He leaped to his feet and rushed from cover, knowing full well that they had all been told to keep quiet and remain as still as possible. He ran through the shrubs towards the line of archers, not daring to cry out for fear of starting a stampede, and into the path of the rampaging washak. With the great animal bearing down on him at a fearsome speed, he stood his ground and waved his arms, and at last the archers saw him. Eight turned and ran for cover, the remaining two put arrows to their bows and shot quickly, calling to Radulf to drop to his belly so that they did not shoot him. But Radulf, with the ground shaking beneath him as the enormous beast came ever nearer, could not hear them, and at the very last second, as the washak careened towards him, he threw himself to one side, feeling the coarse fur and hard bone of the animal's gigantic head brush against him, throwing him several feet away.

Both arrows missed. The washak stopped abruptly, aware now that it was under attack. It had hoped to surprise the archers whose attention had been turned on the bulk of the herd, the stragglers who strayed too far from the central feeding ground. It began pawing the ground, and snorting through its great nostrils, shaking its head angrily. The archers, now only a few feet away by reason of the fact that the washak's great speed had carried it such a distance in a short space of time, had no time to reload before it started at them. Radulf watched in horror as it impaled one of the men on its horn, tossing him into the air like a plaything. Then he drew his hunting knife, given to him by Marcellus, and charged at it, shouting, screaming, and launched himself onto the beast's back, plunging the knife into the animal anywhere he could. He dragged himself along the vast length of its back, and hearing it howl with rage and pain as the long blade sank to the hilt in a dozen places. Finally, his legs straddled about its neck, Radulf raised the knife and plunged it into the animal's brain, and it collapsed suddenly, shaking the ground and throwing Radulf clear.

Now all was confusion, as the other, more distant members of the herd noticed the agitation that was spreading. The stragglers attempted to disperse and make their way away from the archers, and the entire herd started to move, slowly at first, and within the boundaries of their pasture. Gradually their mood changed from one of peaceful grazing to one of being aware of a threat from the bronze-skinned men. Their movements became more frenzied until groups of washak began to break into a trot, and there was the noise of what sounded like distant thunder as the earth shook beneath their hooves.

Radulf looked questioningly towards Warikeewappah, who gave the order for the archers to return to the group and for another group of young men, presumably stronger, or else chosen simply in turn, to fetch the ten carcasses that had been felled. But it was not going to be that simple, for the herd was undoubtedly on the move.

Four youths managed to bring two of the carcasses back to the main group and to secure ropes around the legs of a third. But a rogue male, enormous and angry, had broken loose from the pack and stood within a few yards of where the other carcasses lay. As a second group of youths moved to truss another carcass, the washak stamped his hooves repeatedly until, deciding that the intrusion of the humans on the lives of the washak had gone far enough, it lowered its head and charged. Radulf and another youth saw the potential danger, for as it charged, the heads of the other washak followed it and the herd moved in unison, wheeling in the same direction. There was only one thing to do to avoid a full-scale stampede of the herd, and Radulf signalled to his companion to follow him. Shouting to the youths to leave the carcass and to rejoin the rest of the hunters, he ran straight at the charging washak, with the entire herd just a hundred yards or so behind it, his companion doing the same, though several yards behind Radulf. With the distance between him and the washak just a few yards, Radulf started to shout and suddenly darted off to the left, hoping against hope that the washak would have his eye on him and follow. At first it seemed that his plan was not going to work, but the second Warikeewa youth who followed him also changed direction at the last minute, and darted off in pursuit of Radulf. At last the washak changed course and as it did, the entire herd, in one graceful movement, changed course also and the stampede went harmlessly off to the east.

