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 They weren t there last night, she assured him.
 Well, now they are. Ngangata, do you hear all of this?
  Yes. I say we go back the way we came.
 Too late for that, Perkar said.  They surely know we re here. When I give
the word, all of you bolt for the cover of those trees. I don t think we re in
line-of-sight for bows yet, anyway 
 You aren t going to fight them all by yourself, Hezhi hissed.
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Perkar smiled weakly and reached over to touch her hand.  I don t intend to
fight them at all
, unless I
have no choice. These are most likely my people, considering where we are. But
in times of war, rash, unplanned things can happen. If they shoot too hastily
at one of you, it might kill you. If they make the same mistake with me& 
He said this with confidence he certainly did not feel. They rode in a gorge
so narrow that only the merest sliver of sky lay above them. Would he heal if
a boulder were pushed onto him? What if his legs were broken by some snare and
they simply hacked him to pieces?
 If they make the same mistake with me
, he went on,  the results won t be as dire. If they attack me, you can all
feel free to come to my aid, though some of you should stay back to protect
Hezhi.
 I m not helpless, she reminded him, not quite sharply but with considerable
insistence.
Since their time alone on the peak five days before, the two of them had
gotten along well.
Very well
, in fact. And so he answered that with a little smile, leaning close, so that
only she could easily hear him.
 Is that the only stupid thing I ve said lately?
 More or less, she replied.  In the last few days, at least.
 Then you should be proud of me.
 Oh, I am. And be careful.
He nodded assurance of that, then looked over his shoulder at the others in
time to catch Ngangata rolling his eyes.
 What? he called back at the half man.
 They could decide to come this way at any moment. You two had better save
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your courting for some other time.
Perkar clamped his mouth on an indignant protest and dismounted. Trying not to
think about what he was doing, he strode forward. The others clopped quickly
into the trees.
Despite his efforts, he felt as if he were walking through quicksand. Only the
gentle pressure of his friends surely watchful gazes kept the appearance of
confidence and spring in his step.
Fifty paces he went before a rock clattered nearby. He slowed up.
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 I ve come to talk, not to fight, he shouted.
A pause then, and he heard some whispering in the rocks above and to his
right.
 Name yourself, someone shouted in his own language.
 I am Perkar of the Clan Barku, he returned.
More scrambling then, and suddenly a stocky, auburn-haired man emerged from
the fallen pile of rubble that leaned against the cliff face.
 Well, then, you ve got some explaining to do, for you ought to be a ghost,
from what I hear. He shook his nearly round head, and it opened into a broad
grin.  Instead you ve turned Mang, it seems.
 You have the advantage on me, Perkar answered.  Do I know you?
 No, but I ve heard tell of you. My name is Morama, of the Clan Kwereshkan.
Perkar lifted his brows in amazement.  My mother s clan.
 Indeed, if you are who you say you are. And even if you aren t  He
shrugged.  you are certainly a
Cattle Person, despite those clothes, so we will welcome you.
 I have companions, Perkar said.
 Them, too, then.
 Two of them are Mang; the others are from farther off still.
To his surprise, the man nodded easily.  If you are Perkar and I believe you
to be then we were told to expect that. You have my word and Piraku that they
will not be harmed unless they attack us first.
 I ll bring your promise back to them, then. He started to go but suddenly
understood the full import of the man s remarks.
 What do you mean, you were  told to expect that ?
Who told you?
 My lord. He said to tell you,  I am a roadmark.  Perkar did turn back then,
a faint chill troubling his spine. Karak.
Hezhi lifted her small shoulders in a helpless shrug.  I m not sure what I
pictured, she told Perkar.
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 Something like this. It looks very nice.
Perkar chewed his Up. She knew he was probably trying to suppress a scowl with
a show of good humor.  I know it isn t your palace in Nhol. But it has to be
better than a Mang yekt. He said this last low enough that Brother Horse and
Yuu han wouldn t hear; the two warriors were nervously walking about the bare
dirt of the compound.
 That is certainly true, Hezhi said.  I m anxious to see the inside.
 That will be soon enough, Perkar told her, dismounting.  Here comes the
lord.
The  lord was a rough-seeming man, tall almost to the point of being gangly,
dark-haired, and as fair-
skinned as Perkar. Nothing in the way he dressed signified his station to
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Hezhi, but she reminded herself that these were strange people with strange
ways.
Perkar s people. It was the weirdest thing to see so many men and women who
looked like him.
Though she had always understood that somewhere there were whole villages and
towns full of his tribe, she had always imagined that Perkar himself was
somehow extreme, the strangest of even his kind. The
Mang, after all, were the only other foreign people she had met, and aside
from their odd dress, they much resembled the people she had grown up among.
Unconsciously, she had thought of Perkar as she thought of Tsem and
Ngangata as another singular aberration.
These implicit notions of hers now vanished. Amongst the people of this
damakuta she saw hair the light brown of Perkar s and some as black as her
own. But two people had hair the same shocking white color as Ngangata s, and
another had strands of what looked to be spun copper growing from his scalp.
Eyes could be blue, green, or even amber in the case of the  lord and two
others she noted.
The damakuta well, Perkar was right; she was disappointed. When he spoke of it
in Nholish, he called it a  hall. And so she had imagined something like a
hall
, or a court, like the ones in the palace. But this damakuta first of all, it
was wooden
. For a wooden structure it was undoubtedly grand, and it certainly had a
primitive charm with its peaked roof, hand-hewn shingles, and weirdly carved
posts. To be fair, she realized that Perkar had described all of this her mind
had merely translated it into her own conceptions.
Of course, he had never mentioned the red-gold and black chickens poking about
the yard, the dogs sleeping on the threshold of the damakuta, the curious and
dirt-smudged children who played, more or less naked, amongst the chickens.
But Perkar was right; for all of that, it was certainly grander than a Mang
yekt.
The  lord approached and said something to Perkar that Hezhi did not
understand. Perkar looked tired;
the seams on his brow were deep with trouble, and whatever response he gave to
the other man seemed
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