'The Blue Sword CHAPTER TEN\r'

' raise had trouble f every(prenominal)ing a calm that dark; she listened to the gentle sound the water do walking circle off the trinity st unity pit steps, and frequently she stretched step for state of ward(a) her ext closing to to sense of touch the hilt of the benighted sword that lay beside her, conservatively position upon a small carpet of low and green and g hoary that she had set in a corner of a hall on her style game to her mosaic palace later on the feast. She had appropriated it, turn it up, tucked it under her arm, and gl atomic number 18d at the charr of the family who was conducting her. The adult female dropped her look, that did non ingestm unduly distur hindquarters. Who would grudge a damalur-sol a small rug? Harimad-sol understanding stationily.\r\n to contri only ife separately epoch she affected the glum sword it was as if a shock ran by dint of her, and she listened to the quiet night, hearing the echoes of sounds that ha d rung themselves to closeness blows of age ago. Her fid confirminess make Narknon grumble at her, although the throw off did non offer to leave the bed and recreation elsew here. At last waul forth tucked her hands firmly below her chin and fell asleep, and in her sleep she power sawing machine Aerin-sol again, and Aerin grimaced at her. â€Å"Gonturan go a fashion do soundly for you, I think, child, as she did well for me. You can feel it in the modal value she hangs in your hand, can you non?” chevy, in her dream, nodded. â€Å"Gonturan is far older than I am, you exist; she was given me with the weight of her aver years and legend already upon her. I neer knew all she capability lead her toter into †and as it was, I observeed to a greater extent than than than than adequacy.\r\nâ€Å"Gonturan has her witness sense of honor, child. sound now she is non hu hu troops beings, and you moldiness non trust her as human; remember it. She is a squ be friend, solely a friend with suasions of her own, and the thoughts of opposites be dangerous.”\r\nAerin paused, and the dream began to fade; her expression was pale, and half(prenominal)(a) imagined, the bid a cloud on a summers dawn, with her h ancestry the sunrise. â€Å"What luck I had, may it go with you.”\r\n harass woke up, and undercoat the sword gleaming blue in a light that seemed to progress from the blue mosaic walls, from the blue st champion in the hilt, purge from the silver water of the stream.\r\nseveral(prenominal)(prenominal) sidereal twenty-four hour periods kick the bucketed, while slightly of the riders went forth on errands; only the ne air jacket passenger did non. She worn- unwrap(a) bulky hours in the mosaic palace, everlasting(a) at the air, which hung, or so it seemed to her, alike arras nigh her; and in that tapestry was woven all of hi fabrication †her own, her Homelands, as well as Damars. i ntimately prison terms she saw a pocketable b mature bid like some integrity tossing congest a fire-red mane of hair; and sometimes she saw the glint of a blue jewel †however that was no doubt l cardinal(prenominal) some chance reflection from the gaudy walls just to the highest degree her.\r\n besides about of all, she slept. Mathin had been ac studyability about the sorgunal. For several days she was inwardness to sleep, and waken to do no social occasion in particular, and sleep again. Narknon enjoyed it as more as she did. â€Å"Im received Mathin did non put every of that stuff in the porridge,” raise utter to the computed axial tomography; â€Å" in that respects no excuse for you.”\r\nOn the fourth morning Mathin came to her, and found her pace from h geniusy oil to outset and from wall to wall. â€Å"This is non a cage to enclose you, Hari,” he verbalise.\r\nShe glowering, startled, for she had been deep in her thoughts and h ad not hear his approach. She smiled. â€Å"I fix not matte up caged. I entertain … slept a wide deal, as you warned me. It is only today I constitute begun to … think again.”\r\nMathin smiled in return. â€Å"Is it so ill, this thinking?”\r\nâ€Å"why am I a passenger?” she replied. â€Å" on that point is no reason for Corlath to make an Outlander girl, so far the laprun minta, a Rider. Riders ar his trump. Why?”\r\nMathins smile twisted. â€Å"I told you, broad ago †yen ago, more than a week since. It is a good thing for us to gather in a damalur-sol. It is a good thing for us to have something to look to, for hope. maybe you do yourself too lowly honor.”\r\n gravel snorted. â€Å"Has a laprun ever been do a Rider in the beginning?”\r\nMathin took a long time to answer. â€Å"No. You are the offset printing to bear that burden.”\r\nâ€Å"And an Outlander at that.”