White Road

bird,” Turmay told the boy. “Keep it safe and it will bring you good luck.”
    “What about this?” asked Sona, squatting beside the firepit. She held up a lock of hair. It was brown, and singed at the ends.
    “So they cut their hair,” said Nowen. “What of it?”
    “No, smell it, Captain.”
    Rieser took the lock and sniffed at it. It smelled faintly sweet, like a flower, with an underlying taint of some magic Rieser did not recognize. There were a few silvery strands among the dark, too. “They’re trying to hide it, and not very well.”
    As darkness fell they built a large fire and stood around it eating the last of the fresh venison Nowen had provided for them with her strong bow, and munching on slices of turnips stolen from a farm a few days ago.
    When he had eaten, Turmay settled on his bedroll by the fire and began to play. The others had gotten used to the strange music; Rieser had even come to look forward to it, wondering what strange sounds the witch would weave next.
    Perhaps it was that distraction that left him unprepared when half a dozen small men stepped into the circle of firelight. Rieser’s first thought was that they appeared to be unarmed; the second was that one of them carried an oo’lu very much like Turmay’s, and had similar witch marks on his face and hands. They were dressed in loose leather tunics decorated with animal teeth, and their black hair was longer than Turmay’s, and wilder.
    Turmay looked almost as surprised as he stood and bowed to the man with the oo’lu.
    The other man bowed back and said something in a language that sounded very much like Retha’noi. And it must have been, because Turmay smiled and replied in the same difficult accent. They spoke for some time and examined each other’s oo’lus before Turmay began to translate.
    “These are Retha’noi people!” he said, grinning broadly. “Their ancestors stayed here in the mountains, after they were driven away from the sea. And Naba here, their witch man, knew that I would come.”
    The other witch held up his oo’lu for Rieser to see. LikeTurmay’s, it was decorated with rings of painted designs and carvings, and the same black handprint, too, though at a different place on the oo’lu.
    “The way the handprint falls across the rings foretells what a witch will do,” Turmay explained. “Mine said I would make a long journey. Naba’s says that he will meet with a stranger who is not a stranger. He says that is me, one of his own blood from far away.”
    “What do they want with us?” asked Rieser, still suspicious despite Turmay’s obvious delight.
    “They heard me playing and came down to find me. They have no concern for the rest of you, except for your tayan’gil. He’s the second one they’ve seen.”
    “They saw the others?”
    “He says three riders came this way, with a white child, though it has been disguised by some sort of magic as yours is. Hâzadriën is ‘white man’ to them.”
    He spoke with Naba again, then turned back to Rieser. “He says that the white child is a thing of evil. Naba is a very powerful witch, but even he did not dare approach it. He says he can smell blood on all of them, and the little one, too. He says our tayan’gil does not smell of killing, and he is glad of that, since I’m with you, too. If he smelled that on me, he would have attacked.”
    “Well, that’s a lucky thing, then.” Rieser had often wondered if Retha’noi witches could kill with their magic; there were stories of that kind of power. He glanced around the clearing, looking for more of them. Who knew how many other witches were hiding out there in the dark? “Ask him how long ago he saw them.”
    Turmay spoke to Naba again. “One day.”
    “Give him my thanks. And ask if he and his men would share our meal with us.”
    The offer was accepted and the Retha’noi offered pouches of food in return. The ’faie knew from experience that it was a serious insult to refuse a gift from a Retha’noi, so they chewed their unexpected guests’ tough berries and nibbled some of the rancid jerky as best they could.
    When the shared meal was through, Turmay and Naba played their oo’lus together. The throbbing, hooting, buzzing drone echoed from the peaks, filling the little valley with eerie reverberations.
    “What if those we are chasing hear?” asked Kalien. “Sound carries a long way in the mountains.”
    Rieser gazed off into the darkness, then gave him a rare,