He decided to avoid the city of Solanthus. After the over throw, Solanthus had proclaimed itself a free city, not sub ordinate to anyone but its own Guildmasters. Sturm had heard of several knights, friends and compatriots of his father, who had been imprisoned and executed in Solan thus. While he was willing to proclaim his heritage in open country, he saw no reason to walk into the city and put his head into a noose.

The country beyond Solanthus sloped gently down to the

Vingaard River. It was rich land. The clods turned up by

Brumbar's iron-shod hooves were black and fertile.

The herds were thicker the closer to the river he got. He spent an entire day guiding Brumbar through ranks of rusty brown cows and calves. The heat and dust were so bad that he traded his helmet for a cloth bandanna, like the herd riders wore.

The herds converged on the Ford of Kerdu, an artificial shallows created centuries before by the Solamnic Knights

(another benefit that the common folk had forgotten).

Thousands of small stones were dumped into the Vingaard

River to make a fording place. As the river slowly scoured the stones away, each new generation on the river banks had to renew the ford with its own gathering of stones. A sort of winter festival had developed around the collecting and dumping of rocks in the river.

It soon became too congested for Sturm to ride, so he got off Brumbar and led the horse by his bridle. Here, by the river, the day's heat rapidly dispersed after sunset. Sturm walked down to the river bank where a hundred campfires blazed. The herders were settling for the night.

A half-dozen sun-browned faces turned up as Sturm approached the nearest camp.He raised his palm and said,

"My hands are open," the traditional herders' greeting.

"Sit," said the herd leader, identified by the carved steer horn that he wore on a thong around his neck, Sturm tied

Brumbar to a small tree and joined the men.

"Sturm," he said, sitting.

"Onthar," said the leader. He pointed to the other men in turn. "Rorin, Frijje, Ostimar, and Belingen." Sturm nodded to each one.

"Share the pot?" said Onthar. A black kettle hung over the fire. Each man had to provide some ingredient in order to share the common meal. Herder's stew – an expression known throughout Krynn as meaning a little bit of every thing.'

Sturm lifted the flap of his pack and saw the last of his provisions: an inch-thick slab of salt pork, two carrots, and a stoppered gourd half full of rye flour. He squatted by the kettle, took out his knife, and started slicing the meat.

"Been a good season?" he asked politely.

"Dry," said Onthar. "Too dry. Fodder on the lower plain is blowing away."

"No sickness, though," observed Frijje, whose straw colored hair hung in two long braids. "We haven't lost a sin gle calf to screwfoot or blue blister."

Shoving wispy red hair from his eyes, Rorin said, "Lot of raiders." He whetted a wicked-looking axe on a smooth gray stone. "Men and goblins together, in the same gang."

"I've seen that, too," Sturm said. "Farther south in

Caergoth and Garnet."

Onthar regarded him with one thin brown eyebrow raised. "You're not from around here, are you?"

Sturm finished the salt pork and started slicing the car rots. "I was born in Solamnia, but grew up in Solace."

"Raise a lot of pigs down there, I hear," Ostimar said. His voice was deep and resonant, seemingly at odds with his small height and skinny body.

"Yes, quite a lot."

"Where you headed, Sturm?" asked Onthar.

"North."

"Looking for work?"

He stopped cutting. Why not? "If I can get some," he said.

"Ever drive cattle before?"

"No. But I can ride."

Ostimar and Belingen snorted derisively, but Onthar said, "We lost a man to goblin raiders two weeks ago, and that left us with a hole in our drag line. All you have to do is keep the beasts going ahead. Well be crossing the Vingaard tomorrow, heading for the keep."

"The keep? But it's been deserted for years," Sturm said.

"Buyer there."

"Sounds fine. What's the pay?"

"Four coppers a day, payable when you leave us."

Sturm knew he was supposed to haggle, so he said, "I couldn't do it for less than eight coppers a day."

"Eight!" exclaimed Frijje. "And him a show rider!"

"Five might be possible," said Onthar.

Sturm shook the gourd to break up the lumps of flour.

"Six?"

Onthar grinned, showing several missing teeth. "Six it is.

Not too much flour now – we're cooking stew, not baking bread." Sturm stirred in a handful of gray rye flour. Rorin gave him a copper bowl and spoon. The stew was dished up, and the men ate quickly and silently. Then they passed a skin around. Sturm took a swig. He almost choked; the bag held a potent, fermented cider. He swallowed and passed the skin on.

"Who's buying cattle at the keep?" he said, after everyone had eaten and drunk.

"Don't know," Onthar admitted. "Men have been coming back from Vingaard Keep for weeks with tales of gold, say ing there is a buyer up there paying top coin for good beasts.

So the keep is where we're going."

The fire died down. Frijje produced a hand-whittled flute and began to blow lonely, lilting notes. The herders curled up on their single blankets and went to sleep. Sturm unsad dled Brumbar and curried him. He led the horse to the river for a drink and returned him to the sapling. That done, he made a bed with his blanket and the saddle.

The sky was clear. The silver moon was low in the south, while Lunitari was climbing toward its zenith. Sturm gazed at the distant red globe.

Had he really trod its crimson soil? Had he really fought tree-men, seen (and ridden) giant ants, and freed a chatter box dragon from an obelisk of red marble? Here, on Krynn, among the simple, direct herdsmen, such memories were like a mad dream, fevered images now banished by the more practical concerns of Sturm's life.

The young knight slept, and dreamed that he was gallop ing through Solace, pursuing a caped man who carried his father's sword. He never gained on the stranger. The vallen wood trees were bathed in a red glow, and all around Sturm felt the cold air echo with the sound of a woman's laughter.

Chapter 37

The Ford of Kerdu

Sturm was roughly shaken awake before the sun was up. All along the river's south bank the herders were stirring, packing their meager possessions on their horses, and preparing for another day's move. Sturm had no time for anything other than a brief cup of water. Frijje thrust some jerky in his hand and told him to mount up.

Belingen galloped to him and tossed him a light wooden pole with a bronze leaf-shaped head. This was his herd goad. When the cows were balky or wanted to wander in the wrong direction, he was to poke them with the goad to set them straight.

"And woe to you if you cut the hide," Belingen said.

"Onthar prides himself on his herd not being scarred." With an arrogant toss of his head, Belingen spurred his horse back to the front of the herd.

The cattle, more than nine hundred head, sensed the rise in activity and surged from side to side against the fringe riders, Two other herds had right-of-way over Onthar's, so the men had to bide their time as the other two swarms of cattle forded the river ahead of them. The Kerdu passage was a quarter-mile wide and more than half a mile across to the other bank. The ford's edges fell away sharply, and Osti mar warned Sturm not to stray off the stones.

"I've seen men and horses drop off the edge and never come up," he cautioned. "Nothing ever found but their goads and bandannas, floating on the water."

"I'll keep that in mind," Sturm replied.