Hugh Cook - The wizards and the warriors

Wary of the possible personal consequences of his local fame, Miphon diligently practiced the disciplines of humility. He discussed childbirth and healing with Mystrel, who proved exceptionally knowledgeable: despite his experience, Miphon found there was still much he had to learn.

They exchanged information about herbs, honey, garlic, leeches, bone setting, ulcers, cancers, vermifuges and all the other things that healers have to know about – including, of course, the various kinds of pox. Mystrel was particularly wise about the local plants; Miphon, on the other hand, knew more about exotic things like opium and ginseng, which came to Estar only by way of trade.

Blackwood and Hearst would usually be present at their conversations – but, instead of listening in, those two usually talked man-talk about the hunting of large, noisy animals, the trapping of the same, about Hearst's adventures in the Cold West (special emphasis on mammoth hunts) and Blackwood's foolhardy ventures (in his younger days) into the weirder reaches of the Penvash Peninsular (special emphasis on encounters with giant bears).

Hearst and Blackwood one day concluded an inconclusive debate – does the crocodile really exist, and, if so, is it possible to kill it bare handed? – to find Mystrel and Miphon still indefatigably talking medicine.

'… and, of course, garlic is good for wounds,' said Mystrel.

'Yes,' said Miphon, 'But what would you do for an ulcer that wouldn't heal? I don't think I'd use garlic for that.'

'No,' said Mystrel. 'I'd use bandages soaked in honey.'

'Honey!' said Hearst, taking an interest for once. That'd rot the wound.'

'You'd have to change the bandages four times a day,' said Mystrel. 'You wouldn't just leave it there, you know.'

Tt'd still go rotten.'

'Now when did you last see rotten honey?' said Mystrel. 'It keeps in the hive through winter and beyond because the bees make it with a guarding. That's why you can use it on ulcers.'

'You'll have to teach your child, when the child's old enough,' said Miphon, impressed by her competence.

'Boys have a lot to learn besides herbs,' said Blackwood. 'Fishing, hunting, weather-lore – it's the women who've got time to sit at home talking of herbs and honey.'

'Oh yes,' said Mystrel, warmly. 'And carding the wool, and spinning, cleaning the fireplace and making the rushlights, putting the stew on to cook – and that's only the start of the day. Then there's baking bread, drawing water, doing the washing – '

'Peace!' said Blackwood.

Hearst laughed.

Mystrel, her temper up, gave no mercy: ' – and there's plucking birds and scraping hides, weaving the reed-mats, gathering water cress, gathering the big-ear fungus, and soap, in season – up to the elbows in ashes and animal fat. There'll be time enough in a boy's life for my son to learn what I've got to teach him.'

'It might be a girl,' said Miphon.

'No,' said Hearst. 'Blackwood will have a son.'

'It's not him who's with child!' said Mystrel. 'But you're right. It will be a boy.'

'I'll teach him how to use a sword,' said Hearst, who, while they were talking, was slowly incising a rune into the metal of his battle-sword Hast.

'No son of mine will go to the wars,' said Mystrel.

'Then we'll make him a wizard,' said Miphon.

'No,' said Blackwood. 'My son will be a hunter, like his father. When he's old enough. I'll take him north, into the wilds.'

But, for the moment, he spared them further stories of those wilds, for his curiosity was getting the better of him: 'What's that you're cutting into your sword, Morgan?' 'A rune,' said Miphon.

'It's a death-pledge,' said Hearst. 'Out there is a traitor – an oath-breaker. Volaine Persaga Haveros, a Collosnon spy. He swore an oath of loyalty to the prince – and a second oath of personal loyalty to Elkor Alish. When I meet him again, I'll kill him. The rune dedicates this sword to revenge.'

An oath-breaker could not be forgiven; nothing is worse than to betray a pledge of loyalty.

'If I had even a good kitchen knife,' said Mystrel, 'I wouldn't damage it like that.'

Women, it has sometimes been remarked – by Kash m'pie T'longa amongst others – have never been very enthusiastic about the mystique of murder and revenge.

'This is only a scratch,' said Hearst. 'I could tell you a tale of a sword – '

'What sword?' said Blackwood.

'Oh, it's a children's tale I was minded of,' said Hearst. T won't insult you with it.'

As Miphon was a wizard, he did not think it safe to tell the sword-story he had almost started on. The sword in question was the blade Raunen Song, which, according to the Black Blood Legends of Rovac, bore the rune-written names of a thousand wizards.

A legendary' hero of Rovac had sworn to take that sword, Raunen Song the ironcleaver, the stonesplitter, and kill each and every one of those thousand wizards. But the hero had disappeared, centuries ago, without a trace. And this was not the time or the place to encourage the ancient hatreds between wizards and the Rovac.

'Why did you leave the Cold West?' asked Miphon, taking advantage of Hearst's silence to ask a question which had puzzled him for some time. 'It must've offered you more than Estar can.'

'Yes,' said Hearst. 'But it was too cold.'

He did not elaborate.

'What about Alish?' said Miphon. 'Why did he come here? Some say he commanded armies in the Cold West. Why would a man like that come to Estar? They say he coUld've led the conquest of the whole of the Cold West, if he'd stayed.'

Ah yes. If he'd stayed. But after Larbreth,.. after Larbreth, everything had changed. Especially Alish.

'Well, he's here now,' said Hearst. 'And we've made a common cause together. So…'

He let his words trail away; nobody insisted that he complete them.

'It must be about noon,' said Blackwood, rising. 'I have to go to help with some butcher work.'

'What's left to kill?' said Miphon.

'Horses,' said Blackwood.

Hearst watched the way Blackwood and Mystrel looked at each other before they parted. What was in that look? Not a childish form of infatuation, not the ardent lust of the young – but a kind of empathy and trust nurtured by long years of shared and undivided loyalty.

He envied them.

Name: Valarkin (brother of Durnwold).

Birthplace: Little Hunger Farm (which is also his current residence).

Career: leaving home, he became an acolyte-priest of the temple of the Demon of Estar; survived the destruction of the temple thanks to his caution (which some would call cowardice – but then, some are dead, and he's not); returned to his father's farm to become a farm labourer.

Prospects: with no union, no continuing education programme, no pay, and little chance of promotion, his career structure currently seems non-existent.

Description: a young man who is not really as pretty as his mother thought he was at birth.

'To your left, Valarkin!' yelled the old man. 'To your left!'

Valarkin, exhausted, pretended he did not hear. Sheep stampeded toward the gap he had failed to fill, but one of the dogs got there first. The old man -Valarkin's father – cursed him roundly. A single sheep found the way into the pen; the rest mobbed in after it. Leelesh closed a leather-hinged gate on them.

The open-mouthed lambs panted, their breath steaming in the chill air. It was cold and grey, as it could be in summer in Estar, where the weather's caprice easily destroyed any brief prosperity a family might achieve. Spring snow could kill lambs. Then, if the summer was too hot and fine, sheep might fall victim to fly strike – flies laying eggs in their backs to hatch to maggots which caused stinking black sores which could kill the animal. Rain forestalled fly strike, but prevented shearing, as wool stored wet would rot, and be worthless in the marketplace.