The danger to Radulf and his companion was not over, however, for when Radulf sprinted for the cover of the scrub he turned to see that the washak was just a few paces behind the youth and closing rapidly. Radulf had laid down his bow and arrows when he started to run at the herd, and all that he had with him was the hunting knife. Even he was aware that at such a distance, some fifty paces, he could not hope to hit the charging bull. He came hurtling out of his cover, running side on towards the beast, and as the youth finally fell to the ground from sheer exhaustion and the washak seemed certain to trample him, Radulf leapt onto its back, plunging his knife repeatedly into the hard skin. This unexpected attack brought the washak to an abrupt halt just inches from the fallen youth, who seemed to have broken or sprained his ankle. Radulf was thrown to the ground, and the washak turned its attention on him, with blood oozing from a dozen wounds, its nostrils snorting wide with fury, its eyes blazing with a hatred beyond reason. But the other archers had followed Radulf, seeing the danger, and a dozen arrows flew into the thick hide as it prepared to trample him, and he was able roll aside as the body crashed lifeless to the ground.

As the remainder of the herd passed harmlessly into the distance, the hunting party went about their various jobs of skinning, gutting and preparing the joints of meat for transportation back to Warikeewa camp. Two young girls tended to Radulf's wounds, bathing them with water from a nearby stream, and paying him attention he found himself enjoying rather more than he had ever thought possible. With the fallen youth's leg tightly splinted, and no further harm done to any other member of the party, they prepared a simple camp for the night. The men sat around in small groups, discussing the day's events and the possibility of a storm the following day, whilst the women carried on with further preparation of the carcasses, of which the final count amounted to eleven.

At sundown Warikeewappah came to where Radulf sat with the two girls who had become his constant companions since his foolish but timely act of bravery, and dismissed the girls with a peremptory wave of his hand. He was an old man, his face lined with battle scars and weathering from the harsh winters of many years of hard life in the great plains of Pekeesh. He was yet tall and straight, like a young man, and thin, just like Radulf, over whom he now towered. Abruptly, he extended his hand, which Radulf took, and raised him to stand before the powerful man who commanded the hunt.

'You did well, Running Scared. Your exploit will be told throughout Warikeewa camp. It was an act of bravery such as I would only have expected from one of my own people.'

'You allowed me to accompany you. I did not feel that I was not a part of the hunt,' Radulf said with genuine humility.

'Nevertheless, you are stranger in a strange land. You saved the lives of many of our people, not once, not twice, but three times.'

'I do not believe anyone was in danger from the two rogue washak.....' he started to say, but Warikeewappah held up his hand.

'You saw a danger that other, more experienced members of my hunt did not see. You averted that danger twice and went on to sacrifice yourself to turn the stampede and to save my son. My thanks to you. You are a worthy kinsman to Angry Wolf.'

'I am not his kinsman. I know him, that is all.'

'Yet you follow his example, and that does you credit. You have my thanks.'

Radulf inclined his head in acknowledgement of this great tribute. Warikeewappah turned to walk away, then turned back.

'I was warned to expect bad feeling, and bad manners. Instead I found a strong feeling of kinsmanship.'

Radulf nodded and wandered off into the gathering night to watch the women preparing the meat for transportation back to the camp. First the carcasses were gutted, the viscera removed and some of the blood washed away. The offal they placed in leather bags containing ice from the cold store. These bags were laid carefully on the travois, the surface where the ice lay being laid uppermost. The carcasses were then jointed with sharp knives and axes, and treated with a white paste which they had been mixing almost since leaving Warikeewa camp, a mixture of herbs and spices, water and fruit juice, the paste being rubbed hard into the surface of the meat across the grain so that it seeped into the flesh. This done, the joints, some nearly as big as a man, were wrapped in the ice-cold sheets brought from the cold store, and placed on top of the leather bags containing the offal. Finally the hides of the washak were scraped clean and washed, then laid over the top of the joints of meat, with further layers of iced sheets on top of them so that the meat was effectively sealed between a layer of iced offal bags and a layer of iced sheets. Nothing was wasted. There were wolves and smaller domesticated animals around the camp that would receive gratefully any part of the washak the bronzeskins did not want. Radulf sat cross-legged beneath a canopy of twinkling stars and observed the twin moons of Heraklion, the smaller appearing to peer over the shoulder of the larger. He wondered what would have happened had he not been kidnapped and forced to accompany Marcellus out of Horta, thinking particularly of his father and wondering whether he had at last lost his fight for life in the battle against the Rota Virensis disease. Marcellus was right, of course. There was absolutely no sign of the disease amongst the bronzeskins, and he was forced to the conclusion that there had been a conspiracy against the bronzeskins designed to foster hatred against them and to persuade the citizens of Horta and the wider province of Barbessel that they were a race against whom war should be made.

