It was the woman who replied first.
“I saw and heard many things. In the seeing there was nothing to doubt. I hope with all my heart that your conjectures are mistaken. There lay among the Beast dead one who was different. And if the fates are against us, then this one will be born again among them—again and again. And, its knowledge being greater, so will it prove a worse menace to us and all human beings. Thus, because this may be true, I say that those who are humankind must stand together and put a united sword wall against these things bred out of the ancient evil of the cities which was sown by the Old Ones—”
“It is true that mutants may come of mutant stock.” The white robe spoke after her almost against his will. “And these Beast Things were led and ordered as never has their race been before. When their strange chief fell they were broken, as if their knowledge was all blotted out in that single death. If they breed more such as he, then they shall prove a force we must reckon with. We know but little of these creatures and what their powers may be. How can we guess now what we shall be called to go up against a year, ten years, a generation from now? This land is wide and there may be much hiding within its vastness which is a menace to our breed—”
“The land is wide,” Fors repeated. “What do you and your tribe seek for here, Lanard?”
“A homeland. We search out a place to build our houses and sow our fields anew, to pasture our sheep and dwell in peace. After the burning mountains and quaking land drove us forth from the valley of our fathers— the sacred place where their machines landed from the sky at the end of the Old Ones’ war—we have wandered many circles of the seasons. Now in these wide fields, along the river, we have found what we have sought for so long. And no man or beast shall drive us from it!” As he ended, his hand was on his sword hilt and he stared straight along the ranks of the Plainsmen.
Fors turned now to Marphy: “And what do your people seek. Marphy of the plains?”
The Recorder raised his eyes from the ground where a pattern of crushed grass blades had apparently held his attention.
“Since the days of the Old Ones we of the Plains have been a roving people. First we were so because of the evil death which abode in the air of many quarters of the land, so that a man must be on the move to shun those places where plagues and the blue fires waited to slay him. We are now hunters and rovers and herdsmen, warriors who care not to be tied to any camp. It is in us to travel far, to seek new places and new hills standing high against the sky—”
“So.” Fors let that one word fall into the silence of those war-torn ranks.
It was a long minute before he spoke again. “You,” he pointed to Lanard, “wish to settle and build. That is your nature and way of life. You”—it was Marphy he turned to now—“would move, grazing your herds and hunting. These,” he bent a stiff arm painfully to gesture up the hill to that uneven pile of earth and stone under which lay the bodies of the Beast Things, ’live to destroy both of you if they can. And the land is wide…”
Lanard cleared his throat—the sound was sharp and loud. “We would live in peace with all who raise not the sword against us. In peace there is trade, and in trade there is good for all. When the winter closes and the harvest has been poor, then may trade save the life of a tribe.”
“You are warriors and men,” the woman chief of the Dark People broke in, her head high, her eyes straight as she measured the line of strangers facing her. “War is meat and drink at the table of men—yes—but it was that which brought the Old Ones down! War again, men, and you will destroy us utterly and we shall be eaten up and forgotten so that it shall be as if man had never lived to walk these fields—leaving our world to the holding of those!” She pointed to the Beast Things’ mound. “If now we draw sword against one another then in our folly we shall have chosen the evil part for the last time, and it is better that we die quickly and this earth be clean of us!”
The Plainspeople were quiet until along the ranks of the men a murmur arose and it spread to where their women were gathered. And the voices of the women grew louder and stronger. From their midst arose one who must have ruled a chieftain’s tent since there was gold binding her hair:
“Let there be no war between us! Let there be no more wailing of the death song among our tents! Say it loudly, oh, my sisters!” And her appeal was taken up by all the women, to be echoed until it became a chant as stirring as the war song.
“No more war! No more war between us!”
So did the cup of blood and brotherhood pass from chief to chief on the field and the ranks of the Dark Ones and the Plainsmen were made one by the ritual so that never again might man of one raise lance against man of the other.
Fors sank down upon a flat-topped rock. The strength which had upheld him drained away. He was very tired and the excitement beyond no longer had anything to do with him. He had no eyes for the melting of the stiff tribal lines and the mingling of clan and people.
“This is but a beginning!” He identified the quick eager voice of Marphy and looked around slowly, almost sullenly.
The Plainsman was talking to Jarl, gesturing, his eyes bright. But the Star Captain was his usual calm contained self.
“A beginning, yes, Marphy. But we still have much to master. If I may see those northern records of yours. We of the Star House have not penetrated that far—”
“Of course. And—” Marphy seemed hesitant before he plunged into his counter request—“that cage of rats. I have had it brought into my tent. There are three still alive and from them we may learn—”
Fors shivered. He had no desire to see those captives.
“You claim them as your spoil of war?”
Marphy laughed. “That I shall do. And other spoil beside the vermin shall we ask for—a greater gift from you. This fellow rover of yours—”
He touched gentle fingers to Fors’ stooped shoulder. It seemed to the mountaineer that Jarl displayed a flash of surprise.
“This one has the gift of tongues and the mind which sees. He shall be a guide for us.” Marphy’s words spilled out as if now that he had a kindred spirit in which to confide he could no longer bottle his thoughts. “And in return we shall show him strange lands and far places. For it is in him to be a rover—even as are we—”
Jarl’s fingers plucked at his lower lip: “Yes, rover was he born, and in him flows Plains blood. If he—”
“You forget.” Fors did not force a smile this time. “I am mutant.”
Before either man could answer someone else came up—Arskane. His face still bore the marks of the fight and he favored his shoulder as he moved. But when he spoke it was with an assumption of authority which he plainly did not expect to have disregarded.
“We break camp to march—I have come for my brother!”
Marphy bristled. “He rides with us!”
Fors’ laugh had no humor in it. “Since I cannot travel on my feet I shall be a drag in any company—”