Sasha

cloak in the saddlebag.

Thoughts of his parents made him more miserable still. He did not know if they or his brothers and sisters were still alive. The wet saddle was chafing his thighs and his back was sore, but he dared not complain. Behind him, Rysha was no doubt suffering even worse-she was a good enough rider, but not as good as him. Also, she wore a dress, which had to be pulled up for her to sit properly astride. Her legs had been chilled, until the scout had given her a spare pair of his own pants to wear under her dress. She rode with them now all bunched up, her feet lost in the long, trailing pant legs as she clung to Daryd's back.

The scout's name was too difficult for him and Rysha to pronounce, so they just called him the scout. Daryd thought he might be from Tyree, but he wasn't certain. The scout had led them over the Aralya Range, which had been exhausting and treacherous. Always the scout had seemed nervous on that path and several times had led them off the trail to hide in the forest as riders had passed going the other way. The scout seemed to have very good eyesight and had ridden ahead of them a lot to make sure they weren't surprised. Now that they were down on the flat once more, he stayed close and made sure they didn't get lost on the narrow trails. Or maybe they were lost, Daryd thought. The scout didn't appear to be lost, though. He always seemed to know which way to go.

'Daryd, I'm hungry.' Daryd reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of berries the scout had given them. He gave them to Rysha.

'Here, be careful. Don't drop any.' She didn't. They had better food, for proper meals, but these were good for snacks, and the scout was good at finding them growing wild. The forest here was thick and, despite his wet clothes and aching muscles, Daryd thought it very beautiful, even in the rain. The pine trees seemed to be taller here and the spirits that lived in such trees would be great and majestic. He wondered if the trees would keep getting taller all the way to Baen-Tar. Maybe they'd be so tall in Baen-Tar, he'd barely be able to see their tops.

The berries tasted funny, but Rysha ate without complaint. Rysha had barely complained all trip, not even when the rain had started and her legs had chilled. Daryd had been amazed, and still was. She used to complain about everything. She'd slept against his side on the hard ground at camp and had sometimes squirmed and whimpered in her sleep. But, come the next morning, she'd risen bleary eyed, eaten breakfast and even insisted on helping Daryd to saddle and feed Essey. It had been enough to freeze all of Daryd's own complaints on his lips. If Rysha was not complaining, certainly he was not allowed to.

'Daryd,' she said after a while, as the rain was easing. 'Why are we going to Baen-Tar?'

'To meet King Torvaal,' Daryd explained. 'King Torvaal can send armies to fight the Hadryn.'

'But what about Lord Krayliss? Auntie Sedy says Lord Krayliss is Lord of Taneryn and that he's our friend.'

'Papa says Lord Krayliss is just a big bag of wind,' Daryd replied. 'Lord Krayliss says he's a relative of the Udalyn, but he doesn't do anything. Papa says he's not really interested in helping us, he just says that he is, so that people will like him.'

'But why doesn't he do anything? If he was really a relative, he'd help us.

'Taneryn's a different province, Rysha. They speak Taasti, there

… and a few other things I can't remember. They worship the spirits differently. Papa says they don't really know very much about the Udalyn. They haven't really seen us for a hundred years. And Taneryn's not very powerful, and not very rich, not like the Hadryn. So Lord Krayliss just makes a lot of noise, but he couldn't really help us if he wanted to.'

'What language does the king speak?' Rysha asked, as Daryd ducked a low, wet branch.

'Lenay. Everyone around the middle of Lenayin speaks Lenay, like the scout.'

'It sounds funny.'

Daryd smiled. It felt good to smile. He'd barely smiled in three days. 'Probably we sound funny to them, too.'

'You sound funny,' Rysha retorted. 'I don't.' Then, 'Is the king a Verenthane?'

'All the big nobles and royals are Verenthanes,' said Daryd. 'Taneryn's the only province where they're not.'

'I don't like Verenthanes.'

'How do you know that?' Daryd challenged. 'You've never met any Verenthanes.'

