way. You know not what a sheep is and I tell you, I know not what bracket is and you tell me. Even savages can teach us something.¡± This started a little giggle of its own. ¡°Very well; let¡¯s consider the next thief.¡±

    He picked up Stack¡¯s cloak. ¡°You wrapped your plunder around your hips. Again, hidden under your cloak. For warmth. Of course.¡±

    Stack just shrugged his spiritless shoulders.

    ¡°And your pack. Mm, nothing special ¨C except a skinning knife, made from obsidian, not flint. Very nice. Where did you steal this?¡±

    ¡°It was a gift from the Mistwater Tribe.¡± There was something beside sulkiness in Stack¡¯s voice, but I wasn¡¯t sure what it was. Failure? ¨C but it hadn¡¯t been his fault we were caught.

    ¡°A gift,¡± repeated the man, and in his mouth it sounded like a lie. ¡°And finally, the odd one out.¡± He reached for my things. ¡°Now you, young lady, you wrapped our property round your legs.¡±

    ¡°For warmth, great chief,¡± There¡¯s no harm in politeness, but it was difficult to know where to pitch it.

    ¡°At least you hid it not. Your cloak is two layers of deerskin, I believe, like the others.¡±

    ¡°This great chief is absolutely right, of course. And so great a chief will have seen that it is a little shorter than the others, compared to my height.¡±

    He looked a little sneery at my courtesies. I could only hope that underneath they had gone home.

    ¡°It is indeed. And what is in your pack.¡± He emptied it out as well. ¡°My, what an ¨C er ¨C interesting collection. But these little jars¡­¡±

    ¡°Great chief, I ¨C¡± I began, and kicked myself.

    He paused. ¡°Great chief, I ¨C what?¡±

    ¡°I beg the chief¡¯s pardon. It was both foolish and discourteous of me to suggest how so great a chief should treat my things, especially as such a chief is more than wise enough to recognise dangers when he sees them.¡±

    ¡°Dangers? In these pots? What d¡¯you mean ¨C poisons?¡±

    ¡°Some of the medicines in those pots are strong enough to be poisonous if taken carelessly or without understanding, my lord, but I know such a great chief will not fall into such a foolish error. But others are salves and harmless ointments for abscesses and such.¡±

    He scratched again at the bandage, and a little stain of pus showed at one edge. There must be a massive abscess under there. I couldn¡¯t resist it.

    ¡°Is that an abscess, great chief?¡± I said. ¡°If it is, I can cure it.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve had it for over a month, young lady. You think you can cure it?¡± His false judiciality was all gone.

    ¡°Yes.¡± Therefore so was my false courtesy.

    ¡°Let her try, Da!¡± One of his daughters touched his arm. ¡°They say some of these savages have strange powers when it comes to healing, handed down from the Elves themselves, so they say.¡±

    ¡°Ben¡¯t so stupid, husband! You know not what filthy stuff goes into these salves!¡±¡°

    He turned to his wife and seemed to be going to say something. But he turned back to me. ¡°OK. Try.¡±

    I unwrapped the bandage, and revealed a thoroughly infected wound, not a true abscess. I began by picking up Stack¡¯s knife and lancing the infection, and carried on from there. It took nearly half an hour.

    While I was working I could see the two eldest girls circling around Stack, prodding him with their fingers, looking down inside his loincloth, putting their hands down inside it, and such. They were even encouraging the younger girls to join in. Stack was obviously hating it, but he didn¡¯t seem to know what to do ¨C I¡¯ve noticed before that girls are far happier about hitting boys than boys are about hitting girls. It was worrying; what if it got too much and his anger exploded?

    The bandage was cloth, but so hard with dried pus that I had to pour boiling water over it to soften it.

    ¡°There,¡± I said, tying the last knot. ¡°Don¡¯t touch it till noon tomorrow, then unwrap it, and if it¡¯s still septic clean it out and put more of this salve in. Once the wound is clean just let it heal naturally.¡±

    He pulled his sleeve back down over the bandage, and they all took up their positions again. I went back to kneel with the others, and wondered why I¡¯d wasted my time.

    Professional pride, I suppose. Stones, I¡¯m a fool.

    And yet, somehow I didn¡¯t feel quite as helpless as I had done.

    ¡°Very well, what shall we do with these naked savages? They live in trees, they go naked, they know not east from north, they believe in Spirits. We can have not these inferior races polluting our farm and killing our sheep. What can we do with them?¡±

    ¡°I can think of something!¡± said young Paedr, and he put his arm round my waist. I tried to push him off, but he caught my hands and held them in his right hand, pulling me back against him, while his other hand ran all over my body. It made my skin crawl; I tried to struggle free, but he was too strong.

    ¡°You can see how much she enjoys it!¡± the bastard said.

    I bent down and bit his wrist. Not just a nip; I kept my jaws clenched hard on it. He swore, and pushed me away, so that I fell on the floor.

    ¡°We do indeed see,¡± said his father, ¡°but for the moment please, little boy, go and sit down. I imagine your chance will come later.¡±

    But I¡¯d found a little something that had fallen out of my pack and hidden itself in the rushes. I palmed it, and got to my feet.

    ¡°Well? Anybody else have any ideas?¡± He stirred in his chair. ¡°Shall we just kill them for dogfood?¡±

    His tone had changed yet again; it was hard to grasp what was real and what was fake in this man¡¯s voice. Then I saw the expressions on his wife¡¯s face, and on his eldest sons¡¯, and began to understand. All this was a charade, yes, but it had a purpose: it was making us out to be different ¨C essentially different ¨C from them, and therefore enemies. This man wanted an enemy because a tribe without an enemy is a tribe without a chief, and he saw himself as chief. But had he thought this through?

    One of the girls who had been pestering Stack spoke up. ¡°Da,¡± she said, ¡°slaves go naked, as well as savages.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re a clever girl, Chrai!¡± he answered, smiling for the first time. ¡°Yes, I could take them when we go into Brothy; there¡¯s bound to be a slave trader around on market day.¡±

    I cracked. ¡°You ungrateful pig!¡± I spat. ¡°And after fixing your arm for you!¡±

    ¡°Huh!¡± he replied. ¡°What are you complaining about? You were going that way anyway, when we found you. And anyway, it¡¯s all you inferior races are fit for. You¡¯re enslaved to your pretend Spirits, so being enslaved to real people will be an improvement.¡±

    ¡°But husband!¡± The woman suddenly screeched. ¡°That¡¯s days away! I can have not these savages cluttering up my house, and dirtying everything!¡±

    ¡°Oh, stop fretting, wife! It¡¯s only for¡­ er¡­¡±

    ¡°Three days, Da, but¡­¡± said one of the boys. I hadn¡¯t noticed him before, but he wasn¡¯t giggling like the others.

    His father interrupted him. ¡°Three days, wife; that ben¡¯t so long.¡±

    ¡°Too long in my house, husband! Get their filthiness out of here!¡±

    ¡°Oh, very well. Paedr, Tuas, tie them up in the byre for tonight. We¡¯ll sort them in the morning. If the Spirits rescue them not first!¡± He laughed.

    ¡°Yes, Da!¡± leered young Paedr, and he and the next youngest lad dragged us out through the snow to the byre.

 Chapter 14 - Conversely

    The byre turned out to be through the doorway in the other wall. It was one big walled space, floored and roofed just like the other place, the house, but without the herbs on the floor. There were what they called pens; half-high walls or fences round small spaces, each with a wooden gate, not a door, to entrap the animals; and there was no fire, just straw, hay, dogs and sheep. They pushed us into a pen with some sheep, and then one tied Stack¡¯s hands to a beam while the other stopped Hawk and me from getting away. Not that he needed to; where were we going to run to, with no cloaks in this weather? Then the other lad tied Hawk to a different beam while young Paedr held me round the waist with one arm, and the back of my neck with the other. What he intended doing next was obvious; so I forestalled him; I grabbed his face in my two hands and gave him a big, slobbery, wide-mouthed kiss ¨C and spat a certain little parcel down his throat.

    ¡°What was that?¡± he gagged.

    ¡°Your death,¡± I answered, and laughed in his face.

    Horror exploded his face. He turned away, bent over and pushed a finger into his throat. He retched.

    ¡°Too late,¡± I grinned ¨C but my eyes didn¡¯t. ¡°The wrapping will already have been pulled apart in swallowing. You will be able to bring up the leaves, but the poison will remain.¡±

    The other lad came over. ¡°What¡¯s going on, Paedr?¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s poisoned me! The bitch has poisoned me!¡± He lurched out of the doorway, the other lad following. I untied Hawk and Stack, and explained. Then we waited.

    Old Paedr marched into the byre, followed by all the rest of the family. He pulled young Paedr in front of him.

    ¡°Paedr tells me you¡¯ve poisoned him.¡±

    ¡°Oh?¡±

    ¡°Have you?¡±

    ¡°How would a mere naked savage know what a poison is?¡±

    He slapped my face. ¡°Have you?¡±

    I just laughed.

    ¡°Fine,¡± he said. ¡°Then we will kill you now.¡±

    ¡°Then he will die,¡± I answered, turning away. ¡°Oh,¡± I added over my shoulder, ¡°and so will you. Once the so-called salve spreads out from your arm.¡±

    He reached out and pulled me back round by my shoulder. I laughed again.

    ¡°You must think me a stupid fool, to let me treat your arm when I knew you were going to enslave me,¡± I added. ¡°A stupid savage, so stupid she could be trusted, not like you superior civilised races, who have no trace of trust in you at all.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯ve poisoned me, too?¡±

    ¡°Clever boy!¡± I patted him on the cheek. ¡°Hasn¡¯t the pain in your arm faded? Surely you¡¯ve noticed. That¡¯s the poison spreading through the wound, numbing it, paralysing it, as the paralysis will slowly spread from the wound to your arm, from your arm to your shoulder, from your shoulder to your chest, from your chest to your heart. And then you will die. It will take days, but you will die. But there is one good thing,¡± I laughed again. ¡°Your son will die first. You will be able to give him a good sendoff.¡±

    ¡°Da! Da!¡± His son clutched his arm. ¡°Da! I¡¯m frightened!¡±

    ¡°Fool!¡± his father spat the word in his face. ¡°She¡¯s bluffing! She has poisoned not anyone. We would have felt the poison, and there is no feeling. Is there!¡±

    ¡°No, but ¨C¡± and the horror in young Paedr¡¯s face suddenly grew. He clutched his stomach, gasped, and vomited dramatically over a good two paces of floor.

    ¡°That¡¯s how it starts,¡± I said. ¡°But this is nothing. It will soon become serious.¡±

    ¡°I still think she¡¯s bl¨C¡± but then he had to jump back out of the way of another bout of projectile vomit.

    ¡°Da!¡± wailed young Paedr. ¡°My stomach! It hurts so!¡±

    ¡°Oh, no, no!¡± I tutted. ¡°Not compared with how it will hurt in the next hour or so, as you die.¡±

    The father gripped my shoulders. ¡°And you¡¯re going to tell me there¡¯s an antidote, but you¡¯ll give it not to me unless?¡±

    ¡°That sort of thing, yes. But there is an alternative.¡±

    ¡°What?¡±

    ¡°The antidote must be in one of the pots in my pack. Why not try them, see if any work? Not all of them, of course; but you might be lucky and hit the antidote before you hit another poison.¡±

    I lifted his arms gently off my shoulders and gripped his. ¡°Though not all of my poisons have antidotes.¡± I patted his cheek again. ¡°But it¡¯s cold out here. Let¡¯s go back to your fireside.¡±

    This time Hawk and I sat in the chairs, and Stack sat on the bench, looking sulky and triumphant at the same time ¨C and also as tense as a lathecord. Those stupid girls last night¡­ I didn¡¯t like it, and I hoped Hawk had noticed.

    ¡°Kneel!¡± Hawk commanded.

    Nobody moved at first, but then young Paedr screamed and shot out another jet of vomit. His father turned to him as if to speak, turned back, and knelt. Everyone else knelt too.

    ¡°Very well,¡± said Hawk. ¡°So you agree to accept our terms, unconditionally, as long as Seer here cures the poisoning?¡±

    ¡°Yes,¡± muttered Paedr senior.

    ¡°I beg your pardon?¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± he said, louder, and his son screamed. ¡°Yes, yes! Oh shit, my stomach! Quick, quick, yes!¡± He doubled over, retching.

    ¡°Very well,¡± declared Hawk. ¡°Remove your clothes. All of you.¡±

    ¡°What!¡±

    ¡°Remove your clothes. All of your clothes. Strip naked, like naked savages. Now!¡±

    There was a murmur of grumbling and a few whines and screams from the smaller children, but young Paedr almost ripped his off, and the others soon followed.

    It was interesting to see what they wore: the males all had ¡°breeches¡± which fitted fairly close from the waist down each leg separately to just above the knee, and then a ¡°tunic¡± from the neck down, belted at the waist and skirted to below the knee, and with long loose sleeves tied at the wrist; the mother and the eldest daughters wore a ¡°shift¡±, long sleeves and high to the neck and shaped to fit their curves well as far as the hips, and then skirted fairly full to the ankles; over that a ¡°dress¡± which had no sleeves but otherwise was similar. The younger girls just had a single dress, fairly loose ¨C but then they didn¡¯t have curves to fit to.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

    Then we dressed ourselves. Old Paedr¡¯s clothes were a little big for Stack, but a few careful pins fixed it; young Paedr¡¯s were a little short on Hawk, but nothing to worry about; and the eldest daughter¡¯s clothes fitted me beautifully, except at the bust ¨C and I had reason to believe that that too might fit fairly soon ¨C and I felt good! There¡¯s nothing wrong with nakedness, but clothes do something for a girl, believe me.

    Young Paedr gave another scream, and his father grabbed my arm ¨C and instantly let go, I was pleased to see.

    ¡°Hurry ¨C please ¨C look at my son ¨C he¡¯s dying.¡±

    ¡°Oh, very well!¡± I looked at Hawk and he nodded. I picked out a particular jar from the heap, smeared it on young Paedr¡¯s finger, and told him to lick it off. He did ¨C with some difficulty; he seemed to have problems with the taste. How surprising.

    ¡°It will take about an hour to work fully,¡± I said, ¡°But he should feel better in ten minutes or so.¡±

    I was right, of course, although I hadn¡¯t given him an antidote; the poison was on the point of wearing off naturally. As a matter of fact, it wasn¡¯t meant to be swallowed, and it was actually intended to finish an unwanted pregnancy, but I thought it better not to explain this; it seemed an unnecessary complication.

    ¡°And what about me?¡± The man had ceased to bluster.

    ¡°Why should we care what happens to a naked savage?¡± replied Hawk. I looked at the family; the youngest kids weren¡¯t bothered by the lack of clothes, but they could tell something bad was happening; the man and his wife had ceased to try to cover themselves after the first shock; it was the kids in the middle who were blushing furiously and trying to hide their bodies any way they could.

    Stack stamped his foot. ¡°What about our packs?¡± he demanded. ¡°Why haven¡¯t you put everything back? What about our cloaks? What about our Chief¡¯s collar? What about our spears?¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t expect that level of intelligence from mere naked savages,¡± I said. ¡°Any more than you can expect them to offer food to guests. They are too uncivilised, too inferior.¡±

    The man and his wife had started packing, but when I spoke they stood up. ¡°No!¡± said Hawk. ¡°Not you! You get on with the packing. Your two eldest daughters can set up the table and serve Stack and us.¡± So he was worrying about Stack, like I was; good for you, Hawk.

    The girls did as they were told, blushing furiously the whole while. It was a really great meal ¨C one I¡¯ll never forget.

    ¡°Now,¡± said Hawk, leaning back in his chair. ¡°What shall we do with these naked savages?¡±

    ¡°My arm!¡± Paedr senior was almost pleading! Oh, this felt good!

    ¡°It can wait a little longer,¡± said Hawk ¨C he almost spat it.

    That didn¡¯t seem like Hawk. ¡°I think I¡¯d better see to it now, and get it over with,¡± I replied.

    ¡°No, it can wait!¡±

    Hawk?