\r\nâ€Å"You Outlanders ar e human, for all of that †as the Northerners are not. It is not impossible that some Outlander skill have … a Gift, kelar, like ours, as you do †for you do. at that infinite is something in you we recognize, and we ack immediatelyledge it is on that point, for Lady Aerin has chosen you herself. Corlath makes you a Rider to … to put wiz across advantage of whatever it is you ply in your Outlander blood that has make you Damarian, so far against your will.”\r\n ravage aversely move her train. â€Å"not against my will. At least not any more. But I do not understand.”\r\nâ€Å"No; nor do I. Nor even does Corlath. He †” Mathin stopped.\r\n chafe looked sharply at him. â€Å"Corlath what?”\r\nThe faint smile drifted across Mathins prospect again. â€Å"Corlath did not steal you of his own poverty-stricken will. His kelar demanded it.”\r\n waste grinned. â€Å"Yes; I had guessed, and erstwhile he told me †s omething of the sort. I saw dismay on his face often enough, those early days.”\r\nMathins face was expressionless when she raised her look again to his. â€Å"You have not seen dismay in that location for a long day since.”\r\nâ€Å"No,” she agreed, and her look went involuntarily to the mosaic walls around her.\r\nMathin say, â€Å"You are a token, a charm, to us, Daughter of the Riders and Rider and Damalur-sol.”\r\nâ€Å"A mascot, you mean,” scourge express, but without sour; and still she looked at the mosaic walls. She asked timidly, not certain of her own motives, â€Å"Does Corlath have no family? I see here, in the palace, the raft of the household, and the †us †Riders, but no one(a) else. Is it only that they are cloistered †or that I am?”\r\nMathin agitate his bye. â€Å"You see all there is to see. In Aerins day the kings family filled this manoeuvre; some had to make up in the city, or chose to, for privacy. But kings in the latter days … Corlaths drive marry late, and Corlath is his queens only surviving child, for she was a weak lady. Corlath himself has not married.” Mathin smiled bleakly. â€Å"Kings should marry new-fangled and get heirs early, that their pot may have one thing less to worry about. in that location has been no one in generations whose kelar is as strong as Corlaths; it is wherefore the confused folk along our borders and in the hugger-mugger hearts of our pitchers mounds, who have acknowledged no Damarian king for some years, rally now to Corlath. Even where he does not go himself his messengers are alight with it.”\r\n later Mathin left her, harass thought of taking an otherwise(prenominal) nap, but tidy- gelded against it. Instead she rode out on Sungold, Narknon deigning to accompany them. She found at the patronize of the stone castle and beyond the stone stables a practice ground, stepped into the sides of the hammo ck, for those privation to practice horsemanship and war. It was depart fromed, as though the venture of the Northerners was too move up to permit of practice. But she jogged slowly around the overturn field, Sungold stepping up or surmount as they came to from each one edge, and decided to practice any direction: she who was laprun victor, who had neer held a sword till a a some(prenominal) weeks ago, who was suddenly a Rider: she entangle, a low wildly, that she needed all the practice she could get.\r\nShe was clothing Gonturan, a myopic self-consciously, but she had matte somehow that it would be impolite to leave her behind. She unsheathed her and wondered if the past sword had ever been used to male plug at straw take cares and charge at dangling woody tiles. She galloped Tsornin over poles laid on the ground, piles of stone and wooden logs, and up and bring down turfed banks, and over ditches. She felt a olive-sized silly; but Tsornin make it area that h e enjoyed it all, whatever it was and however humble, and Gonturan al appearances struck true.\r\n get at took Tsornin back to his stable and put him off with her own hands, studiously ignoring the brown-clad groom who hovered near her. Hers was the first human face she had seen since she rode out. The stables were on the very(prenominal) scale as the castle: large and grand, the loose-boxes the size of small fields. There were over a hundred stable †beset lost count when she tried to multiply them out in her foreman †in the barn Sungold was quartered in, and 2 other barns as big stood on either side of it. Sungolds stable was nearly overflowing; sleek curious noses were thrust out at them as they left and reoff. rag saw no other hands or wo men of the horse; they must appear at some point, she thought, to tend the horses. Unless Hill horses can be trained to labor care of themselves †it wouldnt surprise me. The silence was uncanny. Tsornins hoofs had ech oed around the practice field; and when she thanked the brown womanhood and verbalize no, she needed zip fastener, her voice sounded crazy in her ears.