who had begun to settle outside the old Behren-To-gai border.
Yatol Grysh had campaigned for those settlements, to the Behrenese peo-ple and to Chezru Douan, figuring that his job would become all the easier as the Behrenese settlers gradually began to civilize the wild To-gai-ru. But the early transition was proving to be something of a trial for the lazy man.
Thus, Grysh had diverted his caravan to the south and ridden right past Jharyan, determined to enter Corcorca with his two hundred escorting sol-diers, a contingent that included a score of fierce Chezhou-Lei warriors.
He'd teach the dogs. Though there weren't all that many miles separating Dharyan from the To-gai region, it was a difficult trek, with the wagons bouncing along a narrow, rocky, steeply ascending trail, up to the higher elevations of the To-gai plateau. Yatol Grysh did not enjoy the several days of discomfort.
Grysh leaned back and looked out his window at the wide and barren landscape. In the distance to the north, he could see the towering peaks of the mountain range that had been a backdrop to his home for his entire life. He wanted to be back under their cooling shadow, in the temple that was his palace, full of luxuries and sweet foods, of clean baths and beautiful and dutiful women.
But Yatol Grysh understood that the only way to ensure the continuation and safety of his precious palace was to rule these eastern stretches of To-gai with an iron hand. He hated the To-gai-ru, with their barbaric, nomadic ways. He hardly considered them human.
Grysh looked at his To-gai-ru attendants and smiled lewdly. He did like their women, though.
"The people of Douan Cal near completion of their wall?" he asked Car-wan. Douan Cal, named after the Chezru Chieftain, was the largest and most important of the Behrenese settlements, and also the one most plagued by the rogue To-gai-ru bandits.
"They work tirelessly, Yatol," Carwan replied. ?But their life is difficult. Water must be carried far and crops constantly tended. Their hunters have not learned the way of the local game yet, and thus often return without food. They are not many, but still, they work as they can, whenever they can, at cutting the blocks for their encircling wall."
"Have they not enough To-gai-ru servants to complete the work?"
"Many have left, Yatol. The To-gai-ru traditionally wander to the foothills in the summer season."
"And many, it seems, have wandered to the nearby desert, to come forth whenever it is convenient to steal from our people."
Carwan nodded. ?Life is difficult," he said somberly.
Grysh sat back and stared out the window, considering the new responsi-bilities that had befallen him since Chezru Chieftain Yakim Douan had de-cided that the time had come for Behren to ?reclaim" its ancient province of To-gai. True, the subjugation of the To-gai-ru had provided many slaves for Behren, and a seemingly endless supply of the wonderful and valuable ponies so prized by the men of Honce-the-Bear. But Grysh, who witnessed the hardships of controlling the wild folk of the steppes on a nearly daily basis, still wondered about the wisdom of the conquest, still wondered if the bother was worth the gain.
For Yatol Grysh was wise enough to recognize that his people, the Behre-nese, were not well suited for the trials of the cold wind and grassy steppes of brutal To-gai. How many years would it take the outposters to adapt?
The seasons would it take for them to come to understand the ways - desert animals, the huge hares and spry deer, the giant and powerful that was his charge from Jacintha, to continue to build new settle-tretching farther and farther to the west, a supply line of small s'across the windblown stretch of grassland that separated the heart of ?ai from Behren, so that the assimilation of the wild To-gai-ru could be-' earjiest.
Yatol Grysh was more a pragmatic man than a religious one, ?t both sides of that conflict saw prudence in following the Chezru Chief-tain's edicts to the letter And so he had turned south and continued west, to the call or his people. I ate that afternoon, as the summer sun began its descent behind the line of mountains, the call came back that the eastern wall of Douan Cal had been spotted by the point scouts.
"Continue on through the darkness, then," Yatol Grysh instructed. ?Have a rider go ahead fast to instruct the outposters to light guiding signal fires atop the highest point of their eastern wall."
"It may be dangerous to travel after dark,"