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you?”
    â€œZaneb—she has passions of her own. I was content to send him away. She struck to kill him.”
    Stiffly he raised the sword. Bright shards of brownsheen metal fell off the blade, striking the rocky ground with a faint ringing sound.
    â€œSheathe her,” I said, and he did, and deeply breathed, and looked around him.
    So the swords had seen this same sort of combat before—when? And at whose side? For what purpose? To gather blood? To bring back bones of Cragsmen and make weapons of them? There was no time to speak of it.
    â€œShall we go on?” I asked Kor slowly. “The lot of them might come roaring down on us for revenge.”
    â€œOr they might keep well away from us, if they are truly afraid. Perhaps Alar does not like Cragsmen either.”
    I felt my sword stir in its scabbard as he spoke its name, and that decided me.
    â€œTo mount, then, and let us ride quickly.”
    We rode at the canter when we could, and we rode past dusk and late into the night until moonset, trying to put ourselves in an entirely different place. We rode out of spearpine and into blue pine and spruce. From time to time we heard bellowings far above, among the rocks that pierced the eversnow. They did not comfort us.
    With first light the next day we were on our way, pressing the pace all through the day. But by sundown we considered that we had fled far enough. The air was starting to thin, for we had nearly reached the tree line. We would need our strength for what lay before us. And we had heard no more bellowings, nor seen a Cragsman.
    We had nothing to eat except foragings, a few nuts, some bundleberries. “What I wouldn’t give for a handful of oatmeal,” I complained to Kor. “Or even a stinking fish.”
    I meant to make him smile, and partly succeeded. He quirked a wry half-smile at me.
    â€œOur horses eat meat,” I held forth, addressing earth and sky with my plaint. “Would that I could eat grass and leaves!”
    â€œGo stalk us a deer,” he said mildly, “and I will make the fire.”
    I took my stand behind the last stunted spruce at the tree line, looking out over the highmountain meadow that stretched to the eversnow. High meadow had always seemed a magical place to me, and never more so than that evening, when the westering sun set it afire, sedges and hummocks of heather and leaves of stunted shrubs blazing red and orange and again red, so rich a red it seemed black in shadow but bright as blood in light. And there was a white mist also, rising out of the redness, and moving in the mist were the tree-shapes of antlers with the velvet fluttering about them—the harts would soon be in rut. I took the stable-stance, arrow nocked and bow at the ready, and waited for one to graze near me.
    It did not take long. A splendid stag drifted out of the mist no more than twenty paces from me and stood, head lifted, as if he were admiring the sunset world very much as I had been. For a moment I held fast to my arrow, telling myself that I would wait for a better shot, though in fact I could have killed him cleanly where he stood.… Truth was, his glance seemed so nearly human that my heart misgave me. But my stomach stirred, reminding me of hunger, and I thought of Kor waiting at our campsite, already preparing the cooking fire. I made sure my aim—
    Out of the mist bounded a hind, pure white, as white as the mist, and she leaped up to the hart, my quarry, and nuzzled him with her mouth. My bow sagged until my arrow pointed at the ground, and I let it fall limply away, for I felt weak. I had nearly slain an old friend.
    â€œBirc!” I called.
    Red hart and white hind gave a startled leap but then stood still, heads high, looking toward the sound of my voice. I walked out of my cover so that they could see me.
    â€œBy all the powers, Birc,” I said, my voice shaking, “you should be more careful. I nearly killed you.” I had