The central fire had been lit and beside it crouched a woman he hadn't seen before. Surrounded by a silent, wide-eyed crowd, she clutched a small bundle against her breast, wailing hoarsely.

Retak's wife knelt beside her and gently folded back the blanket. Inside lay a dead infant. The stranger clutched the baby fiercely, her hands mottled with frostbite.

"What happened?" Seregil asked, slipping in beside Retak.

He shook his head sadly. "I don't know. She staggered into the village a little while ago and no one has been able to get any sense out of her."

"That is Vara, my husband's cousin from Torgud's village," a woman cried, pushing her way through the crowd. "Vara, Vara! What's happened to you?"

The woman looked up, then threw herself into her kinswoman's arms. "Strangers!" she cried.

"They came out of the storm. They refused the feast, killed the headman and his family. Others, many others, my husband, my children—My children!"

Throwing back her head, she let out a scream of anguish. People gasped and muttered, looking to Retak.

"But why?" Retak asked gently, bending over her.

"Who were they? What did they want?"

Vara covered her eyes and cowered lower. Seregil knelt and placed a hand on her trembling shoulder.

"Were they looking for the spirit home?"

The woman nodded mutely.

"But they refused the feast," he went on softly, feeling a coldness growing in the pit of his stomach.

"They affronted the village, and you would not deal with them."

"Yes," Vara whispered.

"And when the killing started, then did you tell them?"

Tears welled in Vara's eyes, rolling swiftly down her cheeks. "Partis told them, after they killed his wife," she sobbed weakly. "He told them of Timan and his clan. He thought the killing would stop. But it didn't. They laughed, some of them, as they killed us. I could see their teeth through their beards. They laughed, they laughed—"

Still clutching her dead child, she slumped over in a faint and several women carried her to a pallet by the wall.

"Who could do such things?" Retak asked in bewilderment.

"Plenimaran marines," Seregil growled, and every eye turned to him. "These men are enemies, both to me and to you. They seek the evil that lurks in your spirit home. When they find it, they'll worship it and sacrifice living people to it."

"What can we do?" a woman cried out.

"They'll come here," a man yelled angrily.

"Partis as good as set them upon us!"

"Do you have any weapons?" Seregil asked over the rising din.

"Nothing but wolf spears and skinning knives. How can we fight such men with those?"

"You're a magician!" shouted Ekrid. "Can't you kill them with your magic?"

Caught in a circle of expectant faces, Seregil drew a deep breath. "You've all seen the nature of my magic. I have no spells for killing men."

He let disappointment ripple through the crowd for an instant, then added, "But I may have something just as effective."

"What is that?" the man demanded skeptically.

Seregil smiled slightly. "A plan."

Retak called a halt at the base of the pass as the first lip of sun showed over the eastern peaks.

Shradin went ahead to assess the danger. The others—every man, woman, and child of Retak's village waited quietly for word to move on.

Mothers whispered again to their younger children why they must keep silent in the pass. The infants had been given llaki to make them sleep.

Seregil climbed an outcropping and shaded his eyes as he looked back across the snowfield. Blue shadow still lay-deep in the valley, but he could make out a dark column of men closing in on the village. It wouldn't take long for them to see that their prey had fled, or what direction they'd gone.

"There they are," he whispered to Retak. "We have to move on quickly!"

Hardly daring to breathe, they continued up the pass.

It was a fearsome journey. The villagers moved as swiftly as they could, some bowed under loads of fuel and food, others carrying children on their backs or aged relatives on litters. Only the muffled creak of snowshoes and pack straps broke the silence.

Old Timan trudged painfully along near the rear, supported by Turik and his brothers.

Mercifully, Vara had died and she and her child were hidden now in the drifts beyond the goat enclosures.

But her death was not in vain; she'd given Retak's village time to prepare.

Shimmering veils of snow blew across the pass, dislodging small falls down the slopes.

These gave out harmlessly in fine bits of crust, rolling down to leave mouse trails across their path.

Ominous cracks and groans echoed between the cliffs overhead, but Shradin gave no warning sign and Retak silently motioned his people on.

Trudging along in their midst, Seregil was deeply moved by the mix of fear, trust, and determination that drove these people forward. They'd welcomed him—a stranger-given him the best of all they had. When Retak claimed him as a member of his clan, it was meant literally. In the eyes of the Dravnians he was now a blood member of the community for as long as he wished to claim kinship.

The Plenimaran marines pursuing them had been offered the same welcome.

Looking back as they neared the cave, he saw that the enemy had reached the village and was now turning toward the pass.

You bastards! he thought bitterly.

You'd carve these people like sheep for whatever lies hidden at the end of that tunnel. You slaughtered Vara's village. But you were sloppy my friends, and that makes all the difference!

Up ahead Retak conferred briefly with Shradin, then motioned for a halt. Seregil climbed up to join them.

"Do those men know how to read the snow?" he whispered..

"Let's hope not. Retak, tell the others to move a bit and higher and watch for your signal. Are the young men in place?"

"They're ready. But what if this plan of yours doesn't work?"

"Then we'll need another plan." Feeling much less confident than he sounded, Seregil went to take his own position.

The villagers nervously watched the Plenimarans. The sun was higher now, and glinted back from spears and helmets below. What first appeared only as a long, dark movement against the snow soon resolved into individual men toiling toward them.

Whatever the Plenimarans think they're after here, they not taking any chances, Seregil thought, counting over a hundred men. He glanced briefly up the slope, trying to make mouth of the spirit chamber tunnel and wondering again what could be worth all this..

The Plenimarans were close enough for Seregil to make out the insignia on their breastplates before Shradin and Retak. The headman raised his staff overhead with both arms and let out a bloodcurdling yell. Every villager joined in

screaming at the top of their lungs. At the same time Seregil, Shradin, and the young men of the village shoved piles of loosened rock and ice chunks, sending them ca down the steep slope.

For an instant nothing happened.

Then the first rumblings sounded along the western face as tons of snow and ice sloughed off, plunging down on the column.

Seregil could see the pale ovals of upturned faces. The soldiers realized too late the trap they'd been drawn into. The neat column wavered and broke. Men foundered in the snow, throwing aside their arms as they sought some direction of escape it implacable wave bearing down on them.

The avalanche overtook them in seconds, carrying men like dead leaves in a flood, blotting them from sight.

A great cheer went up from the Dravnians and the sound brought down a second deafening avalanche from the east wall. It crashed down the valley to lap over the first with a roar of finality that echoed for minutes between the stark, sun-gilded peaks.

Shradin pounded Seregil joyfully on the back. "Didn't I say it would fall just so?" he shouted. "No one could have survived that!"