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± I whispered. ¡°You¡¯ll enjoy it! Promise!¡±

    Hawk shrugged, but his lips were white. ¡°No ¨C I ¨C Oh ¨C Oh, OK then!¡±

    The wooden frame where the cloaks were thrown was very solid, so I undid the bandage and strapped his arm to the beam; it was just the wrong height for him. Then I pretended to probe the wound.

    ¡°Can you feel this?¡±

    ¡°No,¡±

    ¡°Or this?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°This?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Perhaps we¡¯ve left it too late,¡± I sighed, opened the pot, and told one of the children to bring me a cup of hot water ¨C boiling hot ¨C and a spoon. The salve mixed with the hot water scented the whole room, as I¡¯d intended.

    I lifted a little out with the spoon, and waited till it cooled.

    ¡°I¡¯m going to swab out the wound,¡± I told him. ¡°It might hurt.¡±

    Actually I only swabbed the skin around the wound.

    ¡°It¡¯s not too hot in the wound is it?¡± I asked.

    ¡°I ¨C I can feel it not at all in the wound!¡± His voice quavered with fear. I was enjoying myself immensely.

    ¡°Then we must wait a moment.¡±

    After a minute or so I placed a drop of scalding hot water from the cup directly into the wound itself. He jerked so hard it tested the wooden frame.

    ¡°You felt that, I take it?¡±

    He whimpered.

    ¡°Ah, good. The antidote is taking effect.¡±

    I repeated the treatment at half minute intervals, until the water had cooled too much to be fun.

    ¡°Excellent,¡± I said. ¡°Now I will treat the wound with real salve, and bind it up again.¡± I waved the bandage in the general direction of the family. ¡°Wash that out for me. It may have poison on it.¡±

    When I had finished, Hawk took up position again. He did look more relaxed.

    ¡°We still have the problem of what to do with these naked savages, and it¡¯s getting late. Stack, take the man savage and tie him up in the byre.¡±

    ¡°No tricks,¡± I added, ¡°just his good arm tied tight. He needs to be able to move that bad arm around, at least to some extent. And let him sleep ¨C don¡¯t make him too uncomfortable.¡±

    Stack looked sulky ¨C in other words, his expression didn¡¯t change.

    I looked at young Paedr, still clutching his stomach. ¡°And take this thing out there too ¨C he¡¯ll be too smelly for us to want him in here,¡± I said. ¡°But no tricks with him either ¨C he¡¯s too weak. Or at least, no worse than uncomfortable. He won¡¯t get much sleep, whatever you do.¡±

    Stack continued to look sulky, and went out with the two Paedrs.

    Hawk took over. ¡°Now, the rest of you! Through that door seems to be warm enough, and has no other ways out. You can spend the night in there. You don¡¯t come out till we say so.¡±

    ¡°You can take just one cloth for the baby,¡± I added quickly. ¡°Go! Now!¡±

    By the time they¡¯d all squeezed into the little space, Stack returned. I went out to check on his work, and he had been good. The man¡¯s good arm was tied to an overhead beam, the bad arm to a horizontal beam, but above the elbow, so he could flex and move his lower arm where the wound was. He would have to sleep kneeling, but I was happy with that. The lad was tied face down at floor level, in the sheep pen, his head resting on a pile of droppings. How appropriate.

    We drew straws, and I lost. I threw my cloak down in front of the prison door, while the other two slept cosily by the fire. I fell asleep before I knew I was lying down.

    But I woke, suddenly and completely, some time in the dark of the night. I was still tired, but my brain was racing.

    You expect I¡¯d be feeling triumphant, but I wasn¡¯t. In front of my mind was anger, anger at how these people had treated us. It wasn¡¯t that they¡¯d tortured us or robbed us, they hadn¡¯t; it was that they¡¯d despised us. That hurt, and it hurt through any sense of victory I might have had.

    So to try and calm my mind, I began thinking through what had happened, and found something else churning my brain. Why hadn¡¯t we resisted more? Why did I suddenly decide to pick up that pill, when I could have done so a dozen times before? And then as I began to work on it, another question: why had they collapsed so? I tried thinking it through; it wasn¡¯t easy to remember exactly what had happened. In the end I decided that all these questions were one; that somehow the humiliation had made us unable to resist, and then when they suffered humiliation, they were unable to resist. I still couldn¡¯t quite see it, but surely the answer was somewhere there?

    Underneath all this was the worst question of all. If I really was a shaman, wouldn¡¯t I understand this? I didn¡¯t understand what had happened here, I didn¡¯t understand what difference the ceremonies in Mistwater camp made, I¡¯d totally failed to humiliate Hawk with the flies and gnats, I understood nothing. Nothing. And I called myself a shaman.

    I couldn¡¯t lie there any longer. I sat myself in the corner next to the doorway, in the Approach posture, and very very softly began crooning the Cradling Song. It¡¯s restful, and it¡¯s got happy memories; my Nan used to sing it to me. I hoped it would calm my nerves.

    There was a rustle, and a little head poked round the door curtain. I recognised the lad who¡¯d counted the days to market day.

    ¡°Please!¡± it whispered. ¡°Can I come out? I¡¯m Geivin. Can I come out and speak to you, please, miss?¡±

    What the heck. ¡°Yes, all right, but we must whisper.¡±

    He was eight or nine, I suppose, skinny and generally a nondescript brown. In fact, he had the air of someone you wouldn¡¯t notice. His eyes were big, but that might just have been that he was scared.

    He sat next to me, hugging his knees. ¡°I heard you singing, so I knew it was you. It¡¯s about the Spirits,¡± he whispered. ¡°Everyone else would laugh at me, cos they believe not in them; but I do. I know they¡¯re real.¡± He shuffled. ¡°I know you¡¯re an enemy, and all that, so you probably will not, but I just hoped, I just wondered, whether you would mind teaching me a bit about them? You¡¯re the first person I¡¯ve met that I¡¯ve had a chance to talk to. Nobody else understands.¡±

    He stared up at me with big eyes.

    What could I do? I couldn¡¯t tell him what I really thought, could I? So I put my arm round him, and I taught him about the Spirits, just like my Nan had taught me. The very simplest things: who they are, what they are, what they do, how you tell a good Spirit from a bad one.

    ¡°So my friend¡¯s a good Spirit. I thought he was,¡± he whispered.

    ¡°Your friend?¡±

    ¡°Yes, that¡¯s how I first knew they were real.¡± He yawned. ¡°He always felt good, just like you, even when things go wrong he always feels good.¡±

    ¡°Hasn¡¯t he told you anything about the Spirits?¡±

    ¡°Not really. It ben¡¯t like that. He ben¡¯t someone you talk to, like Gort.¡±

    ¡°Gort?¡±

    ¡°Gort is Ioann¡¯s friend. He¡¯s just imaginary. But my friend ben¡¯t like that. He¡¯s¡­¡± and when I looked down, he was fast asleep.

    By the Stones, I felt such a hypocrite.

    I folded my cloak over us both, and fell asleep too.

 Chapter 15 - Revenge

    The baby woke us all, just at first light; I managed to sneak my pupil back in with the others without anyone noticing.

    Hawk pulled back the curtain. ¡°Stones, you stink!¡± he exclaimed. ¡°Where do you get water?¡±

    ¡°From the Elven Pool,¡± said a girl¡¯s voice.

    ¡°Show me. Or no, show Seer.¡± Thank you Hawk ¨C couldn¡¯t face a bit of cold weather all of a sudden?

    The girl came out, still trying to hide herself with her hands. I recognised her; she was one of Stack¡¯s tormentors last night. I picked up my cloak and a spear and she picked up a bucket as we walked to the door. As the wind outside hit her, she recoiled.

    ¡°Oh, please let me put on a ¨C¡±

    ¡°Out!¡± I said, and pushed her with the spearbutt. ¡°Now!¡±

    And then I realised I held the solution to one of our problems: Stack. He had a right to revenge, but he would be reluctant to hit or hurt a girl ¨C and quite right too, I felt. But if I took revenge for him, and drew the line for him? Yes, that should work.

    It was far colder than yesterday, I was delighted to find. We went up across the flat area to where a stream had been diverted into a pool, only twenty paces away from the house. The pool was three paces across, but more than twice that wide; to the right, under the hill, the end was a half circle of steps going into the water, with the stream cascading in down a specially cut channel at the midpoint; on the left a complicated ramp thing led into the water, across its bottom end and out. Although the pool was so huge it seemed to have been carved out of a single huge block of stone; I could understand why the farm people thought the Elders had made it.

    There was ice on the ramps and the steps, and cat ice covered much of the pool; even by the steps it rimmed the water for a good foot wide.

    The girl was already chattering with cold. She looked pleadingly at me, but I just gestured to the pool. She worked her way down the steps, broke the ice with the bucket, and filled it. She winced whenever her hands touched the water. Then she came back up the steps, and made as if to go back to the farm.

    ¡°Put the bucket down!¡± I said.

    She looked at me, almost said something, then put it down. She huddled herself, desperate for warmth.

    ¡°Now, in the pool.¡±

    ¡°What? Oh no, please!¡±

    ¡°You heard Hawk; you naked savages stink. And you played with a naked savage last night, didn¡¯t you. Get in the pool!¡± I waved the spear at her.

    She tiptoed down the steps, and almost put a foot in the water. She hesitated, looking back at me.

    ¡°In!¡± I said. She turned away, but she still hesitated, so I pushed her in with the spear butt. It was a lovely splash. When she surfaced again she was almost too chilled to breathe; but she flailed her arms around, wide-eyed and gasping, and tumbling back under water again and again. I let her flail for a minute or so.

    ¡°Excellent. That will do!¡± I said, but she was past hearing me. I grabbed her hair and steered her to the steps. She slipped once, jarring herself quite badly, but I took no notice.

    ¡°Now you can take the bucket of water in.¡±

    The wind was on her back, so it wasn¡¯t too bad, and it was only twenty steps to the wall, fifteen to the door and inside. She put the bucket down and turned to me.

    ¡°Please let me go to the fire and get warm!¡±

    ¡°Stack,¡± I called, ¡°may this savage come close to the fire? She says she¡¯s cold.¡±

    Stack turned, and saw her dripping and blue. ¡°Oh, her.¡± He grinned. ¡°What did you do ¨C empty the bucket over her?¡±

    ¡°No, sent her swimming. It¡¯s easily wide and deep enough. I thought you¡¯d like it; she¡¯s one of your two friends from last night. She can warm herself, can¡¯t she?¡± I nodded at him, behind her back.

    ¡°OK, she can get warm.¡± The girl ran to the fire, Stack¡¯s eyes following her. ¡°Where¡¯s the other one? Ah, there you are, my girl,¡± he went on.

    His other tormentor shrank back.

    ¡°You can come for a swim, too. Oh don¡¯t be so scared ¨C I promise, if you do as you¡¯re told I mightn¡¯t even touch you. Go on!¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t touch her!¡± I said quietly to him.

    ¡°I won¡¯t.¡±

    The second eldest lad was watching. He bit his lip, and walked up to me.

    ¡°The animals need seeing to. They¡¯ll die if they ben¡¯t fed nor watered.¡±

    ¡°Can you do it by yourself?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡± He sounded surprised. ¡°I¡¯ll touch not my father or my brother, I swear.¡±

    ¡°Then do it. But,¡± I called after him, ¡°put on your clothes and a cloak. And those leather things for your feet.¡±

    ¡°Shoes.¡±

    ¡°Put them on too. You¡¯ll catch your death of cold out there.¡±

    He raised an eyebrow, glanced at his sister, and then dressed and went out.

    Stack came back nearly ten minutes later, shepherding the girl in front of him; she was even bluer than her sister, she was whimpering, and she was carrying a stack of sheets of ice in her arms.

    ¡°You see? Never touched her, not even with a spearbutt.¡± And he was proud of it, said his tone of voice. He waved at the girl. ¡°Put the ice in that other bucket, sweetie, and then you can go and get warm like your sister.¡±

    At last, I¡¯d managed to get something right.

    We ate breakfast, prepared by the lady of the house and served again by her two daughters, and we did not leave any for anyone else. We finished just as the lad came back from seeing to the animals.

    When our food had settled, I had to deal with my patients. Stack fetched them in. Young Paedr was grey with pain and lack of sleep, and filthy and stinking from head to foot; we parked him in a far corner for the moment. Old Paedr was looking much better. I undid the bandage. I was pleased; nearly all the infection had died down, and the wound had even begun to want to close. I cleaned it out, salved it and bandaged it. At least my salves are the best, even if I am a useless shaman in everything else.

    ¡°If you treat it properly, it should be closed in a week, and healed in a month,¡± I said.

    He said nothing.

    ¡°Fine,¡± I said, ¡°I¡¯m not expecting gratitude. But keep it clean, don¡¯t let it close completely until there¡¯s no more pus, and keep working a little of this salve in twice a day until it is completely closed.¡±The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

    He still said nothing, but his wife snatched the jar from my hand, as if to throw it away. A daughter snatched it from her.

    ¡°But that is wonderful, Da. She¡¯s done in one day what we¡¯ve done not in one month!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry to interrupt this charming domestic scene,¡± said Hawk, ¡°but we still have the question: what do we do with these naked savages?¡± He arranged the chairs into formality again, and sat down.

    This should be interesting, I thought. How is he proposing to get out of this?

    Hawk put on his Chief voice. ¡°Firstly, there are some personal scores to settle. Stack, do you feel that those two young ladies have been sufficiently punished?¡±

    ¡°No, I think they should go for another swim,¡± he said, watching them suddenly hug each other in fear. Then he caught my eye. ¡°But I¡¯m feeling forgiving ¨C I¡¯ll let them off this once.¡±

    ¡°And Seer ¨C what about this little turd?¡± Young Paedr had fallen asleep; Stack kicked him awake.

    ¡°He had an interesting night,¡± I said, ¡°even after the antidote took hold. I¡¯m happy to call it quits.¡± The poison would still have been giving him occasional cramps, and the ¡®antidote¡¯ would have kept him awake all night with diarrhoea ¨C he had obviously been lying in it. I don¡¯t suppose the sheep were good companions. I imagine he would have a massive dehydration headache, too. We¡¯d given him a mouthful of water when he was brought in, but he would have needed a lot more. And he was going to have to go for a swim at some point, just to clean himself up. Yes, I was happy to call it quits.

    ¡°Very well,¡± Hawk stared at old Paedr, ¡°but what do we do with you?¡±

    The venom in his voice startled me. There was something here I hadn¡¯t expected. Again.

    ¡°Now had we remained the naked savages you said we were,¡± continued Hawk, ¡°we would have simply taken what we thought we could use and walked out. As it is, you have shown us what civilised, humane people would do: sell you as slaves. Though I¡¯m not sure we could manage to sell all of you.¡±

    ¡°They were going to sell three of us,¡± said Stack, ¡°so we should sell three of them.¡± He looked at the two girls.

    ¡°That makes sense,¡± said Hawk. ¡°Perhaps the Spirits could advise us on which three?¡±

    I didn¡¯t like this. Keeping captives as slaves is one thing; selling slaves is something entirely different. I don¡¯t know why; I can¡¯t justify it; it just is. But the main thing was, I was seeing a different side of Hawk¡¯s character, and not one I liked.

    ¡°If you are happy for our names to be included as well,¡± I answered, ¡°the Spirits will be happy to advise you.¡± I let that sink in. ¡°They may advise you, but they will not take your responsibility. You are the Chief, Hawk.¡±

    ¡°Yes, Seer, I am the Chief, now.¡±

    And that last phrase at last told me what was happening. Hawk wasn¡¯t seeing old Paedr, he was seeing his own father; and all the pent-up resentment, hatred, shame and anger was pouring out of him. What he really wanted was to beat old Paedr to a pulp ¨C to beat his own father to a pulp.

    And he wasn¡¯t thinking about how to leave the place ¨C he wasn¡¯t thinking at all.

    But if I let him, if he killed old Paedr, what then? Might not Hawk be scarred even worse? He wouldn¡¯t have discharged his anger because it wasn¡¯t really his father; he would have killed an ¨C in this respect ¨C innocent man, but he would feel the guilt of killing his father. I didn¡¯t know; but surely there was a danger of it twisting him up for life.

    No, I didn¡¯t know what to do. The best I could do was delay things, slow things down until I could come up with an idea. And the only way I could think of doing that was to waffle.

