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.I owe Alf a favor. It has to do with the men who live in the highlands, Alf explained. Tando says youused to look for new veins of silver in the lands to the East, and I was wondering if you evercame upon any unusual folk in your explorations stocky men and women, I have in mind, whowear animal skins and speak a language that s not the same as ours. You mean the Wild Men? If that s what you call them. It s what I called them, and I did my best to keep out of their way.What do you want toknow about them? You ve already answered one of my questions, since you ve told me where they comefrom. Like you said, they come from the highlands way east of where we used to live. But if you did your best to keep out of their way, I don t have to ask you my secondquestion. You didn t have to ask me your first question, either, but you still asked it, didn t you?Alf laughed. You re right on that point.I should have said there would be little use in asking you mysecond question, since, by your own admission, you had no contact with these wild men. Friend, I wonder if you were really listening.I said I did my best to keep out of theirway, but I didn t tell you that I always succeeded. Then you did have contact with them? Alf asked. Have contact? That s one way to put.But it was a lot more contact than I wanted.Morethan a lot more.On morning a group of them came out of nowhere and dragged me off to theircamp.I d resigned myself to being eaten they looked the sort who d eat you but instead theyheld me captive, forcing me to travel all over the place with them while they hunted game.Butthey were good hunters I ll admit that.Before I ran into them, I thought I d been canny, butthey d hunted me pretty well. Why did they bring you with them? It s hard to say.I think they wanted to learn what they could about me.They wereinterested in my digging tools and tried to find out how I used them.I think they believed theywere weapons, and of course they could have been used that way.But I put them off as best Icould.I was smart enough to see that the less they learned about us the better. Did you pick up their language? Whew! That was the problem, wasn t it? Their jabber wasn t like anything your couldfind your way into.But eventually I picked up bits and pieces of it.They tried to teach me theirwords for things by holding up something or pointing at it and saying its name over and overagain.But the trouble was, so many of the words sounded alike to me.Shish this and shish that. Do you remember any of the words? Tando asked. It was a long time ago, and thingslike that aren t likely to stay in your head.Walter took offense at his suggestion. Do you think my mind is going, Tando? If you do, then you re dead wrong.I may begetting on, but my head is as good as it ever was. So you do remember what you learned of their language, Alf said. Some of it, I d think. Would you be willing to talk to three of these wild men who ve stumbled into BentLake?Walter looked surprised. Here? It s hard to imagine any of them getting this far from home.And it s hard toimagine them stumbling into anyplace.At first I thought they were idiots sort of, but I soonlearned that they did nothing without a plan. Where was their home? Didn t I say it was in those highlands east of where the Brothers used to live? It s acrazy place.You think you re going in one direction and then you find out it s another andthen, suddenly, you re in a wide open space that seems to go on forever but cold as the dickens,even in summer.They said they once lived further north, where it was warmer, but some chiefbrought the whole clan south.They couldn t tell you how long ago, but they made a big dealabout the journey, spinning tales about it and that kind of thing.For Alf, the story was becoming more interesting.If the Wild Men had once lived in theNorth but then moved south, that might explain why the South Road had become unsafe.Ofcourse the dates were important, and these were proving elusive. Some of those wild men you re describing are in the town, Alf told Walter. Thesoldiers are keeping them under guard.And we need you to help us find out what they re doinghere.No one but you knows the first word of their language. It s a good thing they re under guard, Walter said. They re not to be trusted I cantell you that.But I ll go with you, if you want.I might be able to find out a little althoughthey re more likely to lie to you than tell you the truth.They love lying more than anything.It sin their blood.And once they get their hands on a thing, they never let go. But at least they let you go, Alf pointed out. No such thing.I escaped on my own, and none too soon, for I d figured out that theywere planning to sacrifice me to their god.They d never said a word about it to me, but they hadother prisoners and one by one they disappeared.And they kept telling me about something theycalled the great day, when I would discover my purpose in being there. Then, one morning, they woke me up as if I d been an emperor, with young girlsoffering me garlands of flowers and every sort of how-do-you-do like I was prize bull beingled to the slaughter.But I was too smart for them.Alf listened in wonder to Walter s account of the attempted sacrifice and how he davoided it by pretending to be sick.He d seen that the Wild Men were terrified of disease, so helay on the ground and groaned and held his belly as if he were in pain [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]