But if this land was the hunting ground for a band of Traders, his own party could be in danger. Even though they had not the outward appearance of seekers for metal, the Traders were jealous of their sources. They might attack any intruders in what they considered their own territory, without waiting for any explanation of the trespassers’ business there.
This site was old, judging by the condition of the landslip and of the monster bones. However, that did not mean that the explorers who had left that excavation were gone from the ruins. A city as large as this would prove too rich a ground to be forsaken quickly.
So now they had a new element to guard against. Sander knew that Rhin would not accept any stranger unless he himself vouched for such a one. Even Fanyi might have been attacked at sight had it not been that the fury of the fishers had won her protection until Sander had accepted her in peace. Therefore, they must depend upon the koyot to give them both protection and warning. The smith had no wish to trade darts with any Trader. He needed the knowledge and the supplies those could uncover too much. The ones he had met were amiable men, though shrewd in bargaining. They were not like the Sea Sharks with whom all men had a quarrel from the moment of sighting. He hoped that if any exploring party did cross their path, Rhin would give warning early enough so that they themselves could make plain their lack of threat.
When he reported his findings to Fanyi, she did not seem disturbed.
“It could even be the men of Gavah’s kin. It is he who comes down coast in the spring—did come down coast”—she corrected herself bleakly—”to deal in Padford. Our Smith, Ewold, swore his metal was very good.”
“What did you trade in return?” The Mob had offered dressed leather and woven wool from the herds, both of which the Traders appeared pleased to accept. He wondered what Fanyi’s kin had produced that had moved the Traders to carry their metal hither. To his mind the village had not seemed productive of much that would lure any speculators to their doors.
“Salt fish and salt itself,” she returned promptly. “Our men went out to the sea-desert for that. And we had sometimes a surplus of grain and always dried fruit. My mother offered herbs that their healers did not have. We were not so poor a people as you believe, smith!”
“Did I say that?” he countered. “To each people their own way of life.”
“Perhaps you did not speak it, but it lay in your mind,” Fanyi replied with conviction. “The Sea Sharks took more than kin out of Padford in their raid. I wonder why do they so prey, snatching those of their own species to bear away captive on their ships?” She asked that question as if she did not expect an answer. “We have heard of them, not only from the Traders, but from our elders. In the south they preyed upon us also. We were once a more numerous people, but we lost youths and maids to the Sharks. That is part of our memory, smith, though we have none of your Rememberers to call it forth at will.”
“I have heard of the Sharks only from Traders,” Sander confessed. “At least they keep to the coast, and we have not seen them inland. Unless the White Ones were of their breed—”
“The White Ones?”
“When I was very young, they came. They were a strange people, charging to instant battle as if their lives depended upon our deaths. We were not able to parlay with them to establish the boundaries of grazing lands as we do with other Mobs. No, they killed all—child, woman, man, koyot even—for they had a peculiar dread of them. Out of the north they traveled with their wagons. To draw those, they had not koyots but creatures like deer, save they were very large and carried on their heads huge spreads of branching horns. They acted as if they wanted all the world for theirs alone, to clear out all the Mobs of the plains. When my people learned of their blood-swollen madness, Mob linked with Mob, together we met them on a field where they and their beasts died. For when they saw that we would triumph, the women slew their own children and themselves. They put edge even to the throats and hearts of their beasts. It was such a slaying no one of the plains shall ever forget.
“We found strange things among their wagons. But it was decided that all they carried must be accursed because they acted as madmen. Thus their possessions were piled in great heaps. On those we laid their bodies and the bodies of their beasts. They were fired until at last there remained only ashes. Then did all the Mobs who had gathered to defend their land decide in council that a Forbidding was to be laid upon that place, one set in all our Rememberers’ minds. Thus, none of any clan-kin gathered there would ever visit that field again.
“Our own dead we buried in hero barrows along the way to the place of blood, so that the earth-spirit part of them might watch for us. Though some men believe,” he added, “that men have no earth-spirit part, that just the body, like wornout clothing, remains of a man when breath is gone from him. But there were enough of those holding otherwise that this was done. Now when any of the Mobs range to the north with their herds, the new-sworn warriors and the maids near to the time that they will choose a tent mate, all ride with a Rememberer to the line of the barrows. There he chants the tale of the White Ones and their madness.”
“Why were they called White Ones?”
“Their hair, even among the young, grew very pale, and their skins, though they rode under the sun, were also bleached. But it was their eyes that betrayed the greatest strangeness, for those were of one color, having no pupil—being only like balls of polished silver. Unlike those we have seen in the forest or that thing that battered into the house, they wore the forms of men so that we could call them kin. But for the rest—no, they were not of our kind.”
“Whereas the Sea Sharks are,” Fanyi said firmly. “They wear the forms of men like ourselves, but they have the inner spirits of devils spawned from the dark.”
She was anchoring the sticks holding their meat at just the right distance from the fire to broil. Twilight was already drawing in. Rhin had vanished. But Sander could not deny the koyot that chance to fill his stomach, even with so many possible menaces ranging in the dark. The smith gave a start, his hand instantly on his dart thrower, as there was movement in the shadows. Fanyi’s fingers closed about his wrist.
“It is Kai and Kayi,” she said. “Though one may mistrust all shadows here, yet there are still some we hold as friends.” She crooned softly to welcome the fishers.
9
Fanyi caught the head, first of Kai, and then Kayi, holding them between her palms as she gazed into the eyes of each fisher in turn. Then she spoke:
“They have found no sign of others here. In this much, fortune continues to favor us.”
Perhaps fortune favored them, Sander decided somewhat grimly, yet he was still uneasily aware that in this broken land a whole Mob might move silently and unseen. There was no reason to relax their watch.
Again they shared out sentry duty for the night. He sat in the early morning hours, feeding the fire now and then. Rhin watched beside him as he listened to the sound of the river below and to noises out of the dark.
The attack came suddenly—between one breath and the next—not springing from the shadows, but somehow within his own mind. Sander could not even cry out against that invasion, and he had no defense to raise. Instead he felt as if he stood in another place, the features of which were veiled from him, even as he could not see the one—or thing—that had summoned him, overbearing his will as easily as a man might overbear in strength a child.
This was a sensation he could not find words out of past experience to describe. His very thoughts were seized upon ruthlessly, to be sifted and drained of what the other wished to learn. Sander had confused mental impressions of scenes—broken buildings, movement in and among those. Yet when he fought to see clearly any part of that, all faded, dissolved, changed.
Then there was only the fire with the night beyond. Yet Rhin’s head was up, the koyot’s eyes blazing with reflection from the flames. Beside him the fishers had reared, all turned to face Sander. Alone of their party, the girl still lay quietly asleep.