    ¡°But there is another little matter that a Chief will be considering,¡± I went on. ¡°In all the hours since we took over, we have not heard one word of apology from anyone for how we were treated. We have had protests, shame, begging for mercy, sulky obedience, but not one has ever said sorry. We should not let them leave our hands until they acknowledge that the fault was theirs ¨C not just weakness in letting us escape, but fault in trying to enslave us in the first place. Where was hospitality? Where was the welcome to the stranger? No one has ever said sorry.¡±

    Nor has your father ever said sorry to you, Hawk.

    ¡°Apologise to naked savages? I¡¯ll see you in hell first!¡± shouted old Paedr. ¡°You think you¡¯re all high and mighty, dressed in our clothes, but it¡¯s still you that¡¯s the naked savages and us that¡¯s civilised, and nothing you can do ever will change that! You think that grovelling to your Spirits can make you our equals? There are no Spirits, and never will you be our equals. Apologise to you? Apologise to two brainless thugs and a witchdoctor, to subhumans, to under-men? Get back up your trees, you rats!¡±

    That was Paedr¡¯s death, and every soul in that room that understood him knew it. The whole air filled with silence.

    Hawk was white ¨C dead white. He opened his mouth.

    And then that little Geivin, that blasted pupil of mine, he stood up and ran in front of Hawk.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± he said. ¡°We treated you not right. I¡¯m sorry. If you want to sell me into slavery you can.¡±

    He caught my eye, and I managed a watery smile. Oh Geivin, why did you listen to me?

    Now wouldn¡¯t it have been nice if one by one everyone else had followed his lead, had come forward and said sorry? Wouldn¡¯t that have been brilliant?

    Fat chance.

    Only the wife came forward. ¡°You are right, we treated you not as proper human beings,¡± she said.

    Everyone stared at her.

    ¡°And that is because you ben¡¯t proper human beings. My Paedr¡¯s right; you¡¯re scum, and everything you¡¯ve done in this house has shown it. You stole our clothes, but you wear them as if you should be naked. You make us go naked, and we do it as if we should be clothed. You prance around like cocks on a dunghill, and you know not what to do with your pathetic little power ¨C power just of force and lies and trickery. Prance all you like; we¡¯re your betters, and we always will be ¨C as you will always be naked savages!¡±

    She spat in Hawk¡¯s face. He wiped it off with his sleeve.

    And now he would kill both the father and the mother ¨C he had to; which would be the same as killing the whole family, right down to the toddlers and the baby. I don¡¯t kill babies ¨C well, actually, I do, when I have to, but not like this. This is murder.

    At least she¡¯d given me time to see what I had to do ¨C what my dear little pupil had forced me into. This was all Geivin¡¯s fault; if he hadn¡¯t spoken I would never have seen any way out, and even if they¡¯d all died I wouldn¡¯t have had children¡¯s blood on my hands. Now I had no choice.

    ¡°There is one person,¡± I went on, before Hawk could speak, ¡°one person in particular who should have said sorry.¡± I paused for effect. ¡°Me.¡± I stood up and walked to old Paedr. ¡°I am sorry. We killed your sheep. We stole your meat and your skins. We trespassed on your land. I am sorry.¡± He slapped my face. I was expecting it; I could ignore it.

    ¡°When you brought us here, we made no attempt to apologise, let alone make proper restitution. I am sorry.¡± He slapped my face again.

    ¡°And when instead of accepting our punishment we rebelled, we mistreated you, stole your food, stole your clothes. At least I can return those.¡± I took off my beautiful dress and my lovely soft shift, folded them, and gave them back to their owner. She didn¡¯t know what to do with them; in the end she laid them on the cloaks.

    ¡°You are right,¡± I said, ¡°we are nothing but naked savages, and your wife is right, we¡¯ve proved it every step of the way. I¡¯m sorry.¡±

    I held my breath. This all hung on two questions: was this man truly a Chief? Was he a good enough Chief to think even through his emotions? I thought yes and yes, but I didn¡¯t know; if I was wrong, the family was dead.

    He stared me in the face ¨C which was good; he paused ¨C which was better; he lifted his hand to slap my face again, and lowered it. At that moment I knew I¡¯d won.

    ¡°Na, na, na, na! You may be a naked savage girl, but you¡¯ve got more balls than either of those two ¨C more than any of my sons.¡± He held out his hand; I put mine palm to palm with his; for one moment he seemed surprised, then he took hold of my hand and shook it up and down. OK, different needles, different stitches, as they say. We understood each other, and that was what mattered. ¡°Chrai, your old dress and shift are still in the chest, ben¡¯t they? Go and get them.¡±

    ¡°You¡¯re never going to ¨C¡±

    ¡°Shut up, wife. This goes as I choose, for once. Get them, Chrai.¡±

    Yes, I was right; he understood what I was doing. Of course, he was lying through his teeth; but he understood he¡¯d put his family in danger by his outburst, and I was offering a way out. It was worth a lie. And now he¡¯d claim that the clothes were to say sorry, when they would actually say thank you.

    The girl whose dress I¡¯d been wearing ran off. She came back with a dress and a shift, neatly folded and smelling of thyme, rue and bugbane.

    ¡°Give them to the shaman, here. They¡¯ll be a better fit than the ones she¡¯s been wearing, I reckon.¡± They were; and even more, they outlined and emphasised what bust I had. Stones, I felt so good!

    ¡°These are to say sorry,¡± he went on. ¡°We treated you not as thieves, we treated you not as guests. We should have hanged you or welcomed you.¡±

    Perfect. We¡¯ll be able to get away, nobody will lose face, nobody will get killed, he¡¯ll be able to tell everyone how he tricked those naked savages into leaving peacefully, and even though we¡¯ll never see them again we¡¯ll become his tribe¡¯s enemy. Perfect.

    Then I saw Hawk¡¯s face. Well, that was to be expected. No shaman ever gets gratitude from her Chief, and rarely enough from anyone else. That I had learned, and a long time ago.

    Hawk and I didn¡¯t exchange one word until we were on the road.

    When we left, it was just after noon, Geivin kissed me, the other children hid, the dogs barked, the woman ignored us, old Paedr watched us go with his hands on his hips, and young Paedr vomited. All as expected. I didn¡¯t care. We walked away from the house with our packs full of food and wearing real clothes under our cloaks. I felt as warm as if I was in a tent, and rich and sexy in my new dress.

    As soon as we were out of sight of the farm, Hawk stopped. ¡°They¡¯ve seen which way we left, and they know where we were going. They could pass the word on and have us ambushed. We need to turn back up through the woods.¡±

    ¡°But won¡¯t that take us back north?¡± I said.

    He marched away into the trees before I¡¯d finished speaking.

    Oh dear.

 Chapter 16 - Knowledge

    We marched on through the woods high above the farm. Hawk and Stack occasionally spoke to each other, but whenever I said anything Hawk spoke across me. When the sun began to fall, I slipped away from them, up the hill. I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d be missed.

    It was very steep, but it was good to be in trees ¨C it had been good all day, when I wasn¡¯t noticing Hawk¡¯s snubs. I found a little rocky knoll, surrounded by trees but itself just grass and bare white rock, looking out to the setting sun. I took off my pack and cloak and put them down on my left; then I took off my beautiful dress and shift, and put them down on my right. Then I sat between them, hugging my knees like a little girl. It was bitterly cold, but I didn¡¯t care. I just sat there, as the shivering quietened and ceased.

    After a few moments I undid my remaining straps, and put them with the pack and cloak. Now I really was like a little girl, dreaming of making choices of my life. I knew my thoughts were churning uncontrollably, but I floated above them, a naked child, uncommitted, uncaring.

    I couldn¡¯t make it last. My thoughts broke through in the end.

    Was I a shaman? What is a shaman? A shaman understands people¡¯s bodies, so she can treat their illnesses and control their fertility and so on. A shaman understands people¡¯s minds, so that she can control and direct them into the right paths and heal their hurts and relationships. A shaman understands tribes, so that she can control and advise the chiefs and leaders and make contacts even between enemies. A shaman understands the Spirits, if she believes in them. A shaman understands. And I didn¡¯t understand.

    Why didn¡¯t I?

    A month ago, when we left the Longwoods, I called myself a shaman. I understood people¡¯s bodies, and I thought I understood people¡¯s minds, but it had never occurred to me to understand tribes.

    I looked to my right, at my new clothes. Shouldn¡¯t I accept I could never be a shaman? Shouldn¡¯t I just be a tribewoman ¨C Hawk¡¯s, preferably? I remembered Stack; there¡¯s nothing wrong with being a hunter, but he¡¯d seen himself as Chief. There¡¯s nothing wrong with being a tribewoman, but I¡¯d seen myself as Shaman. Stack couldn¡¯t forgive himself until he realised he could be Champion; for me there was no such alternative.

    I looked to my left, at my shaman¡¯s things. Could I become a shaman? Could I start again, learning what it means, learning the basics, until I could do the job properly? Would I ever get rid of the sense of failure, of inadequacy, that I was a girl doing a woman¡¯s job?

    The branches behind me stirred. I didn¡¯t look round.

    ¡°No,¡± I said.

    ¡°Please ¨C just to protect our camp. You needn¡¯t stay.¡±

    ¡°There are evil spirits in these woods, and some are here around me. I will protect you long enough for you to go away.¡±

    ¡°And the camp?¡± Stack¡¯s voice had risen an octave.

    ¡°Since I am not wanted there, I assume you have your own protection. Now go away.¡± And I ignored all his protests, until he finally gave up.

    I thought about Hawk, and him and me, and then I thought about how he¡¯d behaved in the farm, and how I¡¯d not liked it, and many other little things about him, and then again about him and me together, and about how it would never happen because I was a useless shaman.

    And then I floated free again, and wished to stay free.

    ¡°Stack says there¡¯s a problem. What¡¯s going on?¡±

    ¡°No problem. Go away.¡± I didn¡¯t look round at Hawk, either. Why bother?

    ¡°Why?¡±

    I didn¡¯t answer.

    ¡°Why? Tell me!¡±

    ¡°Why what? Why do I want you to go away? Why am I here instead of in camp? Why did I behave as I did in the farm? Why am I alive?¡±

    ¡°Why did you behave as you did in the farm?¡±

    ¡°How should I have behaved?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know, but¨C¡±

    ¡°Well, when you know, tell me, and I¡¯ll try to do it next time.¡±

    I heard him sigh.

    ¡°I¡¯d just like to understand.¡±

    I didn¡¯t answer.

    ¡°I am your Chief. I have a right to be told, at least. OK, no more than that. But I have a right to be told.¡±

    True. ¡°Explain what? Everything? Explain why I poisoned the lad? Explain why I conned the old man into believing he was poisoned? Explain why I ate, and drank, and pissed, and breathed? What?¡±Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

    There was a long pause.

    ¡°I understand everything yesterday. It¡¯s today I don¡¯t understand. And not everything, just when we sat down to finish things.¡±

    ¡°I got it wrong. I¡¯m sorry.¡±

    ¡°Please!¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t fight children. If we were going to kill the whole family we should have done it the day before. If the father and mother were both killed, the children would die too.¡±

    There was another long pause.

    ¡°Was the father telling the truth when he said he was sorry?¡±

    ¡°No.¡±

    ¡°Were you?¡±

    ¡°I never tell the truth.¡±

    ¡°Why did you stop me killing him?¡±

    ¡°Because you wanted to.¡± That slipped out; I regretted it at once.

    I heard him gasp.

    ¡°That was the answer you wanted, wasn¡¯t it?¡± I went on. ¡°No? I¡¯m sorry. I meant, because it would endanger the children. That do? Or would you rather have, because the Spirits forbade it. Or what about, because I feared their ghosts would follow us. Which one would you like? Or something different again? Just tell me, and next time you ask I¡¯ll get it right.¡±

    There was a very long pause, with some heavy breathing.

    ¡°Is there a promise I can make, or an oath I can swear, which will mean that you will tell me the truth?¡±

    ¡°You can tell me why you wanted to kill the father.¡±

    That made him think. What I didn¡¯t know was whether he was thinking of the answer, or trying to work out why I¡¯d asked.

    ¡°He¡¯d treated us like dirt.¡±

    ¡°He treated us no worse than your father treats you normally.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re not talking about my father.¡±

    ¡°No?¡±

    ¡°NO!¡±

    ¡°Fine,¡± I said.

    There was a very long silence.

    ¡°So why did you stop me killing the father?¡±

    I didn¡¯t answer.

    ¡°I said, why did you stop me killing the father?¡±

    ¡°Which father? The father of the family or your own father?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re not talking about my father.¡±

    ¡°Fine,¡± I said.

    Long silence.

    ¡°So,¡± I said, ¡°you wanted to kill the father because he¡¯d treated you in the way that your own father treats you.¡±

    ¡°Will you shut up about my father! My father¡¯s a great chief! My father¡¯s done great things for the Tribe! I don¡¯t want you talking about my father like that!¡±

    I heard him stamp off.

    I floated free on the sunset. A skein of wild geese, the winter-bringers, the far-callers, flighted across from the south, their great V slowly merging with the darkling sky. And I flew with them, floating away from the cold and the shame and the guilt and the wind and the anger and the failure and the trees and the earth, floating into the far sunset, to the islands beyond the sun.

    I woke up utterly lost; I was shivering, something was happening to my feet, something else was rough and hot against my skin. Slowly my mind began to switch on; I was wrapped in two cloaks, somebody was rubbing my feet with a handful of twigs, there was a fire nearby.

    ¡°Uhh?¡± I managed.

    ¡°Hey, she¡¯s awake!¡± It took me a moment, but then I remembered the name: Hawk. The foot chafing stopped.

    ¡°How¡¯re you feeling?¡± That was Stack, I was fairly sure I remembered that name. Stack.

    I turned my head, and saw two faces looking down at me. They seemed anxious; I couldn¡¯t imagine why.

    ¡°You had us really worried there,¡± Yes, that was Hawk¡¯s voice. ¡°We thought ¨C we honestly thought you¡¯d¡­¡± His voice caught.

    ¡°That you¡¯d died,¡± Stack finished.

    ¡°Why did you do it, sitting out there in the cold without anything around you? If Stack hadn¡¯t gone to check on you, you would have been dead! You frightened us, truly you frightened us. Don¡¯t do anything like that again, please!¡±

    It took me a quarter of an hour or so before I thought of moving. They¡¯d piled all my things together just by me; I stood up, feeling the warm fire on my skin, then I put on my shaman straps, my new clothes, and my cloak.

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry,¡± I said. ¡°I lost the story, somehow. Is there anything hot to eat or drink?¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m sorry too,¡± said Hawk. ¡°I should have realised. But you made me cross with talking about my father, so I never thought.¡±

    So it was all my fault really. Thank you, Hawk.

    Finally, to please Stack, I danced the boundary of the camp. Or rather, I tried to. It was at this point I discovered a basic problem with clothes: you can¡¯t dance in them. So I had to take the clothes off and dance the boundary wearing just a few leather straps, as a proper shaman should. I doubt if it did anything for the safety of the camp, but it focussed my mind.

    ¡°What happened to me must have been the result of an attack by evil Spirits,¡± I said when I¡¯d finished. ¡°I must have allowed my defences to slip. It is vital that I find out the problem and fix it, or we may all be in danger.¡±

    ¡°You won¡¯t get lost again, will you?¡±

    No, Hawk, tempting as it sometimes is. I seem to be stuck with the pair of you. ¡°No, I¡¯ll be careful. But there is a wider Spirit boundary around this area ¨C I will walk that. I won¡¯t stop in any one place for long.¡± That should stop them pestering me to see if I¡¯m all right.

    I put my cloak on and walked back to where I¡¯d originally left them. Then I traced my steps up the slope to the knoll. As soon as I stepped out of the shelter of the trees the wind was bitter cold; how had I stood it without a cloak? And why?

    I didn¡¯t stop. I climbed on up the slope, and then contoured north. It was very hard going. I stopped for breath between two oak trees, in a patch of tumbled boulders.

    So, shaman or not? I¡¯d left my clothes behind, and I was just wearing my tribal gear ¨C leather straps and cloak. Had I already chosen?

