he watched your uncle walk right up to a moor cat the size of a
plains bull and speak with it the same way I’m speaking with
you.”
“It was said that Cogline could do that,” Coil interjected,
suddenly interested. “He had a cat called Whisper that followed
him. The cat protected his niece, Kimber. Her name was Boh
as well, wasn’t it. Par?”
Par nodded, remembering that his uncle had taken the name
Boh from his mother’s side of the family. Strange, now that he
thought about it, but he could never remember his uncle using
the Ohmsford name.
“There was one story,” Steff said, pausing then to mull the
details over in his mind. “I heard it from a tracker who knew
the deep Anar better than most and, I think, knew Walker Boh
as well, though he’d never admit to it. He told me that something
born in the days of the old magic wandered down out of Ra-
venshom into Darklin Reach two years back and started living
on the life it found there. Walker Boh went out to find it, con-
fronted it, and the creature turned around and went back to
wherever it had come from-just like that.” Steff shook his head
and rubbed his chin slowly. “It makes you think, doesn’t it?”
He stretched his hands toward the fire. “That’s why he scares
me-because there doesn’t appear to be much of anything that
scares him. He comes and goes like a ghost, they say-here one
minute, gone me next, just a shadow out of night. I wonder if
even the Shadowen frighten him. I’d guess not.”
“Maybe we should ask him,” Coil offered with a sly grin.
Steff brightened. “Well, now, maybe we should,” he agreed.
‘ ‘I suggest you be the one to do it!” He laughed. “That reminds
me, has the Highlander told you yet how we happened on each
other that first time?”
The Ohmsford brothers shook their heads no, and despite
some loud grumbling from Morgan, Steff proceeded to tell the
tale. Morgan was fishing the eastern end of the Rainbow Lake
at the mouth of the Silver River some ten months earlier when
a squall capsized his craft, washed away his gear, and left him
to make his way ashore as best he could. He was drenched and
freezing and trying without success to start a fire when Steff
came across him and dried him out.
“He would have died of exposure, I expect, if I hadn’t taken
pity on him,” Steff finished. “We talked, exchanged informa-
tion. Before you know it, he was on his way to Culhaven to see
whether life in the homeland of the Dwarves was as grim as I
had described it.” Steff cast an amused look at the chagrined
Highlander. “He kept coming back after that-each time with
a little something to help out Granny and Auntie and the Resis-
tance as well. His conscience won’t allow him to stay away, I
suppose.”
“Oh, for goodness sake!” Morgan huffed, embarrassed.
Steff laughed, his voice booming out through the stillness,
filling up the night. “Enough, then, proud Highland Prince! We
will talk of someone else!” He shifted his weight and looked at
Par. “That stranger, the one who gave you the ring-let’s talk
about him. I know something of the outlaw bands that serve in
the Movement. A rather worthless bunch, for the most part: they
lack leadership and discipline. The Dwarves have offered to
work with them, but the offer hasn’t been accepted as yet. The
problem is that me whole Movement has been too fragmented.
In any case, that ring you were given-does it bear the emblem
of a hawk?”
Par sat bolt upright. “It does, Steff. Do you know whose it
is?”
Steff smiled. “I do and I don’t, Valeman. As I said, the South-
land outlaws have been a fragmented bunch in the past-but that
may be changing. There are rumors of one among them who
seems to be taking control, uniting the bands together, giving
them the leadership they have been lacking. He doesn’t use his
name to identify himself; he uses the symbol of a hawk.”
“It must be the same man,” Par declared firmly. “He was