At last he thought briefly of Miki, wondering what she would be doing while he was miles away from the camp, with the hunt, and smiled at his realisation that he could possibly believe that she might be in some small way interested in his welfare. With the memory of her youthful sweet curves and mischievous smile in his mind, he drifted off to sleep.

At daybreak he awoke to find the hunting party making ready to break camp and return to Warikeewa camp, and found himself assisting in preparing food for a meal before their departure. They ate fruit, and berries, and biscuits which they had brought with them, and some of the older men broke open chicken's eggs and swallowed whole the contents. Radulf could not bring himself to do this. He had observed it many times but it was something he did not believe he would like. Instead he found a dry sheet of metal which the women and girls had used for the preparation of the meat joints, now thoroughly washed, and placed it on an erection of stones and twigs over a fire someone had lit to heat juices for drinking. He took a dried biscuit and broke it into pieces, scattering the pieces on the metal tray, then broke two eggs over the biscuits, stirring the whole together very quickly so that they bound together.

During the next hour two things happened. One by one the women and girls turned to look at what he was doing, and then the men and the youths, until most of the hunting party were crowded around Radulf's makeshift stove. As the mixture solidified, he turned it over and over, allowing the underside to cook a little each time, until it had turned a glorious yellowy-brown colour, with here and there traces of black where it had caught on the metal cooking sheet. Finally he tossed it over once more, then placed it on a platter, again one that had been recently used for meat preparation, now thoroughly washed and dried, and cut it into pieces and started to eat. It was not something he had experienced in Horta, rather that he thought the eggs would taste better cooked. One of the younger girls pushed forward and with her eyes asked eloquently if she might try a piece, and Radulf, unused to so much attention, readily agreed. The girl put the morsel of omelette to her lips and nibbled at it, tossing it from hand to hand as it was still hot, then finally placed the bulk of it in her mouth and began to chew. Slowly her eyes began to smile at this new experience, and soon everyone wanted to try this new recipe of eggs and biscuits brought to them unwittingly by their visitor. Eventually Radulf ended up making more of the mixture and cooking it for the rest of the party, and again he wondered at their sudden and ready acceptance of him, and how he might have been totally wrong in assuming their culpability for the breaking of the treaty with Barbessel.

As two of the young girls shyly and prettily helped him to re-wash and dry the cooking sheet and platters that had been used in preparing the omelette, a cry went up from one of the young men who had been helping to secure the washak carcasses and hides onto the ice-sheeted travois in readiness for transportation back to Warikeewa camp.

'Raiders from Barbessel!' he shouted, and dashed to retrieve his weapons. At once the camp was all confusion as men hunted for their bows and arrows, and the women ran screaming for cover. Then the raiders were in sight, twenty or so on sprinting deichen, the lizard-like mounts more commonly found on the western sub-continent. Three of the raiders were on ponies, and these formed an advance, leading the others in a quite strange attacking formation. Radulf stared, open-mouthed, as Warikeewappah urged him to take up his bow and arrows, and as the hooves thundered closer he struggled to get a clear sight of the men, assumed to be from Barbessel, but there was a great deal of dust and he could not see their features. A hail of arrows was loosed at the attackers, but they were travelling too fast, and in any case bore the shields of the Barbesselian militia that they used to deflect the shots. They came on, and the ill-prepared hunting party took cover behind their own mounts and the travois, now piled high with carcass meat and ice-sheets.

