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With the same stroke.”
    “Uathach.” Levon almost spat the name. “I heard the others calling him. I tried to go after him, but I couldn’t get—”
    “No! Not that one, Levon,” Torc interrupted, his voice fiercely intense. “Not alone. We will defeat them because we must, but promise me now that you will not go after him alone, ever. He is more than an urgach.”
    Levon was silent.
    “
Promise me!
” Torc repeated, turning to stand squarely before the Aven’s son, disregarded tears still bright in his eyes. “He is too big, Levon, and too quick, and something more than both of those. Promise me!”
    Another moment passed before Levon spoke. “Only to the two of you would I say this. Understand that. But you have my word.” His yellow hair was very bright in the sun. He tossed it back with a stiff twist of his head and spun sharply to return to the horses. Over his shoulder, not breaking stride, he snapped, “Come. There is a Council of the tribes in Celidon this morning.” Without waiting for them, he mounted and rode.
    Dave and Torc exchanged a glance, then mounted up themselves, double, on the grey, and set out after him. Halfway to the standing stones they caught up, because Levon had stopped and was waiting. They halted beside him.
    “Forgive me,” he said. “I am a fool and a fool and a fool.”
    “At least two of those,” Torc agreed gravely.
    Dave laughed. After a moment, so did Levon. Ivor’s son held out his hand. Torc clasped it. They looked at Dave. Wordlessly, he placed his own right hand over both of theirs.
    They rode the rest of the way together.
    “Weaver be praised, and the bright threads of the Loom!” venerable Dhira, Chieftain of the first tribe, said for the third time.
    He was beginning to get on Dave’s nerves.
    They were in a gathering hall at Celidon. Not the largest hall, for it was not a very large assembly: the Aven, looking alert and controlled despite a bandaged arm and a cut, much like Levon’s, above one eye; the Chieftains of the other eight tribes with their advisers; Mabon, Duke of Rhoden, lying on a pallet, obviously in pain, as obviously determined to be present; and Ra-Tenniel, the Lord of the lios alfar, to whom all eyes continually returned, in wonder and awe.
    There were people absent, Dave knew, people sorely missed. Two of the Chieftains, Damach of the second tribe and Berlan of the fifth, were new to their titles, the son and brother, respectively, of men who had died by the river.
    Ivor had, to Dave’s surprise, left control of the gathering to Dhira. Torc whispered a terse explanation: the first tribe was the only one that never travelled the Plain; Celidon was their permanent home. They remained here at the mid-Plain, receiving and relaying messages through the auberei of all the tribes, preserving the records of the Dalrei, providing the tribes with their shamans, and always taking command of the gatherings here at Celidon. Always—even in the presence of an Aven. So it had been in Revor’s time, and so it was now.
    Checks and balances, Dave thought. It made some sense in the abstract but did little to reconcile him now, in the aftermath of battle, to Dhira’s quavering voice and laggard pace.
    He had made a rambling, discursive speech, half mournful, half in praise, before finally calling upon Ivor. Levon’s father had then risen to tell, for the benefit of Ra-Tenniel, the story of their wild, improbable ride—a night and a day across half the length of the Plain—to just beat the forces of Maugrim to the river.
    He had then deferred, with grace, to the Lord of Daniloth, who in turn told of how he had seen the army of the Dark crossing Andarien; how he had set his summonglass alight on Atronel, that it might flare a warning in Paras Derval, had sent two messengers on the magnificent raithen to alert the Dalrei, and, finally and most gallantly, had led his own army out of the protected Shadowland to battle by the Adein.
    His voice carried