twinge of shame.
'I'm sorry,' Sturm said regretfully. 'I didn't know.' She shrugged indifferently.
He kicked his bedroll so that it opened feet to the fire.
Sturm lay down. 'Don't worry, Tervy; I'll look after you.
You're my responsibility.' But for how long? he wondered.
'Ironskin keep Tervy. Tervy not run away.'
Sturm pillowed his head on his arm and dropped off to sleep. Hours later, the sharp howl of a wolf roused him from slumber. He tried to sit up but found that a weight held him down. It was Tervy. She had crawled atop Sturm and gone to sleep, her arms draped over him.
Sturm eased the girl to one side. She fought sleepily, say ing, 'If charm fail, wolves come, have to get me before get you. Protection.'
Smiling, he ordered her in hushed tones to do as he said.
'I can protect myself,' he assured her. Tervy curled up on a narrow strip of his blanket and returned to sleep.
Tervy spent half the morning trotting alongside Sturm and Brumbar. He had offered to let her ride, but she insisted on keeping pace on foot. However, as the northern plain's summer sun took its toll, Tervy relented and hopped on
Brumbar's rump, behind Sturm.
'This the biggest horse in the world!' she declared.
He laughed. 'No, not very likely.' Her conclusion wasn't difficult to understand, considering that Brumbar was half again as tall and twice as heavy as the average plains pony.
At midday, the herd caught wind of Brantha's Pond. The pond had been built by Brantha of Kallimar, yet another
Solamnic Knight, 150 years before. The pool was two hun dred yards across, a perfect circle whose shore was paved with blocks of granite from the Vingaard Mountains.
The thirsty cattle quickened their pace. The herders had to concentrate at the head of the moving mass to discourage the animals from breaking into a dangerous stampede. At first, Sturm was mystified by their haste, but Tervy sniffed the air and informed him that she, too, could smell the water.
Within an hour, the silver-blue disk of Brantha's Pond came into view. Another herd, far larger than Onthar's, was being driven away. Horses, wagons, carts, and their occu pants clustered around the pond's edge.
Sturm's own interest quickened, stimulated by the impending contact with new people. The herdsmen were good fellows (well, there was Belingen), but they were taci turn and rather dull in conversation. Sturm had actually begun to miss the distracting talk of the gnomes.
The travelers abandoned the pond's edge when they heard the massed mooing of Onthar's herd. The cattle broke ranks and lined the shore, burying their peeling pink noses in the green water. Sturm pulled Brumbar up short. Tervy threw a leg over and dropped off. She ran toward the pond.
'Hey! What are you doing?' Sturm called. Before his eyes, the girl stripped off her collection of skins and vaulted onto the back of a drinking cow. She stood up and walked across the hind ends of two more beasts, then dived into the water. Sturm urged Brumbar down to the granite paving.
The girl swam in short, quick strokes to the center of the pond and disappeared. Sturm watched the green surface.
No bubbles. No turbulence other than that created by the drinking cattle. Then Tervy burst out of the water not ten feet from Sturm, scattering the cows who were drinking there.
'Give hand,' she said, and Sturm leaned down to pull her out of the water. 'I not stink now, hey?'
'Not as much,' he admitted. He handed her clothes to her and tried not to let his embarrassment show. 'Did you jump in because we said you smelled?'
'I not care what they speak,' Tervy said, tossing her shoulder at Onthar and his men. 'I not want Ironskin to smell me bad.'
He was touched by her gesture. Sturm turned Brumbar around and rode out of the congested pond bank. He teth- ered his horse with Onthar's ponies and saw the herders squatted on the ground, eating whatever they could scrounge from their rucksacks. Tervy was hungry, too. She snitched a flake of jerky from Belingen's bag. He caught her at it, and boxed her ears. She promptly put a thumb in his eye. Belingen howled with rage and groped for his skinning knife.
'Put it away,' said Sturm. Belingen found himself staring up thirty-four inches of polished steel.
'That raider wench nearly put my eye out!' he snarled.
'You punched her pretty good. That should satisfy you — or are you fighting with girls now?'
Sturm decided to take the girl to the caravan wagons and see what he could buy to eat. Tervy's ponytail dripped water down her back as she eagerly trotted along beside him.
'Ironskin will truly buy food with money?' she said, incredulous.
'Of course. I don't steal,' Sturm said.
'You have much money?'
'Not so much,' he said. 'I'm not rich.'
'That I figure. Rich man always steal,' Tervy said. Sturm had to smile at the blunt wisdom of her statement. He was smiling a lot lately, he suddenly realized.
Sturm found an Abanasinian group that was journeying to Palanthas. Besides the hired driver, there was a merce nary, a woman soothsayer, and an elderly tanner and his apprentice. Sturm swapped stories of Solace with them for a while, then came away with slices of dried apple beaded on a string, some pressed raisins, and a whole smoked chicken.
For the fine victuals, he dipped into the purse that the
Knight of the Rose had given him and paid twenty coppers, well more than his total wages as a herdsman.
Tervy danced around him, fairly bursting to get at the food. The apples didn't interest her, but she devoured most of the chicken, down to some of the small bones. Sturm untied the cheesecloth bundle that held the raisins.
'What that?' Tervy said, chicken grease smeared across her face.
'Raisins,' Sturm said. 'Dried grapes. Try some.'
She grabbed a handful and stuffed them into her mouth.
'Umm, sweet.' Spilling raisins all around, she finished the first handful and reached for another. Sturm swatted her hand.
'You eat all those ' she said, wide-eyed.
'No,' he said. 'You can eat them if you do it in a civilized manner. Like this.' He picked up four raisins, put them in the palm of his left hand, and ate them one by one with his right. Open-mouthed with curiosity, Tervy duplicated his artions precisely, except when it came to getting the raisins from her hand to her mouth one at a time.
'Too slow!' she declared, and crammed them all in at once. Sturm pulled her wrist down.
'People will stop treating you like a savage when you stop acting like one,' he said. 'Now do it the way I showed you.' This time she did it just right.
'You eat like this all time ' asked Tervy.
'I do,' said Sturm.
'Ah,' she exclaimed knowingly. 'You big man. Nobody steal your food. I little, eat fast so nobody steal my food.'
'No one's going to take food away from you here. Take your time and enjoy it.' When they had finished their meal, they strolled back to the herders' camp. Tervy gazed at
Sturm with a mixture of awe and amusement.
Onthar announced that it would take only two more days to reach Vingaard Keep. Once the cattle were sold, each man would be paid his wages and could sign on for another drive, if he so desired.
Sturm was the only one to decline. 'I have other business in the north,' he stated. Frijje asked him what. 'I'm looking for my father.'