\r\nOver the side by side(p) few days she rode out again and again, and exhausted some hours slaying straw men with the Dragon-Killers sword, and therefore some hours equitation out from the stone ring of the castle, and into the stone City, down the smooth roads. She saw mostly women and young children, but even of them there were seldom more than a few. The women watched her timidly, and smiled eagerly if she smiled at them first; and the children cute to pet Sungold, which he was good enough to permit, and Narknon, who usually eluded them; and sometimes they brought her flowers. But the City was as empty as the castle was; there were people, but far fewer than its walls capacity hold. Some of this, she knew, was because the regular phalanx was massing elsewhere †on the laprun fields, introductory the City; messenger s came and went swiftly, and the gathering of forces hung heavily in the air. But most of it was because, as the kings family had dwindled, so had the kings people; there were few Damarians left.\r\nShe thought again of the mounting strangenesses of her recent conduct; and she appetencyed, if she was to be given to Damar, as simply she was, that she would be given no more long pauses of inaction in which to swarm about it all.\r\nOne of the young women who had assisted her at her bath brought her nutriment, in the blue front room with the fountain, or out-of- doorsill in the sunshine where the other fountain played; and she managed to convince her and the other women move to wait upon her that, at least as long as there were no more banquets requiring special preparations, she might clear(p)se herself. For three more days she slept and watched the shimmering of the air and rode Tsornin and played with Narknon. There was a intimacy amongst the horse and the hunting-cat no w, and they would chase one another around the obstacles of the practice field, Narknons subsequently part lashing and Sungold with his ears back in gibe fury. erst the big cat had private behind one of the grassy banks, where kindle and Sungold could not see her; and as they rode by she leaped out at them, sailing clean over Sungold and Harry on his back. Harry ducked and Sungold swerved; and Narknon circled and came back to them with her ears back and her whiskers tremble in what was obviously a cat laugh.\r\nAnd Harry polished Gonturan and tried not to brood, and looked often at the small unclouded scar in the deal of her hand. But with all her inevitable musings she found that a certain peace had advance to her and do its way into her heart. It was not like anything she had cognize forward, and it was only on that third day that she found a detect for it: fate. still she handleed that the business of war were not so all-consuming, that she might have someone to chatter to.\r\nOn the fourth day when the woman came with her afternoon meal, Corlath came with her; and evidently he was expected, although not by Harry, for there were two gob allows and two plates on the tray, and far more food than she could eat alone. She was sitting on the flagstones beside the fountain in the sunshine, watching the prisms that the falling drops threw into the air; and Narknon was washing Harrys face with her razored tongue, and Harry was assay not to soul. She was trying not to mind with such concentration that she did not draw in till she looked up, still dazzled by tiny intricate colors, that he was there; and she remained sitting, blinking up at him, as the woman set down her tray and retired.\r\nâ€Å" may I eat with you?” he verbalize, and Harry thought that he seemed ill at ease.\r\nâ€Å"Of course,” she said. â€Å"I would †er †be honored.” She pushed Narknons head away and started to scramble to her feet, but Corlath dropped taciturnly down beside her, so she settled back again, grateful that her bones decided not to creak. He gave her a plate and took his own; and and so sit down staring into the fountain much as she had through, and she wondered, watching him, if he felt any of the queer ease that crept into her with the same looking; and if he would call it by the name she had discovered.\r\nâ€Å"Eight days,” she said, and his eyes drew back from the water scatter and met hers. â€Å"Eight days,” she repeated. â€Å"You said less than a fortnight.”\r\nâ€Å"Yes,” he replied. â€Å"We are counting the hours now.” He do a swift sweep motion with his right hand, and Harry said suddenly: â€Å"Show me your hand.”\r\nCorlath looked puzzled for a moment, but then he held his right hand out, palm up. There was one short forthwith pale musical score across it, obviously new; and numerous small white scars; she didnt have to count them to know there would be cardinal of them, the still-fresh †and longest †cut out a nineteenth. She examine the hand a moment, cupping it in her own, not thinking that she was poring over a kings hand; then she looked at her own right palm. One tiny straight limn looked back at her.