“With the bug-people hot on your tails,” Sorgan added.

“That’s what’s behind the whole idea, Captain,” Ariga said with a wicked grin. “We’ve sort of joined up with the archers from Tonthakan, and they’ll be hiding up in our canyons with arrows that have been dipped in that venom everybody keeps talking about. We’ll rush out and sting the bugs and then rush back into those canyons like we were trying to get away. The bugs will come chasing after us, and the archers will kill every single one of them who tries to follow us.”

“That’s brilliant!” Narasan exclaimed.

It was late in the afternoon of the following day when Narasan and Sorgan crested a rocky little knoll in the mountains and saw the northern end of Crystal Gorge. There was a sizeable cloud-bank off to the west, and the setting sun bathed the clouds in glory.

“I wouldn’t want to throw any accusations at anybody,” Sorgan declared, “but that gap looks a lot like ‘tampering’ to me.”

“I’m not really all that familiar with mountains, Sorgan,” Narasan admitted, “but that gap doesn’t look much like a natural formation to me either.”

Sorgan shrugged. “It’s Dahlaine’s part of the Land of Dhrall, I guess, so if he wants to pick up an axe and chop holes in his mountains, that’s up to him.”

“That would have taken some axe, Sorgan,” Narasan said, looking at the wide gap with absolutely straight walls on either side. “I can see why they call it a ‘gorge,’ though.” He looked at the peculiar stone sides. “If I understood what Ariga was saying correctly, this ‘crystal’ that’s part of the name is quartz. We encounter that once in a while down in the empire. It’s pretty, I suppose, but it’s just a bit too brittle to be of much use. I wouldn’t really want to make a house out of it—not one that I intended to live in, anyway. We much prefer granite.”

“It looks like Ariga was right,” Sorgan said. “The side walls of that gorge are definitely pink.”

“It’s probably because the quartz has been contaminated by iron ore,” Narasan said. “Iron ore seems to give everything around it a reddish cast.”

“Maybe it’s Longbow’s ‘unknown friend’ again,” Sorgan suggested with a wry sort of grin.

“I wouldn’t start throwing any accusations around, Sorgan,” Narasan replied. “If you happen to offend her, she might just turn you into a toad.”

“I don’t think that’s very funny, Narasan.” Sorgan squinted at the mouth of the gorge again. “It looks to me like there’s a small brook wandering around at the bottom of the gorge.”

“There almost has to be, Sorgan. That bear who visited us in Dahlaine’s cave comes down here every year to go fishing.”

The sturdy Matan called Tlodal joined them on the rocky knoll and looked down at the mouth of the gorge. “Can you believe that I’ve never seen this before?” he said. “Our village is no more than forty miles away, but it never even occurred to me to come down here and have a look at it. I’ll admit that it’s sort of pretty, but the bison herds aren’t the least bit interested. They eat grass, not rocks.”

“You’re sort of in charge of the village of Asmie and its people while Two-Hands is away, aren’t you?” Narasan asked.

“I’m not sure just exactly how much authority I have over the other men of the tribe, Narasan. They’ll do what Two-Hands tells them to do, but about as far as I’ll go is to make suggestions,” Tlodal replied a bit dubiously. “Anyway, I’ve been talking with Chief Kathlak of Statha, and we’ve sort of agreed that his archers should concentrate on throwing their arrows at the small bug-people who’ll be coming along fairly soon. The spearmen of Asmie—and the other Matan villages as well—will sit still until the larger creatures attack that wall, or fort, or whatever you want to call it, and then we Matans will take over. The Tonthakans can throw their arrows much farther than we can throw our spears, but their arrows probably won’t be heavy enough to cut through anything like armor—or whatever might be there to protect the bug-people.”

“You two seem to be getting along with each other quite well,” Sorgan observed.

Tlodal shrugged. “We’re both hunters,” he said, “so we know the rules.”

“Rules?” Sorgan seemed to be a bit surprised.

“There’s only one rule, really, and it’s fairly simple. It has to do with poaching. I don’t try to kill his game animals, and he doesn’t try to kill mine. Do you want us to set up a camp out here in the open, or should we go on down the gorge a mile or so? Kathlak and I agree that ‘out here’ might be better than ‘down there,’ but that’s your decision. What’s it to be?”

“I see that you waited until the sun was going down before you came here to ask us,” Sorgan said shrewdly. “I’d say that ‘down there’ sort of died on the vine when the sun decided to go to bed.”

“It’s one of our responsibilities to make these decisions easier for you, mighty chieftain,” Tlodal replied blandly. “Do you want me to move around and tell everybody that you’ve wisely chosen ‘out here’ as the campsite for tonight, mighty chieftain?”

Narasan had a bit of trouble suppressing his laughter.

Their camp was fairly rudimentary, Narasan was forced to concede. Had the party camped there been exclusively Trogite soldiers, Narasan would quite probably have delivered a few blistering reprimands, but “neatness” and “straight lines” were alien concepts for the Matan spear-throwers and the Tonthakan archers, so Narasan chose not to make a big issue of “neat.” They were going to be here for only one night anyway, so it wasn’t all that important.

After a surprisingly rich supper of beans and bison meat, Tlodal, Kathlak, and Trenicia joined Narasan and Sorgan to discuss a few things. Then the Malavi, Ariga, arrived to describe in some detail what they were likely to encounter farther on down the gorge. “You’ll come to some fairly rough places,” he advised them, “and Gunda thought that I might be able to help you get around them.”

“What exactly do you mean when you say ‘rough places,’ Ariga?” Sorgan asked.

“Mostly landslides—or maybe quartz slides,” Ariga replied. “I guess that quartz is quite brittle, and an extremely cold winter will freeze it. Then, when spring rolls around, there’ll be a quick thaw, and whole sheets of that quartz will break free and crash down on the floor of the gorge. I’m sure that you’ll have to spend quite a bit of time wading back and forth across the brook. It’s the only way to get around those piles of shattered quartz—unless you’d prefer to dig.”