"I want to show you how bold the Darksiders have become," said the Klarnvan. "Here is Moornal, southernmost of all the city-states of the Klarn. Beyond Moornal rise a chain of mountains. In those mountains, and in the plains beyond them, dwell the Darksiders."
"I have never seen a Darksider," said Flane slowly. "I don't know much about them."
Harth said bitterly, "Klarn itself is too centralized to be aware of their threat. But we of Moornal and Yeelya—we know! We rim their perimeter. Us they raid on their fleet megathons, stealing our horses and our women. With lance and arrow they come, shouting O jho! O jho! which is their warcry."
"They are a nomad race," said Aevlyn, seated on a stool of carved yxon. "They live in tents that collapse to fit the backs of their pack megathons. They can cross miles of country in a day, so that we never find them in the same spot. Some of their men are master craftsmen. They make lances and bows that we marvel at; we marvel, too, at their skill with them."
Harth said, "I have heard it rumored that deep in the Darkside country, they have cities, patterned after ours. Their spies come and go in Moornal and Yeelya because we Klarnva aren't suspicious enough to look for them. They learn much, and quickly. It is said they have imitated our culture to a great extent."
"Are they like us that they can come and go unnoticed?" asked Flane.
"As alike as khrees in a pod. Usually they are browned by the sun, but then, so are our hunters and herdsmen." Harth sighed, "In the olden days, when the Machine functioned, we did not need hunters and herdsmen. But now—"
Flane thought fleetingly of Vawdar. Now that he was dead, all hope for the key was lost, unless by chance someone would stumble on the combination of the lock. But so many had tried, for so many years, that Flane felt positive this was an improbable chance.
He said, to take his mind off the key, "Do you intend moving against the Darksiders? Attacking them in their own domain?"
"What else can we do? Should we wait for them to attack, we should never break their power. They swoop on us in few numbers at many points. If we are too strong at one point, they flee. But one or two of their bands always makes a killing."