the man in hiding.
"It may be the spirit of Assha who does so now--"

Ashe made a sudden leap. There was a flurry of action behind the bush
screen and he reappeared, dragging into the gray light of the rainy day
a wriggling captive, whom he bumped without ceremony onto the beaten
earth of the road.

The man was bearded, wearing his thick mop of black hair in a round
topknot secured by a hide loop. He wore a skin tunic, now in
considerable disarray, which was held in place with a woven, tasseled
belt.

"Ho, so it is Lal of the Quick Tongue who speaks so loudly of spirits
and the Wrath of Lurgha!" Ashe studied his captive. "Now, Lal, since you
speak for Nodren--which I believe will greatly surprise him--you will
continue to tell me of this Wrath of Lurgha from the night skies and
what has happened to Sanfra, who was my brother, and those others of my
kin. I am Assha, and you know of the wrath of Assha and how it ate up
Twist-tooth, the outlaw, when he came in with his evil men. The Wrath of
Lurgha is hot, but so too is the wrath of Assha." Ashe contorted his
face in such a way that Lal squirmed and looked away. When the tribesman
spoke, all his former authority and bluster had gone.

"Assha knows that I am as his dog. Let him not turn upon me his
swift-cutting big knife, nor the arrows from his lightning bow. It was
the Wrath of Lurgha which smote the place on the hill, first the thunder
of his fist meeting the earth, and then the fire which he breathed upon
those whom he would slay----"

"And this you saw with your own eyes, Lal?"

The shaggy head shook an emphatic negative. "Assha knows that Lal is no
chief who can stand and look upon the wonders of Lurgha's might and keep
his eyes in his head. Nodren himself saw this wonder----"

"And if Lurgha came in the night, when all men keep to their homes and
leave the outer world to the restless spirits, how did Nodren see his
coming?"

Lal crouched lower to the ground, his eyes darting to the bushes and the
freedom they promised, then back to Ashe's firmly planted boots.

"I am not a chief, Assha. How could I know in what way or for what
reason Nodren saw the coming of Lurgha----?"

"Fool!" A second voice, that of a woman, spat the word from the brush
which fringed the roadway. "Speak to Assha with a straight tongue. If he
is a spirit, he will know that you do not tell him the truth. And if he
has been spared by Lurgha...." She showed her wonderment with a hiss of