It was easy to find Arskane. A group of men and a large circle of women ringed him. It was a crowd so intent upon the scout’s report that not one of them noted the arrival of Fors and Jarl.
tall as the young warrior before her and her features were strongly marked. Two long braids of black hair swung down upon her shoulders and now and again she raised a hand to push at them impatiently with a gesture which had become habitual. Her long robe was dyed the same odd shade of dusky orange as the scrap of cotton they had found in the berry field and on her arms and about her neck was the gleam of stone-set silver.
As Arskane finished, she considered for a moment and then a stream of commands, spoken too rapidly in the slurred tongue of the south for Fors to follow, sent the circle about her apart, men and women both hurrying off on errands. When the last of these left she caught sight of Fors and her eyes widened. Arskane turned to see what had surprised her. Then his hand fell on the mountaineer’s shoulder and he pulled him forward.
“This is he of whom I have told you-he has saved my Me in the City of the Beast Things, and I have named him brother—”
There was almost a touch of pleading in his voice.
“We be the Dark People.” The woman’s tone was low but there was a lilt in it, almost as if she chanted. “We be the Dark People, my son. He is not of our breed—”
Arskane’s hands went out in a nervous gesture. “He is my brother,” he repeated stubbornly. “Were it not for him I would have long since died the death and my clan would never have known how or where that chanced.”
“In turn,” Fors spoke to this woman chief as equal to equal, “Arskane has stood between me and a worse passing-has he neglected to tell you that? But, Lady, you should know this-I am outlawed and so free meat to any man’s spear—”
“So? Well, the matter of outlawry is between you and your name clan-and not for the fingering of strangers. You have a white skin-but in the hour of danger what matters the color of a fighting man’s bone covering? The hour is coming when we shall need every bender of bow and wielder of sword we can lay orders upon.” She stooped and caught up a pinch of the sandy loam which ridged between her sandaled feet. And now she stretched out her hand palm up with that bit of earth lying on it.
Fors touched the tip of his forefinger to his lips and then to the soil. But he did not fall to his knees in the finish of that ritual. He gave allegiance but he did not beg entrance to a clan. The woman nodded approvingly.