Wall of Shiuan

In the end there were only scattered villages of Men, farmer-folk who cursed the memory of the Barrow-kings. The old fortresses and burial places were piously avoided by later generations on the river-plain. Chadrih had been nearer the Barrows than any other village wished to be; but it had perished last of all the villages in Hiuaj, for all that—which gave Chadrih folk a certain arrogance, until their own fate took them. And the Barrow-hills themselves became the last refuge of all; the Barrow-folk had always lived beyond the pale of lowland respectability—tomb-robbers now, sometimes herders and fishermen, accused (while Chadrih stood) of stealing livestock as well as buried gold. But Chadrih died and the despised Barrow-folk lived, southernmost of all Men, in a hold that was a Barrow-king’s ruined fortress atop the last and greatest rock in all Hiuaj, save Anla’s Crown itself.

This was Jhirun’s world. Sunbrowned and warm, she guided her flat skiff with practiced thrusts of the pole against the bottom of the channels that, at this cycle of the tides, were hardly knee deep. She was barefoot, knowing shoes only in winter, and she wore her fringe-hemmed skirt tucked above the knees because there was none to see her. A stoppered jar of bread and cheese and another of beer was nestled in the prow; and there was also a sling and a handful of smooth stones, for she was skillful with the sling to bring down the brown marsh fowl.

There had been rain last night and the Aj was up somewhat, enough to fill some of the shallower channels, making her progress through the hills quicker. There would be rain again before evening, to judge by the gathering of haze in the east, across the apricot sun; but high tide, Hnoth, was some days off. The seven moons danced in order across the watery sky and the force of the Aj was all that sighed against the reeds. The Barrows that were almost entirely awash at Hnoth were bravely evident despite the rains, and the Standing Stone at Junai was out of the water entirely.

It was a holy place, that hewn stone and its little isle. Nearby was a finger of the deep marshes, and marsh-folk came here to Junai’s stone to meet on midcycle days with Barrow-folk to trade—her tall kinsmen with the surly small men of the deep fens. Meat and shell and metals were their trade to the marshes; wood and Ohtija grain out of Shiuan and well-made boats and baskets were what the marshlanders brought them. But more important than the trade itself was the treaty that let the trade happen regularly, this seasonal commerce that brought them together for mutual gain and removed occasion for feuds, so that any Barrower could come and go in Barrows-land in safety. There were outlaws, of course, men either human or halfling, cast out of Ohtij-in or Aren, and such were always to be feared; but none had been known this far south for four years. The marshlanders had hanged the last three on the dead tree near the old khalin ruin at Nia’s Hill, and Barrows-men had given them gold for that good service. Marshlanders served as a barrier to the folk of Barrows-hold against every evil but the sea, and returned them no trouble. Aren was far into the marsh, and marshlanders kept to it; they would not even stand in a Barrows-man’s shadow when they came to trade, but uttered loud prayers and huddled together under the open sky as if they dreaded contamination and feared ambush. They preferred their dying forests and their own observances, that made no mention of Barrow-kings.

Out here on the edge of the world lay Barrows-land, wide and empty, with only the conical hills above the flood and the wide waters beyond, and the flight of the white birds above. Jhirun knew each major isle, each stone’s-throw expanse of undrowned earth, knew them by the names of kings and heroes forgotten outside the lore of Barrows-folk, who claimed the kings for ancestors and could still sing the old words of the chants in an accent no marshlander could comprehend. Some few of these hills were hollow at their crest, caps of stone, earth-covered, that had long ago yielded up their treasure to the plundering of Jhirun’s ancestors. Other mounds still defied efforts to discover the cists buried there, and so protected their dead against the living. And some seemed to be true hills, that had no hollow heart of man-made chambers, with king-treasures and weapons. Such as did give up treasure sustained the life of Barrows-hold, providing gold that Barrows-folk remade into rings and sold anew to marshlanders, who in turn bought grain of Shiuan and sold it at Junai. Barrows-folk had no fear of the angry ghosts, their own ancestors, and hammered off the ancient symbols and melted down the gold, purifying it