"Over the—lad, we haven't even come to the beginning of them yet."
Geoffrey grimaced. "Then we'll never make it. Not in this vehicle."
"I didn't expect to. We'll walk until we reach the pass. I've got a support camp set up there."
"Walk? This is impossible country for people on foot. There are intransigent tribesmen all through this territory."
"How do you know?"
"How do I know? Why, everybody knows about them!"
The Barbarian looked at him thoughtfully, and with just the faintest trace of amusement. "Well, if everybody knows they're intransigent, I guess they are. I guess we'll just have to hope they don't spot us."
Geoffrey was a little nettled by The Barbarian's manner. It wasn't, after all, as if anybody claimed there were dragons or monsters or any other such oceanic thing living here. This was good, solid fact—people had actually come up here, tried to bring civilization to the tribes, and failed completely. They were, by all reports, hairy, dirty people equipped with accurate rifles. No one had bothered to press the issue, because obviously it was hardly worth it. Geoffrey had expected to have trouble with them—but he had expected to meet it in an armored vehicle. But now that the mountains had turned out to be so far away, the situation might grow quite serious. And The Barbarian didn't seem to care very much.
"Well, now, lad," he was saying, "if the tribesmen're that bad, maybe your friends the nobles won't dare follow us up here."
"They'll follow us," Geoffrey answered flatly. "I slapped Dugald's face."