Radulf followed Warikeewappah to the van of their camp, keeping low, the former still anxious to satisfy himself that they were being attacked by his countrymen, the latter anxious to get his men organised rather than fight as a disorganised rabble. He shouted to the men who had managed to retrieve their weapons to hold fire until the raiders were nearer, but his instructions were largely unheeded. This, Radulf surmised, was something they were totally unused to. They were accustomed to leaving Warikeewa camp, travelling in any direction over a distance of several hundred miles for many days, locating the source of their primary meat, and returning to Warikeewa camp unmolested. He did not doubt but that other hunting parties from the other great plains bronzeskins had experienced similar raids on their hunts in recent times, but it was clear that they were unprepared, undisciplined, shocked and frightened, not to say angry at this invasion of their homelands.

Now the raiders were on them, dismounting and charging into the hunting camp, wielding swords, axes, spears and clubs. Radulf carried the short sword of the Hortaian militia, but to the best of his knowledge, this was the only such weapon in the hunting camp. He looked around anxiously as the first of the raiders lunged towards the outermost travois, slashing at the ropes that secured the meat and sheets to it, and then all was confusion as twenty masked raiders attacked the men and women of the camp. Warikeewappah stared at Radulf with anxiety and anger in his eyes, and Radulf lowered his head ashamedly.

'I am confident they are not from Horta,' he said, for by now he had managed to get a clear view of their features above the masks they wore, and although he was utterly certain he did not know any of them, he could not say for sure that they did not come from elsewhere in the province of Barbessel. Nevertheless, whether or not they were his countrymen, he leapt to his feet, brandishing his sword, and charged into the fray, slashing around him at the raiders, taking them completely by surprise. Here and there a Warikeewa fought bravely with his hands and feet, occasionally a knife, but they were no match for the raiders, and soon Radulf was the only man able to put up any sort of a fight. The battle was short and one-sided, and his hunting companions who a few short moments ago had been congratulating him on bringing cooked eggs to their culinary experience, now lay around him, dead or dying, while the raiders concentrated their efforts on the women. His back against one of the overturned travois, Radulf fought bravely, pressed by three of the raiders, and managed to kill one and maim another with a sharp slash to the leg before he crashed to the ground, unconscious, as someone hit him savagely from behind.

They must have believed him to be dead, for they left him there and continued with their business.

A while later Radulf opened his eyes. From the position of the sun in the sky he guessed it was still morning. For a time he simply lay in the cool grass, allowing his senses to return and his mind to remind him of what had happened here in the killing fields. At first he thought that both of his legs were broken, then realised with a flash of humour that someone or something was pinned across them. As quickly the humour dissipated. Inch by inch he pulled himself from under whoever it was, and sat up, his head swimming. He touched the back of his head where he had been beaten, and found to his dismay that it was still bleeding. He looked around him, and saw a length of material which had originally been used to tie up the prepared meat, and crawled painfully to the stream, just a few feet away, wet it and tied it around his head. At last he felt strong enough to stand up and take a look around, but he was not prepared for what he found. The men had been slaughtered, butchered, particularly the young men, who had had limbs hacked off, genitals cut from their groins and stuffed into their mouths, and their eyes pierced. The women had fared little better. Raped and mutilated beyond belief. Radulf vomited violently into the ground where he stood, and tears streamed from his eyes as he took in the full horror of what had happened. He wandered about the bodies, shaking his head in disbelief, stooping to stroke the face of a young girl here, a young warrior there, all the time his frame racked with sobbing and despair. Young people with so much to live for, peaceful farmers and hunters from a simple but honourable race, cut down with enormous barbarity and ferocity, and all because they were bronze-skins, and expendable in the great scheme of things which Marcellus had attempted to explain but which he, Radulf, had refused to believe. Now he had seen with his own eyes the horrors the men from Barbessel had committed against these people, and he cursed himself for not having believed, and for not having had the courage to believe.