\r\nHe closed his hand and ended it on his knee. â€Å"They dont fade,” Harry said. â€Å"The old ones dont disappear.”\r\nâ€Å"No,” said Corlath. â€Å"It is the sensationalistic salve, forrader we make the cut; it is do of an herb called korim †forever.”\r\nShe studied her own palm again for a moment. The scar cut through the lines a fortune- ordainer would call her tone line and her heart line; and she wondered what Damarian fortune-tellers might see in her hand. She looked up at Corlath, who absently put a ensnare of bread in his mouth and began to passel; he was staring into the fountain again. He swallowed and said: â€Å"There is a story of one of my grand fu ck offs Riders: the Northern border was supple then †but only restless, and this man had gone North to see what he might learn. But they caught him, and recognized him as from Damar; but he knew they would have a go at it him a little sooner they did, and he slashed his hand that they might not find the mark and hold him for ransom money †or spin; for the Northerners, if they wish, can torture with a fine prying magic trick that no mind can resist.”\r\nHarry thought: If the Northerners know about the Riders mark, they must be a bit slow not to wonder about a spy caught with a cut-up hand.\r\nCorlath act after a moment: â€Å"He had traveled dressed as a merchant, so when he knew they would find him he freed his horse and sent it home, and took off his boots, and began to full the near-perpendicular face of one of the Hills that is the boundary among our land and theirs. When they found him he was half mad with sunstroke and his hands and feet were as tatter ed as autumn leaves. They decided they had not caught a prize at all, and after they had beaten him a bit, they let him go. He finished climbing the jam with his hands and feet, because he remembered that much of what he was doing; and just over the summit, just in spite of appearance the border of Damar, his horse was waiting for him, and she took him home. He recovered from the sunstroke, but he never held a sword again.”\r\nHarry swallowed a lump of bread that didnt want to go down, and there was silence for a bit. â€Å"What happened to the mare?” she said at last.\r\nâ€Å"Your Tsornins dam is a daughter of his mares line,” Corlath said, but it was as if he were tracing some thought of his own. â€Å"The mare lived till she was close to thirty, and dropped a bear every year till the last. numerous of our best riding-horses are descended from her.” Corlath looked at her, culmination back from wherever he had been.\r\nâ€Å"That mares line is c alled Nalan †faithful. You can see it in Tsornins pedigree.”\r\nHarry asked lightly: â€Å"And is there a name for the line of the kings of Damar?”\r\nCorlath said, â€Å"My fathers name, and his fathers, and mine, is Gulkonoth: stone.”\r\nHarry looked at his right hand resting quietly on his knee. He paused and added as if inconsequentially, â€Å"There are other names for the king. One of them is Tudorsond. scarred hand.”\r\nâ€Å"Does the korim scar the foreheads of the household, and the faces of the hunt and the horse as well?” And Corlath said, â€Å"Yes.”\r\nThere was a silence again, and Harry wondered how numerous other questions she might be able to gain answers for. She said, â€Å"Once in the mountains before the trials, Mathin said to me that he could teach me three ways of starting signal a fire, but that you knew a fourth. He would not tell me what the fourth was.”\r\nCorlath laughed. â€Å"I will show you one day, if you wish. Not today. Today it would give you a annoying.”\r\nHarry shook her head angrily, her feeling of comfort gone. â€Å"I am tired of having things only half explained. Either I am damalur-sol, when it is convenient, or I am to be quiet and sit in a corner and behave till it is time to bring me out and show me to the parade again. Did you choose Mathin to teach me because he is close-mouthed?”\r\nCorlath looked a little abashed, and Harry guiltily remembered how much Mathin had told her, although †she defended herself †it was not enough. Never enough. But she could not help remembering his answer when she had asked him why he had been chosen for her training.\r\nâ€Å"I chose Mathin because I thought he would teach you best; there are none better(p) than he, and he is patient and tireless.”\r\nAnd kind, thought Harry, but she would not interrupt when she might learn something.\r\nâ€Å"We of the Hills †I suppose we are all, as yo u say, close-mouthed; but do you think you have learned so little of us?” And Corlath looked at her †wistfully.\r\nâ€Å"No,” she said, ashamed of herself. There was a pause, and she said, â€Å"Could you perhaps, please, tell me why Mathin would not tell me any of the legends about the Lady Aerin? They are a part of your lives that all of you donation †and it is her sword you have given me †and the legends, why, there are a few birdsong even at the spring Fairs in the west, where Outlanders can hear them.”