“There seems bad luck to your riding, Master,” said the shepherd dryly, “or you’d not be footing it from Norbrigg. It’s not natural, like, to see you without feet in stirrups.”
“The mare went lame, and I had to leave her.”
“Was there no nag to be borrowed, then?”
“There was, but I sit astride my own horse, or none.”
Brant looked over the wastes, then at the Master’s face. Old days and new were nagging at him with their memories.
“Like yourself, and always a little bit liker as the years pass. What of Garsykes yonder?” he broke off.
“Well?” asked Hardcastle, blunt and hard.
“It’s no way well. A festering sore I call’m, and our farmers tame as lice.”
“Tamer. They haven’t a bite at all.”
A silence came to Brant. He had dared to speak of the Lost Folk, here in the broken lands, and suddenly he remembered boyhood’s days. When he was spoiling for mischief, he was told he’d be tossed to the Wilderness Folk, and never come out again. In later years he had heard his elders speak of paying tribute to the Lost People—lest worse befell. And now the old stealthy menace seemed to creep about him as his glance sought the broken lands again.