It was far easier going down than up, though still Miriel's knees ached at the end of each day, and she had to be careful with the placement of her feet. The Druadwaith did not maintain their side of the road nearly as well as the Dunedain, and there were many holes and loose stones. But it was not as steep, and far drier, so they slept more comfortably in spite of the danger. But they camped well off the road, in a grassy hollow or hidden behind stones, and one always kept watch.

The first day they saw no one, but on the morning of the second they met a man and a boy, leading a string of sturdy horses carrying sacks. Anna spoke to them in the tongue of the Druadwaith, and though Miriel could understand nothing of what was said, the tone of the conversation was friendly. But it was strange to watch how Anna spoke, shoulders not quite so straight, voice higher and slightly hesitant, eyes mostly on the ground. Her weathered face and rough hands spoke to a life of labor, and a man who knew no better would assume it had been in the fields, the calluses from sickle and hoe.

"It's true," Anna said in a low voice, after the man had bade them a gruff farewell and pressed a leather-wrapped packet of hard bread into her hand. She had bowed in a way that was strange to Miriel, right hand on left shoulder, and the man shook his head and smiled a little as he turned away. But now he and his son and horses were gone around a turn in the winding mountain road, and Miriel felt obscure relief to hear Anna speak the common tongue that she knew. "He's from a village five days' journey north of here, on the banks of the river." She gestured to the stream that they followed, loud with snowmelt as it plunged over rocks into green-clear pools. "Aims to sell the barley, and the horses too if he can, at a good price in Bree. Earlier than he wanted to be journeying over the mountains, he said, but rumor was the prince's men were going to every village looking for horses. Paying fair, but it wasn't a choice, and he can get more for them south of the mountains." A rare, dry laugh. "More still when the Breelanders learn there will be few coming over the mountains this summer. He's a clever one, that man."

Miriel frowned, and asked one of the questions she had been wondering about since the pass but had not dared ask. "Why does the prince have to buy the horses? Can he not just take them, if they belong to his people?"

Anna raised her eyebrows and shook her head. "He could, if he were the Chieftain of the Dunedain. Or a lord of Rohan, for that matter. But the Druadwaith do not answer to their lord as we do, and they own their herds free and clear." She barked a laugh at Miriel's obvious confusion, said rather pointedly, "Strange that not all folk are like us, eh?" But then, softening a little, "Their lord calls himself king, but he is not the son of the old king, nor is the prince his son. They are chosen by the lords and men of wealth, much as we choose a brannon taid. So they cannot afford to take without payment. A king of the Druadwaith who forgets what he owes does not stay king long."

Miriel nodded, though she did not entirely understand. But she was so pleased to be getting answers that she risked one more question. "How do you know so much about them?"

"Because I am not an ignorant child," Anna snapped. "Come on." She turned her back, and set off down the road at a pace so fast Miriel nearly had to jog to keep up.

A small wagon guarded by four heavily armed men appeared later that afternoon. They heard it before they saw it, and Anna stopped for a moment, listening, then turned quickly off the road and clambered up into the rocks above. Miriel knew better than to ask why, only followed silently, careful of the placement of her feet. They watched through a gap between boulders as the wagon labored up the road, the driver cursing his plodding ox, and disappeared around the next turn.

Anna let out a breath when it was gone, and slid down to rest her back against a rock, gazing back up the mountain. Miriel watched her but said nothing, and at last Anna's eyes that had been far away came back to her, and the Ranger jerked a nod, as if she had come to a decision.

"Belegon can handle it. He'll have to." Quietly, as if to herself, but then she turned to Miriel. "Those are the kind of men you don't want to meet on the road, at least not without a sword."

Miriel frowned but said nothing, and after a time Anna shook her head. "Probably not outright bandits. But if the gold in that wagon belongs to them then I'm a goodwife." A brief, dry smile. "Just when you think you understand the rules, they change. Druadwaith horses belong to the herdsman, and grain belongs to the farmer, but gold belongs to the king. I'll bet anything those men were the overseers of a mine, decided to risk taking the stuff for their own rather than give it to the prince to buy dwarf iron." She shook her head. "Bold of them, and makes sense of a sort. But they will not be able to return home. Men like that are trouble."

They met no one else on the road, and came at last down into the foothills of the mountains, and then to the plains beyond. The dark, craggy bulk of Gundabad brooded on their right; they skirted its edge and saw no movement, though that did not mean orcs were not there, deep beneath the mountain. But they turned their backs to it and went north, walking long into the night beneath the stars. When at last they made camp, Miriel hardly slept, but all was quiet, and the next day they left the legend-haunted mountain far behind them.

The grass was green still, just starting to shade into gold, the rolling land cut by swift rivers that came down from the heights behind. Folk were few and far between, but every so often they came upon a herd, sturdy horses or squat, shaggy cattle, the herdsmen camped in tents in a hollow out of the wind. For the most part they gave these a wide berth, but every so often, drawn or reassured by what sign Miriel could not tell, Anna would approach one of these camps, and ask to stay the night. They worked for it, and Miriel was glad now, though she had most certainly not been at the time, that Meren's mother had taught her to milk a cow.

She stayed in her role and did not speak, doing as she was told with bowed head and blank face. But she listened, and began slowly to understand a few words. Simple courtesies at first, and then words of command, "come" and "go," "here" and "over there," enough to respond but slowly, and it was a trial not to let her frustration show. A trial too for the herdsmen's wives, and though some were patient with the big, strong, simple-minded girl, others were not, and the tone of their curses rendered meaning unnecessary.

Anna seemed not bothered by it at all, nor by the occasional blows these hard-handed women gave her "younger sister." Training. And if they do it, she doesn't have to. Miriel pressed her lips together, and kept her thoughts to herself.