    Now I was no longer freezing myself to death, other issues crept out.

    First, a shaman can never be hand-pledged to a man; nothing must be allowed to come between her and the Spirits, and nothing must be allowed to bias her advice and judgement. So I could never be hand-pledged ¨C to choose an utterly random example ¨C to Hawk. Yes, I could have sex with him; yes I could bear his child; yes we could be friends; but he would never be joined to me. I would have to watch him take other women to his tent, and be happy for him.

    Second, this party needed a shaman. Yes, I had failed in practice, but I had managed to sell the idea that they needed a shaman. To Stack, certainly, but to Hawk as well; I didn¡¯t believe he fancied me ¨C I¡¯d failed there too, and anyway there was the Valleys girl; I never stood a chance ¨C and yet he¡¯d worried about my dying of cold. They needed a shaman, however incompetent.

    I faced all these things, but I couldn¡¯t understand and I couldn¡¯t decide. I worked my way down the slope, still moving northwards, until I reckoned I was about level with the knoll; the view through the trees westwards was about right. The Evening Star shone between the branches, a lonely glory among the dull stars around her. I reached out to her, and then inside myself. I found strength there; and I decided.

    I would not be told what to choose. Not by my Chief, not by my Tribe, not by my mother, not by my friends, not by my mistakes, not by my fears, not by my needs, not by my lusts, not by my body, not by my heart. I would choose.

    I chose to be a shaman.

    The moment I said that, I understood. By choosing, I had taken power over myself. Not my Chief, not my Tribe, not my mother, not my friends, not my mistakes, not my fears, not my needs, not my lusts, not my body, not my heart. I had power over myself. And in the end, what other kind of power is there?

 Chapter 17 - Town

    Next morning we were talking to each other again.

    ¡°Did you fix the problem with our defences?¡± asked Stack.

    ¡°Yes,¡± I mumbled through a deer chop. ¡°I had been slack; I had been so engrossed in our expedition that I had not performed the proper dances or held the proper vigils. I¡¯ve fixed it all now, though. The Spirits around here are on our side ¨C they helped a lot.¡±

    ¡°Why are they on our side?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t know ¨C you don¡¯t ask that sort of question outright, not of the Spirits. But the people who live there ¨C the Spirits see them as enemies, so they were glad we defeated them. And¡­¡± I paused.

    ¡°Why aren¡¯t the Spirits angry that we didn¡¯t kill them?¡± asked Stack.

    ¡°And why didn¡¯t the Spirits kill them themselves?¡± added Hawk.

    When you¡¯re in a hole, stop digging. If you can.

    ¡°I don¡¯t know. But there is something more, something I¡¯m guessing about, just from hints and things.¡± I paused again. ¡°I think that in the past that was a happy place. I think the Spirits want it to be happy again, and our not shedding blood there helped that in some way. But their plans run deep, deeper than we can know or guess. And I am sure that our visit was planned ¨C the weather, the way we were led off course, the way we were protected all through, the Spirits were behind everything.¡± I wish they were, I really wish they were. But they¡¯re not. ¡°And why and how they choose to act is not for us to know.¡±

    That shut them up.

    We were ready to go, and Stack and I were facing south. Hawk wasn¡¯t.

    ¡°I suppose we must go south,¡± he said.

    ¡°Yes of course!¡± I settled my pack more comfortably ¨C I hadn¡¯t quite got the hang of clothes yet. ¡°We need to go south until we¡¯re back on line for the Power Hills.¡±

    ¡°Yes of course.¡± Hawk stared into the distance. ¡°But¡­ the people at the farm spoke of Brothy, where they could sell us as slaves on market day. Do you suppose Brothy is a Town?¡±

    Now we were digging into Singer¡¯s lore. There were many tales that talked of Towns, where you could get strange magical things of wondrous beauty. There¡¯s a story of a boy who exchanges a cow for a handful of magic beans; that¡¯s in a Town.

    ¡°No idea,¡± I said. ¡°Are Towns real? I thought they just came in stories.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t really know. But wouldn¡¯t this be a chance to find out?¡±

    The path was obvious and easy, and ¨C I was glad to see ¨C deep in the trees on the right flank of a valley. We crossed a stream by a bridge ¨C not just a couple of split tree trunks, but built out of blocks of stone in a curve like a rainbow, and wide enough for the three of us to cross side by side.

    Then suddenly we were out of the trees, and the path dropped away before us, leaving us frighteningly exposed. We had a view over a strange land, a land parcelled up into separate patches. Each patch was a different colour; there were shades of green, shades of brown, shades of golden yellow ¨C even a couple that were almost black. The walls that stitched the patches together were all the same dull cold grey, whatever the colours they ran between. I couldn¡¯t understand it: how could you hunt ¨C how could you even live in a land like that?

    The path ran on, and now other paths joined it, and it grew wider and warmer and wetter as we sank down to the valley bottom. Then the path itself ran between two of those walls, so that our view on either side was completely blocked, and even ahead we could only see a hundred or so paces, just to the next slight bend. Worst of all was when a path joined ours; anything or anybody could be hiding at the junction.

    ¡°I feel trapped,¡± said Hawk.

    Stack nodded. ¡°This is dangerous. I should go first.¡±

    The valley opened out, so that even the distant hills were hidden. There was nothing to see, nothing for the eye to rest on, except those terrible walls. I felt panicky, so I slipped out a couple of my rattles, and shook them as we walked. It helped.

    At last there came a change. The walls were still with us, but they were lower, below head height; we could see the far hills and woods again. Paths still joined us, but because we could see over the walls they weren¡¯t frightening any more, even in the afternoon mists. The air was warm down here; I pulled my cloak wide open and began to regret my clothes.

    But by now there were other people on the path, and they were all wearing clothes, so I couldn¡¯t shed mine without being conspicuous. Even so, we kept well away from them, and matched our speed to theirs. No point in unnecessary risks.

    We crossed a deep fold with a boggy stream idling in its flat bottom, and then up and over a low ridge. The path suddenly changed; instead of black sticky mud it became dry red rottenstone, much easier to walk on ¨C after the mud had flaked off our feet, anyway. The land before us was rocky, patched with more rottenstone and dotted with trees, but beyond it now we could see shapes; oblong shapes like the farm, but not just two ¨C there were twenty at least, that we could see, and there must have been many more hidden in the mist that we couldn¡¯t see. The path ran from our feet right into the middle of them.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

    ¡°A town!¡± I exclaimed. ¡°This must be Brothy ¨C and it is a town!¡±

    ¡°I thought it would be tents, like a huge camp!¡± breathed Hawk. ¡°I never thought of anything like this!¡±

    ¡°There aren¡¯t many people around,¡± said Stack.

    We stopped. ¡°They said three days,¡± I mused, ¡°but it depends how they count days. They could mean today, tomorrow or the day after.¡±

    ¡°We¡¯re tired,¡± declared Hawk ¨C inaccurately in my case ¨C ¡°so let¡¯s find somewhere to camp and go on tomorrow morning.¡± He looked around. ¡°What d¡¯you think of those trees over there, Stack?¡± he asked, pointing leftwards.

    ¡°Possible.¡± Stack looked at him and then at me. ¡°But that fold we crossed ¨C there were much thicker trees to our right, and it would be more sheltered. If it¡¯s dry.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m happy,¡± I said. ¡°But you two are the hunters ¨C you know best.¡±

    So we spent the night in a warm, dry camp, under oak trees. Bliss; except I was worrying about what tomorrow would bring. What was a Town really like? Would we be welcome? Would we look stupid? Would people know we were ¨C no, I am not a savage. I need a word: what marks us out from people like Paedr?

    I tried a dozen different words, but in the end I decided on ¡®Tent Folk¡¯. We were of the Tent Folk, not the Travelling Folk or ¨C and I was guessing here ¨C the Farm Folk or Town Folk. And I fell asleep.

    We woke at sunrise ¨C half dazzled by the rising sun shining directly along the folded ground. Less than an hour later we were back on the path. And it was very different! There was no question of our keeping our distance from other people; it was more a case of finding space to squeeze into among the people carrying huge packs on their backs, or among ponies, like the beasts the Travelling Folk use.

    ¡°So this must be market day!¡± exclaimed Hawk.

    ¡°Whatever that is!¡± answered Stack.

    I was too excited to speak.

    Soon we were among the houses, and still the people carried us along, until the path opened out into a great space, a great glade among the houses. It was a rough circle, a hundred paces or thereabout across, floored with fine-crushed rottenstone, and surrounded on three sides by houses; to the north a huge stream flowed, thirty paces ¨C yes, thirty paces across! The morning mist hid anything more than a guess of more houses beyond it; it didn¡¯t matter ¨C all the action was here, in this great glade.

    There were so many people, so much space, so many different things happening that for a long time we just couldn¡¯t take it in; we wandered round gawping and pointing with our mouths open. Then I noticed some funny looks, and I pulled the others to one side.

    ¡°Look,¡± I said, ¡°we¡¯ve got to be careful. You remember what the people at the farm thought of us; the people here might treat us like that. The Spirits here are strange and unfriendly ¨C I¡¯m getting no help from them at all, and so the people here are probably the same.¡±

    ¡°What are you saying, Seer? That we¡¯re in danger?¡± Hawk looked round quickly and back to me.

    ¡°Nothing that Stack and you can¡¯t handle,¡± I said quickly. ¡°You¡¯ll be able to fight and win, I¡¯m sure. But we could get driven out of the place ¨C there¡¯s so many people the numbers could sweep us away however well you fight.¡±

    Stack nodded. ¡°I see. We¡¯re hunting, but we¡¯re inside a herd, and so we need to avoid being trampled.¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± I exclaimed. ¡°Exactly right!¡±

    Stack looked almost pleased.

    ¡°So,¡± I went on, ¡°we only speak when we¡¯re spoken to, and if we do speak, we don¡¯t call ourselves savages or tribesmen, we¡¯re of the Tent Folk. It sounds better. Yes? And we keep our mouths shut, not hanging open; we don¡¯t exclaim and point at everything; we stay together and walk around slowly until we¡¯re sure we know what¡¯s going on. Yes?¡±

    Stack nodded. Hawk still looked nervous, but he nodded too, in the end.

    In the middle of the glade were three very long wooden beams, each tied onto pairs of much shorter beams, like splayed-out legs ¨C about twenty pairs of legs to each beam. The legs were about a pace apart at ground level, and they crossed under the beams at about shoulder height. These legs marked out long rows of stalls for ponies, one row on each side of the beam, with the ponies sideways on, and just enough space between the beams for the crowds to walk by. One by one each stall was filled; one by one each pony¡¯s pack was opened, and the goods displayed to the passing crowds.

    And such goods!

    Cloths finer and thinner far than what we were wearing; even coloured cloths! Brown, blue, white, yellow, black ¨C breathtaking!

    Little clay jars of ointment scented with strange, heady spices that made your head swirl if you stood near them!

    Shoes, shiny leather, stitched to fit your feet while you waited, and with patterns hammered into them!

    Cloak loops, not leather thongs, but plaited gold wire worked into loops each linked to four or five others like cloth, and finished at each end with a white stone, or a carved shell!

    Wooden skewers threaded with cubes of meat, berries, cubes of roots, tiny onions, grilled on charcoal!

    Knives, with flint blades as long and thin as a feather, their handles carved with birds or deer or hare or intertwining leaves!

    Apples as big as the palm of my hand, and gleaming red and green!

    Necklaces of gold and stone and shell, threaded on a string, each bead carved with an animal head, each head with a tiny bright red spark in its eye!

    Cloaks of fine deerskin, overstitched with intricate interweaving lines of strange colours that dazzled your eye!

    Tiny breads dipped in warm honey and then in powdered nuts, or flower petals, or crushed thyme!

    And that was only the beginning! I was drunk, rolling drunk, just with looking!

    Hawk touched my arm, and pointed to the other side of the line of stalls, to the land next to the river. We went to look. Here were animals, penned with hazel hurdles against a wooden fence, each with their owner leaning on the fence looking out for buyers. We saw sheep, ponies, and another kind of beast: black, as big as a pony but much solider, with a great slobbery mouth, and huge, swinging udders. They made a sort of ¡®moo¡¯ sound. The males were even bigger, with nasty horns, and they were kept one to a pen ¨C and not even next to each other. There were pigs, too, but not our wild kind: these were much finer and in pink or white, and one group were black and white like a magpie.

    At the end of the animals there was a special area for dogs. These were all the big black and white kind that we saw on the farm, not the little brown ones that our tribe used to use for sending down burrows before the coughing sickness killed them.

    ¡°How do we offer for things?¡± murmured Hawk.

    ¡°Let¡¯s try to get closer,¡± I murmured back. ¡°Look, that man with the bread is selling very quickly.¡±

    We got as close as we dared, and watched, trying to seem inconspicuous. We saw people come up to him and speak a number: two, say. He would take that many breads ¨C two breads, say ¨C and give them to the buyer. The buyer then gave him something tiny ¨C but what? We couldn¡¯t see; so we moved closer to see better.

    Without looking where we were moving to in these narrow ways. A mistake.

 Chapter 18 - Market

    We faced off, Old Paedr and us, a spearlength apart. Suddenly we were very lonely; the crowd vanished, leaving just three worried-looking stallkeepers who couldn¡¯t get away, and even they were trying to hide behind their ponies.

    Nobody spoke.

    Old Paedr had a gaggle of his kids with him ¨C not including Young Paedr ¨C and they were all trying to get behind his back. He himself planted his feet wide and firm, and stared at Hawk. I pulled my eyes away ¨C it¡¯s a shaman¡¯s job to look where I¡¯m not supposed to ¨C and noticed the rope Old Paedr was holding. There was no sign of a dog; what was it tied to?

    And nobody spoke.

    At last Old Paedr spoke. ¡°Well, if it ben¡¯t my recent guests! Daring to show your face in a civilised town? Of course, you think our clothes will disguise you! Or are your Spirits guarding you, d¡¯you think?¡± He laughed.

    ¡°Is your arm healing well?¡± I enquired sweetly.

    Old Paedr frowned. ¡°Yes, damn you, it¡¯s healing, I grant you that.¡±

    ¡°And your son is fully recovered from his sickness? Your daughters, too, have had no ill effects, I trust?¡± added Hawk.

    Old Paedr appeared to execute a controlled explosion. ¡°You think yourselves so high and mighty, so civilised, just because you got lucky, but thieves you were and thieves you are, the lot of you. And so is this brat you¡¯ve corrupted ¨C just a thief and a savage, just like you!¡± He pulled viciously on the rope, and little Geivin swung in front of him; the rope was tied tight round his waist, and there was a line of blood along it. As the kid swung round I saw he had blood on his tunic ¨C stripes of blood all down the back.

    ¡°You¡¯ve been beating him?¡± I hissed. ¡°Why?¡± I was going to say more, but I didn¡¯t trust my voice.

    ¡°To get the nonsense out of him! All this damned superstitious nonsense about Spirits that you¡¯ve managed to infect him with!¡± Paedr swung Geivin round again, this time by one arm; the poor kid whimpered as the arm twisted. ¡°The only way with superstition ¨C beat it out of him. If that works not, beat him some more.¡±

    ¡°Until you kill him!¡± I was still fighting to keep control. ¡°Is that what you¡¯re going to do ¨C kill your own son?¡±

    ¡°Tell me not what to do with my own!¡± he shouted. ¡°He ben¡¯t my son, no more. Here ¨C take him, if you¡¯re so worried. He ben¡¯t my son, nomore!¡± Old Paedr was bright red in the face. He swung poor little Geivin around yet again, almost off the ground, and flung him against me. ¡°Go on, take him ¨C I only brought him here to see if there was anyone who¡¯d take him off my hands.¡± He flung the rope in my face. ¡°I was hoping for some gold for him ¨C but I care not that much, as long as I¡¯m rid of him! Now you can sell him for dog food instead ¨C look how generous I am!¡± He turned and walked off, the rest of his family following disconsolately in his wake. Then suddenly he turned back. ¡°And if I see you in this town after today, I¡¯ll have you hanged for theft and banditry ¨C I swear I will. The brat as well.¡± He turned away again, and the whole gang were lost in the crowd.

