Free Etruscans by Morgan Llywelyn

not flout a tradition. Repana and Vesi were being pursued by their own people, then, who would probably hound them to their dying day.
    Wulv nodded bitterly; one’s own tribe could be the cruelest of all.
    When Vesi finally collapsed with exhaustion, he made camp for the three of them and stood guard. Repana fed herself from the supplies she carried and urged a few bites on her daughter, feeding her by hand, but Wulv rejected the food she offered him. Rasne food was sweetened and spiced, as if its natural flavor was not good enough. To eat such things would make a strong man weak. Instead he speared a rabbit for himself and roasted it over a small fire, devouring it when it was still half raw. He refused even to season the meat with some of Repana’s salt, though he appreciated the generous gesture. The possession of a commodity as valuable as salt confirmed what he already knew: his charges were nobility.
    After Vesi fell asleep, Wulv tried to talk with her mother. They had little common ground. Repana was plainly uncomfortable with anyone so crude, though she tried to conceal her distaste. But when she unthinkingly drew aside the hem of her stained and torn gown rather than let it be contaminated by his foot, Wulv felt the gesture like a knife to the heart. Once such an occurrence would have aroused him to a terrible anger, but now … now it merely saddened him. Perhaps he was getting old.
    At length Repana asked, “How long will it take us to reach the glade of stones?”
    Sucking on one of his broken teeth, Wulv calculated distances. “Traveling as slow as your daughter does, we can’t be there much before tomorrow sunset.”
    â€œShe is injured; she can go no faster,” Repana said.
“And besides …” She broke off abruptly, realizing that in her weariness she was about to say too much.
    But Wulv would not let it be. His hunter’s instincts were alerted. “Besides what? Is there anything else I need to know that might be important if I am to protect you?”
    She turned and looked squarely at him in the somber glow of the dying campfire. He truly was an ugly creature, with that scarred face and twisted smile, and the dancing firelight lent his features a macabre cast. She came of a race devoted to beauty, mistrusting and abhorring ugliness as an abomination before the Ais. But these were hunting scars—bears’ claws, she thought—and thus honorably earned. Her own late husband had been scarred … and Pepan had trusted …
    Repana could not bear to think of Pepan. “My daughter is with child,” she said in a voice so low Wulv could hardly hear her. “A most undesirable child. Our people want to kill her with the infant in her womb.”
    Wulv thought he understood. Some inferior, a slave perhaps, had defiled Vesi, and now both she and the unborn infant were outcasts.
    His heart went out to them. He was to some degree an outcast himself. “While I live your daughter and her baby will come to no harm,” he vowed. “I am strong and I know the ways of the forest. I can protect you from the wild animals and from outlaws; I can find food for you and show you where there is pure water to drink. You can trust Wulv; he will never let you down.”
    His voice rang with such unsuspected fervor that Repana was taken aback. Tentatively, she laid one hand on the arm of their new ally. “I thank you, Wulv.”
    Touching him was not as unpleasant as she expected. His face was hideous but his skin was warm; he felt like any other man.

ELEVEN
    A lthough they were Rasne and the hunter had always been a little contemptuous of the effete Silver People, Wulv had to admit he was impressed by Vesi’s courage. When time came to be on the move again, she got to her feet without complaining in spite of her pain. He watched as her mother tended her wounds, so he saw how terrible they were.
    But when he asked Repana what beast had caused