will fight side by side with the free runners to take back this Land of Many Brothers that was once ours.'
'Madness,' someone muttered.
'I have learned much about you in this short time,' Duwan said,
'merely by observation. You hunt in a pack of twenty for the small, helpless animals of the forests. You take life, and get in return only enough food to keep you weak, and thin, when you could be swollen with the goodness of the earth, of which you are, for which you are.'
'Would you have us eat the green poisons?' Tambol asked.
'Only in your own minds are the good things of the earth poison,' Duwan said. 'For you have been told this by the enemy, with one intent, to keep you ignorant of the fact that you, Drinkers all, could live on the bounty of the land without depending upon the Devourer's seeds, and his cultivated fields, and his animal flesh.'
A low moaning began and spread through the group. 'Master,' a quavering voice moaned, 'if you mean death for us, make it swift, as you made it swift for the masters, not slow and painful from the poison.'
'He has magic,' Jai said. Duwan motioned for her to be still.
'Who will trust me?' Duwan asked. When there was no volunteer, he turned to Tambol. Tambol lowered his head and was silent. Duwan, frustrated, glared out at them. Jai whispered at his side. 'Show them a magic, Lord, and they will believe.'
'I have no magic,' Duwan spat. He turned to Tambol. 'Do you know nothing of your origin?'
'Yes Master,' Tambol said. 'We are children of an unholy union between Aang the Devourer and the animals of the fields, and we are called unclean, although we had no choice, for it was Aang, father of the devourers, who sinned and soiled the earth with his lust. It is the punishment of the dus that Aang lives atop the high mountains and looks down each day to see his unholy children working to atone for his original sin of lust.'
'So you were told by the Enemy?' Duwan asked.
'So it is written,' Tambol said.
It was evident that the free runners were as ignorant of the true nature of things as Jai. The Enemy had, indeed, done a skillful job of indoctrination. Further questioning revealed to Duwan that, as in Jai's case, all had been taught from childhood—in the case of the free runners not even by the Devourers but by their own parents, for so strong was the indoctrination that generations of free runners had perpetuated the myths—that to share the sweet food of the green brothers brought sure, painful death, that the rays of Du were harmful, and that the body was to be protected from the rays at all times.
Tambol and his fellows wore ragged, dirty garments that covered all portions of their bodies save hands and feet. A loose hood half-hid the face.
It was also evident to Duwan that he was not trusted. He saw fear and something else in the faces and eyes of those who stood before him.
'I will speak with your wise men,' Duwan said, 'your elders, your Predictor.'
'So be it,' Tambol said.
The free runners lived within the earth. In a narrow, hidden valley, accessible without great effort only through a narrow, steep-walled canyon from which flowed a small stream, they had burrowed into the hillsides like animals, concealing the openings to their caves with brush and stones. Males with bows that would have been almost useless against anything larger than a tree animal guarded the canyon. As the hunting party marched up the valley, heads appeared from the caves in the hillsides, and soon a crowd followed. The hunters carried only a few small, furry carcasses, and some females, seeing the scarcity of food, began to wail. A scuffle broke out as one hunter left the party to join his female and his young and others tried to take his prize, one small, pathetic tree animal.
'We have done wrong in coming here, master,' Jai whispered. 'These live like animals.'
Duwan kept his right hand on the hilt of his longsword. The runners were thin and weak, but they were many, and the presence of Duwan and Jai among the hunters left in their wake a buzz of talk.
Tambol, in silence, led them onward, as the other hunters dropped off one by one to be met with rejoicing or weeping depending on whether they carried flesh.
The way led to the head of the valley, where the stream dropped from high rocks to fall with a roar into a broad, clear pool. There, facing a sheer rock wall, Tambol halted. 'I will inform the elders of your presence,' he said, and then disappeared into a natural stone cave. Jai clung to Duwan's arm and looked around fearfully.
'Master,' she whispered, as males began to drift up the valley toward them, bows in hand, 'we can run. You are mighty, and you will have to kill only a few of them and then they will not try to stop us. We can go far away and live fatly upon the good green that you bless of its poison.' Duwan did not answer. He, too, had noted the
