speaking, one of them, a woman marginally older than the others, raised her eyes to look at Vaelin. Like Alum, her brows were inscribed with a series of precisely placed scars, but hers were more numerous. Vaelin found her gaze uncomfortably direct, possessed of a piercing quality that he knew saw a great deal. A faint, plaintive echo of something lost stirred in his heart as the woman continued to regard him, making him wonder what tune the blood-song would have sung at this moment. The loss of his gift was several years distant now, but there were occasions when he felt its absence keenly, like an old wound aching on a cold morning. There were even times like this, when he fancied he still heard it, a faint tune just out of reach, a tune that brought insight and surety, a tune that had saved him more times than he could count. A tune lost in the Beyond, he reminded himself, straining for it once again but failing to grasp more than the faintest echo that may have just been born of his yearning. But, blood-song or not, he somehow still sensed this woman’s gift. What does she see?
As if hearing his unspoken question, the woman blinked and returned her gaze to Alum, speaking softly in their shared language. It had a melodious quality, possessed of a near-musical cadence that made it seem as if she were reciting poetry. When she fell silent she and the other Moreska all unclasped their hands and turned their backs on Alum, walking away with neither glance nor word as he continued to kneel on the ground.
“If you would, my lord.”
Vaelin looked down from his horse to find Tallspear proffering a piece of parchment. “The name of our factor in North Tower,” the hunter explained. “He’ll oversee receipt of payment for our efforts here.”
“The Bear People have a factor now?” Vaelin asked.
“As you know, the Reaches are full of rogues keen to cheat the unwary. Last winter a merchant came to the Sound offering strings of beads for all the beaver pelts we could provide. He was lucky to be chased off with only a spear jab to the arse.”
“I’ll see to it.” Vaelin pocketed the parchment. “I would ask that you have a care for these people,” he added, gesturing to the Moreska. “Provide food until they can hunt for themselves.”
“It’s not our way to shun those in need.” Tallspear smiled tightly and moved back, then paused, a cautious look in his eye. “Hunting outlaws is not truly a war, my lord. Merely the management of vermin. The wars are over. You do know that, I trust?”
Vaelin gave a very small laugh as a long-remembered phrase came to mind. “There’s always another war.”
“Only if you go looking for it.” Tallspear gave a formal bow of farewell and strode away.
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
“Your walls aren’t big enough,” Alum observed eight days later as they reined in atop a hill from which the whole of North Tower could be seen. Vaelin had to concede the man had a point. In the years since his return to the Reaches a once-small but bustling port had transformed into a minor city. Homes and storehouses now extended a good distance beyond the walls. Some months ago, Vaelin had commissioned plans for a new defensive barrier, much to the objections of the Merchants’ Guild, dismayed at the prospect of a levy to cover the costs, despite their ever-more-swollen coffers. But such greed-inspired grumbling hadn’t been the reason he put the plans aside; at the rate the place was expanding, any new walls would soon also be rendered obsolete.
“Gold is like water in this Realm,” he told the Moreska. “It makes things grow.”
Alum gave a rueful shake of his head, both amused and baffled. “Those born to the sands will never understand the allure of a shiny yellow metal too soft to even make a decent spear-point.” Vaelin detected a wistful note to his voice that told of a profound longing for lands now lost, perhaps forever.
“The world is ever changeable,” he said. “Perhaps one day . . .”
“No, my friend.” Alum smiled and shook his head. “There will be no return to the sands for the Moreska. The Protectors do not live there anymore, so neither will we.”
Vaelin thought back to their departure from Ultin’s Gulch, the sight of this man kneeling in the circle of elders. “What did it mean?” he asked. “When your people turned