largely through Grunt's influence that Dust Legs had made the long journey to Council Rock, to aid the Kaiila. The lad's mother, long ago, had loved Grunt. It was said she still lived. The lad had something of Grunt's facility with languages and his father's shrewdness and good sense in trading. He had been one of the few Dust Legs who was permitted in Fleer encampments and had lived with them. He, originally conversing in sign had subsequently learned their language.
Dust Legs and Kaiila, as I have earlier indicated, are closely related languages. Kaiila is commonly, interestingly, regarded as a dialectical version of Dust Leg. Dust Leg and Fleer are also related, but much more distantly. Commonly Dust Legs and Fleer, when they meet in peace, communicate in the lingua franca of the plains, sign. The lad, it was said, had children of his own.
The lad and Grunt had decided to go into partnership, this being thought to be to the advantage of both. Grunt could speak Gorean and the lad was fluent not only in Dust Leg and Kaiila, but Fleer as well. I had little doubt they would become famous on the plains. This winder, instead of returning west of the Ihanke, Grunt had told me that he planned to winter with Dust Legs. There was a woman there, for whom he had once cared. He was eager to see her again. It seemed she had not forgotten him.
The Fleer warrior regarded Cuwignaka. His kaiila moved under him, resteless with its energy.
' 'I have heard of you, ' translated the light-skinned lad. ' 'It is well knwn on the plains that there is one among the Kaiila whose name is Cuwignaka, Woman's Dress, who has no quarrel with the Fleer. »
Cuwignaka, standing, his arms folded, regarded the Fleer warrior. He said nothing.
'It is because of you,' said the Fleer warrior, 'why we came to Council Rock.'
Cuwignaka looked puzzled.
'Do you know,' asked the Fleer warrior, 'why we came to Council Rock, and, because of us, the Sleen came?'
'No,' said Cuwignaka. The Fleer and Sleen are allies.
'Because,' laughed the warrior, 'we have no quarrel with Cuwignaka!'
He then turned his kaiila about, by its jaw rope, and rode away.
'There will be peace, I think,' I said, 'between the Kaiila, and the Fleer and Sleen.'
'No,' said Canka, standing nearby, 'I do not think so. It is only, rather, that it was a noble warrior's gesture.'
'I did not think they were capable of such,' said a man.
'Of course they are,' said Hci, with us. 'They are fine enemies.'
'Canka does not think there will be peace,' I said.
'Let us hope not,' said Hci.
'I do not understand,' I said.
'Ah, Tatankasa, Mitakola,' said Hci, 'I fear you will never understand us, or folk such as the Fleer or Sleen.'
'Perhaps not,' I said.
'War is part of our life,' he said. 'It is what makes us what we are. I do not think Kaiila would be the Kaiila without the Fleer, or the Fleer the Fleer, without the Kaiila.'
'Good friends are priceless,' said a man. 'So, too, are fine enemies.'
'Great enemies,' said a man, 'make great peoples.'
'Do not be concerned, Mitakola,' said Cuwignaka. 'I do not think I understand them either. Tehy are my people, and I love them, but I, too, may never understand them.'
I watched the Fleer riding away. 'That is reassuring,' I said.
'You are now a warrior, my friend,' said Hci to Cuwignaka. 'What name will you take? Hve you chosen one?'
'Will you take again your old name?' asked Canka. 'Petuspe?' 'Petuspe', in Kaiila, means 'Fire Brand.'
'No,' said Cuwignaka. 'And I have chosen my name.'
'What will it be?' asked Hci.
'Cuwignaka,' smiled Cuwignaka.
Hci smiled. 'You have made it a warrior's name,' he said. 'Others, too, might now take it as such.'
'What of you, Hci, my friend?' asked Cuwignaka. 'Long ago you were known as Ihdazicaka. Will you take again that name?' 'Idazicaka', in Kaiila, means 'One-Who-Counts-Himself-Rich.'
