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When he has eaten up all that is yours and your kin with it?" "Perhaps," Assha repeated. "I do not think Lurgha will come so again." She shrugged, and the heavy cloak flapped. "That shall be as it shall be, Assha. Now go, for it is not good that any man come hither." Cassca paced back into the heart of the green tunnel, and Ross and McNeil came out of concealment.
"If the Reds have done their work efficiently, and there's no reason to suppose otherwise, then there is no use in contacting either Dorhta's town or Munga's. The same announcement concerning the Wrath of Lurgha was probably made there to their good purpose, not ours." "Cassca didn't seem to be overly impressed with Lurgha's curse, not as much as the man was."
"She is the closest thing to a priestess that this tribe knows, and she serves a goddess older and more powerful than Lurgha the Mother Earth, the Great Mother, goddess of fertility and growth. Nodren's people believe that unless Cassca performs her mysteries and sows part of the first field in the spring there won't be any harvest.
Cassca moved beneath the arch. "Or does it in some strange way, Assha?" "Perhaps it does. Only tell me." She turned slowly and pointed over her right shoulder. "From that way he came, Assha. Well did I watch, knowing that I was the Mother's and that even Lurgha's thunderbolts could not eat me up. Does knowing that make Lurgha smaller in your eyes, Assha?
Those who come from that hill may well be some who no longer walk in their bodies." Cassca placed her fingers momentarily on Ashe's outstretched palm before she nodded. "No spirit are you, Assha, for all know that a spirit is solid to the eye, but not to the touch. So it would seem that you were not burned up by Lurgha, after all." "This matter of a message from Lurgha " he prompted.
"Assha thanks Cassca, who is the handmaiden of the Great Mother. May the sowing prosper and the reaping be good this year!" Ashe said finally, ignoring Lal, who still groveled on the road. "You go from this place, Assha?" she asked. "For though I stand under the protecting hand of the Mother and so do not fear, yet there are others who will raise their spears against you for the honor of Lurgha."
Now " Ashe limped back and dragged out the white wolf skin, dropping it before Lal "this you will give to Cassca that she may make a curtain for the Mother's home. See, it is white and so rare that the Mother will be pleased with such a fine gift. And you will tell her all that has chanced and how you believe in her powers over the powers of Lurgha, and the Mother will be well pleased with you.
Show that you are glad you live and continue to breathe by telling us what you know, Lal." The woman Cassca had displayed a measure of intelligence and ease at their meeting upon the road. But it was very plain that Lal was of different stuff, a simple man in whose head few ideas could find house room at one time. And to him the present was all black.
"I think he's able to get about, in spite of that leg. From his story he's been stirring around." Ashe bit absent-mindedly into a piece of hare and swore mildly when he burned his tongue. "Odd that Cassca didn't tell us about him. Unless she thought there was no use causing trouble by admitting they had driven him away. You going now?" Ross moved around the fire. "Might as well.
"We go, and again thanks be to you, Cassca." He turned back the way they had come, and Ross fell in beside him as the woman watched them out of sight. "That bird of Lurgha's " said Ross, once they were out of sight of Cassca and Lal, "could it have been a plane?" "Sounds like it," snapped his companion.
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