But she felt Anna watching her, as they walked one morning along the grassgrown track with the rising sun behind them. At last, a soft dry laugh, and Anna shook her head as if in disbelief. "They all said you were clever. Never thought you'd play halfwit quite so well." Wry incredulity, but there was genuine humor in it as well, and Miriel found a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

They were heading west and north, toward the largest settlement of the Druadwaith. Kunebar, it was named, though in Anna's telling it could hardly be called a town, half made up of herders' tents that shifted with the seasons. It would be smaller now, the animals and herdsmen spread out over the plains to seek the best grass. But the king would be there in his sod-roofed dwelling, more hut than hall, Anna said with scorn. It was the only way in this harsh land, with heavy winter snows and bitter winds and little wood for building. And Miriel felt an obscure pride in her own people, and the fact that Anna had chosen them over these strange others who seemed closer to her kin. But then, Her kin. Who are her kin? The same question, bubbling up and pushed aside, as it always was. She is from Rohan. That was all she knew, all anyone knew, and it would have to be enough. She thought of Calen, and felt a soft smile creeping over her face.

And of course Anna chose that moment to look back, and by some cursed instinct read the smile for what it was. "Mooning over your melethron, eh?" Sharp and scornful, almost angry, and Miriel was stung into response before she could think.

"He's not my lover," she snapped. And then, shoulders straight, allowing anger of her own to cover what she did not want to feel, did not want Anna to see, "He asked me, and I refused."

That seemed to catch Anna by surprise. She stared for a moment, then barked a bitter laugh. "Good. Rangers shouldn't have lovers. Saerthon, nothing more." She turned on her heel and strode away down the path at such a pace that Miriel nearly had to jog to keep up.

She knew the word. Fuckers, literally. Those who did the act for the body solely, without feeling. It was not a word of the old speech, of course, and she had never thought to wonder before where it had come from. But now that she heard it here, in this land with the tongue of the Druadwaith in her head, she heard the similarity. And perhaps because she was angry, had already been snapped at once and didn't much care if it happened again, she asked, a little breathless, voice raised against the wind, "Is saerthon a Druadwaith word?"

She had not expected an answer. Had expected silence, or Shut the fuck up, girl. And indeed Anna did not respond at once. But after a few strides, she said without turning, "Rohirric. Close enough." For a time she walked on in silence again, long enough that Miriel thought perhaps the conversation, such as it had been, was over. But then abruptly Anna stopped, turned and met her eyes, and said quietly, but with such cold ferocity that Miriel nearly flinched, "If you hurt that boy, I'll kill you myself."


Anna hardly spoke to her the rest of that day and the next, only what was needed for making camp, little enough now after so long together on the road. But the next evening, as they huddled close by a small fire of twisted dry grass, for there was no wood and this far north even summer nights were cold, she said almost conversationally, "They won't do anything yet. Not this year."

Miriel jerked her head up, turned sharply and found her heart beating suddenly fast. Anna had said almost nothing of their task since they had come down out of the mountains. Miriel thought perhaps she had been gathering information, as she spoke to herdsmen in their camps at night, and she knew there must be a reason they were heading towards Kunebar, but she had not dared to ask. But with that opening, all her questions came swirling back. "Why? What―what would they do?"

She halfway expected Anna to snap at her and refuse to answer. But instead Anna said thoughtfully, "I don't know. They could force the pass, come down over the mountains as they used to do. Or so the old tales tell." She glanced at Miriel, lips quirked in a half-smile, and Miriel thought perhaps she knew of the abrupt end of Miriel's schooling. "Might go round the curve of the mountains into Wilderland, longer but maybe less risk." She shook her head. "But we haven't seen enough. Not men, not horses. If they were going to do something this year, they would already have done it. Summer is short, and the king's not a fool, even if the prince is. He wouldn't risk an early snow."

"But why would they do it at all?" She swept her arm round at the rolling hills, grass turning golden in the summer sun. "They have this land, more than enough of it. Why do they need more?"

Anna laughed, short and dry. "Same reason we do: because it once was theirs." But then she sighed, and shook her head. "Not fair, or not entirely. Folk say winters have been hard, and getting harder. Not just this year. Five, ten, maybe more. Slow, but it's not stopping. Barley crop nearly failed last year, and half their cattle died in the winter snows. They're near the edge. Not at it yet, but near. And folk who are afraid listen to a man who says it was better in the past. That he can bring them back there if only they will follow him, back to the land that was theirs."

Miriel frowned. "So are we―where are we going?"

"Kunebar."

"Why―if we know―"

"To see what we see. Hear what we hear." Sharp, impatient but not angry. "Not this year. Says nothing about next. I want the feel of it." She shook her head. "Can't explain. But I need to be there."

Miriel nodded, the understanding of things felt that could not be spoken not entirely unfamiliar. But still she could not help asking, in a tentative voice that would have goaded Faelon to immediate, scornful dismissal, "Is it not…dangerous?"

A short, dry laugh. "Of course. Everything is dangerous…"

And though Anna kept speaking, Miriel did not hear her, heard only, soft as winter wind, 'Nowhere is safe. You know that.' She blinked. Death can find you anywhere. Can find anyone. Drew in a slow breath to steady herself, found that her hands were clenched and let them go. Looked up to find Anna watching her.

"What is it?" That was all. A question, quiet, almost gentle.

She does not think I am afraid. Or no more than she is, than any Ranger ought to be. And gratitude and relief loosed her tongue, let her say what she would never have thought to say to anyone but Meren. "I was thinking of Silevren. She said that, before she died. 'Nowhere is safe.'"

Anna's lips tightened, but her face was blank, strange-shadowed in the fading firelight. At last she drew a breath. Very softly, "That was a thing she said." Nothing more, and she turned her back to the embers and drew her blanket around her as if to sleep.