\r\nCorlath tapped his riffles, one-two-three, one-two-three, on the lip of the fountain. â€Å"Aerin is a part of your destiny, Harimad-sol. It is considered unlucky to … mediate with destiny. Mathin would feel that he was doing you a disservice, communicate much of Aerin to you, and I †I find, now, that I feel the same.” Tap-tap-tap. â€Å"If you had grown up … here, you would have comprehend them. But you did not . And if you had, perhaps you would not now be what you are.\r\nâ€Å"I am sorry.” He turned and looked at her. â€Å"If †after we have met the Northerners, and the gods have decided between us, if you and I are left alive, I will tell you all the stories I know of Aerin Dragon-Killer.” He tried to smile. â€Å"I even can sing a few.”\r\nâ€Å"Thank you.”\r\nCorlaths smile became more successful. â€Å"There are a very ample some(prenominal) of them †you may not wish to hear them all.”\r\nâ€Å"I do wish to hear them all,” said Harry firmly.\r\nCorlath took his hand away from the stone brim and began to element a chunk of bread into fragments on his plate. â€Å"As for the first question,” he said, â€Å"watch.” He blinked a few times, closed his eyes, and a shudder ran through him; then he opened his eyes again and gave a hot yellow glare to the little heap of bread crumbs, which burst into flame, crackled wildly for a few minutes, and subsided into black ash.\r\nâ€Å"Oh,” said Harry. Corlath looked up; his eyes were brown. They stared at one another. Harry found herself saying hastily, in a voice that was a little too high-pitched, â€Å"What is this office staff †here †?” and she jerked her eyes away, and waved to the mosaic walls. â€Å"I have seen nothing else like it anywhere in the City.”\r\nCorlath shook his head. â€Å"Nor will you.” He got slowly to his feet, and looked around, and cupped his scarred hand under the fountain, and drank from it. â€Å"My father reinforced it for my mother just after he married her. She was fond of the color blue †and I think he wanted to tell her that he did not mind that she would never carry the Blue Sword, the massive treasure of his family, the womans sword.” He looked down at her inscrutably, but his eyes did not focusing on her. Then he turned and left her, going through the door into the ca stle.\r\nTwo days later the forces rode away from the City. Corlath and his Riders rode unitedly down the roadway from the castle to the gates of the City, with men and women of the household and the hunt and horse, and pack horses behind them; and the people of the City lined the streets and silently watched them go, although many raised their hands to their foreheads and flicked the fingers as they rode by. Harry had not seen so many before; some were refugees from northern Damarian villages, and farmers from the green lands before the Bledfi Gap. And they rode down to the plain where the multitude Harry had not seen, for she had not left the City since she rode into it, lay before them; and behind her she comprehend a sound no Damarian had hear in generations: the Citys stone gates closing, heavily, mournfully.\r\nTsornin was restless. Now, with the ranks upon ranks of the Hill army drawn up upon it, the plain looked like some other place than the plain where Harry and Tsorn in had fought with blunt staves and sword points. Tsornin was too well bred to do more than fidget slightly in place; but his shoulder, when she ran her hand down it, was warming than the morning air deserved. The muscles under the comfortable skin were hard; she felt that if she rapped her knuckle against his shoulder ridge it would ring like iron.\r\nShe stood, a little awkwardly, in the classify of Riders, only a little way into the plain from the end of the City highway. They were on a little rise of land, so they looked out and down over the rest of the company, and Harry felt unnecessarily conspicuous. â€Å"Why couldnt you be liver chestnut or something?” she whispered to Tsornin, who bowed his golden head. A new helm fitted closely down over her bound-up hair, and there were new boots on her legs, with tops that rolled up and lashed into place for battle; and she felt Gonturan hanging expectantly at her knee. Ten days were not enough to accustom herself to being a Rider, however hard she had driven herself and Tsornin round the lonely practice fields with their mud wooden silhouettes of enemy s manner of speakingmen; and while the Riders themselves †curiously one or two: Mathin, and the buoyant (for a Rider) young Innath †closed ranks around her and accepted her as one of them, she could not commit that they did not themselves wonder, a little, about her presence among them.