For a long moment Duun did not move. Then he held up his left hand in a slight gesture that meant no attack forthcoming, and reached to his belt with the two fingers of this right. He laid the pebble on the smooth surface. Thorn glanced at it. There was only that. His eyes lifted, strangely clear.
“I would have given it to you before you left,” Duun said. “I would have given it to you when you told me. But, minnow, you offered me quarter. To offer that to me-” “I’m sorry, Duun.”
“The thread was clever. To change the rules was cleverer. Then pride blinded you. Minnow, you’ve changed the rules. Do you understand?” A hoarse whisper. “Yes, Duun-hatani.” “Be wary of everything, minnow. And never grant quarter to a hatani. Fair is a teaching-game. Fair is a box I drew. Should I have used all I had and discouraged you? Now the walls are down, minnow. What will you do?” “I’d be a fool to tell you, Duun-hatani.” Duun nodded slowly. Thorn picked up his bowl to eat. Set it back then, with a soft click of the spoon against the bowl and looked up at him.
“Yes,” Duun said. “It would be good to wonder what’s in the food. Wouldn’t it? Eat, minnow. I give you that grace. It’s quite safe.”
Thorn edged back on the riser, set his leg over the edge. “You said no quarter. I believe you.”
“And not my telling you it’s safe?”
“No.” Thorn got to his feet and walked across the sand, gathered up his weapons from the shelf, his cloak from beside the door. He stopped there and looked back.
Turned and left then. Running, feet thumping down porch steps.
Duun sipped at his tea and set it down at his knee. Thorn expected a little start. Such things he took for granted.
Duun got up, gathered up his own weapons, and his cloak.
No quarter then.
Thorn ran, ran, knowing that there was no time. There was no time to rue the attack, no time for any regret, only the running and the land-
(“Wind and land, wei-na-ya: wind and land.”)
(“Scent-blind: but my knee aches when it rains-“)
Turn and turn and turn: a fool’s need rules his wit; a wise man’s wit governs need.
(“A hatani dictates what another’s need will be.”)
Fool, to do what a hatani said to do!
Thorn caught his breath and sprang for the rocks, bare feet doing what claws might do, shaping themselves to stone as Duun’s could not, clinging with their softness: bare hands clinging where Duun’s hands might not-swinging on a branch that gave a shortcut round the cliffside, dropping to a slant where Duun’s feet would skid, where Duun’s leg might fail-
The wind, O fool, the wind is at your face; Duun had checked the wind this morning. There was no corner Duun-hatani did not see around before his quarry even saw the turn-
The pebble in the tea-
Upland or downland? Do what Duun said and surprise him with obedience? Or do the opposite?
Run and run: he was quicker than Duun, that was all he was. He had grown up in these hills; and so had Duun. Thorn was more agile. He could take the high slope on his bare feet at greater speed than Duun-
-but Duun knew that.
Wild choice, then. Logic-less. He darted downslope.
Wind in his face, wind carrying his scent; and he had to get around that bend first, around the mountain shoulder.
Duun was at his back. It was not the pain Thorn dreaded, though pain there would be. It was Duun. Duun himself.
* * * *
The wind carried scent and Duun breathed it- fool, Duun thought, at the edge of the rocks; but twice a fool is a hunter too secure. There was the easy temptation-to win at once, to take the rash chance, the wide chance.
But it was hatani he hunted. No more minnow, but fish in dark water.
He smelled the wind and knew Thorn’s direction and his distance; he knew the branch of the trail that gave access to the cliff and knew the way Thorn could take that he could not-he knew every track in the hills.