Maia

Zen-Kurel tried to demur, but Bayub-Otal was emphatic in supporting Maia. "Of course it must be cleaned. River water at this time of year. Any Suban could tell you that."

It was not lost upon Maia that that included her-and that he must have meant it to.

Tolis gave her the flask. Taking out the stopper, she turned to Zen-Kurel.

"It'll sting."

He nodded indifferently. She gripped his thigh with one hand, untied the cloth and began cleaning the wound with one corner, remembering as she did so the last time she had touched his body. Looking up, she met his eye for an instant and felt herself coloring. Was he thinking the same?

"I'm going to tie it a little tighter."

"Thank you. That feels much more comfortable."

They went on. Evening was beginning to fall, but in the forest the air remained humid and close. After a little she smelt wood-smoke and could hear through the trees a distant, multiform hum and murmur. A few minutes later they came out on the north bank of the Zhairgen at its confluence with the Daub's. Now, at low water before the rains, the two rivers mingled with scarcely a ripple, shrun-

ken between their banks; the Zhairgen, perhaps forty yards wide, flowing darkly here under the trees, but on the opposite side-the open bank beyond the forest-tinged with the light of the westering sun.

It was at this open bank that Maia stared. She remembered the soldiers' camps at Melvda-Rain. What she was looking at now appeared less like a camp than a sort of village. She could see women tending fires, girls carrying water-jars and children running about shouting and playing. Over an area of perhaps three or four acres the scrub bordering the bank had been cut down and the ground cleared. Shelters of poles and straw thatch stood in neat rows. Stacks of wood had been piled at intervals and near these, away from the huts, cooking fires were burning under pots hung over dug-out trenches. From a tall mast in the center of the camp a banner-three corn-sheaves on a blue ground-hung drooping in the still air.

The others, like Maia, stopped short, gazing at the scene in surprise.

"You say the Leopards never go anywhere without women?" said Zirek at length.

Tolis laughed. "Captain Mollo said that; I didn't. Those are the women and children we brought from the slave-farm at Orthid."

"What are you going to do with them?" asked Maia.

"I've no idea; you'd better ask Lord Elleroth. Most of them'll be coming with us to Bekla, I dare say."

"But do you seriously mean to march to Bekla through the forest?" asked Zen-Kurel.

"Oh, we'll march to Zeray if we have to. You don't know Elleroth."

The raft ran on a rope fixed to stout posts driven into either bank. It looked solid and well-constructed, and Zen-Kurel admired it.

"Oh, we're first-class pioneers all right," said Tolis. "By Shakkarn! we ought to be by now, too, the work we've put in these last few weeks. We cleared the ground for those huts, and now we're chopping down Purn!"

"Well, if you're going to take those women and children through the forest," said Zirek, "all I can say is I hope the rains don't start while you're still at it."

"I'm with you there," said Tolis, as they stepped out on the further bank. "I'll take you straight up to Elleroth now. You don't mind waiting, do you, while I go in and

tell him who you are? I'm sure he won't keep you hanging about long."

He led the way to a larger hut in the center of the camp. No one they passed paid them any particular attention and Maia guessed that among this motley community on the move the sight of strangers had not the same effect as in an ordinary village. Probably no one thought in terms of strangers at all.

There were no guards outside the hut. Tolis left them and went in. They were glad enough to sit on the ground in the evening sunshine. To Maia it was a conscious pleasure simply to be still, to close her eyes and know that they were not going to spend the night in the forests She hoped this Elleroth would give them a good meal. Beyond that and sleep she had not the least wish to think for the moment.

She was roused by a child's voice beside her.

"You're new, aren't you? Have you just come?"