Chapter 2

"We have company!" Nurm's voice from inside the ring of campfires couldn't quite hide a chuckle. "It's all right, Kim. Let him come up to the fires."

The huge beast, Mak was surer than ever that it was more than half wolf, gave what sounded like a disappointed whine as it faded silently back into the darkness.

"Come on over to the fire and get better acquainted. I hoped that you would show up. I would like you to meet my helpers, Amy and Jewel."

Mak, feeling more foolish by the moment, walked over to where Nurm sat crosslegged by a small fire. He had all he could do to keep from staring openmouthed at the trader's two companions. Amy was a tall blond woman with closely cropped curly hair. Slender but fullfigured, she was strikingly tanned and healthylooking, with teeth that gleamed white and even in the firelight. Otherwise, she looked much like some of the prettier girls he'd seen on visits to villages of Tall Ones, except that few of them had hair as blond or skin as fine as hers, and none had such perfect teeth.

But Jewel! Her finely chiselled features were relaxed in a welcoming smile, but in the light of the flickering fire her smooth skin was the color of darkest night! She had deep brown eyes, and short crinkly hair that curled so closely to her head as to look like fur.

"Sit here next to me," she purred, her throaty voice as soft as honey. "Some of the men are about to give us songs. Have you eaten?"

Mak mumbled that he had, and was saved from having to say any more by a burst of music from strangelyshaped instruments. The chords fell oddly on his ears, more used to the atonal chants of the village women than to the melodies of the Tall Ones. The words were in a strange language, but the stirring rhythms made his heart pound and his breath quicken.

A young woman and an older man passed mugs around, filling them from a stout wooden keg. Mak found that his held a dark and heady brew, as different as could be from the sour and musty bark beer that he was used to. It only took a couple of swallows to convince him that this was something he wanted to experience again and again. As the singing broke into a rousing chorus, a slender flamehaired girl leaped into the circle of light. Dropping her cloak from her shoulders she whirled and stamped, clapping her hands to the beat of the music. Clad only in a few scraps of bright cloth, she seemed the embodiment of a living flame in the flickering light. The audience applauded enthusiastically as the music stopped, calling for more, but she only gave them a flashing smile, gathering up her cloak and melting silently back into the shadows.

Mak finally closed his mouth. Slowly collected his scattered wits. Pointedly ignored several amused glances thrown his way.

"Not the kind of dancing you're familiar with?" Nurm cocked an eyebrow at him. Mak shook his head, still mute, and Nurm changed the subject. "How have the harvests been, the last few years?"

"The same as usual," he answered evasively, shaking his head as though waking from a dream. "Everything's just the same as usual. Nothing ever changes in Wallen village. Nothing!"

It was considerably later when he got to his feet. The fires were dying away to beds of glowing coals, and downing his sixth, or was it his seventh mug of brew he took his leave of the traders and wended his slightly uncertain way back to the village. He slipped quietly around to the rear side of the palisade, climbed a leaning tree, and dropped lightly to the ground on the other side. He was about to go into his parent's cottage when a low whistle caught his attention.

"Mak! Oh, Mak! Over here." A small group of shadowy figures waited in the moonlight near a huge oak; men and women of about his own age. Els called to him eagerly as he approached. "Have you really been out to the traders' camp? What are they really like? What did you find out about them?"

"Well, I found out that they make really great beer." Mak laughed in the darkness, weaving on his short legs and stifling a belch as the fumes of the dark brown ale rose to his head. "Never tasted anything like it. And they sure can dance and sing and make music."

"I thought that you said you were just going to watch them, and listen." This was Chok, the tall, slender son of one of Wallen's richest farmers. He resented Mak's free and easy ways, missing no chance to make Mak look bad in front of their friends. "Some hunter, you are. What did you do, just walk right up to their fires?"

"They didn't give me much of a chance to do anything else," Mak admitted ruefully. "They have a big dog that spotted me right away, but they didn't get mad or anything."

"What are the women like?" This, eagerly, from another farmer's son.

"Mostly like any girls from a Tall Ones village, except that there weren't any fat or real ugly ones that I saw. But one of the Head Trader's two women is like nothing you ever heard of before. Her skin is as black as the night sky, and she looks like some kind of a queen." He paused, at a loss for words to describe Jewel, but no one said anything. "Anyway, it wouldn't have done me any good to listen to them. When they talk among themselves they use their own language, just like all the other traders who've ever visited us."