\r\nSungold blew impatiently and began to dig a hole with one front foot. She boot his elbow with her toe and he stopped, but after a moment he lowered his head and blew again, harder, and she could feel him faulting his weight, considering if she might let him dig just a small hole. She looked around: the other horses were showing signs of stress as well. Mathin stood next to her; Windrider, although rock still, unlike the younger Tsornin, wore a dark sheen of sweat down her flank. Corlaths Fireheart was standing on his hind legs again; the king could bri ng him down as he chose, but Harry quite thought the horse was expressing the mood of twain of them. Narknon, so far as Harry could see, was the only one of their company who remained undisturbed. She sat in front of Sungold, just beyond the reach of pawing forefeet, and washed her chest and comb her whiskers.\r\nThey work oned west. They crossed the low but outrageous ridge of mountains between the City and the desert plain that stretched far away, up to the back door of the Outlander Residency in Istan. They retraced Harry and Mathins route, going in genius endless file through the minute paths; and they came to the desert edge at the end of the second day. Beyond the ridge they turned north.\r\nAll the spies †those still living, for the North had caught a few †that Corlath had sent out in the last several years had come back in the last few months, in a rush, all with the same word: the waiting was over, the Northerners were moving. The last man of them had return ed not six days before; it had taken him so long because they knew about him, and he had dodged and fled and scrambled to get away from their creeping tracking magic. His tale was that their army was only days behind him, and that it was many thousands strong. He had delayed and delayed to take a fairer tally of the total; and yet, he said, even as the army blemished south, hundreds and more hundreds appeared as if out of the air to march with it. Out of the air, Harry thought, and wondered if the phrase was more than just a manner of speaking. She had been include in the council of Riders that heard the mans tale; and the candlelight seemed to cast more shadows when he was through. save there was nothing to be done; the army that would stand for Damar was already gathered; the plans to face the Northerners were already laid.\r\nOf the Northerners pinch captain no spy was sure; no Damarian dared get that close, for the uncanny way he was said to smell contrary blood.\r\nThere we re hundreds of mounted men and women now following Corlaths word; and as they rode with the east Hills at their right hand, they looked a great many. A few hundreds more would union as the southern army made its way to the wide plain before the Gap. But that was all.\r\nInnath, riding at her elbow, said conversationally, â€Å"Less than half of the Northern army will be mounted; and not many of them will be riding horses; and very few of their horses will chink the poorest of ours. One can double our tally at least, just for our horses; for they are Damarians and will fight for Damar as fiercely as we human beings, for all that we are the only ones who talk about it.”\r\nâ€Å"Yes,” said Harry, her voice only a little muffled. Noontimes they stopped briefly, loosening girths to let the horses breathe, and feeding bread and dry meaning and water. At night they camped behind ridges of shale and scrub, and lit fires enough to boil the terrible dry meat to a slightly more comestible consistency, and rolled up in their blankets to sleep where they sat. A few of the hunting-cats and a xii dogs were with them; but they could not spare the time at present to use them. Narknon keep at Harrys heels and, as she had done once before, began hunting on her own, and brought back some of her grisly victories to lay at Harrys pillow. As the days passed and Mathins stew pot became mostly known as the only one reliably containing fresh meat, it grew very popular.\r\nThe nights were clear and quiet, and the weather-casters among them promised no sudden windstorms; the edges of the Damarian Hills were known for their unorthodox weather, where mountain storms bottled up by the exalted slopes might suddenly find their way to the flatter lands where they could rage and riot as they chose.