Rocannon's world

They had thought to cross a stream soon, but they did not. Either the stream-courses now were ru

At noon Roca

"It's no good, Yahan," he said.

Yahan rubbed his neck, looking around, then turned his gaunt, tired young face to Roca

"We can't make it without water or food. We'll steal a boat on the coast and go back to Hallan. This is no good. Come on."

Roca

"Windsteeds!"

Then he looked up and saw them, three great gryphon-cats circling down upon them, claws outstretched, wings black against the hot blue sky.

Part Two: The Wanderer

VI

MOGIEN LEAPED OFF his steed before it had its feet on the ground, ran to Roca

Roca

Mogien said nothing. After a certain struggle with himself he began to grin, then he laughed out loud. "Did you learn our customs in order to steal my servants, Rokanan? But who stole your clothes?"

"Olhor wears more skins than one," said Kyo, coming with his light step over the grass. "Hail, Firelord! Last night I heard you in my mind."

"Kyo led us to you," Mogien confirmed. "Since we set foot on Fiern's shore ten days ago he never spoke a word, but last night, on the bank of the sound, when Lioka rose, he listened to the moonlight and said, 'There! Come daylight we flew where he had pointed, and so found you."

"Where is Iot?" Roca

"The jewel, Mogien," Roca

"The jewel?" said Mogien, staring. "Semley's jewel—you gave it away? Not to buy your life—who can, harm you? To buy that worthless life, that disobedient halfman? You hold my heritage cheap! Here, take the thing; it's not so easily lost!" He spun something up in the air with a laugh, caught it, and tossed it glittering to Roca

"Yesterday we met two Olgyior, and one dead one, on the other shore of the sound, and we stopped to ask about a naked traveler they might have seen going by with his worthless servant. One of them groveled on his face and told us the story, and so I took the jewel from the other one. And his life along with it, because he fought. Then we knew you had crossed the sound; and Kyo brought us straight to you. But why were you going northward, Rokanan?"

"To—to find water."

"There's a stream to the west," Raho put in. "I saw it just before we saw you."

"Let's go to it. Yahan and I haven't "drunk since last night."

They mounted the windsteeds, Yahan with Raho, Kyo in his old place behind Roca

They camped by the stream that wound clear and slow among flowerless grasses. Roca

"We thought we saw some creature last night, near the fire," Roca

They broke camp at first light and all day rode the wind between plain and sun. Flying above the plain was as pleasant as walking across it had been hard. So passed the following day, and just before evening, as they looked out for one of the small streams that rarely broke the expanse of grass, Yahan turned in his saddle and called across the wind, "Olhor! See ahead!" Very far ahead, due south, a faint ruffling or crimping of gray broke the smooth horizon.

"The mountains!" Roca

During the next day's flight the flat pampas gradually rose into low swells and rolls of land, vast waves on a quiet sea. High-piled clouds drifted northward above them now and then, and far ahead they could see the land tilting upward, growing dark and broken. By evening the mountains were clear; when the plain was dark the remote, tiny peaks in the south still shone bright gold for a long time. From those far peaks as they faded, the moon Lioka rose and sailed up like a great, hurrying, yellow star. Feni and Feli were already shining, moving in more stately fashion from east to west. Last of the four rose Heliki and pursued the others, brightening and dimming in a half-hour cycle, brightening and dimming. Roca

Next morning when he and Kyo went to mount the gray-striped windsteed Yahan cautioned him, standing at the beast's head: "Ride him with care today, Olhor." The windsteed agreed with a cough and a long snarl, echoed by Mogien's gray.

"What ails them?"

"Hunger!" said Raho, reining in his white steed hard. "They got their fill of Zgama's heritor, but since we started across this plain there's been no big game, and these hop-flyers are only a mouthful to 'em. Belt in your cloak, Lord Olhor—if it blows within reach of your steed's jaws you'll be his di