The Walls of Air Page 0,75

as conspicuous as we possibly can without actually murdering someone, that is out of the question.'

The circle tightened around them, a bristling hedge of stone and steel points, like the teeth of a shark. Ingold watched the warriors without making a move.

'I'm sorry,' Rudy mumbled.

The wizard's voice grated. 'You and I may be a great deal sorrier before all is said and done.'

A slight sound made Ingold focus his attention behind him. Several of the Raiders fell hastily back. Rudy could feel the tension in the wizard, the leashed power, the blazing potential that customarily hid behind that mild, unassuming facade. The Raiders seemed to feel it, too. At least none of them appeared prepared to try to rush him.

Then the circle shifted, and a tall Raider stepped into the centre of the ring, raising his hands to show himself unarmed.

He was a magnificent Viking of a man in his forties, pale braided moustaches hanging down to the pit of his throat. His eyebrows were tufted like those of a lynx, curling upward and outward; beneath them, his eyes were as cold as frozen amber. The bleached grey-gold of his cougar hide garments was unrelieved by any mark of rank; but without question, he was the chief of the Raiders. He wore that majesty like a cloak.

Chill eyes that deduced the coming of herds or the threat of a storm in the bend of a single grass blade studied Ingold and Rudy for a moment in silence, pale in the white fans of wrinkles that scored the dark-dyed skin. When he spoke, his voice was a foghorn bass, and he spoke with a sonorous accent in the tongue

of the Wath.

'You are wise men?'

'I am a wise man,' Ingold replied drily. "He merely knows spells.'

The cool eyes shifted briefly to Rudy, evaluated the distinction, and dismissed him. Rudy felt his face grow hot and wished he could truly disappear or return to his stinkbug shape and trundle off into the desert, never to be seen again.

'I thought that so it might be,' the Raider said. 'Seldom does Yobshikithos the Arrow-Dancer miss his aim, but it is said that wise men are sometimes difficult to hit. ZyagarnalhotepamI, Hoofprint of the Wind, and you are come among the Twisted Hills People, out of the land among the White Lakes.'

'You are far from your homes,' Ingold said gravely. 'Do the mammoth then leave the northern plains, to draw you this far to the south?'

The foghorn voice rumbled, 'Where we ride, we ride. The lands of all the plains and of the desert are ours, ours to use without leave of mud diggers from the river, wise though they may be. But you,' he went on, with a gesture of one scar-creased hand, 'you read our magic-post on the road these ten nights gone, not merely to see it and flee away, as do the people of the Straight Roads. Are you, then, that wise man whose name was known in the south many years ago, the Desert Walker, who was friend to the White Bird and his tribe?'

Ingold was silent for a moment, as if the name, like the stones of the desert or the shackle-gall on his wrist, brought back the taste of another life and another self. 'I am that Desert Walker,' he said at last. 'But I must tell you, Hoofprint of the Wind, that the White Bird died of knowing me.'

'I was a friend to that White Bird,' the chieftain said quietly. 'And men die, whether known by you or not, Desert Walker.' Bleached lashes veiled the glint of his eyes. 'But if you are that same one and the White Bird spoke truly unto me, good it is for us all that my people did not kill you, but only waited for me to come.'

'Fortunate it is for your people,' Ingold returned gently, 'that they did not try.'

The gold eyes met the blue in arrogant challenge, but after a moment the mouth beneath the braided moustache curled in appreciation. 'Yes,' he said softly. 'Yes, truly you are that same Desert Walker who stole the White Bird's horses...'

'I never did!' Ingold protested in quick indignation.

'... and made a certain bet regarding the horrible birds...'

That wasn't me.'

'... and lost?'

'I won. And besides,' Ingold went on smoothly, 'it was all many years gone, and I

was a most young and foolish Desert Walker in those days.'

'You who are old and wise enough now to come striding into the camps of war, in the