"You mean you'd waste a perfectly good pelt—already back in winter coat—just because you didn't think of sending it away?"

"No—because you lied to me." Paks had backed slowly and carefully across the ledge outside their shelter, until she bumped her heels into the snowcat's corpse. Now she turned, and with a powerful heave pushed the snowcat over the edge.

"You're a stubborn fool," said Macenion, but without the anger she had feared. "That's enough gold for both of us to live on for a month, that you threw away. But—" He shrugged. "I suppose it meant something to you. Now don't stand there and freeze, Paksenarrion—we still have to cross the pass tomorrow."

It was not the next morning, but the one after that, when they finally ventured from their shelter. Dawn that day rose clear, the wind hardly moving, and nothing in the white drifts below looked like the remains of a snowcat. They had said little to each other in the storm-whitened hours between—only what must be said about the fire, the care of the animals, and packing up their campsite. Now they moved through a pale rose and blue world, leaving blue-shadowed tracks behind. Once through the pass, Paks could see—not the rolling forests of the Eight Kingdoms she had hoped for—but more ridges and steep valleys. Far below and ahead, forests clothed the slopes. Somewhere beyond, the mountains ended. She hoped to make it there.

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Paks had not slept well since the killing of the snowcat. Despite Macenion's sarcastic reassurance, she knew that she had dishonored her sword, and the ring she had used. She had stayed with him only because she had no other guide out of the mountains. Now, as they came through a gap in the trees into yet another narrow valley, she wondered whether she should refuse to accompany him any farther. Surely here, with the bulk of the mountains behind her, she could find her own way north.

"Well, indeed—" said Macenion, in a tone that meant he wished to be asked what he meant.

"Well, what?" Paksenarrion turned half away from him, and bent to check her pony's hooves.

"It's what I hoped to find—the right valley."

Paksenarrion looked at the valley, this time, and saw, in its widest span, a group of stone piles. "More of your ruins?" she asked sourly.

"Much more important," said Macenion. He was grinning again, and when he caught her eye he winked. "Didn't I say there was treasure to be won in these mountains?"

"You've said a lot." Paks had turned back to Star, and was adjusting the ropes on her pack.

Macenion sighed. "Come now, don't be tiresome. You're carrying a new sword, for one thing, and—"