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"Perhaps not," I said.
"War is part of our life," he said. "It is what makes us what we are. I do not think Kaiila would be the Kaiila without the Fleer, or the Fleer the Fleer, without the Kaiila."
"Good friends are priceless," said a man. "So, too, are fine enemies."
"Great enemies," said a man, "make great peoples."
"Do not be concerned, Mitakola," said Cuwignaka. "I do not think I understand them either. Tehy are my people, and I love them, but I, too, may never understand them."
I watched the Fleer riding away. "That is reassuring," I said.
"You are now a warrior, my friend," said Hci to Cuwignaka. "What name will you take? Hve you chosen one?"
"Will you take again your old name?" asked Canka. "Petuspe?" 'Petuspe', in Kaiila, means "Fire Brand."
"No," said Cuwignaka. "And I have chosen my name."
"What will it be?" asked Hci.
"Cuwignaka," smiled Cuwignaka.
Hci smiled. "You have made it a warrior's name," he said. "Others, too, might now take it as such."
"What of you, Hci, my friend?" asked Cuwignaka. "Long ago you were known as Ihdazicaka. Will you take again that name?" 'Idazicaka', in Kaiila, means "One-Who-Counts-Himself-Rich."
"No," smiled Hci. "Now, although I feel I am one who may truly account hiself rich, I shall keep the name Hci. It is a name of which I have taken my highest coups. More importantly, in the time that I have worn that name, I have, for the first time in my life, found friends.
Canka, Cuwignaka and Hci clasped hands.
A few hundred feet away, I saw some Dust Legs, a party of them, returning to their own country.
Among them, stripped naked, his hands tied behind him, riding backwards on a kaiila, his ankles bound tether on a long strap, it ru
I saw a white girl staggering past, bent over. She was stripped. She carried a great bundle of sticks, tied together, on her back. She was pretty. The sticks would doubtless serve as fuel. She was doubtless on her way to the lodge of her master.
The Yellow Knives had been defeated ten days ago.
We were now in a great victory camp, near water, within sight of Council Rock, some seven or eight pasangs in the distance. In this camp there were Fleer, Sleen, Dust Legs and Kaiila. There had been dances and feasts. There had been much loot to divide, taken from Yellow-Knife encampments, and there had been much exhanging of gifts, even between hereditary, inveterate enemies such as the Fleer and Kaiila. Women, too, even free women, of these peoples, of those bands within trekking disatnce, had jouneyed to the encampment. Such times of celebration, of festivals and peace, particularly among diverse tribes, are rare and precious. This was now Wayukaspiwi, in the calendar of the Dust Legs, the Corn-Harvest Moon, or, as it is spoken of in the reckoning of the Kaiila, Canwapekasanwi, the moon when the wind shakes off the leaves.
Only too clearly did the browning grass and the cool winds preage the turning of the seasons, and the advent of the gray skies and the long nights of the bitter moon, Waniyetuwi, called the Winter Moon; Wanicokanwi, called the Mid-Winter Moon; Witehi, the Hard Moon; and Wicatawi, the Urt Moon. The vernal equinox occurs in the Istawicayzanwi, the Sore-Eye Moon. Grunt and I had originally come to the Barrens, it now seemed long ago, in Magaksicaagliwi, the Moon of the Returning Giants. Already various groups, in small numbers, had begun to withdraw from the victory camp.
I, too, I thought, must soon be on my way. I must soon take my leave of the Barrens. I must begin the long journey back to the Ihanke, and thence to the Thentis Mountains, and the Vosk, and the Tamber Gulf and Port Kar.
I turned my steps toward my lodge, that which I shared with Cuwignaka, and his slave, Cespu, and with she who was now my own slave, she to whom I now held full legal title, lovely, obedient blond Mira. Cuwignaka had wished to give her to me but I had insisted on paying five hides for her. Gri
I stopped before a quartet of stripped, kneeling white slaves, neck tethered, with their hands bound behind their back. They were the four girls who had been taken from Grunt long ago by Yellow Knives, near the scene of the massacre of the wagon train, and the battle between the soldiers and the coalition of red savages, Lois, Inez, Cori
Lois and Inez had not been sold. They would serve as burden bearers for Grunt, on his way back to the Dust-Leg country. Then, if he had not sold them in the meantime, presumably they would accompany him back to Kailiauk in the spring, whence, after selling his goods and making his profits, and restocking his stores, he would presumably return once more, trading, to the Barrens, this time presumably in the company of the light-ski
I pulled Lois' head up by the hair. "You gave the alarm," I said, "when I, and two friends, stole tarns from Kinyanpi at a Yellow-Knife, camp."
She shuddered with terror, held.
"Did you kkow that it was I with them?" I asked. "Did you recognize me?"
She trembled. "Yes, Master," she whispered, terrified.
"You did well," I said.
She looked at me, startled.
"What are you?" I asked.
"A slave girl," she whispered.
"See that you serve your new masters even better," I said.
"Yes, Master," she said.
I then released her, and turned about.Inez's neck, too, I had noted, looked well in its leather bond.
Others, too, there were, whose fate I had learned, Max and Kyle Hobart, and the two former Earth girls, Ginger and evelyn, who had been slaves in Kailiauk. The Hobarts, with men, had pursued Grunt into the Barrens. Dust Legs, friends of Grunt, had attacked them. Grunt, retracing his steps, had located the scene of the attack. There he had found them, the only survivors, stripped and put in leg stretchers, as though they might be slave girls, lying in the grass, awaiting his attentions. He had not killed them. He had chained them in his coffle. They, though strong men, had been forbidden to so much as touch any of the scantily clad beauties who, neck-chained, as they, preceded them in the coffle.
Near the field of the massacre and near the place where the soldiers and red savages had fought they, with two girls, Ginger and Evelyn, whom they had muchly desiered, as long ago as Kiliauk, were taken from Grunt by Sleen warriors. This was done at the same time as Yellow Knives had been approapriating Lois and three others of her sisters in bondage, Priscilla, Cori