Free Wizard's Funeral by Kim Hunter

organise the birds into separate groups, tried to teach them proper melodies - the song thrushes here, the warblers there, the deep-throated geese and others behind but alas, they grew bored, and after a very short time returned to the freeness of nature. They needed that to find their own flow, the joy, the individual creativity. Since then I have never interfered with the tunes of-the earth. Would I make the wind sing to my lesser compositions? No, I am happy to accept what the world has to offer, take its largesse with thanks, and remain under its direction. The two men shook hands and Soldier went back to the ridge. When he looked down again, from its crest, the farmer was back at his plough. Soldier thought, How could such a man fail to be a poet, even if he never wrote a word on paper? A man who caressed the body of the world? A man locked to the earth as tight as any tree? The march continued towards Da-tichett, the home of the Hannacks. Da-tichett was separated from Falyum and Guthrum by two thick ranges of mountains, one a spur of the other. There were hidden passes to find and high saddles to cross. Guthrum had never ruled Da-tichett for very long. There had been periods in history when the Guthrum Empire had included the home of the Hannacks, but it was too remote, too wild and unruly to hold on to without a full occupying army. It could not be managed in the usual way, with governors and nominal troops, for the Hannacks were a bone-headed nation who thought with their muscles, not with their brains. They murdered each other without compunction, so there was not a lot of respect for authority, even though it was backed by the threat of force. They enjoyed force. They enjoyed pitting themselves against it - and were too unthinking to be afraid. Hannacks themselves said that if you ever found a library in Da-tichett, the last Hannack would have already died. The raven came to visit Soldier as he crossed the mountains. Theres still time to turn back. Please reconsider. Your force is too small. Youll be chewed up by the barbarians. Youre a fool, Soldier. Send Kaff in first. Let him take the brunt. Go away, muttered Soldier. Someone will hear you. Oh, I give up. The raven took to the air. The passes were not guarded. Hannacks were sure they would never be invaded again, since the last time they had been overrun they massacred the occupying garrisons to a soul, burned them and everything else the invaders had brought with them, and put the charred human remains on poles up on the summer snowlme of the mountains. These grisly objects were still on show now - charcoal figures of men and women stark against the white snow. They gaped with black mouths. They stared with black eyes. Their thin, crisp limbs snapped like twigs when touched. They moaned in the wind. Agents from a world of fire, they were silent reminders of the ghastly indifference Hannacks showed captives and their families. The troops passed them as they went up and over into a country which was mostly bare of good farmland. It was easy to see, when looking at the sparse soil cover, why the Hannacks were raiders and lived by plundering their neighbours. Soldier felt the fear drift through his column as they passed the-blackened charcoal objects that had once been arms, legs, chest cages, skulls. It was a grim sight. Hannacks were troglodytes. Their cave dwellings dotted the cliff faces which lay down below the heights. They had carved them out of sandstone and limestone. Whitewashed chimneys stuck out at all angles, from the cliff, or the plateau above. In front of the caves were the corrals where they kept their wild-looking ponies. Old fires, most of them spent, dotted the ground like burst black blisters. A filthy river ran through the countryside, full of effluence from the ponies and the people who lived there. Drinking water was collected in huge skins stretched over racks, making giant hide bowls. Even so, children were bathing in these bowls, swimming