'No,' smiled Hci. 'Now, although I feel I am one who may truly account hiself rich, I shall keep the name Hci. It is a name of which I have taken my highest coups. More importantly, in the time that I have worn that name, I have, for the first time in my life, found friends.
Canka, Cuwignaka and Hci clasped hands.
A few hundred feet away, I saw some Dust Legs, a party of them, returning to their own country.
Among them, stripped naked, his hands tied behind him, riding backwards on a kaiila, his ankles bound tether on a long strap, it running between them under the belly of the kaiila, rode the officer who had won the draw. He was a blond, slim young man. He had been the youngest of the officers. At the edge of the Ihanke, when it was reached, some weeks from now, he would be tied and beaten with switches, as though he might be a slave girl. Then, sill stripped, and his hands tied then behind him, he would be released, to make his way as he could to Kailiauk, that white settlement closest to the Ihanke.
I saw a white girl staggering past, bent over. She was stripped. She carried a great bundle of sticks, tied together, on her back. She was pretty. The sticks would doubtless serve as fuel. She was doubtless on her way to the lodge of her master.
The Yellow Knives had been defeated ten days ago.
We were now in a great victory camp, near water, within sight of Council Rock, some seven or eight pasangs in the distance. In this camp there were Fleer, Sleen, Dust Legs and Kaiila. There had been dances and feasts. There had been much loot to divide, taken from Yellow-Knife encampments, and there had been much exhanging of gifts, even between hereditary, inveterate enemies such as the Fleer and Kaiila. Women, too, even free women, of these peoples, of those bands within trekking disatnce, had jouneyed to the encampment. Such times of celebration, of festivals and peace, particularly among diverse tribes, are rare and precious. This was now Wayukaspiwi, in the calendar of the Dust Legs, the Corn-Harvest Moon, or, as it is spoken of in the reckoning of the Kaiila, Canwapekasanwi, the moon when the wind shakes off the leaves.
Only too clearly did the browning grass and the cool winds preage the turning of the seasons, and the advent of the gray skies and the long nights of the bitter moon, Waniyetuwi, called the Winter Moon; Wanicokanwi, called the Mid-Winter Moon; Witehi, the Hard Moon; and Wicatawi, the Urt Moon. The vernal equinox occurs in the Istawicayzanwi, the Sore-Eye Moon. Grunt and I had originally come to the Barrens, it now seemed long ago, in Magaksicaagliwi, the Moon of the Returning Giants. Already various groups, in small numbers, had begun to withdraw from the victory camp.
I, too, I thought, must soon be on my way. I must soon take my leave of the Barrens. I must begin the long journey back to the Ihanke, and thence to the Thentis Mountains, and the Vosk, and the Tamber Gulf and Port Kar.
I turned my steps toward my lodge, that which I shared with Cuwignaka, and his slave, Cespu, and with she who was now my own slave, she to whom I now held full legal title, lovely, obedient blond Mira. Cuwignaka had wished to give her to me but I had insisted on paying five hides for her. Grinning, he had accepted. She was a slave. Why should she not be bought and sold? She was now mine, totally.
I stopped before a quartet of stripped, kneeling white slaves, neck tethered, with their hands bound behind their back. They were the four girls who had been taken from Grunt long ago by Yellow Knives, near the scene of the massacre of the wagon train, and the battle between the soldiers and the coalition of red savages, Lois, Inez, Corinne and Priscilla. They had been returned to Grunt after the defeat of the Yellow Knives, as a part of his portion of the booty. I examined them. They were lovely flesh loot. Priscilla bore a mare in black paint on her left breast. She had been sold for four hides to Akihoka, a friend of Canka, and also a member of the All Comrades. Corinne, the French girl, also bore a mark in black paint on her left breast, a different mark. Grunt had sold her to Keglezela, another of Canka's friends, also for four hides. Keglezela was also a member of the All Comrades. Neither Akihoka nor Keglezela had yet taken delivery on the women.
Lois and Inez had not been sold. They would serve as burden bearers for Grunt, on his way back to the Dust-Leg country. Then, if he had not sold them in the meantime, presumably they would accompany him back to
