been no one there. The youth had a bow in one hand, the other pointed at them.
"Fair enough." Niall handed over their catch. "You get to clean them."
He turned to Kiron.
"The bandit who has just ambushed us is my nephew Asbjorn; it's his favorite game. 'Bjorn, this is Kiron, guesting with us a while."
Kiron spoke slowly in the vales tongue. "Honor defeated so valiant a hunter by."
Asbjorn looked at his uncle: "He noticed."
Kiron watched as Asbjorn, booty in hand, vanished downhill. Niall spoke in a puzzled tone:
"Noticed what?"
"What language he was speaking. He knew who I was. How young do they go for caravan guards?"
"Not that young; learned from Father. Tells a story in our tongue, mixes in Tengu, Llashi. Been doing it since 'Bjorn was little. For us too."
"He wasn't one of the ones I met yesterday, was he?"
"Arrived last night, across from Newvale. Boy climbs like a goat. Pretty good at stalking, too. Caught Father once—above himself for a week. Till Father caught him."
"And?"
"Took a mountain goat off him—had spent two days hunting it."
Over the next weeks, Kiron learned what he could of both hunting and stalking, including one fruitless afternoon under cover watching the path they thought Asbjorn would come home on. Evenings were spent learning the language, trying to make sense of the busy chaos around him. One evening, as he sat watching the children play, he heard a footstep, looked up. Gerda was watching him. She spoke slowly in her own tongue.
"I hope my son is taking proper care of you."
"Yes. Not boring. Different."
"The language. Is it a problem?"
"Hard. Learning. Slowly."
"You are doing very well." This time she spoke in heavily accented Tengu. "Better than I would so short time."
He switched with relief to his own language.
"Your speech is a little like Alteng—what the common people speak in our province. When I was little my nurse