There was more like this and it went on for an unconscionably long time, until Jason found himself beginning to nod. He interrupted, broke off the song, and asked some pertinent questions.

A picture of the realities of life on the plains of Felicity began to emerge.

From the oceans on the east and west, and from the Great Cliff in the south, to the mountains in the north there stood not one permanent building or settlement of man. Free and wild, the tribes roved over the grass sea, warring on themselves and each other in endless feuds and conflicts.

There had been cities here, some of them were even mentioned by name in the Songs, but now, only their memory remained, and an uncompromising hatred. There must have been a long and bitter war between two different ways of life, if the memory, generations later, could still arouse such strong emotions. With the limited natural resources of these arid plains, the agrarians and the nomads could not possibly have lived side by side in peace. The farmers would have built settlements around the scant water sources and fenced out the nomads and their flocks. In self-defense, the nomads would have had to band together in an attempt to destroy the settlements. They had succeeded so well in this genocidal warfare that the only trace of their former enemies that remained was a hated memory.

Crude, unlettered, violent, the barbarian conquerors roamed the high steppe in tribes and clans, constantly on the move as their stunted cattle and goats consumed the scant grass that covered the plains. Writing was unknown; the jongleurs, the only men who could pass freely from tribe to tribe, were the historians, entertainers and bearers of news. No trees grew in this hostile climate so wooden utensils and artifacts were unknown. Iron ore and coal were apparently plentiful in the northern mountains, so iron and mild steel were the most common materials used. These, along with animal hides, horns and bones, were almost the only raw materials available. An outstanding exception were the helms and breastplates. While some were made of iron, the best ones came from a tribe in the distant hills who worked a mine of asbestos-like rock. They shredded this to fibers and mixed it with the gum of a broad-leaved plant to produce what amounted to an epoxy-fiber-glass material. It was light as aluminum, strong as steel, and even more elastic than the best spring steel. This technique, undoubtedly inherited from the first, pmBreakdown settlers on the planet, was the only thing that physically distinguished the nomads from any other race of iron-age barbarians. Animal droppings were used for cooking fuel; animal fat, for lamps. Life tended to be nasty, brutish and short.

Every clan or tribe had its traditional pasture ground over which it roamed, though the delimitations were vague and controversial, so that wars and feuds were a constant menace. The domed tents, camacks, were made of joined hides over iron poles. They were erected and struck in a few minutes, and when the tribe moved on, they were carried, with the household goods, on wheeled frames called escungs, like a travois with wheels, which were pulled by the moropes.

Unlike the cattle and goats, which were descendants of terrestrial animals, the inoropes were natives of the high steppes of Felicity. These claw-toed herbivores had been domesticated and bred for centuries, while most of their wild herds had been exterminated. Their thick pelts protected them from the eternal cold, and they could go as long as 20 days without water. As beasts of burden, and chargers of war, they made existence possible in this barren land.

There was little more to tell. The tribes roved and fought, each speaking its own language or dialect and using the neutral in, between tongue when they had to talk to outsiders. They formed alliances and treacherously broke them. Their occupation and love was war and they practiced it most efficiently.

Jason digested this information while he attempted, less successfully, to digest the unchewable lumps from the stew that he had forced himself to swallow. For drink there had been fermented morope milk, which tasted almost as bad as it smelled. The only course he had missed was the one reserved for warriors, a mixture of milk and still-warm blood, and for this he was grateful.

Once Jason’s curiosity had been satisfied, Oraiel’s turn had come and he had asked questions endlessly. Even while Jason ate, he had had to mumble answers, which the jongleur and his apprentice filed away in their capacious memories. They had not been disturbed, so he considered himself safe, for the time being. It was already late in the afternoon and he had to think of a way to escape and return to the ship. He waited until Oraiel ran out of breath then asked some pointed questions of his own.

“How many men are there in this camp?”

The jongleur had been sipping steadily at the achadk, the fermented milk, and was beginning to rock back and forth. He mumbled and spread his arms wide. “They are the sons of the vulture,” he intoned. “Their numbers blacken the plain and the fearful sight of them strikes terror—”

“I didn’t ask for a tribal history, just a nice round figure.”

“Only the gods know. There may be a hundred; there may be a million.”

“How much is 20 and 20?” Jason interrupted.

“I do not bother my thoughts with such stupid figurations.”

“I didn’t think you could do higher mathematics, like counting to one hundred and other exotic computations.”

Jason went over and peered out of the opening between the laces. A blast of frigid air made his eyes water. High, icy clouds drifted across the pale blueness of the sky, while the shadows were growing long.

“Drink,” Oraiel said, waving the leathem bottle of achadh. “You are my guest and you must drink.”

The silence was broken only by the rasp of sand as the old woman scrubbed out the cooking pot. The apprentice’s chin was on his chest and he appçared to be asleep.

“I never refuse a drink,” Jason said, and walked over and took the bottle.

As he raised it to his lips, he saw the old woman glance up quickly, then bend low again over her work. There was a slight stirring behind him.

Jason hurled himself sideways, the drinking skin went flying and the club skinned his ear and crashed into his shoulder.

Still rolling, without looking, Jason kicked backward and his foot caught the apprentice in the pit of the stomach. He folded nicely and the spiked iron bar rolled free of his limp hands.

Oraiel, no longer drunk, pulled a long, two-handed sword from under the furs beside him and swung on Jason. Though the spikes had missed, the bar itself had numbed Jason’s right shoulder and his arm, which hung limply at his side. There was nothing wrong with his left arm, however, so he flung himself inside the arc of the sword before it could descend and locked his hand around the jongleur’s throat, thumb and index finger on the major blood vessels. The man kicked spasmodically, then slumped unconscious.

Always aware of his flanks, Jason had been trying to keep one eye on the old woman, who now produced a gleaming, saw-edged knife, the camack was an armory of concealed weapons, and hopped to the attack. Jason dropped the jongleur and chopped her wrist so the knife fell at his feet.

The entire action had taken about ten seconds. Oraiel and his apprentice were draped over each other in an unconscious huddle, while the crone sobbed by the fire, cradling her wrist.

“Thanks for the hospitality,” Jason said, trying to rub some life back into his numbed arm. When he could move his fingers again, he tied and gagged the woman, then the others, arranging them in a neat row on the floor. Oraiel’s eyes were open, radiating bloodshot waves of hatred.

“As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” Jason said, picking over the furs. “That’s another one you can memorize. I suppose you can’t be blamed for trying to get your information, and the reward money as well. But you were being a little too greedy. I know that you’re sorry now and want me to have enough of these moth-eaten furs to disguise myself with, as well as that greasy fur hat which has seen better days, and perhaps a weapon or two.”