Her irritation vanished into a cold clench of worry. "She's all right?"

"So Coleman says, and the baby's doing fine for someone only fifteen minutes old-but they want you there."

Alston blinked; she hadn't realized the labor had started yet. "Oh. Give me a minute, Ian, I'll be right with you."

Swindapa was dancing again with excitement as they scrambled into their clothes and downstairs to where their bicycles waited. They kept to the sidewalks to avoid Main Street's bone-shaking cobbles, then swung onto pavement. Rainwater misted up from the asphalt, soaking her lower legs. For a moment she remembered her own children, something she'd carefully schooled herself not to do. Forget it, woman, she scolded herself. They're a long way away. Three thousand years is an even better wall than a divorce decree.

The streets were quiet, and so was the maternity ward- section, rather-of the hospital. Martha was lying in a freshly made bed with the baby in the crook of her arm; she was tired but triumphant, the baby was as crumpled and formless as babies usually were, and Jared Cofflin had the same sledgehammer-between-the-eyes look that he'd had on his wedding day, only more so.

"Congratulations," Marian said inanely. "Everything went well?"

Coleman was still in his green surgical gown. "For a primigravida in her forties, very smoothly. Nice healthy bouncing eight-pound baby girl," he said, with a workman's pride.

"You wouldn't say smooth if you'd been doing it yourself," Martha said tartly.

"No indeed," Marian said emphatically.

"Does it get better the second time?" Martha asked.

"No, can't say that it does," the black woman said. "But you sort of expect it more." And afterward you feel very, very-

"Is there a kitchen in this torture chamber?" Martha asked sharply.

– hungry.

"You are recovering well," the doctor said, "Someone will be along with a tray shortly. And if you'll pardon me…"

Cofflin cleared his throat. "We've got a name for her," he said. "Marian Deer Dancer Cofflin. Hell of a moniker, but it seemed appropriate."

Alston felt the blood mount to her face, glad that it couldn't be seen. "Ah…" she said. "Er, ah… why, thank you, Jared, Martha." She stopped her feet from shuffling with an effort of will.

"We'd like you and Swindapa to be the godparents, if that's all right," Martha went on. "As neither I nor the baby would be here if it weren't for you. We can have the baptism before you leave."

Marian looked down at the wrinkle-faced form and stroked one arm with a finger. A tiny hand closed around it, rose-pink against black, the nails perfectly formed miniatures.

"That's fine," she said. "Mighty fine. We'll just have to see that there's a good world for her to live in, won't we?

"Ayup," Cofflin said. "Amen."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

February – May, Year 2 A.E.

Daurthunnicar scowled and gripped the arms of the huge carved oak chair. The ruathaurikaz of the Tuattauna folk's chieftains had stood here for many generations, time enough to accumulate many treasures. The timbers of the hall were carved and painted in the shape of gods and heroes, and they seemed to move slightly in the red-shot firelit dimness like the smoke-darkened wool hangings on the walls. By the wall across from him was a Sun Chariot and horse, cast in bronze and bearing a great golden disk as high as a man, incised with endless looping spirals. The Iraiina had nothing like that. They had never been a wealthy tribe, and they had been plundered of much of what they did have in the lost war on the mainland. The eyes stared at him through the murk, full of holiness and dread.

But we have victory here. The Sun Lord, the Long-Speared Father of the Sky, gives us victory now, he told himself firmly.

The Iraiina rahax scowled at the Tuattauna high chief as he stood before him, and at the other enemy leaders. They bore themselves proudly, for beaten men looking at a foreign chief in their own high seat… except when their eyes strayed to his son-in-law, where he leaned on his spear beside the throne. Men fear me because Hwalkarz is beside me, he knew. They fear our tribe because Hwalkarz lends it his wizardry and his might. He was not altogether happy with that, not now. What was given could be withdrawn, and if the outlander's hand was taken back, the Iraiina would have many foes and face much hatred.

When you have the wolf by the ears, you cannot let go, be reminded himself. And had he not bound Hwalkarz to him by the closest of ties? His daughter's belly swelled with this man's get, which was more than his witch-wife had ever given him.

True, he's a wizard. But he was also a warrior beyond compare, a never-failing fountain of wealth, and a giver of deep and crafty redes. Some said he was a god… And the old stories did tell of times beyond number when gods or half-gods or warrior Mirutha walked among men and took part in their quarrels in man's shape. It would be a thing of high glory if his grandson was the son of a god. Such a one could make the Iraiina mighty. Such a breed of men could bestride the worlds. If he could not turn the wolf loose, he would wrestle it to the ground, set it to hunting for him.

"You come to hear my word," Daurthunnicar said to the envoys of the defeated. "That is good. Sky Father has given victory to the Iraiina folk and the tribes who have sworn on the oath-ring with them. It is unlucky to strive against the gods."

One of the ambassadors answered, speaking boldly. "Sky Father gives no man victory forever," he said, in the whistling nasal accent his people had. "His favor is fickle."

The defiance would have been more impressive if melting sleet hadn't been dripping off the envoy's beard and hair. Among the tribes of the White Isle it was not the least of grudges against Hwalkarz and the Iraiina that they had broken the old good custom of making war only between spring planting and first frost.

"Sky Father is not so fickle that there will be a steading of the Tuattauna standing whole by next harvest season, if you try to meet us on the raven-feeding field of war," Daurthunnicar said. "Your warriors' flesh feeds the Crow Goddess, your gold is on our arms, your cattle roast over our fires, our women wear your cloth, your wives and daughters spread their thighs for the stallion-cocks of our warriors. This is truth."

The envoys' fists clenched and they growled in their beards. But their eyes flickered to the iron-mailed line of spearmen who stood unmoving along the wall on either side of the Iraiina chieftain. Hwalkarz had taught them that unnatural stillness, and the arts of riding with footrests, arts of moving their warbands in ways that somehow always left their enemies at a disadvantage. Outside the captured hall rested one of the stone-throwing engines that battered down palisades like the fist of the Horned Man. And in two of the greater battles the sorcerer had struck men and horses dead at five times the reach of a bow, throwing bolts of thunder-death. The sorcerer, or the god?

"We…" The chief of the envoys stopped and ground his teeth. "We will pay tribute for peace. A tenth of our herds, a tenth of our bronze and gold, a tenth of our cloth and of this year's harvest."

There was a time when Daurthunnicar would have accounted that triumph and to spare, and taken it gladly. And spent the next year in fear of their revenge, he thought. Instead, he inclined his head slightly toward his son-in-law, holding out a gold-chased drinking horn. A woman scuttled over to fill it with captured mead.

Hwalkarz stepped forward; Daurthunnicar made a gesture, granting him formal leave to speak. When he did he used the Iraiina words with only the slightest trace of an accent. Was that the mark of how they spoke in the halls of the sky?