For the moment he said merely, “Have Tabor say that he was right this morning.”

“About what?” Liane demanded.

“Go, child,” Ivor said. There were limits.

With a predictable toss of her hair, Liane spun and left the room. The stranger, Ivor saw, had an amused look on his face, and no longer clutched the sheaf of papers he carried quite so defensively. It was well, for the moment.

Loren Silvercloak, though, and an urgach in Faelinn Grove? Not for five hundred years had such a creature been reported to Celidon. I knew, Ivor thought, there was another reason why we stayed.

This, it seemed, was it.

Chapter 11

CHAPTER 11

They had found a horse for him, not an easy task. The Dalrei tended to be smallish people, quick and wiry, and their mounts were much the same. In winter, though, they traded with the men of Brennin in the land where the High Kingdom ran into the Plain near the Latham, and there were always one or two larger mounts in every tribe, used usually for carrying goods from camp to camp. Riding the placid-tempered grey they had given him, and with Ivor’s younger son, Tabor, as a guide, Dave had come out at dawn with Levon and the hunters to watch an eltor chase.

His arms were in pretty rough shape, but Tore had to be just as bad, or worse, and he was hunting; so Dave figured he could manage to ride a horse and watch.

Tabor, skinny and tanned dark brown, rode a chestnut pony beside him. He wore his hair tied back like Tore and most of the Riders, but it wasn’t really long enough for that, and the tied part stuck up on the back of his head like a tree stump. Dave remembered himself at fourteen and found an uncharacteristic empathy for the kid beside him. Tabor talked a lot—in fact, he hadn’t shut up since they’d ridden out—but Dave was interested and didn’t mind, for once.

“We used to carry our houses with us when we moved,” Tabor was saying as they jogged along. Up front, Levon was setting an easy pace eastward into the rising sun. Tore was beside him and there seemed to be about twenty other riders. It was a glorious, mild summer morning.

“They weren’t houses like we have now, of course,” Tabor went on. “We made them of eltor skin and poles, so they were easy to carry.”

“We have things like that in my world, too,” Dave said. “Why did you change?”

“Revor did it,” Tabor explained.

“Who’s he?”

The boy looked pained, as if appalled to discover that the fame of this Revor hadn’t reached Toronto yet. Fourteen was a funny age, Dave thought, suppressing a grin. He was surprised at how cheerful he felt.