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‘Grow up, O s to worry about I told the around in those hills, and that we are all arive the, but I decided to keep it out of sight If ht about "unfriendly", the less they know about us, the better’

‘You could be right, I suppose Did they ask you any other questions?’

‘None that made very much sense For some reason, they seemed to think that our Veltan and his sister Zelana hated each other, and that there was a perpetual war going on between her people and us The answer I gave theue as I could make it I told them that over the years I’ve killed dozens of enelossed over the fact that the enemies I’ve killed olves, not people, so I think they sed it whole Is Veltan going to be gone for er?’

‘I don’t know for certain, Nanton He wasn’t too specific when he left’ Oht now?’

‘Up in the hill-country My nepheatching over the back up into the mountains with your sheep very soon, will you?’

‘Not until the snow ot them sheared My flock produced a lot of wool this past winter’

‘Good You usually graze your flock up near the Falls of Vash, don’t you?’

‘Alrass up there and plenty of water’

‘Keep an eye out for these strangers, will you? And if they coain, I’d really appreciate it if you’d send your nephen here to tellthat Veltan should really know about’

‘I’ll take care of it, Oet on back toshepherdess near whereout in that sort of rash, so he’s not payingaround quite a bit here lately,’ O has a lot to do with it, and spring isn’t really all that far away’ Nanton shrugged ‘It helps to increase the flock, I guess’

‘Are we talking about people or sheep?’

‘Both flocks, probably As long as there’s good grazing, it doesn’t really hurt anything, I guess Babies are alrow up, we can put theo’ And then he turned and walked away

‘I think you’d better tell Veltan about theested a week or so later ‘They don’t really belong around here, and they talk sort of strange’