The woman who calls on us will come today. "Would that you could ride, but I sold the last horse. "At sunhigh let you go with the light, and Ka-dih bless you." He sighed softly. As the last of my line shall you go forth with all I can give you." A jerk of his head indicated a small heap in the darkened corner of the room. That you shall walk, leaving fear behind you. "Go into the high hills, find there the beginning of the road of the gone-before ones. But what road was she to walk? The old man smiled at the wrinkled brow. That her name meant "Walker by Strange Road" she had always known. He smiled up at her, then spoke, his voice weak but clear. Nor could any, man or woman, match her with horse or hunt. In these degenerate days none of the young men could match her in bow or knife skill. Far Traveler had trained his great-granddaughter well. Long, long ago, women had been warriors and accepted so by the Nemunuh. The slenderness was a disguise here was one who was all wire and whipcord. As her hand lifted, powerful tendons stood out in the hollow of a wrist. Her long black hair hung past her thin shoulder and she brushed the shining strands back with an impatient hand. The girl watched him, sorrow in the huge gray eyes. But in the child it had come again, flowering into the true horse-gift and into ties with other life. There were few of those nowadays in too many lines the gift had faltered and died. Eleeri he had named her, from the ancient tongue used only by those of power. Other blood had mingled with that of the Nemunuh over the generations: his own mother had been half Navajo, the daughter of a white man by his Indian wife. Others had taken as starving coyotes to the firewater offered all too often.ĭisease had slain his son, ill fortune the boy's daughter and her man, leaving this one alone. Too many had died from diseases they had never known as free-rangers. The coming of another race had been hard on his people.
She was too thin for beauty but in his eyes she was not only beautiful, she was beloved: the daughter of his son's daughter and his only living descendant. He studied her as she crouched beside him. His eyes met hers calmly and she knew then that he would tell her what to do.
Now she was older and knew that all things died in their time. Once, she had thought he would live forever.
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