For several hours he sat on a lonely knot of grass above the scene of the carnage, rocking back and forth, unable to grasp fully that his companions had been so horrifically cut to pieces, mutilated, desecrated in such a short space of time, without warning, without provocation. Eventually, with the shadows lengthening as the sun sank to the western horizon and the two moons rose above the eastern skyline, he knew what he had to do. He took a shovel from the equipment the hunters had brought with them to their feeding ground, and marked out a rectangle some ten feet by twelve feet, and began to dig. With the sun disappearing over the mountains at the border of Pekeesh with Barbessel, he had excavated a hole big enough to bury them, to bury them all. Now he began the grisly and unpleasant task of dragging the bodies to the grave and tumbling them in, then jumping down to arrange them in postures that suited their demeanour and courage as warriors and their womenfolk. He could not bring himself to remove the mutilated genitalia from the corpses' mouths, and asked forgiveness for not having the courage to complete this task of the deities he had believed in since childhood but to whom he had not prayed for the best part of ten years, the Controllers of Heraklion. The women and girls, too, he deposited carefully in the grave, laying each alongside its partner, and reflecting briefly on the fact that he was so glad that Miki had not accompanied this particular hunting party. Again, there was the noisome task of collecting severed limbs and parts of bodies, and this he did almost with his eyes closed, until by the time it was very nearly dark, just two bodies, totally whole and unmutilated, remained. One was that of a young girl, only fourteen or so years of age, and as he stooped to lift her into his arms, he cried and cried. Then, as he deposited her gently into the grave he had dug, he heard a low moan coming from beneath one of the overturned travois and rushed to investigate.

To his amazement it was Warikeewappah, still alive, still breathing, shielded somehow by the carcass meat and the structure of the travois, and apparently largely unharmed. Radulf bent to move the things off him and dragged him clear. No words passed between them. Radulf turned his attention to the last body, that of one of the girls, again quite young, though not so young as the one he had just buried. This girl he recognised as the one who had stood next to him as he cooked the eggs and biscuits before the horrendous attack. He did not know her name, he had not had time to get to know them all, they had been too busy catching washak and preparing their carcasses for transportation back to Warikeewa camp. But he knew her face, and that she had been one of the kinder members of the tribe, one who had taken an interest in what he had been doing, had treated him civilly and with respect, despite the fact that he was an outsider and suspected of being some part of the atrocities that had been forced upon the plains bronzeskins.

He knelt beside her, gazing down at her young face, and as he started to slip his arm beneath her in readiness for lifting her into his arms, he thought he detected movement in her young body. He laid his head on her chest, feeling the swell of her bosom, and sure enough, there was a faint heartbeat. She too remained unmutilated, though he was certain she had been violated. He took her hand in his and began to stroke her forehead, and at length her eyes flickered open and a horror of remembrance came over her. She looked up at Radulf with terror in her eyes, and tried to pull away from him, but he restrained her, gently, and pulled her shaking body to his, encasing it with his strong arms and chest, rocking them back and forth, back and forth until she ceased to struggle and became calmer. By the light of the two moons of Heraklion she could see the grave he had dug, and the extent to which it had been filled. Too, she could see, all around her, evidence of the carnage and atrocities that had taken place. The ponies also had been slaughtered, their throats slit and their bellies hacked open so that their innards fell out onto the open ground. She shuddered violently, and turned her head to one side to vomit into the same lush, green pasture. Then she turned back to Radulf, wiping her hand across her mouth.

'Just you and me?'

'And Warikeewappah.'

'Why?'

'Why?'

'Why did they do this to us?'

Warikeewappah, now beginning to recover, crawled across to where they sat, and joined them, sitting cross-legged, his face upturned to the moons.