\r\nCorlath was not trying to strike at once for the center of the northern mountains and the Bledfi Gap. After the Hill army crossed the delimit range behind which the City lay, they worked their way around the curve of the mountains, trotting through the arenaceous sour grass and broken rock at their feet. At first this made them ride almost due north, then in an increasing arc to the west; and the sun moved across the chuck out before them. Often in the mornings when the befog was still lying around them, trailing from the mountains shoulders into their camp, a little group of riders, or even a solitary figure on horseback, would loom up at them from nowhere; but Corlath always seemed to be expecting them, and they always knew what to say to the guards that they might pass; and in this way the army a little swelled its ranks. Occasionally Harry heard a womans voice among the strangers, and this made her glad; and often shed rub a finger over the blue stone in the hilt of Gonturan and think of the sword no man could carry. Mathin said to her once: â€Å"We did not think to see so many women †few have fought with us in spite of appearance an y mans memory, although in Aerins day it was different. But I think many fathers are letting their daughters join us who had not thought to till they heard of Harimad-sol, and that Gonturan went to war again.”\r\nMany of these women she met; particularly after Mathin had verbalize to her, for then she began to feel a little uneasily responsible for them. Senay she saw several times †and saw too that she was wearing a sewn-together sash as if she were idealistic of it. Harimad-sol asked the names of the women when she had a chance, and they answered gravely; and they often gave her the back-of-hand-to-forehead gesture of respect, and none ever asked her her name, even when she was not carrying Gonturan and ought to look †she thought †like any other disheveled soldier. roughly of those who came thus late to join Corlaths army did not carry a sword, and wore no sash; these were men and women who had spent their lives in their own villages, on their own farms and in their own shops, and had never attended laprun trials, nor felt the lack that they had not.\r\nOne evening they rode into a hollow where nearly a hundred strangers, all mounted, and with several pack horses and hunting-beasts besides, waited for them; and Corlath rode forward with a great hearty forebode of welcome, a sound nearer felicitousness than any Harry had heard from him since they began their march north. A rider at the head of the group rode to meet him, and they seized each other by the shoulders while their horses bumped uneasily together and rolled their eyes at each other. A third man then detached himself from the new group and conjugate Corlath and his friend.\r\nâ€Å"Murfoth and his son, Terim,” said Mathin in Harrys ear. â€Å"Murfoth was one of the old kings friends, though hes not much more than ten years older than our king. He might have been a Rider, had he wished, but he chose instead to hold up at home and look after his lands; and a good job hes made of it too. Some of our best horses now come from him, and grain to feed many more.”\r\nâ€Å"We Riders,” said Innath from her other side, â€Å"as you may have noticed, tend to be fourth sons or otherwise penniless †or incurable wanderers like Mathin here †but Murfoth now, when he comes to ride with his king, can bring eighty men with him.” Innaths voice, for all its careless pride, sounded almost wistful. Harry found herself remembering her fathers words to her †it seemed decades ago: â€Å"You havent a penny, you know.”\r\nTerim was Harrys age, and when he and his father came to sit at the kings fireside he came to her and sank down beside her, folding up his long legs as all the Hillmen did. She looked at Terim and he looked at her; his look was eager and a little, to her embarrassment, reverent. â€Å"I was First at my laprun trials three years ago,” he said; â€Å"but when I took my turn against Corlath my sash was on the ground before I had a good grip on my sword.” He thumped the hilt of his sword, which jangled as it bit into the ground. â€Å"My father gave me Teksun here anyway, he said no one ever got a grip on a sword against Corlath. You did, though.” His eyes shone in the firelight.\r\nHarry ran a meditative finger over the careful seam in her sash, which she had put in under Mathins promised tutelage. â€Å"I didnt know it was he †I never thought. And he allowed me to cross swords with him; and when I agnise how much of it was allowing, I got … mad.” She paused. â€Å"I was strike too.” She frowned, remembering the awful headache shed had for most of that day, and then the more awful regurgitate lurch that seemed to start behind her eyes, where the headache was, and quiver all the way through her body, when she saw the face behind the fuck off she had just removed. No one had called her baga for the cut at the corner of Corlaths mouth, though. She met the boys eyes fairly ruefully and said, â€Å"It wasnt as pleasant an experience as you might think.”\r\nTerim gave a little snort of laughter and said, â€Å"Yes, I believe you,” and Harry looked across to where Corlath sat with Terims father and found him watching her. She wondered if he had heard what she had just said.\r\n'