Macurdy's left hand reached, drew Slaney's knife from its sheath and tossed it away. "Hold your bow against the tree."

He did, and Macurdy cut the string. "How many men do you have here?"

"In the woods? Fourteen alive and fit. Three others are dead by those vermin, and two badly hurt."

"Plus two on the road," Macurdy prompted.

The man nodded. "Plus two on the road."

"Tell them to cut their bows with their swords, lay them on a tree and chop them. So I can hear it happen." With a flick of the knife blade, Macurdy made another slit in the man's shirt, another thin red line on his belly. "Tell them!"

Worms writhed in Slaney's face. "You heard what he said," he called. "Chop your bows in two."

Several seconds passed before Macurdy heard the first chop. A moment later he heard a second, then more, though how many had actually struck a bow… "Anyone who walks out of here with a whole bow will answer to my master!" he shouted. "With his life!" There were three more chops, then a fourth.

"Lords of the Mountain!" he called, "does that convince you they won't attack if you come out?"

"And what's to prevent yew from fillin' us with arrows?"

"Because we're dwarf friends." Macurdy raised his voice to full shout. "My lord! Send the great raven to vouch for us!"

Blue Wing, who'd been circling well above the trees, spiraled down to perch among the upper branches of one. "Lords of the Mountain," the bird called, "these are honorable men! Trust them!"

"Yew!" the dwarf called out, "the man who's taken it on himself to intercede here! What's yer name?"

"Macurdy."

"Macurdy, why don't ye just kill the boogers?"

"My master is a magician and warrior, not a butcher. And these men haven't harmed us."

"What will they pay for our dead and wounded? And our ponies, and the tallfolk groom they killed?"

"Nothing!" Slaney bellowed, then paled chalk-white as Macurdy's knife slit again, this time through skin and shallowly into the muscle beneath it. Blood oozed, flowing down his hairy belly.

"They'll pay the contents of their purses," Macurdy called back, "whatever that may be. And their horses, keeping enough to ride home on, doubling two on a horse."

Macurdy heard the brief bass rumble of dwarves conferring. Then their leader called again. "All right. Have them hold their purses above their heads. We're comin' out with bows at the ready. We'll not shoot if not threatened, but…"

"Do you pledge that on the honor of your sons?"

"On the honor of our sons through three generations!"

Long generations, Macurdy thought. According to Maikel, dwarves lived longer than Sisters, though they aged more or less gradually, and seldom had children before age forty.

"Careful now, Slaney," Macurdy called. "If even one of your men plays false, you all die. Yourself first." Then he shouted at full voice again. "My lord, send in someone to collect their purses for the Lords of the Mountain."

Blue Wing flew off with the message, in case Jeremid hadn't heard. It took several minutes for the Ozman to get there. With saber in one hand he made the circle; the purses he stuffed in his shirt mostly felt empty, or near it, and not every man even admitted to one. Eight dwarves came out, two of them limping. They wore mail shirts that seemed too light to stop a sword blow, but by their shimmer, Macurdy suspected they were more than ordinary steel.

The bandits, it turned out, had more dead than they'd realized. With a well-aimed arrow, Melody had killed the bandit who'd first challenged Macurdy, shot him when he'd started in from the road as if to intervene. Then she'd gone on to the horse guard and shot him too. Her marksmanship impressed Macurdy; both her arrows had pierced the victims' hearts. Her casual willingness to kill people also impressed him-shocked him a bit despite how warlike the Ozians were.

It was dwarves with their crossbows who stood guard over the bandits and chose the horses with which they'd be paid-the ten best of nineteen. Two others had been wounded during the original skirmish, and run off. Meanwhile the dwarves searched the bandits for valuables they might have transferred from their purses, and found little. Another visited the dead bandits, collected their bows and swords, and chopped their spears in two.

Slaney stepped over to Macurdy. "The truth between the two of us," he growled, in a tone not to be heard by his men. "There is no master, right? There's only the three of you."

"Right and wrong," Macurdy lied. "There are seven of us, but I'm the leader and magician. The other four don't want their presence known in this country. Also I am dwarf friend, and couldn't let them die here."

Slaney didn't know what to believe, and said nothing more; his aura was thick with hate. He and his men mounted-two to a horse except for himself-and without looking back, headed east down the highway.

Dwarves do not ride full-sized horses; Macurdy had learned that from Maikel. Their legs are short, they require special saddles, and there's the problem of climbing on and off. They ride ponies specially bred-short of leg and very tame, with a quick-footed gait.

This party had been traveling with two saddle ponies each, plus spares and pack ponies, and enough were left that each survivor had one to ride, with several left over. With tallfolk help, they loaded their goods on compensatory horses, on pack saddles lashed together from stout ash saplings. Their dead, including the tallfolk groom they'd hired, were also loaded across horses. Macurdy wondered aloud if it might not be better to build a pyre and burn them, this being the tallfolk custom in Yuulith. The elder dwarf answered that there'd be no decay, and he'd have strong coffins made at the nearest village where a proper cart could be bought.

That said, he put his hand on each corpse, one after the other, concentrating and muttering, as if preserving them with a spell.

The dwarves didn't look forward to tending a string of horses-they preferred not even to tend their ponies if they could hire some tallfolk to do it-but they seemed not to doubt that they could if they had to.

Their biggest problem was that four of them, venturesome youths by dwarvish standards, wanted to join Macurdy, whom they believed would be doing more bold adventurous things-things they hoped to be part of. This, however, would leave their leader with a party of only four, of whom two had been wounded, though one but slightly. But those who wanted to leave claimed the right to do so. They hadn't been part of the original party; had attached themselves to it because they were also from the Diamond Flues.

Old Kittul Kendersson Great Lode disagreed. He pointed out that as a member of the ruling council, he had the authority to take command in emergencies. On the other hand, young Tossi Pellersson Rich Lode, eldest of the four cousins, claimed the emergency was over. And a tallfolk could be hired at the next village to tend the animals.

Old Kittul was apparently not a typical dwarf. He undertook a compromise, for he saw that the Pellerssons would leave despite him, which could give rise to ill feelings in both clans. And at any rate the younger dwarf's arguments had merit. While Tossi, though young, understood the politics of the Diamond Flues. The upshot was that one of the cousins would leave with Kittul. And Tossi, if he lived long enough, was to personally deliver, to the King In Silver Mountain, a report of the events here. He was also to send one in writing, for the king should be apprised that travel entailed risks in this region.

Tossi's three cousins drew straws-Tossi, as senior, held aloof from the risk-the short straw to ride west with Kittul.

When Kittul's party was in the saddle, he called Macurdy to him. "And yewr people," he said, "and yewrs, Tossi Pellersson." When they'd gathered, Kittul cleared his throat and began.