The wall offered some protection, but the damp chill still crept through his clothes, and his feet were already cold. He shivered and settled down to wait. There was no point in trying to see any distance in the fog, so he concentrated on listening. His ears began to sort out the sounds in the forest beyond the wall, the drip of water from the trees, the occasional sodden thump of snow sliding from the limbs, and the tapping of a woodpecker working on a dead snag several hundred yards away.

"That's my cow," a voice said suddenly from somewhere off in the fog.

Garion froze and stood silently, listening.

"Keep her in your own pasture, then," another voice replied shortly. "Is that you, Lammer?" the first voice asked.

"Right. You're Detton, aren't you?"

"I didn't recognize you. How longs it been?"

"Four or five years, I suppose," Lammer judged.

"How are things going in your village?" Detton asked.

"We're hungry. The taxes took all our food."

"Ours too. We've been eating boiled tree roots."

"We haven't tried that yet. We're eating our shoes."

"How's your wife?" Detton asked politely.

"She died last year," Lammer answered in a flat, unemotional voice. "My lord took our son for a soldier, and he was killed in a battle somewhere. They poured boiling pitch on him. After that my wife stopped eating. It didn't take her long to die."

"I'm sorry," Detton sympathized. "She was very beautiful."

"They're both better off," Lammer declared. "They aren't cold or hungry anymore. Which kind of tree roots have you been eating?"

"Birch is the best," Detton told him. "Spruce has too much pitch, and oak's too tough. You boil some grass with the roots to give them a bit of flavor."

"I'll have to try it."

"I've got to get back," Detton said. "My lord's got me clearing trees, and he'll have me flogged if I stay away too long."

"Maybe I'll see you again sometime."

"If we both live."

"Good-bye, Detton."

"Good-bye, Lammer."

The two voices drifted away. Garion stood quite still for a long time after they were gone, his mind numb with shock and with tears of sympathy standing in his eyes. The worst part of it was the matter-of fact way in which the two had accepted it all. A terrible anger began to burn in his throat. He wanted suddenly to hit somebody.

Then there was another sound off in the fog. Somewhere in the forest nearby someone was singing. The voice was a light, clear tenor, and Garion could hear it quite plainly as it drew closer. The song was filled with ancient wrongs, and the refrain was a call to battle. Irrationally, Garion's anger focused on the unknown singer. His vapid bawling about abstract injustices seemed somehow obscene in the face of the quiet despair of Lammer and Detton. Without thinking, Garion drew his sword and crouched slightly behind the shattered wall.