'The Hadryn are Verenthanes,' Rysha objected. 'They call us nasty names because we're not Verenthanes too, I heard Auntie Sedy say so.'

'The Hadryn don't count,' Daryd said firmly. 'Even lots of other Lenay Verenthanes don't like the Hadryn.' A thought occurred to him. 'I think the scout might be a Verenthane.'

'Do you think?' Rysha sounded unhappy at the prospect.

'Well, I can't tell if he's Goeren-yai. So he might be Verenthane. Why don't we try and ask him?'

'No, Daryd, dooon't,' Rysha complained. Finally, a real Rysha whine. Daryd grinned.

'Papa says King Torvaal's a good man,' said Daryd, changing the subject. 'He's done nice things for the Goeren-yai before. I'm sure he'll help us, if we ask him.'

They ate a lunch of bread and dried meat by a small stream that rushed and gurgled from the recent rain. The birds were different here, Daryd noted. Little blue and black bobtails flittered and chirped around the streamside bushes. Yellow flower birds snapped at insects above the rushing water. Some small, plain brown birds with long beaks pecked at things on the water surface near the streamside, where the flow was not as fast. The only birds Daryd recognised were the black-and-green wood ducks that swam further downstream, where a big, rotting log had formed a still pool behind a dam.

The scout saw him watching the birds and tried to name them for him. Daryd managed some of the names, but others he couldn't pronounce. The scout had perhaps thirty summers, Daryd reckoned-not as old as Jurellyn had been. He was quite clean for a scout or woodsman, too, with short hair and well-mended clothes. He washed every morning and after meals, and even put some funny-smelling paste on his teeth after dinner. The more Daryd thought about it, the more he thought the scout was probably a Verenthane. He'd heard that Verenthanes liked to keep clean, and this man had no rings, braids or tattoos whatsoever.

At mid-afternoon, the scout took them off the narrow trail and into the forest. They stopped behind some undergrowth where the scout gestured for the children to stay with the horses and be quiet. He then disappeared down a shallow hill. Daryd stood guard while Rysha supervised the horses as they grazed on some wild grass. It felt different, to put a hand on his knife hilt and pretend to be a real warrior. He'd seen real warriors fight now, and he'd seen them die. He'd always been frustrated by childhood, but now he found himself longing for that childish innocence. Back then, he could be a real warrior any time he liked, just by imagining. Now, no matter how hard he pretended, he remained just a little boy far from home, cold, lonely and frightened.

It was not long before the scout came quickly back up the hill, but now he had some men with him. These certainly were Goeren-yai men, all five of them, with long hair, earrings and the left side of their faces covered by the spiritmask. They stared at Daryd and Rysha as they approached, like men creeping up on some rare and magical animal. They spoke amongst each other, with wonder in their voices, and Daryd heard the word 'Udalyn,' over and over. The strange men made him anxious, but the scout seemed to trust them.

'Friend,' the scout said in Edu-the one Edu word he'd been quick to learn. Pointing to the five Goeren-yai men. 'Friend.'

Daryd nodded, warily. There must have been a village nearby, he realised. Just out of sight beyond the trees. The villagers had the look of men who worked hard, with worn clothes and hardened hands. Two of them were very big and the others, although middle-size, all looked strong, even the older ones. All wore swords at their hips and knives in their belts.

'Eyastan,' said one man, extending a hand to Daryd, a friendly smile parting his bushy beard. 'Eyastan, Yuan Udalyn.'

A greeting, Daryd reckoned. 'Eyastan,' he replied and clasped the other man's forearm. The man's smile grew to a grin. Each of the men said hello in that way. One of them seemed to ask for the Edu word for hello and repeated it over and over delightedly when Daryd told him. With Rysha they did not exchange the warrior-clasp, of course, but rather shook her hand gently and patted her on the head. Rysha stood close to Daryd's side, anxious and shy.

The villagers gave them good, fresh fruit and some delicious fresh bread. The children ate and the adults began jabbering in their strange, foreign tongue, with many gestures toward the children. After a while, one went