Twice during the day I roved out into the open country as stealthily as I could, seeking for any traveler. And on my second trip I sighted a mounted company heading toward the hills. But they were a troop riding under some lord's banner, armed men mustering perhaps—and they were some distance to the south. I knew they would sight none of us.

Impatience came with nightfall. We sought food, prowling up and down the line we had assigned ourselves. I found my luck was such as to keep my belly empty, for I could not scent any game. But water was not lacking and I learned that to go hungry does not cripple one.

There came the middle part of the night and with it a ripple of message. "One comes!"

Only one person, I thought, could awaken that response in those with whom I shared this vigil.

"Maelen!" I sent an imperative mind-call into the night.

"Coming." It was dull, a whisper, if such communication can be so judged.

"Maelen." In contrast my sending was a wordless shout. "Trouble!—take care, wait—let us know where you are."

"Here—" Louder, a beacon to which we gathered from brush and grass.

She sat there in the moonlight on her hard-ridden kas. In contrast to the clouded day, the night was clear and the Three Rings burned in a glory of light. Her cloak was about her shoulders, the hood pulled over her head so that we could see no woman, only a dark figure on a stumbling mount. I ran into the open with my ground-covering leaps.

"Maelen—trouble!"

"What?" Again her send was a whisper, tired, as if strength had ebbed from her and she kept going by will alone. Now fear nipped at me, and I sped to her.

"Maelen, what is wrong? Have you been harmed?"

"No, but what has passed?" Her question was stronger, her body straightened.

"Osokun's men raided the camp."

"Malec? The little people?"

"Malec"—I hesitated and could find no way to tell it better—"is dead. The others are with me here. We have been waiting for you. They have tried to make the camp into a trap for us."

"So!" The weariness had gone out of her. She made of that word the whistle of a whip lash. "How many of them?"

"Perhaps twelve. Osokun is wounded, another has taken command."

For me anger had always been a hot and burning thing, but the wave of emotion which washed from her to touch me now was cold, very cold and deadly. Also it was very deep, and I flinched as I might have dodged a blow from her hand.

Moonlight became silver sparks as it struck the wand she held out. The light appeared to drip from that rod, until it held my eyes, made me dizzy. And she sang, first in a low murmur, but the words, the notes entered into one, became a tingling along the veins, nerves, muscles; and then louder and louder, to fill one's head, driving out all save a will and purpose that caught us up and welded us all into a single weapon which fitted her hand as perhaps no sword has ever suited the plainsman who bore it.

I saw that silver wand move and I marched in obedience to it, with all the others of that furred company, as Maelen and her sword-sworn took the field. Of that journey back to the hills I do not now remember anything; for, as those with me, I was filled with a purpose which crowded out all else, save the necessity for satisfying the hunger that Maelen's singing had set in me. And the answer to the hunger was blood.

There came a moment when we lay in hiding and looked down upon the camp. To our eyes this was deserted save by the kasi that stamped and nickered at their lines. But our other sense made it plain that those we hunted were still there.

Again Maelen sang, or else the echo of her earlier song moved in me. She got to her feet and started down the slope toward the vans. Back and forth before her she moved her wand. It had been burning silver in the moonlight. Now, though it was day, yet still it was bright, dripping fire from its tip.

I heard a shout from the camp. And then we were in upon them.

These were men used to dealing with animals they considered inferior beings, to be hunted, slain, tamed. But animals that had no fear of man, who combined for the slaying of men—these were so opposed to nature as our enemies had always known it that the very strangeness of our attack unnerved them in the beginning. Always Maelen sang. In us her song was a willing, a sending—what it might have been to the outlaws, I do not know. But I remember two men at least who dropped their weapon and rolled upon the ground, mouthing senseless cries, trying to cover their ears with empty hands. And such were easily dealt with. We were not all lucky, we could not be, but we did not know that until the singing ended and we stood in a camp we had taken at cost.

I was as one awakened from a vivid, frightening dream. I saw the dead, and one part of me knew what we had done. But another awakened from sleep and pushed aside such memories. Maelen stood there, not surveying the bodies, but rather staring straight ahead, as if she dared not look upon the havoc spread around her.

Her hands hung limply at her sides and in one of them was the wand. But it no longer shimmered with life, it was dull and dead, while her pale face was ashen gray, her eyes turned inward.

I heard a whimpering cry and toward her came Simmle, dragging herself along the ground, a great wound welling blood across her hindquarters. Then I heard other cries and whines as those who had battled, and were still living, tried to reach their mistress. But she did not look at them, only stared ahead.

"Maelen!"

Fear welled in my mind. Was it only a husk of womankind, or Thassakind, who stood there unheeding?

"Maelen!" I put into that mental cry all the strength I could summon.

Simmle whimpered. She had pulled herself to Maelen's feet, stretched out her head to rest it upon a dusty boot. "Maelen!"

She stirred, almost reluctantly, as if she had no wish to return from that place of nothingness which had held her. Her fingers loosened and the wand fell ¦from her grasp, rolled into the mud of blood and dust, a dead thing. Then her eyes came alive as she looked upon Simmle.

With a cry as desolate as any uttered by her animals, she knelt and laid her hand on the venzese's head. And I knew that she was safely back with us again. For a time then it was a matter of tending the wounded, seeing what could be done for what was left of the company. There were no outlaws left alive, but also too many of the little people were gone.

I dragged a bucket down to the river and filled it with water, brought it back once, twice, for Maelen's use while she wrought with her simples and herbs for the easing of the wounded. And on the third such trip my nose, recovering at last from the assault by stench, told me of danger—man scent, strong, recent, going off into the bushes. I put down the bucket and went to nose out that trail, though I had not gone far before the summons came via mind-touch for my return.

With a nagging suspicion that I had better follow that trail and soon, I returned. Someone had escaped the battle by the vans, and with a crossbow even one man could lie upslope and pick us off at his ease. Full of this I ran back to camp and Maelen, but before I could report my find she spoke:

"There is that I must tell you—"

"Maelen, there were—" I began to interrupt.

Almost imperiously she refused to listen, continued. "Krip Vorlund, I bring ill news from Yrjar."

For the first time in hours I returned to the plight of Krip Vorlund. And I was startled by the wrench needed to bring my thoughts back from Jorth's concerns to Krip's.

"The captain of the Lydis appealed to fair law when you were taken by Osokun's men. One of your shipmates was struck down and left for dead, but recovered to tell of what happened, identified the clan pattern he saw. Then it was a matter for the Overjustice, and a party went under claim-banner to Oskold's, where they found your body. They took it back to Yrjar, believing Osokun's treatment had broken your mind. The medico of the Lydis said that only off-world could they find the proper aid. Thus—" She paused, eyes meeting mine. Yet in hers there was nothing, for they looked beyond me, seeking something more than Krip Vorlund, or Jorth. "Thus," she began again, "the Lydis went from Yiktor with your body on board. This is all I could learn, for there are strange troubles abroad in the city."