    Geivin had his arms wrapped round my waist, his face buried in my dress, and was weeping his poor little heart out. I had every sympathy.

    Hawk looked quickly round. ¡°Look ¨C over beyond the pigs, there¡¯s a quiet area by the river. Let¡¯s go over there.¡±

    It was quiet; the river bank was more than a man height above the water, and was broken by landslips. We easily found a hidden nook among the bushes, under the bank.

    ¡°D¡¯you suppose he meant it?¡± asked Hawk. ¡°Really giving away¡­ giving away his own son?¡±

    Hello, I thought: it¡¯s touched a nerve in Hawk. I need to tread carefully.

    ¡°It may be a trap,¡± Stack looked round for a last time and sat down. ¡°He might be calling us child-stealers to whoever¡¯s chief around here.¡±

    I hadn¡¯t thought of that; it sounded unpleasantly likely to me. I unwound Geivin¡¯s arms, eased him away from my dress and untied the rope. ¡°Did your father mean it?¡± I asked him. ¡°Was he really going to sell you?¡±

    He nodded, the tears still wetting his face, his nose running down to his mouth. ¡°H-he said I was no s-son of his, if I believed in the Spirits. H-he said if he could beat it not out of me h-he w-wanted me not d-dirtying his house any more. He said he¡¯d sell me for d-dog food if h-he could find no b-better!¡±

    ¡°Has he beaten you badly? Let me see. May I see under your tunic?¡±

    Geivin nodded, and peeled off his tunic. There must have been a dozen weals across his back, some from a stick, some from a strap or a rope. There was blood on his breeches as well; he slowly and painfully eased them over his buttocks and down to the ground. There were so many weals that they overlapped, and I couldn¡¯t be sure how many there were, but it was at the very least another twenty on his buttocks and the backs of his thighs. There were even weals across his belly and chest, across his upper arms, and one across the front of his thighs. On an eight-year-old boy. This was bad.

    ¡°His father meant it,¡± I said.

    I worked for nearly an hour, easing blood-salves into the cuts and splits, smoothing blow-salves into the worst of the bruising, and stitching up the four worst cuts on his buttocks. He was too young to be overproud; he whimpered and cried out when I hurt him ¨C but he never asked me to stop.

    ¡°You are a very brave boy,¡± I said.

    ¡°Yes,¡± said Stack. ¡°You should be proud.¡±

    ¡°From Stack, that¡¯s a compliment indeed,¡± I added. ¡°Stack is our Champion because of his bravery. He knows what he¡¯s talking about.¡±

    Stack actually smiled ¨C a very brief smile, but he did!

    Geivin hugged me again, and then he stepped back. His lip was trembling, and he had an ¡®I am trying to be brave¡¯ face. ¡°What a-are you going to do with me?¡± he asked. ¡°Are you going to sell me f-for dog food?¡±

    All three of us opened our mouths to say something, but he hurried on. ¡°I-I mind not, honestly, b-because you¡¯ve been kind to me, but I-I just wanted to¡­¡± His lip was threatening to tremble out of control.

    I put my arms around him, as gently as possible, and trying to avoid the worst damage. ¡°We are not going to sell you for dogfood,¡± I said. ¡°We are not going to sell you at all. Are we?¡± I said to the others.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

    ¡°No!¡± they both replied. Good boys.

    ¡°He¡¯s clever, and he has information we can use, as well. He¡¯s valuable now, and one day he¡¯ll be more valuable still, even if his father¡­¡± Hawk¡¯s voice tailed off.

    ¡°He¡¯s brave, and faces danger bravely. He deserves to be in our Tribe,¡± added Stack.

    Geivin looked round at us, a watery smile on his trembling lips. Then he ran forward and hugged Hawk¡¯s legs. Hawk smiled, and hugged the boy¡¯s head to him.

    ¡°Yes,¡± he said, ¡°he deserves to be in our Tribe.¡±

    Very neat. He might be only eight, but this kid was a master of moral blackmail. I was beginning to wonder whether I was going to regret this.

    They untangled, and I looked into Geivin¡¯s eyes. ¡°Do you want to?¡± I asked him. ¡°It¡¯s your choice. We can sell you as a slave,¡± if only we knew how! I thought, ¡°or we can take you back to your father and to your family, and I¡¯m sure your father will have you back once his temper¡¯s cooled down, or you can choose to join our Tribe, if the Chief here will let you ¨C and I believe he will. What do you choose?¡±

    ¡°I want to be in your Tribe!¡± he exclaimed, and yet again his arms went round my dress.

    I suddenly realised I didn¡¯t know how to clean snivel off cloth. ¡°OK,¡± I said. ¡°Now come down to the river and wash your face, and I¡¯ll have a go at your tunic.¡±

    Twenty minutes later, we had a campfire going, well out of the town, grilling the last of the deer meat.

    Hawk turned to Geivin. ¡°Look, Geivin, there¡¯s still things we need to do before you count as a proper Tribe member, but we can¡¯t do them just now. But we need your help now. We¡¯re from the south, from the Longwoods, and we don¡¯t know how things are done here.¡±

    Geivin looked surprised. ¡°What d¡¯you mean?¡± he sprayed through hot fat.

    ¡°Well,¡± I said, ¡°for example, when we make a deal we hold out our hands and put one palm against the other. When your father pretended to make a deal with me he held my hand round the palm with his fingers. You do things differently, and we don¡¯t always know how you do things.¡±

    Hawk nodded. ¡°And we don¡¯t always know what is safe, with this place being so different. I mean, was your father bluffing when he said he could have us hanged? And I assume hanging kills you, does it?¡±

    Geivin was wide-eyed. ¡°Yes, of course you die; everybody knows that. They put a rope round your neck and pull you up off the ground. Your eyes pop out, your face goes red and then black, your tongue sticks out, and you ¨C you¡­¡± I thought he was going to be sick, but he pulled himself together. ¡°You jerk and dance on the end of the rope until you die.¡±

    Stack was suddenly interested. ¡°You¡¯ve seen it?¡±

    ¡°Oh yes, lots of times. I can show you where they do it, if you like.¡±

    ¡°So he could get us hanged?¡± Hawk pulled us back to the essential point. Always the cautious one.

    Geivin nodded. ¡°Yes, but you¡¯ll let him not, will you? And anyway they¡¯d probably throw us out first.¡±

    ¡°Throw us out? Of the town?¡±

    ¡°Yes of course. Savages are supposed to be allowed not in Brothy, even on market day. Everybody knows that.¡± He looked up, biting his lip. ¡°Sorry! Sorry! It just slipped out. I meant not that you, I mean¡­¡±

    Hawk ruffled the lad¡¯s hair. ¡°That¡¯s OK,¡± he said, ¡°We¡¯re getting used to it. But say Tent Folk instead, it sounds better.¡±

    ¡°Seer¡¯s idea,¡± added Stack. Oh, someone remembered! That¡¯s a first.

    But that¡¯s answered one of my questions: why hadn¡¯t we known about it? Brothy¡¯s only a week¡¯s walk from the Longwoods, and just a few days from the Mistwaters. The Mistwaters probably did know, but knew they weren¡¯t welcome, so they didn¡¯t bother telling us. It hadn¡¯t come up casually because our contacts with the other Tribes had dropped off, and that was because our Shaman wasn¡¯t doing her job.

    That was hard to say even to myself: my mother wasn¡¯t doing her job. The Longwoods hadn¡¯t had a proper shaman since my Nan died.

    Would I ever be a proper shaman?

    I needed to stop this. Get back to facts. ¡°How often is market day?¡±

    ¡°There¡¯s Little Market every seven days, but that¡¯s nothing. Big Market is every fourth one. Everybody knows that. But they start again each quarter.¡±

    ¡°Start again? How d¡¯you mean?¡±

    ¡°Well, they¡¯re meant to be every new moon. But the Moon works not like that, exactly seven days, so every third full moon they put it right. Have you seen not the Heads?¡±

    Five minutes later we were right at the far end of the glade ¨C but Geivin informed us firmly that it¡¯s not called a glade; it¡¯s the Marketplace. Everybody knew that. There, one of the house walls was double height, and in front of it there was a wooden platform, man high, with a high fence running along each side; the front was open and had three ladders running up to it.

    ¡°See,¡± said Geivin, pointing. ¡°That¡¯s where they announce things from.¡±

    As we stood there, a man in a fine blue coat with lots of gold on it climbed up a ladder onto the platform, and blew a horn.

    ¡°Hear this!¡± he shouted. ¡°Hear this! Hear this!¡±

    The crowds began to gather around, and he paused to let them settle.

    ¡°Hear this!¡± he called yet again. ¡°The weight proving will take place at noon today. All weights used in this market from next market day onward must carry today¡¯s mark, at risk of pillory.¡±

    Geivin nudged us. ¡°He¡¯ll say that again in an hour¡¯s time, and again after that.¡±

    ¡°What¡¯s pillory?¡± asked Stack.

    ¡°Oh that¡¯s ¨C er ¨C well, do you¨C¡± but at that moment the loud man started up again.

    ¡°Hear this! Hear this! Hear this! Chaig Melfon has been duly proved before the mayor and shown to sell bread below proof weight, and shall either leave Brothy for ever or stand in the pillory for one hour. He has chosen the pillory.¡±

    A big man, just wearing breeches, was led onto the platform and over to the fence at one side, There he was tied to the crossbar by his neck and both wrists. It wasn¡¯t tight enough to strangle him, and he could kneel down so he wasn¡¯t too bent over, but he wasn¡¯t comfortable, and his wrists were well away from his face so he couldn¡¯t even waft away the flies.

    A shout went up from the crowd, and several lads began throwing rotten eggs and bits of squashed fruit at him. He didn¡¯t look happy.

    Geivin tugged my sleeve. ¡°That¡¯s pillory!¡± he said. ¡°But d¡¯you see the Heads on the wall?¡±

    Above the platform there were indeed seven leather ovals, each with a face painted on it, all in a row.

    ¡°Seven, so next market day is in seven days. Come here tomorrow and there¡¯ll be six heads, and the day after there¡¯ll be five, and the ¨C¡±

    ¡°Yes, yes. And each market day they put all seven back.¡±

    ¡°Except once a quarter, at the Full Moon market, they don¡¯t. They wait until the real full moon, and then they put up the Heads. So it goes back into place.¡±

    Hawk looked at me. ¡°Is this making any sense to you, Seer?¡±

    ¡°Oh, yes.¡± This was proper shaman business; I understood very well. They would be a day and a half short every month; that¡¯s four and a half every quarter. They¡¯d need to correct it somehow, or else ignore the Moon altogether.

    ¡°Good. I¡¯m glad someone does. We¡¯d better move; someone might recognise Geivin here and start asking questions.¡±

    We dragged Stack away with some difficulty, and found a quiet corner ¨C yet again ¨C to try and decide what to do.

    ¡°Can we buy a dozen of wet nellies?¡± asked Geivin. ¡°Can we? Pleeease? Pleeeeease?¡±

    ¡°Mm,¡± I said. ¡°Well, firstly, what are wet nellies, secondly, how do we buy, and thirdly, we haven¡¯t anything to sell.¡±

    Geivin very kindly and condescendingly proceeded to enlighten us.

    For the record, wet nellies are breads soaked in honey ¨C but everybody knows that; and you buy them by going up to the man and giving him a ring.

    ¡°A ring? Like this?¡±

    ¡°No of course not! A gold ring! From a chain!¡± He looked at our blank faces and sighed right from his toes. ¡°You have a bit of caul with a gold ring threaded in it and another ring threaded on that and another ring threaded on that till you¡¯ve got twelve rings in a chain.¡±

    ¡°But doesn¡¯t it matter that they¡¯re big rings or small?¡± Hawk looked completely lost.

    Geivin did his sigh again. ¡°They¡¯re all the same size so the man can check if you¡¯re cheating him. Everybody knows that. The rings are tiny, like¡­ those.¡± He pointed to the little gold chains that I¡¯d drooled over earlier.

    I nodded. ¡°But we still don¡¯t have anything to sell, so we can¡¯t get these rings to buy. And won¡¯t the local chief throw us out if we start trading?¡±

    Geivin looked at me as if I was stupid. Again. ¡°You have to pay market toll of three rings, of course, if you¡¯re trading in the Square. Everybody knows that! But,¡± he pointed to the part of the Square by the river. ¡°There¡¯s a special bit there, called the Freeland. You can trade there without toll, as long as you bring everything on your back and understand there ben¡¯t any protection. A lot of people use it when they¡¯ve only got a little bit to sell, that ben¡¯t worth the toll. Specially women.¡±

    ¡°But we still don¡¯t have anything to sell.¡±

    ¡°You can sell salves!¡± he said. ¡°You¡¯ve got lots, and you¡¯ll sell them easy!¡±

    Yeah, right. And as usual it¡¯s the shaman who has to do the work.

 Chapter 19 - Trading

    Geivin gave me some coaching, then I watched the other traders for a bit, how they used their friends to start a crowd, how they talked, how they played games with the prices, till I reckoned I¡¯d got the hang of it. They were just ordinary Singer¡¯s tricks they were using; it was easy. For a Singer. Which I¡¯m not.

    We had a trial run under Geivin¡¯s watchful eye. Then I set myself up on a patch of trodden grass, with Geivin tucked in behind me to help. The other two were my starter audience.

    ¡°Secrets of the Savages!¡± I called ¨C well, sort of shook. Then I told myself not to be silly; imagine you¡¯re on a dancing floor, girl, giving a message. ¡°Salves that cure as you¡¯d never dreamed!¡± My voice steadied. ¡°All the secrets of the savages, handed down from the Elders, from the very Elves themselves! Abscesses, infected wounds, cracks, chilblains all cured with the secrets of the savages!¡±

    ¡°Secrets of the savages, woman?¡± sneered a farmer. ¡°Then how did you get them?¡±

    ¡°Disguised myself as one of them, and lived among them for a whole year, stealing all their most secret recipes,¡± I replied. Then I dropped the pitch of my voice. ¡°When one tribe got suspicious, I¡¯d sneak off to the next.¡± I edged my tone. ¡°A whole year of mortal danger, and you can buy it for just a handful of rings!¡±

    I was attracting quite a crowd, now. Then I realised: it was just like a shaman declaring her message! I can do this!

    ¡°So you just walk into one of these tribes, just like that? Just a stray woman?¡± someone else asked.

    Horror filled my voice. ¡°No, no! It took me a month to prepare, to dress myself up as one of their shamans, their medicine women.¡± I became more matter-of-fact. ¡°They¡¯re always trusted, and never harmed or even touched. That¡¯s how I learned so much!¡± It was working! I can do this! Now, concentrate. ¡°See, a salve that will clear up an infected wound in a week, heal it in a fortnight, even if it¡¯s a month old!¡± Let the volume lift, but don¡¯t lift pitch, girl ¨C you mustn¡¯t squeak! ¡°A miracle? No, a secret of the savages, a secret of the Elves that only these ancient savages have preserved.¡± Pause, and lighten tone. ¡°We¡¯ve lost so much!¡± Pause, and slow and heavy again. ¡°See, a salve that will cure mouth ulcers in three days ¨C you can feel it stopping the pain the moment you put it on!¡± Shorter pause, and faster. ¡°See, a salve for chilblains ¨C cured in a week!¡± Now give it them! ¡°Secrets of the Elves, hidden in the depths of the trackless woods, preserved by the savages!¡±

    ¡°They go naked, don¡¯t they? Did you go naked, lady? Can you show us?¡±

    OK, that threw me. Geivin whispered behind me, and I repeated it. ¡°Sure ¨C after you!¡± It wasn¡¯t brilliant, but it raised a laugh, and it was better than anything I could think of. Now back to the script, voice natural. ¡°No, I told you, I dressed as a medicine woman.¡± Drop volume but project ¨C tell the secret. ¡°They have special robes and trappings, with complicated ties and straps, and every detail had to be exactly right or I would have been tortured to death!¡± Now lift it! ¡°See how much I¡¯ve had to go through to get these salves back just for you! Now who¡¯s going to buy?¡±

    ¡°How much for the chilblain salve?¡±

    ¡°Thirty ¨C no, for you, sir, twenty-four rings. Two chains. But it¡¯s my last few jars of chilblain salve, and you look honest; just a chain to get rid of it. A deal? There you are, sir. My man¡¯s got my gauge so I¡¯ll have to trust you, but I said, you look like an honest man. And for you, lady? Thank you. The abscess salve? That¡¯s got some very rare and strange ingredients in. Seventy ¨C no, let¡¯s call it sixty. Five chains, sir, since you¡¯ve no way of knowing if you can trust me or not, I¡¯ll let you take it for so little. Four chains? Oh, no, sorry. I¡¯m almost giving it away as it is. I might just shave three rings off, but no more. Oh, all right. Four and a half ¨C no. I¡¯ll prove I can be generous, fifty rings. Done. Here you are, sir.¡±

    It was easy; just like being a shaman. I sold seven pots of salve, and made over sixteen chains ¨C nearly two hundred rings.