'Why did they do this to us?' she said again. Her name was Shanneen. Radulf could only shake his head, unable to answer her question.

'Who were they?' she persisted, and again he shook his head, for he was not sure. He had not recognised anybody, but he had thought he had recognised a Barbesselian short sword.

'I do not know.'

'Were they your countrymen?'

He shrugged his shoulders.

'I do not know. If they were, I am truly sorry. I can never atone for what they have done to your people.'

'You came to Warikeewa camp disbelieving your comrade, Angry Wolf,' Warikeewappah observed, never turning his face from the moons.

'I know.'

'Have you changed your mind now?'

'I am truly sorry,' Radulf said again. He buried his face in his hands and began to sob.

'Crying will achieve nothing,' Warikeewappah said. His face was as impassive as stone.

Radulf did not answer. He stood up, went to the mass grave, and began to shovel the earth in on top of the corpses. He continued with this toil until the early hours of the morning, and the soil was a good two feet high over the top of the grave. As he returned to where the other two lay sleeping, he heard the distant sound of hoofbeats. He roused them instantly, cautioning them to remain silent until they knew who was coming towards them from the western hills.

They crouched low behind a travois and Radulf strained his eyes to see who it was, realising that there was only one person, riding a small pony. As the rider drew near he recognised him as a Hor-Lakian, his features quite marked and distinctive. The man dismounted, staring at the grave and frowning, knowing that against all odds there must have been at least one survivor, or else other men from the tribe of the Warikeewa had happened to come along shortly after the massacre and had dug the grave and tidied the hunt camp. The former theory was the most likely, and he drew his sword and began to explore the remains of the camp, turning carcass meat and travois over with his booted foot until he stood within a few feet of Radulf and the others. Putting his finger to his lips, Radulf crouched low.

'He is looking for something,' he whispered to the others. At last the rider's booted foot pushed against the travois behind which they hid, and he sprang out, catching the man around the waist and bringing him crashing to the ground. He brought his fist down hard against the man's temple, and as the rider sank into unconsciousness, stood up, glaring down at him.

A strange scene greeted the rider's eyes as he struggled to consciousness with the dawn breaking over the eastern horizon. The sky seemed to be beneath him, the grass above his head. As his eyes focused and his brain returned him to full consciousness, he realised that he was suspended by his feet over some sort of timber structure. His wrists were tied. Two men, one old, one young, stood a few feet away, unaware that he was now conscious. Further away was a young woman, attractive, weeping, her eyes closed. There was a cool breeze blowing. The younger of the two men looked up and saw that he was awake.

'You thought there would be no survivors,' Radulf said. He had in his hand a short sword. The prisoner recognised Radulf for a Hortaian.

'You are my ally. Please release me from this.....'

'Silence!' Radulf snapped. 'You are my prisoner. You will speak when I direct that you may speak. Who were the men who did this terrible thing to the Bronzeskins? Were they Baikonurians?'

'Why are you questioning me? You are a white man! Let me down!'

Radulf stepped up to the man and slapped him hard across the face, sending him swinging.

'Answer the question!'

'Why are you here, with the bronzeskins?' the man said. 'You are a traitor!' Radulf's hand swung again and connected hard.

'Who were they? Were they Hor-Lakians?'

'Yes! What of it? Do you not wish to see the back of these bronzeskins?'

'What is your name?'

'Taddei. What is yours?'

'It is no concern of yours. You did not stop to ask the bronzeskins their names before slaughtering them.'

'They are bronzeskins. How much longer are you going to keep me strung up here? Let me down.'

