David Zindell - The Lightstone

'And what if the sun doesn't rise tomorrow?' I countered. 'You can't worry about everything, you know.'

'Can't I? But it's you, with all your talk of men pursuing us, who has set me to worrying. You haven't, ah, sensed any sign of them?'

'Not for a few days.'

'Good, good. You've probably lost them in these dreadful woods. As you've probably lost us.'

'We're not lost,' I told him again.

'No? How do you know?'

An hour later, our track cut across a rocky shelf on the side of the hill. It was one of the few places we had found where trees didn't obstruct our view and we could look out at the land we were crossing. It was a rough, beautiful country we saw, with green-shrouded hills to the north and west. A soft mist, like long gray fingers, had settled down into the folds between them.

'I don't see the road,' Maram said as he stood staring out to the north. 'If it's only a few miles from here, shouldn't we see it?'

'Look,' I said, pointing at a strangely-formed hill near us. After rising at a gentle grade for a few hundred feet, it seemed to drop off abruptly as if cut with cliffs on its north face. At its top, it was barren of trees and all other vegetation except a few stunted grasses. 'If we climb it, we should be able to see the road from there.'

'All right,' Maram grumbled again. 'But I don't like the look of these hills. Didn't Kane warn of hill-men west of the Gap?' Master Juwain came up and sat on his horse looking out at the misty hills. Then he said, 'I've been through this country before, when I traveled the Nar Road toward Mesh years ago. I met these hill-men that Kane spoke of. They waylaid our party and demanded that we pay a toll.'

'But this is the King's road!' I said, outraged at such robbery. In Mesh – as in all the Nine Kingdoms – the roads are free as the air men breathe. 'No one except King Kiritan has the right to charge tolls on any road through Alonia. And a wise king will never exercise that right.'

'I'm afraid we're far from Tria hire,' Master Juwain said. 'The hill-men do as they please.'

'Well,' I said, 'perhaps we shouldn't cut toward the road just yet. Then we can't be charged for traveling upon it.'

This logic, however, did nothing to encourage Maram. He shook his head at Master Juwain and called out, 'But, sir, this is dreadful news! We don't have gold for tolls!

Why didn't you tell me about these tolls?'

'I didn't want to worry you,' Master Juwain said. 'Now why don't we climb to the top of that hill and see what we can see?'

But Maram, hoping as always to put off potential disasters as long as he could, insisted on first eating a bit of lunch. And so we walked our horses down into the trees where we found a stream that seemed a good site for a rest. We ate a meal of walnuts, cheese and battle biscuits. I even let Maram have a little brandy to inspirit him. And then I led us down into a mist-filled vale giving out onto the barren hill to our north. After riding along a little stream for perhaps half a mile, the skin at the back of my neck began to tingle and burn. I had a sickening sense of being hunted, by whom or what I did not know.

And then, as suddenly as thunder breaking through a storm, the blare of battle horns split the air. TA-ROO, TA-ROO, TA-ROO – the same two notes sounded again and again as if someone was blowing a trumpet high on the hill before us. I tightened my grip around Altaru's reins and began urging him toward the hill; it was as if the hom – or something else – were calling me to battle.

'Wait, Val!' Maram called after me. 'What are you doing?' 'Going to see what's happening,' I said simply. 'I hate to know what's happening,' he said. He pointed behind us in the opposite direction. 'Shouldn't we flee, that way, while we still have the chance?'

I listened for a moment to the din shaking the woods, and then to a deeper sound inside me. I said, 'But what if the hill-men have trapped Sar Avador – or some other traveler – on the hill?'

'What if they trap us there? Come, please, while there's still time-!' 'No,' I told him, 'I have to see.'

So saying, I pressed Altaru forward. Maram followed me reluctantly, and Master f uwain followed him trailing the pack horses. We rode along the dale and then through the woods leading up the side of the hill. As if someone had scoured the hill with fire, the trees suddenly ended in a line that curved around the hill's base. There we halted in their shelter to look out and see who was blowing the horn.

'Oh my Lord!' Maram croaked out 'Oh, my Lord!'

A hundred yards from us, ten men were advancing up the hill. They were squat and pale-skinned, nearly naked, with only the rudest covering of animal skins for clothing. They bore long oval shields, most of which had arrows sticking out of them. In their hands they clutched an irregular assortment of weapons: axes and maces and a few short, broad-bladed swords. Their leader – a thick-set and hairy man with daubs of red paint marking his face – paused once to blow a large, blood-spattered horn that looked as if it had been torn from the head of some animal. And then, pointing his sword up the hill, he began advancing again toward his quarry.

This was a single warrior who stood staring down at the men from the top of the hill.

I immediately noted the long, blond hair that spilled from beneath the warrior's conical and pointed helmet; I couldn't help staring at the warrior's double-curved bow and the studded leather armor, for these were the accoutrements of the Sarni, which tribe I couldn't tell. A ring of dead men lay in the stunted grass fifty yards from the warrior farther down the hill. Arrows stuck out of them, too. In all of Ea, there were no archers like the Sarni and no bows that pulled so powerfully as theirs.

But this warrior, I thought, would never pull a bow again because his quiver was empty and he had no more arrows to shoot. All he could do was to stand near his downed horse and wait for the hill-men to advance through the ring of their fallen countrymen and begin the butchery they so obviously intended.

'All right,' Maram murmured at me from behind his tree, 'you've seen what you came to see. Now let's get out of here!'

As quickly as I could, I nudged Altaru over to my pack horse where I untied the great helmet slung over his side. I untied as well the shield that my father had given me and thrust my arm through it. My side still hurt so badly that I could barely hold it. But I scarcely noticed this pain because I had worse wounds to bear.

'What are you doing?' Maram snapped at me. This isn't our business. That's a Sarni warrior, isn't it? A Sarni, Val!'

Master Juwani. agreed with him that the course of action on which I was setting out perhaps wasn't the wisest. But since the Brotherhood teaches showing compassion to the unfortunates of the world, neither did he suggest that we should flee. He just stood there in the trees weighing different stratagems and wondering how the three of us -and one Sarni warrior – could possibly prevail against ten fierce and vengeful hill-men.

I slipped the winged helmet over my head then. I took up my lance and couched it beneath my good arm. How could I explain why I did this? I could hardly explain it to myself. After many miles of being hunted, I couldn't bear the sight of this warrior being hunted and bravely preparing to die. For Master Juwain, compassion was a noble principle to be honored wherever possible; for me it was a terrible pain piercing my heart. For some reason I didn't understand, I found myself opening to this doomed warrior. A proud Sarni he migt be, but something inside him was calling for help, even as a child might call, and hoping that it might miraculously come.

'That man,' I told Maram, 'could have been Sar Avador. He could be my brother – he could be you.'