    ¡°The test is next market day,¡± said Hawk. ¡°Whether your customers come back for more, or try to kill you.¡±

    I sniffed. ¡°I need more little pots.¡±

    ¡°The potters are mostly over there,¡± Geivin pointed across the Marketplace ¨C strange how everything involved crossing the full length of the Marketplace.

    ¡°Of course they are,¡± said Hawk, ¡°Everybody knows that.¡±

    Geivin ignored him. ¡°But can¡¯t we stop for some wet nellies? Pleeease?¡±

    So we did ¨C and he was right; they were well worth a ring or two.

    We found a potter who was making little glazed pots by the basketful. We spent two chains ¨C twenty-four rings, or two pots of chilblain salve ¨C on a hundred of them.

    ¡°We make these ourselves back in the Longwoods,¡± said Hawk. ¡°These¡¯d be worth a couple of deerskins.¡±

    ¡°What are deerskins worth here?¡± asked Stack.

    ¡°I¡¯ll show you,¡± said Geivin. But we were interrupted by a voice like a flint scratching rock.

    ¡°Pleease good sirs good lydy a link or two of your kaindness good sirs good lydy it¡¯s not for me it¡¯s for my byby here good lydy see he¡¯s etten not for a daiy we be triuly hungry lydy it¡¯s only a link or so jiust for a maouthful of food ¨C¡±

    Stack had turned to listen to her but Geivin pulled us away.

    ¡°Talk not to beggars!¡± he muttered. ¡°Listen them not! Give them no attention! Walk away!¡±

    ¡°But if she just wants a bit of food for her baby,¡± I began

    ¡°Listen not!¡± An earnest hand was dragging me by the sleeve. ¡°How d¡¯you know she just wants it for her baby? She¡¯s just a beggar. Listen not never ever to beggars!¡± and suddenly I was hearing old Peidr¡¯s voice coming out of Geivin¡¯s mouth.

    The woman had found some new victims, but Stack was still staring at her. ¡°You mean people give her rings just for asking?¡±

    ¡°Come away!¡± Geivin tugged at his sleeve as well. ¡°Come away from such folk!¡±

    Stack looked at me and we both shrugged. But we did as we were told, for the moment, and Geivin took us to see about deerskins.

    It was the other side of the Marketplace ¨C yet again. In two of the furthest stalls were two faces we recognised. They were dressed differently; when they came to us they wore skins and cloaks; but we still knew them. Travelling Folk.

    There were two huge carts roofed over with wooden planks parked end to end across the end of the row; there were planks bridging the gap between them. They had six huge wheels each, and I¡¯d say they were easily ten times the size of the tacky little two wheelers we use to carry tent poles around from camp to camp. We took cover behind them and listened.Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    A customer walked up.

    ¡°Any deerhides?¡±

    ¡°One or two. They¡¯re getting very scarce, now.¡± The trader pulled a deerskin out from the pack.

    ¡°That¡¯s one of mine!¡± hissed Stack. ¡°Look, there¡¯s the shoulder tear where my first stone smashed the bone! That was in a stack of twenty ¨C they gave us two knives for them.¡±

    There was a bargaining session going on, but we couldn¡¯t catch all the details. We did hear the final deal, though.

    ¡°Nine chains four. Done.¡± And they struck hands.

    ¡°One hundred and eighty ¨C one hundred and eightysix chains and eight rings! That¡¯s ¨C er ¨C two thousand two hundred and forty rings! That¡¯s what they¡¯d¡¯ve got for the stack!¡± I was stunned.

    So was Stack. ¡°And they paid us with two crappy knives, not worth a chain! Bastards!¡±

    ¡°But we can¡¯t sell them here directly because Tent Folk aren¡¯t allowed in Brothy,¡± mused Hawk. ¡°Now, who d¡¯you suppose brought that ban in?¡±

    But I was looking elsewhere. I nudged Hawk. ¡°Geivin¡¯s tiring,¡± I murmured, ¡°and the painkillers will be wearing off. We ought to stop soon.¡±

    He nodded.

    A couple of rings bought us a big loaf of bread. But we also needed a skin for Geivin to sleep under; and that was when things went wrong.

    Hawk was checking through a pile of sheepskins, and I saw a nice one and Hawk pulled it out for me to get a better look. The woman was all smiles ¨C and then her face changed.

    ¡°Your hands!¡± she exclaimed. ¡°Your hands! You¡¯re painted ¨C all of you, you¡¯re painted!¡±

    ¡°They¡¯re just tattoos,¡± began Hawk, but she had turned on her heel.

    ¡°Savages!¡± she screamed. ¡°These people are savages!¡± A crowd gathered instantly from nowhere. ¡°They¡¯re painted savages! They¡¯ve stolen clothes like the thieves they are ¨C and look, this bitch is stealing my sheepskin!¡±

    I dropped it, but it was too late. The crowd was smouldering. Hawk picked up Geivin, Stack moved in front of us all, and I slipped gently to the back.

    ¡°Savages!¡± the woman screamed again, and this time voices repeated it: ¡°Savages!¡± ¡°Savages!¡± ¡°Savages!¡±

    Stack stepped forward, and suddenly shouted, stretching out his arms and girning a hideous face. The crowd stepped one pace back. ¡°Run!¡± he shouted ¨C but we already were.

    The crowd chased us the length of the Marketplace, along the weavers¡¯ street, and back into the far end of the Marketplace, by the Travelling Folk. A man was standing there, by one of the carts; he beckoned us across and we ran to him and into the cart as he slammed the door behind us, The space inside was amazing. Amazingly tight.

    ¡°There they go!¡± I heard him shout. ¡°Look ¨C over by the pigs! Go get them!¡± I heard the mob rumble past, and then it was quiet. He turned back to us.

    ¡°What the hell do you think you¡¯re playing at!¡± said the man ¨C well, I say man, but he wasn¡¯t that much older than us. Much cleaner and smoother, though, and plumper, too. ¡°This is precisely why we pay your chief to keep you all away from here! Can you take not orders any more?¡±

    ¡°Why should they?¡± came a woman¡¯s voice from further in the cart. ¡°You can never.¡±

    Hawk appeared to have some difficulty with his voice, but give him credit, he had it under control after a few words. ¡°We are not of the Mistwater Tribe, and I think it is the Mistwater Tribe Chief that you have an agreement with. We have spoken with the Mistwater Chief, but he told us nothing of this town or of your agreement with him.¡±

    ¡°Yes. Nobody tells you anything.¡± It was a man¡¯s voice this time. ¡°Just like here.¡±

    Our host sighed. ¡°So why are you here?¡±

    ¡°We were travelling eastward, and lost our way on the open land, turning too far north.¡±

    ¡°And you were aiming for?¡±

    ¡°I think our shaman could explain that better.¡±

    I stepped forward slightly. ¡°We had heard a tale of two Power Hills to the east,¡± I said, ¡°and we were trying to find out what truth there was in the tale.¡±

    ¡°Now would you believe it!¡± came the hidden man¡¯s voice. ¡°A woman who speaks not till she¡¯s told to! I¡¯ve always said these folk were far ahead of us in some ways.¡±

    There was the sound of an open hand connecting with something soft. Like a face.

    ¡°If you did less talking and more counting,¡± came the woman¡¯s voice, ¡°I would need not to be nagging you! You leave Deis to deal with these folk and get these damn rings checked!¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ve heard the tale, of course,¡± said Deis ¨C slightly desperately, I thought. ¡°But how much truth there is in it I know not ¨C I¡¯ve been seeing the Sendry but once, and that far north, at Fleot, and never crossing it then.¡±

    ¡°Sendry? That¡¯s the name of the big river, is it?¡±

    ¡°Yes. But look, the mob¡¯ll¡¯ve died down now. You should be able to get away easy if you¡¯re care-¡± but at that moment the door was flung open.

    ¡°Hey!¡± a lad shouted outside. ¡°There¡¯s been some savages robbing some of the market stalls, and the mayor¡¯s called them for a hundred! A hundred! Can I try for them, d¡¯y¡¯think? ¨C Oh.¡± The lad sidled into the cart.

    ¡°Make your greeting, Teyid,¡± said Deis. ¡°Our guests are folk from one of the tribes to the south.¡±

    ¡°Oh, sorry. Er, I¡¯m Teyid.¡± Teyid held out his hand, but Deis murmured something. ¡°Er, I mean, Teyid Retty¡¯s son at your service.¡± Teyid didn¡¯t seem quite sure who to aim his hand at. Hawk took it ¨C just to put him out of his misery, I suspect.

    ¡°Hawk-on-high-bough son of Rope-tight-woven of the Causeway Tribe at your service,¡± he said. ¡°I believe we may be the people you referred to. What exactly does ¡®calling us for a hundred¡¯ entail?¡±

    The boy ¨C he was no more than eleven, I guessed, lithe and much darker than Deis, but obviously related ¨C the boy stammered a moment, but finally got some words together. ¡°If anyone brings the mayor proof of your death, he¡¯ll pay one hundred chains.¡±

    ¡°Nice idea,¡± muttered Stack.

    ¡°Yes, nice idea,¡± I echoed. ¡°So anyone can kill a random stranger, chop the head off, and claim it¡¯s one of us.¡±

    Deis laughed. ¡°I expect they would prefer a big patch of tattooed skin. But a hundred¡¯s far too much.¡± He looked at Teyid. ¡°Mam and Da are in the back cart, doing the reckoning. Go through and help.¡±

    ¡°Aaawww!¡± But he went.

    Deis turned to us. ¡°And ¨C but look, you¡¯ve got to get away. A hundred¡¯s a lot, and there¡¯s some folk in this town with a real hate of sa ¨C er ¨C I mean...¡±

    ¡°Tent Folk,¡± I said firmly.

    ¡°Tent Folk!¡± It was almost as if he were tasting the words. ¡°Tent Folk. Nice one. OK, yes, there¡¯s some folk who really hate Tent Folk, and the hundred¡¯ll just turn up the heat. You ben¡¯t safe here now. You¡¯re going southeast ¨C did I understand you?¡±

    ¡°Yes. Roughly, anyway. But you can give us better advice, surely, if you please? Would you tell us where we can cross the Sendry?¡±

    ¡°I said, I''ve come never even as far south as Glossot, not on the Sendry, but I know what is said.¡± He puffed his cheeks out. ¡°Glossot¡¯s the only bridge, but they name places further down where you might get someone to ferry you across. There''s a place called Nonnot with a proper ferry to take a cart, at least in the summer.¡± He paused again. ¡°Glossot¡¯s more or less east, but there¡¯s mountains in the way. You should go southeast to Behennot, if it''s a real place and not just a story, and then northeast.¡±

    ¡°Why do they all end in ¨Cot?¡± OK, it wasn¡¯t important, but shamans ask questions.

    ¡°No idea. But there¡¯s Chessot well to the south of Nonnot as well ¨C that¡¯s where the Aivly joins the Sendry, but you¡¯ll cross not the Sendry there, so they say. ¡± He shook himself. ¡°Look, you¡¯ve got to get out now. You can go south ¨C¡±

    ¡°No they can not ¨C not by road. First place the rats¡¯ll look.¡± The man¡¯s voice seemed a little more distracted than before.

    ¡°OK, not south. But southeast, you¡¯ve got to cross the river. That means north across the Town Ford, or ¨C¡±

    ¡°They have no chance that way either.¡±

    ¡°OR ¨C OR THE SLAPFORD. NOW I¡¯M SAYING NOT THAT WILL have no guard,¡± his voice dropped back to normal pitch, ¡°but it¡¯s narrow, so you¡¯ll be able to spot an ambush.¡±

    ¡°So how do we get that far safely?¡± Good old Hawk, always straight to the main point.

    ¡°Get out of here now, while there¡¯s still plenty of people around. East to the river, follow it to where a stream comes in from your right. Follow the stream ¨C it¡¯s steep ¨C until you¡¯re on a shelf that becomes a valley right. You go left, the shelf loses its other wall and becomes a ridge dropping to the river. It¡¯s marsh on both sides. Then cross the river on the same line. Turn right in the village and follow the road to Bulken. Nasty place, but you¡¯ll be well out of things by then. Now go!¡±

    ¡°And forget not to put in a good word for us with your chiefs!¡± called the woman.

    The shelf that the stream tumbled out of turned out to be the valley we¡¯d been sleeping in; so we slept in our shelters. It was a chance, but we guessed that if they were sure they could catch us on the roads they wouldn¡¯t waste time in useless searches. We hadn¡¯t managed to buy a hide for Geivin to sleep under, so after I¡¯d salved him again he slept with me. Fortunately he was on the downhill side facing out, so when he wet himself in the night it drained away from us and I stayed dry. It shouldn¡¯t have been fortunate: it should have been expected. I should have expected it. A proper shaman would have. But I didn¡¯t.

 Chapter 20 - Deceit

    We woke at dawn, but by the time we¡¯d cleaned ourselves up and dried off the cloak and Geivin had thrown a tantrum and then had a big weep on my bosom, and I¡¯d salved those cuts which still needed it, it was later than would have been perfect. And it was a bright, clear day in which you could see a mouse at a thousand paces. Just when we wanted rain or fog or dark cloud. Great.

    Stack organised us ¨C it was his right as Champion ¨C and so we packed away our clothes and smeared mud on our skins, not in solid areas but in stripes and spots, hunter fashion. I did Geivin ¨C I didn¡¯t quite like the idea of mud in the open weals, and I didn¡¯t trust anyone else to be careful. Then I reminded Geivin that this was for real and he could get hanged if he made the slightest noise, and we crept off.

    Stack scouted in front, Hawk well behind him, Geivin and I at the back. Stack led us a little above the valley bottom, on the side opposite the village, so when we found the stream we were almost a tent-height above it.

    Stack nudged us and gestured silence, but he didn¡¯t need to. Even I could see the thin spiral of smoke just where the stream disappeared off the shelf.

    Stack and Hawk whispered in each other¡¯s ears, Stack pointed to a buzzard floating across the valley, and slithered away into the undergrowth. Hawk caught my eye, then led us up the valley side, one step at a time, until the slope began to level off. There we sat under a hazel thicket. Hawk¡¯s lips were moving rhythmically, and he was counting something on his fingers ¨C minutes, presumably, because when the last finger went down he stood up and gave very creditable imitation of a buzzard¡¯s mew. He stayed standing for ten seconds or so, and then he sat down and began counting all over again. Seven times he did this without any visible effect, but the eighth time another buzzard call floated out from somewhere below us. A minute or so later Hawk repeated his mew, and almost at once Stack crawled out from the thicket below us and joined us under the hazels.

    ¡°Three,¡± he whispered. ¡°Their camp is crude, they¡¯ve been there all night, they¡¯re cold and wet, they¡¯ve hardly slept, they¡¯re just about to give up and go home. But there¡¯s another camp further along, where the slope on this side fades out. It¡¯s four people, it controls this valley, and it¡¯s got a brilliant view of the ford and all the land around it. And one of them had arrows in a thing on his ¨C maybe her ¨C back, and a thing which must be a bow in her hand.¡±

    ¡°A woman brave?¡± Hawk¡¯s eyebrows were almost in his scalp.

    ¡°Don¡¯t be stupid,¡± I said, ¡°She¡¯s not fighting face to face. But I¡¯ve heard tales of tribes with bows where the men do the hard fighting, face to face, but the women do the distant stuff with bows and arrows.¡±

    ¡°Shh!¡± Stack waved at us. ¡°Anyway, two ¨C I mean three ¨C against four; not good odds.¡±

    ¡°Can we slip past?¡± Hawk¡¯s voice was no more than a breath.

