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long story,” Colun said, “and one that troubles me to tell it. A cup of tiswin would lubricate the tale.”
    Racharran brought out a pitcher. Morrhyn was vaguely surprised that any of the spirit was left. He shook his head in refusal of the cup Racharran offered and waited impatiently as Colun drank.
    â€œThat’s good.” The Grannach smacked his lips and raised his brows in anticipation of more.
    The Stone Folk, Morrhyn thought as the cup was refilled, downed tiswin even faster than Yazte, but it seemed to them no more than water. His own head still ached somewhat, and he wished Colun would tell his tale without protraction. A useless wish, he knew: the Grannach spoke as they lived, at their own pace and to their own rhythms.
    Racharran settled himself on the furs, placing the pitcher in Colun’s short reach. Lhyn glanced at it and frowned, but made no comment as she dressed the Grannach’s wounds.
    â€œThere was a battle.” Colun extended his bandaged hand in evidence. Lhyn took it and began to unwind the dirty cloth. She made a disapproving sound at the sight of the damage, and Colun said, as if apologizing to her, “I deemed it best we come immediately to the Meeting Ground with the news. These are only scratches.”
    â€œWho fought?” Morrhyn knew that sometimes the Grannach contested amongst themselves for ownership of the tunnels, the lodes of metal they worked, but such internecine struggles were not of such import that Colun would hurry wounded to the Meeting Ground.
    â€œAll the tribes.” Colun grimaced as hot water was splashed across his hand. “In the western passes.”
    â€œAgainst the Whaztaye?” Morrhyn frowned in disbelief: he had it from Colun himself that the People Beyond the Hills were peaceful, friends to the Grannach as were his own Matawaye.
    â€œNo.” Colun shook his head, his face become as mournful as anything so stonelike could look. “I think there are no Whaztaye any longer. I think they are all slain—or worse.”
    Morrhyn heard Racharran’s sharp intake of breath; even calm Lhyn paused in her ministrations. He stared in perturbed wonder at the rugged little manling.
    The People knew of the Whaztaye, for all they had no contact with any who dwelt beyond the mountainous boundaries of Ket-Ta-Witko. The Maker had set down all humankind in their appointed places when the world was made, and to venture beyond those limits was to go against the Will, the Ahsa-tye-Patiko that holds all things in their rightful place. Nor was there reason: Ket-Ta-Witko was spacious and bountiful,and fed all the People’s needs. Thus it had been since first the sun rose over the world; the Maker had given the Matawaye their place, and the Whaztaye theirs, and ringed both lands with such peaks as defeated trespass. Only the Grannach moved through those rocky barriers, and only through those—never out of sight of their home-hills. What news passed between the peoples of the world, they carried along their secret ways, and denied passage to all others. Sometimes they were named the Stone Guardians, for they were fierce in defense of the Maker’s boundaries.
    Morrhyn heard himself ask, “How? Do the Whaztaye defy the Will?”
    Colun refilled his cup before he spoke again. “Not the Whaztaye. Some other folk.”
    He drank, impervious to his listeners’ impatience as the rock he resembled. Morrhyn stifled a sigh, knowing he must wait on Colun. That the Grannach had come hasty with this news did not mean he would tell it swift.
    â€œWe saw them—the Whaztaye—first in what you name the Moon of Cherries Ripening.” Colun glanced at the clean bandage Lhyn wound about his hand and murmured, “Thank you. So, yes—it was in the Moon of Cherries Ripening that they came in numbers to the east of their land, hard against our mountains. They were refugees and they were more than the land there