ention to me except to
give an occasional order. The second of the three was a gangling kid who
probably never gave me a second look, let alone a third.

But Cuinn was another matter. He was a man my own age, and his fierce
eyes had a shrewdness in them that I did not trust. More than once I
caught him watching me, and on the two or three occasions when he drew
me into conversation, I found his questions more direct than Dry-town
good manners allowed. I weighed the possibility that I might have to
kill him before we reached Shainsa.

We crossed the foothills and began to climb upward toward the mountains.
The first few days I found myself short of breath as we worked upward
into thinner air, then my acclimatization returned and I began to fall
into the pattern of the days and nights on the trail. The Trade City
was still a beacon in the night, but its glow on the horizon grew dimmer
with each day's march.

Higher we climbed, along dangerous trails where men had to dismount and
let the pack animals pick their way, foot by foot. Here in these
altitudes the sun at noonday blazed redder and brighter, and the
Dry-towners, who come from the parched lands in the sea-bottoms, were
burned and blistered by the fierce light. I had grown up under the
blazing sun of Terra, and a red sun like Wolf, even at its hottest,
caused me no discomfort. This alone would have made me suspect. Once
again I found Cuinn's fierce eyes watching me.

As we crossed the passes and began to descend the long trail through the
thick forests, we got into nonhuman country. Racing against the Ghost
Wind, we skirted the country around Charin, and the woods inhabited by
the terrible Ya-men, birdlike creatures who turn cannibal when the Ghost
Wind blows.

Later the trail wound through thicker forests of indigo trees and
grayish-purple brushwood, and at night we heard the howls of the catmen
of these latitudes. At night we set guards about the caravan, and the
dark spaces and shadows were filled with noises and queer smells and
rustlings.

Nevertheless, the day's marches and the night watches passed without
event until the night I shared guard with Cuinn. I had posted myself at
the edge of the camp, the fire behind me. The men were sleeping rolls of
snores, huddled close around the fire. The animals, hobbled with double
ropes, front feet to hind feet, shifted uneasily and let out long
uncanny whines.

I heard Cuinn pacing behind me. I heard a rustle at