    ¡°We hunters might. A shaman ¨C I doubt it, and not with a child.¡±

    There was a long, long, long silence.

    ¡°Shamans aren¡¯t tattooed,¡± whispered Stack.

    We looked at him.

    ¡°If Seer put her dress on and washed her hands and face, who¡¯s to say she¡¯s Tent Folk?¡±

    ¡°And she could take Geivin. He looks right too.¡± Hawk nodded. ¡°Easy. Let¡¯s do it.¡±

    Easy ¨C when someone else has to do it.

    So, twenty minutes later a clean and dressed ¨C though slightly creased ¨C young lady strolled toward the camp with her little boy.

    ¡°Hello,¡± I chattered. ¡°Not in your way, am I? I just need to gather some pennywort. And I think I saw some lady¡¯s mantle ¨C Yes! I did! Look, over there! Oh now that¡¯s good. Now I won¡¯t trouble you any further. You¡¯re after partridges, I suppose, are you? Good luck!¡± And having scared off every partridge for a thousand paces I drifted off down the ridge. Hawk was right; it was easy.

    But my hunters¡¯ task was not. The ridge was bare for a couple of paces either side where it left the hill, but the bare patch spread downhill; at the ford it was a good fifteen or twenty paces wide each side. Even hunters couldn¡¯t hide there. I saw Hawk and Stack break cover and run for the ford in front of me as I heard shouts behind. I paused. The four watchers came running past me ¨C it was still eighty paces or so to the ford ¨C and ran on, waving spears; but the woman with the bow stopped twenty paces in front of me.

    I ran up to her. ¡°Look!¡± I said grabbing her arm just as she was going to shoot. ¡°It¡¯s those savages everyone¡¯s talking about! Look! Look!¡± I shook her arm to make my point. ¡°They¡¯re getting away! Do something!¡±

    ¡°I would if you¡¯d let me!¡± she snapped ¨C with really quite uncalled for rudeness, I thought, and picked up her arrow again out of some brambles.

    ¡°But I¡¯ve got to go that way!¡± I wailed, and grabbed her arm again. ¡°What if they¡¯re hiding down there!¡±

    ¡°Oh ¨C go round through the town, woman!¡± she snapped, and this time managed to evade my ever-clutching hand.

    ¡°Oh, yes! That¡¯s a good idea! Yes, I¡¯ll do that at once!¡± and, satisfied that Hawk and Stack were safe from arrows I trotted back up the track and through the watchers¡¯ camp. I picked up their packs, hid in a nearby thicket, removed all the contents ¨C I didn¡¯t have time to pick and choose ¨C filled them again with leaves and stones and returned the packs to the camp. Every little helps.

    Once I was hidden again I went through my spoils; warm overclothes and dry bread mostly, a little packet of herbs I recognised ¨C somebody had skin trouble ¨C and a heavy bar of waxy stuff that I didn¡¯t recognise.

    ¡°What¡¯s this?¡± I spoke aloud by accident.

    ¡°Soap,¡± whispered Geivin. ¡°That¡¯s soap. Everyb¨C¡±

    ¡°¨Cbody knows that,¡± I interrupted. ¡°What¡¯s it for?¡±

    ¡°You rub it on wet when you want something really clean. Hot water¡¯s best. It¡¯s ex-pen-sive, so you must be careful to use not too much and you must leave it never ever in the water.¡±

    ¡°OK.¡± Something else I¡¯ve learned. ¡°Let¡¯s try it on your tunic.¡±

    It worked. Amazingly. But it smelt awful until I¡¯d rinsed all the soap out again. What is soap made of: year-old dead crows?This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    Then we walked back through the town. It was almost empty, and felt depressed; the scars and debris of market day showed wherever you looked. We crossed the Town Ford without difficulty; the water was fast, but it didn¡¯t even come up to my ankles. We came to a crossroads and turned right, eastwards, and a thousand leisurely paces took us to the other end of the Slapford. And trouble.

    Two lads and an older man were standing there, staring intently out at the ford. I didn¡¯t need to look to guess what they were staring at. At the other end of the ford I could see another knot of figures, including the woman whose aim I had sabotaged earlier. And I could see the sun glinting off the flint of her arrow tip.

    The ford itself was double; a wide shallow ridge ran out from my archer friend¡¯s feet and swung out left to a long thin island in the river, and a second ridge on the same line swung back to run into the bank twenty paces or so away from me. The ridges seemed to be made of huge slabs of stone, either just washed over by the river or just clear of it. A beetle couldn¡¯t cross either ford without being seen.

    OK, nothing of interest there. It was the island that mattered.

    The island was flat and gravelly, and thick with brushwood and stunted trees; but where the fords met it, there was a rocky outcrop, almost a hill, twice man height, with almost nothing growing on it.

    Where were they? On the hill or in the brush? If they were still hoping to cross, they¡¯d be on the hill ¨C why climb down and up again ¨C and being stupid. There was no way they could get across those open sheets of rock and live. But if they were looking for another way out, they should be down in the brushwood and hoping to slip out underwater. Or something. So where were they?

    I strolled over to the watchers at this end of the ford, holding Geivin¡¯s hand very tightly.

    ¡°Hello,¡± I said, in a voice that could split stone. ¡°Something to watch?¡±

    The men winced, and one of the lads turned to look at me. ¡°Savages,¡± he whispered. ¡°Have you heard, they¡¯ve been called for a hundred!¡±

    ¡°Yes!¡± I almost shrieked. ¡°A hundred! Where are they? Have you got them yet?¡±

    The older man turned, his face angry. ¡°Keep your voice down, wo¨C Just a minute, don¡¯t I know you? You were selling salves at market yesterday. Savage Secrets, or something.¡±

    ¡°Secrets of the Savages, yes. Did you buy something ¨C I don¡¯t¡­¡±

    ¡°No, but Ek did, and it¡¯s done his chilblains a world of good, he says.¡±

    The third lad nudged him ¡°There!¡± He whispered, pointing to the island. ¡°I told you! Behind the slab with the heather on it. See!¡±

    And I could see. A fringe of black hair and the tip of a spear. They were on the hill. They were getting it wrong ¨C but how to tell them?

    ¡°Yes, yes!¡± I screeched. ¡°There they are! Can you get them from here?¡±

    ¡°Oh, shut up, will you!¡± said the older man, looking out at the hill. One of the lads turned to watch as well, but the other was still facing me ¨C with his eyes dropped. For one moment I thought he was trying to say something but was too shy ¨C and then I realised: he was looking at my breasts!

    This was a first for me, and it was a shock. A dozen different emotions zipped into me and began to fight each other. For a moment I let them, and then I managed to pull myself together; I would need to handle this sometime, but not now. Now I should use it, like a shaman.

    Like a real shaman.

    I pushed my shoulders back ever so slightly, and his eyes swelled like bubbles in a midden. I looked at his eyes, and dragged them up with mine.

    ¡°Maybe I can help,¡± I said. ¡°I lived with these people for a year. I know how their minds work.¡± I smiled. Sweetly.

    ¡°That¡¯s a good idea!¡± exclaimed my victim. The older man hushed at him, but then stepped back. The man¡¯s glance started flicking to me briefly, while keeping most of his mind on Hawk and Stack. I turned towards him, snipping off the eyeline of my admirer in the process. Always leave them wanting more. Though I felt happier not being stared at, for the moment anyway.

    ¡°Well, woman, how do they think?¡± he snapped.

    ¡°Very simply,¡± I replied. ¡°Everything about them is simple.¡± An idea came to me. ¡°Even their music is simple!¡±

    ¡°Their music? What do you mean, their music?¡±

    I slipped my pack off my shoulders and took out a finger-whistle. ¡°Like this,¡± I said, and started to play the old baby song ¡®Come down the tree, said the fox.¡¯ I thought it might trigger an idea in my boys¡¯ heads.

    <ul>

    <li>¡°Come down the tree,¡± said the fox</li>

    <li>¡°No,¡± said the squirrel, ¡°I will not.¡±</li>

    <li>¡°I¡¯ve got nuts, I¡¯ve got berries,</li>

    <li>I¡¯ve got hips and haws and cherries,</li>

    <li>  Come down the tree,¡± said the fox.</li>

    </ul>

    At least I didn¡¯t have to do the actions!

    When I¡¯d finished a verse, the man nodded. ¡°Yes, I see. Very simple. So how are they thinking now?¡±

    ¡°I assume they¡¯ll¡¯ve realised there¡¯s no escape, not with you three at this end and those four across there. Where else can they go? So now they¡¯ll be working up their courage,¡± I answered. ¡°The only idea they¡¯ll have left is to charge full tilt ¨C anything else they¡¯d see as cowardice and cowardice is the worst crime they can commit. But they¡¯ll need quite a bit of courage to charge across that ford. They might try to sling stones at you, hoping to scare you a bit before they charge, but otherwise they¡¯ll just suddenly burst out and come dashing at you through the water, howling out their warcry. They won¡¯t expect to survive. They¡¯ll mostly be wanting to take one of you with them, to prove to their ancestors that they weren¡¯t cowards.¡±

    ¡°So they¡¯re just working up their courage?¡± The man stared out at the island even more intensely.

    ¡°If they¡¯ve given up hope of getting away. That and choosing which of you to go for. They¡¯ll probably choose you, actually.¡±

    He looked at me properly for the first time. ¡°Why?¡±

    ¡°I would guess that these two lads here won¡¯t look man enough to them to count as full braves.¡± The two lads gasped and one of them said something, but I ignored them. ¡°They are hunters, you see, that¡¯s what they call boys in the tribes,¡± I went on. ¡°Two hunters match one brave, like you; but two hunters against one is dishonourable, and they will probably class these lads as mere hunters.¡± I paused to let things sink in. ¡°Perhaps me and the kid, we¡¯ll just move well away before anything happens. We¡¯re probably holding them up anyway; they won¡¯t charge while women are here.¡±

    ¡°He ben''t your son?¡± asked the third lad ¨C so he had a voice, then.

    ¡°No, just a kid I¡¯m looking after for the day.¡± I answered lightly, but I felt Geivin¡¯s hand tighten on mine. Ah.

    ¡°Good luck,¡± I called over my shoulder, turning away from a certain boy¡¯s eyeline, and we moved back up to the crossroads.

    Considering the state of my emotions, I felt I¡¯d done pretty well.

    I was right, too, which was a nice change. As Geivin and I stood there, a little above the action, I saw one or two of the bushes on the island begin to sway and shift, and once I got a glimpse of black hair. They¡¯d taken my hint, then. I ¨C we ¨C began strolling along the path following the river.

    You¡¯d think I¡¯d¡¯ve felt more grown-up, wouldn¡¯t you, now I¡¯d realised I was becoming sexy. I didn¡¯t. I felt like a little girl ¨C a little girl going to her first Suncrown Feast. Nervous, excited, and very vulnerable; terrified of getting it all wrong.

    Never mind. There were other problems to face.

    ¡°Geivin,¡± I said.

    There was no answer, just a little sniff.

    ¡°Geivin,¡± I said, and I crouched down to his level. ¡°Do you understand why I said you weren¡¯t anything to do with me?¡±

    He looked down, still sniffing. I let go of his hand so that I could be right in front of him.

    ¡°First,¡± I said, ¡°I wanted to mislead those men. They were our enemies. Any lies we can make them believe will be to our good.¡±

    The sniffing stopped, but the eyes stayed down.

    ¡°But there¡¯s something more important, something you have to understand.¡± I paused to try to get the words right, but then the eyes went even further down, so I pushed on. ¡°You know the Spirits. And you know that ¨C although we all think you should be in our Tribe, you aren¡¯t yet.¡± I paused and pick up both his hands. ¡°You do know that, don¡¯t you.¡±

    There was a pause, and finally a nod.

    ¡°But in the end, the decision has to be made by the Spirits. What they say goes. And they can still say no.¡± I held his hands tighter. ¡°And the one thing you mustn¡¯t do with the Spirits is tell them what to do. You must never take them for granted. I can¡¯t ¨C Hawk and Stack can¡¯t ¨C none of us can decide whether you will join our Tribe. Only the Spirits will. I believe they will say yes, and you believe they will say yes, but we can¡¯t tell them to say yes. Understand?¡±

    There was a little nod. A very little nod.

    ¡°And if I¡¯d said to those bad people that you were my son, or my brother, or something, I might have seemed as though I was taking the Spirits for granted. That I was assuming they¡¯d say yes. Do you see?¡±

    The nod was bigger.

    ¡°And I really want them to say yes. I don¡¯t want to take any risks. I really want them to say yes.¡±

    He looked up at last, through very watery eyes. Then he hugged me for a bit, and I hugged him back. Then we went on.

 Chapter 21 - Escape

    We walked on quite slowly, even for Geivin; it meant I could watch what was going on without being too obvious about it and without tripping over my own feet. As I watched, the little movements on the island worked along almost to the tip. Then they stopped.

    I didn¡¯t want to stop and wait, because we weren¡¯t out of sight of the enemy, but I slowed down even more. I wondered what to do, whether I could help. But how?

    A hundred or so paces further on, there was a little boat moored against the bank. This was my opportunity: all I needed to do was untie the boat and paddle it out to the tip of the island and pick up Hawk and Stack. No problem.

    Except I had been in a boat before, and I had tried to paddle a boat before. I don¡¯t want to overstress the details, but let¡¯s just say I was very glad my cousin could swim. I learned my limits, that day. Never again, I¡¯d said.

    When we got closer, though, I realised there was something odd about the boat. It wasn¡¯t moored with a line tied to it; instead a rope went from a post on the bank and through a big wooden hoop at the back of the boat. Weird.

    I nudged Geivin. ¡°D¡¯you know anything about that boat?¡±

    ¡°Yes of course. That¡¯s Oan¡¯s Ferry. We cross there when we ¨C I mean ¨C we used to cross there when we visited Uncle Chaig. I ¨C we ¨C¡± and he started to snivel again.

    ¡°What¡¯s a ferry?¡±

    ¡°You use it to cross the river without the girls getting their good shoes wet. It¡¯s a boat. There¡¯s a rope across the river, and it goes through the end of the boat, and you just pull yourself along the rope. You can get it not wrong, you have not to paddle or anything, and if you¡¯re good and sit down properly you can tip it not over or fall out. Then you give the ferryman one ring for two grownups, and one ring for three children.¡±

    A boat that keeps you dry, that you don¡¯t paddle and can¡¯t fall out of! MY sort of boat!

    I hurried us down to the boat, and the ferryman appeared magically beside it with his hand held out. I dropped a chain into it and began an explanation, but he just grunted and turned away. I got into the boat (again, I gloss over a few details here) and Geivin sat down in the end bit, steadying things until I¡¯d stopped panicking ¨C I mean, until I had worked out how the ferry worked.

    It wasn¡¯t so difficult once we¡¯d pushed off the bank. There was a pole to push with or you could simply pull yourself hand over hand along the rope. Since the pole was twice my height at least I went for the hand over hand approach, until I realised it meant standing up, and that when I pulled on the rope the boat wobbled. I sat down quickly, and chose the pole instead.

    By now I¡¯d spotted two black, shapeless lumps drifting down the current. I deduced that they¡¯d emptied their packs and were using them to protect their heads; goodness, they¡¯ve shown some intelligence at last! It was easy to get the boat in their way, easy to grab them, and then a lot harder to convince them that I was not an enemy. But we managed, and only got the boat half full of water in the process.

    But when we''d all settled down, there was a definite atmosphere in the boat.

    ¡°Right,¡± I said, trying to be bright and positive, ¡°which side? South or north?¡±

    Stack shrugged, staring upriver, but Hawk was too busy trailing his hand in the water on the downriver side.

    Presumably there had been some... very open discussion during their island stay. Well, it was time they got over it.

