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"You may come with us if you want," Keirkrad concluded with a bitter sneer. "But leave your so-called civilization behind. The Thunderbeast doesn't want it."

* * * * *

That evening, before a roaring fire at the clan hearth, the skald Hazred sang a song of Uthgar. It went on for a long time, like most longer epics, but Hazred's voice never faltered and his memory never failed. When he concluded, Kellin stepped forward to take the skald's place before the assembled warriors, their grim faces lit by the orange flicker of the fire.

"I, too, have a story to tell," she said. "I know it is a tradition of your people for newcomers to tell a story. It does not have a song, but I would never try to usurp the place of your magnificent skald. I'm not practiced in your language, but I shall do my best.

"I'm rarely called upon as a storyteller," she said, smiling. She scanned the crowd and her eyes connected with Sungar, Thluna, Vell, and finally Keirkrad, who stared at her impassively from across the fire. Kellin had first wondered if she might tell them a story from their own history, about the figure known variously as Berun, Beorunna, and the Bey of Runlatha. But Kellin had thought of something that she hoped would work better.

"Let me tell you a story from my own life," she began. "Many of you met my father, Zale Lyme, when he visited Grunwald many years ago. He studied all the Uthgardt tribes, largely from afar, but yours was the only one that welcomed him.

"I didn't realize until after his death how little I truly knew my father. The bulk of his life was spent away on one expedition or another, and when he came back to me and my mother, he spent most of his time preparing for his next journey. But he enthralled me with stories of faraway places and all the things he learned, all the people he met. And before he died, I told him all this. With his blood and his stories inside me, what choice did I have but to follow in his footsteps?" Kellin paused a few heartbeats, gauging the interest of her listeners. Around the campfire, all was still.

"A few years ago, I went on my first expedition, to the island of Ruathym far away in the Trackless Sea. My father was there many years before, and I went to verify his findings. I was looking for information on Uther Gardolfsson, as Uthgar was called before he came to these lands. He was Thane of that distant isle before he came to the North all those centuries ago. And as I walked the place where Uthgar was born, where he was educated, I realized something. I was not only walking in Uthgar's steps, I was walking in my father's as well. And that helped me understand why he admired your people so much.

"I was born and raised amid stone walls, a world of books and learning. I'm anathema to your way of life, but I realize that makes me respect it all the more. Many civilizations rose in the North and later fell, till only scholars like myself remember their names. But through all that there were the Uthgardt, living more or less as you do today. You are the finest of survivors. Even when the Silver Marches are dead and gone, just another name on a roll of dead kingdoms, the Uthgardt will live on, living the same as you do today."

A roar of applause came up from the tribe. Sungar walked forward and stood with Kellin-a silent gesture of her acceptance by the tribe at large. She caught Keirkrad still wearing the same blank expression as before, but she discovered Vell smiling widely.

* * * * *

Wings beat in the night, so softly that no one below heard them. The riders on the hippogriff's back heard a dull roar of excitement rise as they made quiet circles above the barbarian encampment, lit by the flickering red and orange of its bonfire.

"I wonder what's going on down there," said the skymage Valkin Balducius, his forehead furrowing beneath his jet black bangs. He was smiling wickedly at having spent so much time with Ardeth over the last few days, even if most of it was just ferrying her around. Now to engage in