'Shall I tell you how I spent my day?' Radulf said. 'Where shall I begin? Let me see? When I regained consciousness, as you have recently done, I opened my eyes to see all my companions save two, butchered beyond belief. Limbs severed, genitals hacked off and stuffed into mouths, women raped then their throats cut, their breasts cut and disfigured. Were you not suspended from this structure I would take you to the spot where I emptied my stomach over the clean, fresh, cool grass of the prairie lands you and your companions defiled. I wandered among my own companions, weeping like a woman, unable to believe that another man could do these things, and for several hours I sat, unable to comprehend the enormity of what had happened. Later I took a shovel and dug a grave, and carried my friends' bodies and deposited them in it. Then I discovered that two of them were still alive. That old man, Warikeewappah, over there, who was fortunate enough to find shelter beneath a travois, and that young girl, Shanneen, who had never been used by man until yesterday. I did my best to comfort her, but her heart and her spirit are broken. I do not know who you and your companions are, and I do not care. I do not know why you would attack and maim these people, who offered you no harm, and presented you with no danger. I cannot bring myself to believe that you did this in anybody's name, for I cannot conceive of anybody who would want this butchery to take place among other any other people. But I saw you among their number, yesterday, when you failed to kill and disfigure me, and since you are here now, you are the one who will atone for what took place here yesterday, and when your companions come to find you, to see what kept you so long, they will find you. Now I will tell you how you are going to spend today.' He moved to one side so that Taddei could see better the still weeping form of Shanneen.

'I gave her the choice. We can never know if it was you who raped and defiled her and left her for dead, but as I said, you are here now and your companions are not. You made the mistake of coming back to retrieve something on this 'battlefield', something I now have safe in my pack, and will serve well to incriminate your surviving companions when the time comes for them to face trial in Horta. I gave her the choice. Either to let me punish you for the great wrong you did these people yesterday, or else she could do it herself. She has a great spirit. It is broken at the moment, and because of that her hand may not be steady. It will recover, but of course that will not matter to you. Shortly after we have left to return to Warikeewa camp, the silthen will emerge from their lairs.'

He turned to Shanneen, and beckoned to her to join him. Warikeewappah shook his head. There were tears in his eyes, he noticed. Taddei had gone very pale. He started to open his mouth to speak, but when he saw the short sword his captor was handing to her, he found himself unable to utter a word. Shanneen gazed at the suspended figure of the Hor-Lakian, and spat at him with all her force. Then she raised the sword above her head, intending to stab him through the heart, but at the last moment, Radulf caught her wrist.

'No. We agreed. That is not what is going to happen to him. If you will not do it, you will have to leave it to me. Killing him instantly will not serve our purpose.'

Wordlessly she allowed him to take the sword, then turned away and buried her face in her hands, sobbing. Warikeewappah came to his side and laid his hand on his shoulder.

'You do not have it in you to do this, Running Scared,' he said softly. Radulf stared at him, then smiled.

'I do, you know. I came to your camp believing that you and your people were bad, that you had spread disease so far into Horta that my father was infected, and is now dead. I believed that you had broken the treaty with Horta and had crossed into the province to take our food and to destroy our crops, and to fight against our people. I believed this rather than the testimony of the man I should have believed, one whom I knew in my heart of hearts could not but tell the truth. I believed the lies of the Vitellius when he rallied us against you. I failed you, as I have failed my own people. What has to be done has to be done to set the matter straight.'

Turning abruptly, he brought the blade of the short sword down across Taddei's legs, without warning, cutting off his genitals and blood spattered from his groin onto the grass as the hanging man screamed with disbelief and unspeakable pain. It had been Radulf's plan to stuff the genitalia into the man's mouth, as he and his companions had done to the bronzeskins, but he could not bring himself to do it. He hung his head momentarily, unable to comprehend that he had just done this awful thing to a fellow human being, and a white man at that, but the moment soon passed. He had stiffened his resolve as soon as he had caught the intruder, and the deed was done.

With Taddei's screams ringing in their ears as the life blood gouted from him in great huge splashes, they started off towards Warikeewa camp, each pulling a travois loaded with salvaged carcass meat and covered with the still-cool sheeting he had laid in the stream overnight.