    ¡°SOUTH OR NORTH? Come on, we¡¯ve paid a chain for this, we may as well use it.¡±

    That got Hawk¡¯s attention. ¡°A chain? What for?¡±

    ¡°To pick you two fish out of the river, of course. Were you expecting to drown?¡±

    Hawk waved a casual hand - throwing cold drips on my face. ¡°Oh, we¡¯d¡¯ve got to shore somewhere fairly soon anyway.¡±

    Stack sniffed so hard he shook the boat. I agreed with him, frankly. Up to a point.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

    ¡°Well, thank you very much!" I exclaimed. "Next time I¡¯ll just leave you to swim! You ungrateful pair of useless, loud-mouthed useless ¨C oh, I don¡¯t know what you are!¡±

    They may have intended to look at each other, but if so they missed. I was not pleased either way.

    ¡°And if you shrug your shoulders and say ¡®Girls!¡¯ once more,¡± I shouted, ¡°I¡¯ll drown you myself !¡±

    Geivin¡¯s hand sneaked into mine. He may have thought it would help. It didn¡¯t.

    ¡°You were stuck on that rock like steaks on a griddle! You were just going to sit there till they shot you! You call yourselves hunters! I got you off! I got you safe! And all you can do is shrug your shoulders at me!¡±

    I¡¯ll miss out the next few minutes. They weren¡¯t pretty.

    We got to the north shore in the end, in dead silence. The rain started as we did; icy rain that bit you as it landed. It fitted the mood.

    There was no sign of the ferryman. Stack pulled the boat up the sloping bank, and then we walked, in silent file, along the ferry track to the main path. We turned east. The rain grew warmer and softer; my clothes were heavy and dragging at me, so I bundled them into my pack. As I did, I glanced down at my breasts; they were bigger than I¡¯d thought. And now I looked, there were other things too ¨C just little changes of proportion, nothing major, but I was growing up. I would soon be a woman.

    The woods closed around us, welcoming us. The tension slowly lifted, and the boys even occasionally spoke at each other. But not to me. No problem; that was how I wanted it, just then.

    There was a steep slope up to our left, but to our right the river valley was flat marshland almost to the path. We even caught the odd glimpse of the river through the reeds. I expected my boys to want to stop to hunt ¨C there were some especially tempting duck ¨C but they just marched on.

    ¡°Geivin¡¯s getting tired,¡± I said.

    Stack shrugged, stopped and lifted him piggyback onto his shoulders. We walked on.

    At length the slope to our right began to flatten, and almost at the same time the path began to climb away from the river. Suddenly we stopped.

    ¡°I think we need our own camp,¡± said Hawk, apparently addressing a large oak tree.

    ¡°It¡¯s only just after noon,¡± said Stack to a hazel bush.

    ¡°Obviously I don¡¯t mean a travelling camp. I mean a proper winter camp.¡±

    There was another long silence. Then suddenly Geivin started screaming.

    ¡°You¡¯re horrid, you¡¯re horrid, you¡¯re all horrid!¡± he shrieked, and began pummelling Stack¡¯s scalp with his fists. Stack dropped him, and Geivin went into a full tantrum, flat on his back, legs pumping the air, arms rigid, and screaming at the top of his voice. We all stood round looking shamefaced. I at least had absolutely no idea what to do and only the vaguest idea why it was happening, and I didn¡¯t believe the boys knew more than me.

    At last the tantrum faded, and Geivin started ranting at us about being horrid, and why weren¡¯t everyone speaking, and we were just like his family and we were a tribe we should be different and if we¡­ Anyway, he went on at us for a bit, and eventually ran down into snivelling.

    I picked him up and cuddled him, as snot dribbled down my shoulder-blade.

    It broke the ice, though.

    ¡°You mean a permanent camp,¡± I said. ¡°We give up on getting back for Nightwatch, and stay here for the winter?¡±

    ¡°Well, at least give ourselves the option. If we could set up a good camp now, we can always go on if the weather lets us."

    "It¡¯s much colder here than in Longwood, we¡¯ve had snow once already, and we¡¯re five or six days away from Longwood lands and through dangerous country," agreed Stack. "We should establish a proper camp, warm and defensible.¡±

    ¡°And it¡¯s in easy reach of Brothy, so I can take my salves there on market days,¡± I added.

    ¡°I still don¡¯t see why you have to sell things if people will just give you rings if you ask them,¡± muttered Stack.

    ¡°We¡¯re not beggars!¡± Geivin stared up at Stack, earnestness in every line of his face. ¡°Beggars are bad people. We give not rings to beggars, even we talk not to them, and we will beg never ever ourselves!¡±

    ¡°But why not?¡±

    I¡¯d been thinking about this too, and I reckoned I¡¯d worked it out.

    ¡°Look,¡± I said, ¡°how do you become a hunter?¡±

    ¡°When you can reach the point of the Chief¡¯s spear, sling a shot from the Chief¡¯s chair through the tent door opposite, and when you can keep silence for one filling of a lamp bowl.¡± Stack¡¯s voice was puzzled.

    ¡°And after you become a hunter, you¡¯re expected to be brave, and honourable, and loyal, aren¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Yes.¡±

    ¡°But before then, you aren¡¯t expected to be brave, are you? Nobody¡¯s surprised if a little kid runs away or cheats or steals.¡±

    ¡°No, They¡¯re too young to understand.¡±

    ¡°Well, we¡¯re like that in this world. We¡¯re kids. We¡¯re too young to understand what¡¯s honourable and what isn¡¯t. We need to listen to Geivin here, who is old enough to understand, even if he can¡¯t explain it properly.¡±

    Stack shrugged.

    ¡°And if he says begging is dishonourable, then begging is dishonourable. Yes?¡±

    Stack shrugged again.

    ¡°Yes?¡± I insisted.

    ¡°Yes, I suppose.¡±

    ¡°Right. And that¡¯s why we need to be near Brothy so that I can sell my salves and you can sell your hides. But not to beg.¡±

    Stack shrugged, and turned to Hawk. ¡°And there might be somewhere up this path?¡± He pointed to our left. I couldn¡¯t see any path, but they were the hunters; it was their job to see these things.

    ¡°It might lead somewhere, and it¡¯s not been used for years. Yes?¡± Hawk glanced at both of us.

    ¡°Yes,¡± said Stack.

    ¡°Yes,¡± I said.

    Once we were through the thick stuff by the track even I could see the shadow of a path. It climbed up and a little back, so we were above the track we¡¯d just been walking on. Then the bushes thickened across our path, and we pushed through to the dead buildings of a lost farm.

 Chapter 22 - Birth

    We reckoned the oldest trees were about ten years old, so that was when it had been abandoned. Having seen Geivin¡¯s parental home we could work out what everything was: here was the byre for the animals; here was the yard in front of the buildings, a lake of nettles; here was the pool, much smaller than at Geivin¡¯s though, and made from soft clay punctured by tree roots; and here was the house, its roof-beams still in place but open sky between them, and the house itself crammed with bramble and nettle and weedwoods.

    ¡°We can fix this,¡± said Hawk. ¡°This will do ¨C if it¡¯s defensible?¡± He looked at Stack.

    ¡°We weave the bushes to make a temporary fence,¡± said Stack, ¡°Then stake it. Shouldn¡¯t be difficult.¡±

    ¡°I will ask the Spirits,¡± I said.

    It was just possible to get into the farm house and sit in the corner without being too badly stung or scratched, though not without getting filthy. I sat there in Approach for a minute or so, then I moved into Attunement, and then to the Respect position. When I had calmed and my mind had opened I cast the Stones. They fell heavy and dull on the crushed fireweed. It was a weak yes, in fact, but a shaman understands that the fall of the Stones is what matters, not their answer. Here, it was as if there were no one to hear; as if the Spirits had abandoned this place. I moved again into Approach, spoke the Words, and stood up.

    Only then did I realise Geivin was watching from the doorway.

    ¡°How long have you been there?¡±

    ¡°All the time!¡± he said. ¡°I¡¯m going to be a shaman so I need to see how you do it.¡±

    ¡°But you can¡¯t be a shaman!¡± I exclaimed. ¡°Boys can¡¯t be shamans! There¡¯s never been a boy shaman!¡±

    I thought for one moment he was going to cry ¨C but then he lifted his head and looked me straight in the eye. ¡°Then I¡¯m going to be the first one! I¡¯m going to be a shaman.¡± And he ran away.

    He¡¯ll grow out of it, I thought.

    But it meant I couldn¡¯t put off another issue. It had to be done; I didn¡¯t like doing it, but it had to be done and done thoroughly. I waited until I was sure Geivin was well away, and sat down again to meditate.

    And to try to remember. There had only ever been one adoption into a Tribe that I''d ever heard of, and that had used a ceremony which was - well, truthfully, it frightened me. But I couldn''t remember any other way, and I didn''t dare invent when there was a clear precedent, however unpleasant. If I were a real shaman I might have tried, but...

    Oh, by the Stones!

    I pulled myself together. Yes, there was a clear precedent. No, there was no alternative. Yes, I had the means and the opportunity, now we had our new camp. I had no more excuses.

    But I was still afraid.

    I went to find Hawk and Stack; they didn¡¯t ask what I¡¯d been doing; you don¡¯t ask questions of a shaman, in case you get an answer; but this time I told them.

    ¡°It¡¯s the proper way,¡± I added. ¡°It¡¯s not been done in my lifetime, but it is the proper way.¡±

    ¡°I suppose, if it must be¡­¡± Hawk bit his lip. ¡°But it will hurt.¡±

    Stack looked at me, and laid a hand on my arm ¨C yes, I do mean Stack!

    ¡°It¡¯s hurting you,¡± he said.

    ¡°I¡¯m a shaman,¡± I answered. ¡°Everything hurts me.¡±

    We wandered away a little, but almost at once Hawk called us together ¨C Geivin too.

    ¡°There¡¯s nowhere to camp,¡± said Hawk. ¡°We don¡¯t want to waste effort, though, so we want to clear inside the house.¡±

    ¡°How?¡± asked Stack.

    ¡°With fire.¡±

    So we all got to work gathering dry brushwood and heaping it inside the shell of the house. Even Geivin did his bit towards collecting dry sticks and throwing them in, but it still took a couple of hours to find and fetch enough properly dry stuff that would burn hot and fast. We wanted to burn the weeds, not the roof-beams.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

    Finally we were ready. This was our first fire in our new camp, so we did it properly: Stack as Champion stood guard, I as Shaman kindled fire, Hawk as Chief lit a torch and set it to the brushwood. Geivin stood there, open-mouthed, as the fire barely took, then hung back, and suddenly blazed out and filled the whole building with flame. Then it was over, and the house was empty of everything but ashes, charcoals, smoke and heat. We let the heat fade and the smoke blow away, then we sprinkled water on the ashes and cinders and swept the house clean.

    Then we set up camp in our own house. It felt so different from the travelling camps, or even from the Mistwater campsite; it was our camp, our home. I could even imagine our Tribal Spirits were there with us, if there were any Spirits. And to be truthful, I wasn¡¯t even sure about that anymore. I wasn¡¯t sure of anything.

    After dinner I caught Hawk and Stack¡¯s eyes, and nodded. Geivin was put early and firmly to bed under a cloak by the wall. Then I and the boys sat round our campfire, in earshot of his sleeping place. I began mixing the potion.

    ¡°It¡¯s time we faced the truth,¡± I said, ¡°The Spirits have spoken. Geivin will never be part of our Tribe.¡±

    Hawk nodded. ¡°No. Geivin is not one of us. Geivin must die.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s what comes after that I don¡¯t know,¡± I went on, noting that there was complete silence from Geivin¡¯s bed. ¡°Whether once Geivin is dead someone else joins our Tribe.¡±

    ¡°I hope so,¡± said Hawk. ¡°I do hope so. But we can¡¯t be sure.¡±

    ¡°No,¡± I said, ¡°it¡¯s up to the Spirits. But first we must kill Geivin. It¡¯s time,¡± I said, pouring the potion into a little bowl. ¡°Bring him out.¡±

    Geivin scuttled out from under the cloak like a pink weasel, and tried to make a run for it; but Hawk and Stack were too fast. They brought him before me, where I was sitting at the fire. I did not look at him.

    ¡°Drink this,¡± I said, and held out the bowl.

    He tried to twist away, but Stack had him firm. Hawk forced his lips open and poured the potion into his mouth, holding his nose till he had to swallow. We then watched as the first touches of hallucination began to kick in, and then darkness swallowed terror as Geivin met his death. Eventually Stack laid his body back under the cloak. We stayed up talking and doing odds and ends around the place for an hour or so, and then went to bed.

    Next day the boys went hunting while I cleared more of the weeds from around the house. It was nearly all nettle or bramble; there were very few herbs worth gathering ¨C though boiled nettle¡¯s good enough in the spring, these were far too ancient and tough to be edible however long they were boiled for. I also made a start at clearing the pool, and checked the stream that fed it for dead animals.

    We ate a solemn meal that night: the first fruits of our new camp, but also solemn because of Geivin. All day we did not look at the still shape under the cloak by the wall.

    After the meal was over we watched the sun set, and then we waited almost in silence until the last traces of light had died in the night.

    ¡°OK,¡± I said, ¡°it¡¯s time.¡± I walked over to the silent shape, and turned back the cloak. I sighed with relief, looked up at Hawk, and nodded. I felt myself smile wetly.

    ¡°The Spirits have blessed us with a gift,¡± I declared, the relief almost choking me.

    Hawk smiled, and then suddenly frowned. ¡°I do the shaman¡¯s words, you said?¡± Hawk¡¯s whisper seemed nervous ¨C surely not stage fright?

    ¡°Yes at first, because it¡¯s the shaman¡¯s baby. But I do the shaman¡¯s words once you¡¯ve declared me.¡± I struck a pose, decided I didn¡¯t need to and tried to stand naturally, found I couldn''t, and struck a pose again. Then I spoke aloud. ¡°Stack-of-strong-timber, Champion of the Causeway Tribe, will you bring the Spirits¡¯ gift before the Tribe?¡±

    Hawk and I stood side by side facing across the fire, while Stack walked over to the cloak and picked up the new member of our Tribe. He faced us, cradling the child in his arms, the flames high between us and them. The child had half woken; his eyes stared out, lost, unfocused, confused.

    Hawk raised his right hand. ¡°Who is the mother of this child?¡±

    ¡°I, Seer-of-hidden-things, am the mother of this child.¡±

    ¡°Do you claim this child before the whole Tribe?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I claim this child before the whole Tribe.¡±

    ¡°Do you claim this child before the Spirits?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I claim this child before the Spirits.¡±

    ¡°Then what name did the Spirits give you for this child?¡±

    ¡°The Spirits gave me the name Whisper-in-the-night for this child.¡±

    ¡°Does any stand up against this woman¡¯s claim for this child?¡± He paused - very briefly. ¡°Then, Seer-of-hidden-things, take your child, Whisper-in-the-night, before the whole Tribe and before the Spirits.¡±

    Stack passed him through the flames to me, and I cradled him in my arms ¨C my first-born son. His face stared up at me, terror widening his eyes.

    Now it was my turn.

    ¡°Who is the father of this child?¡±

    No one answered ¨C obviously. A shaman¡¯s child never has an acknowledged father, because the child would then tie the father to the shaman, and a shaman must never have ties, except to the Spirits and to the Tribe.

    ¡°Hawk-on-high-bough, great Chief of the Causeway Tribe, none has spoken to claim this child as father. Will you speak for this child?¡±

    ¡°Yes, I, Hawk-on-high-bough, Chief of the Causeway Tribe, claim that the Causeway Tribe is father to this child, and accept the name that the Spirits have given for him. Now let each man of the Causeway Tribe take this child, Whisper-in-the-night, and acknowledge him as a son of the Tribe.¡±

    I duly passed my new baby to Stack, who, lacking more Tribesmen, passed him immediately to the Chief. This was a lot harder with an eight-year-old baby than with the usual day-old ones, but we managed with reasonable dignity. My son would obviously still be fuddled from the drugs, so at least he didn¡¯t wriggle.

    ¡°Welcome, Whisper-in-the-night son of Seer-of-hidden-things, to the Causeway Tribe.¡± Hawk tapped the boy¡¯s upper lip with a knife so that blood oozed out, tapped his own the same way, and then kissed the boy on the mouth so that the blood mixed. Then he gave me the knife. I bled my lip with it, and kissed my son for the very first time.