All night long had he run, yet he was fresh and strong.
Now he looked across the brown valley, and saw the Trylla walking across it, beginning the long ascent up the other side. Here and there he recognized familiar figures. Fay was at the head of the column, just ahead of young Texel and grim old Gaarn. Tyr scanned the blue sky. No ardth-men there!
He lowered himself over the jagged edge of the bluff. His canny feet, feeling about like sensitive fingers, found chinks in the weather-worn rock. He went down foot by foot, yet swiftly.
When he dropped the last twenty feet to the crumbly valley bottom, the Trylla were only a few miles from him. His straight descent had saved him hours of travel. He could catch them now in a matter of minutes.
Fay saw him first, turning her golden head almost as if some telepathic thought commanded her. She cried out, and the slender column wavered and halted.
Tyr came up to her with outstretched hands and a smile on his lips, but the smile faded when he saw her eyes.
"Why have you returned?" she asked numbly. "You made your bargains with the ardth, for the girl named Katha. What else did they give you for Lyallar, besides the girl?"
"For Lyallar? Besides the girl? Are you mad, Fay? And you others—do you believe what she says? Fay, what—"
Gaarn said sourly, "Deny it, then. Deny that you went alone with this woman Katha to plot our undoing. Deny that Zarman and others who trusted you were flogged."
"I plotted no one's undoing. And as for Zarman—"