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to move. But his gaze caught hers, and she answered him.
    â€œNothing,” she said, her voice so struggling we could scarcely hear it. “You have done nothing to hurt me. You just—are.”
    â€œAre what?”
    She jerked her head away from his glance and vaulted to the horse’s back. Kor caught hold of her reins, and I stepped to his side. “Careful,” I warned, trying to ease what was happening with a jest. “She’ll have her knife out in a moment.”
    â€œNo!” Tass seemed jolted into speech at my words. Protests spilled out of her, and tears started from her eyes. “Dan, that was an accident—I thought you knew! I wanted only to cut the reins and get away—”
    â€œI know, I know!” I hastened to reassure her.
    â€œI never meant to hurt you.” But she brushed away the tears impatiently with the back of one hand.
    Kor stood beside me, holding the reins so hard that his knuckles whitened, and abruptly he asked a strange question.
    â€œTassida. Who gelded Calimir?”
    She stared dumbly at him, and I turned to stare too. His changeable eyes were dark, purple-gray and stormy, and as deep as the stormy sea.
    â€œYou have told us there are no other tribes but the six I know. No person of any of them would geld a stallion, not even those slave-keeping Fanged Horse scum. And Calimir is not a fanged steed nor yet a curly-haired Red Hart pony. You have told us that horses of beauty, of the old breed, run wild on the dry plains east of the thunder cones. You must have caught Calimir there. But who gelded him?”
    I looked back at her, seeing a trapped fear, seeing a secret too terrible to speak, and I felt a chill.
    â€œDo you not think you owe us some small measure of truth?” Kor demanded.
    Slowly, as if she could not help herself, she drew her knife of sharp blackstone. “I deem—you already know. Turn loose my reins.”
    Neither Kor nor I moved. “She did it herself?” I murmured to him, too stunned to speak louder.
    â€œShe must have.”
    â€œI saved his life, raised him from a tiny foal!” Tass cried suddenly. “He followed me like a dog, he was as gentle as a dove. But when his neck began to swell, he grew hot and mettlesome, and I didn’t—I couldn’t—”
    â€œDidn’t want him acting like a stud,” said Kor, his voice careful, colorless.
    â€œYou can see he does not hold it against me.” She was weeping, her knife gripped hard in her hand.
    â€œOf course not,” said Kor bitterly. “The creatures who befriend us, they are patient, mute, forgiving, they do what we ask of them without needing to understand. The horses, they let us ride them to war, through fire, beyond exhaustion unto death—”
    Her head lifted with a snap at his tone, and her dark eyes flashed. She spun her knife briefly and raised it.
    â€œUnhand my reins,” she ordered.
    Kor let go and stepped back. His compliance seemed to startle her so that she did not ride away at once, but lingered, sheathing her stone blade.
    â€œDo not think too badly of me,” she said softly at last, glancing at both of us equally.
    â€œI cannot think too badly of you ever,” I said, though an odd sort of weight lay on my chest, hindering my breathing. “Gentle journey.”
    â€œGentle journey,” Kor echoed me.
    â€œAnd the same to you both, and—good fortune of all sorts.…” She seemed about to say more, but then, abruptly, she wheeled Calimir and set off at a canter toward the east. I raised my hand in an awkward salute, and she returned it just as she disappeared between giant pines.
    Kor and I kept a numb silence as we went about the business of breaking camp. Nor did we eat. Not until we were mounted and riding westward did we begin to speak.
    â€œI would never have guessed it of her,” I said to Kor.
    â€œYou are trusting.”
    â€œFool, most folk