They were down in a rocky swale before he had halted the charge. The bulls stood shivering then, foam and blood streaked their heaving sides. Slowly, with many curses and blows, he got them turned, but they would only walk back up the long hill. As he neared the battle again he saw that another force had attacked the Dark Landers from behind. It must have come through the long ravine to the west, which would have concealed its approach from those fighting Southern Twilight Landers, Kery saw, well trained and equipped though they seemed to fight wearily. But between men of north and south, the easterners were being cut down in swathes. Before he could get back, the remnants of their host was in full flight. Bram was too busy with the newcomers to pursue and they soon were lost in the eastern darkness. * * * * * Kery dismounted and led his bulls to the wagons to tie them up. They went through a field of corpses, heaped and piled on the blood-soaked earth, but most of the dead were enemies. Here and there the wounded cried out in the twilight, and the women of Killorn were going about succoring their own hurt. Carrion birds hovered above on darkling wings. "Who are those others?" asked Kery of Bram's wife Eiyla. She was a big raw-boned woman, somewhat of a scold but stout-hearted and the mother of tall sons. She stood leaning on an unstrung bow and looking over the suddenly hushed landscape. "Ryvanians, I think," she replied absently. Then, "Kery--Kery, I have ill news for you." His heart stumbled and there was a sudden coldness within him. Mutely, he waited. "Rhiach is dead, Kery," she said gently. "An arrow took him in the throat even as the Dark Landers fled." His voice seemed thick and clumsy. "Where is he?" She led him inside the laager of wagons. A fire had been lit to boil water, and its red glow danced over the white faces of women and children and wounded men where they lay. To one side the dead had been stretched, and white-headed Lochly of Dagh stood above them with his bagpipes couched in his arms. Kery knelt over Rhiach. The warlock's bleak features had softened a little in death, he seemed gentle now. But quiet, so pale and quiet. And soon the earth will open to receive you, you will be laid to rest here in an alien land where the life slipped from your hands, and the high windy tarns of Killorn will not know you ever again, O Rhiach the Piper. Farewell, farewell, my father. Sleep well, goodnight, goodnight! Slowly, Kery brushed the gray hair back from Rhiach's forehead, and knelt and kissed him on the brow. They had laid the god-pipe beside him, and he took this up and stood numbly, wondering what he would do with this thing in his hands. Old Lochly gave him a somber stare. His voice came so soft you could scarce hear it over the thin whispering wind. "Now you are the Broina, Kery, and thus the Piper of Killorn." "I know," he said dully.