There was only one who dared to speak freely, for such was always his right. Hurlind, the Great Chieftain’s scold, was full of wine and laughter. “You’re slipping, Morg’s Get! Pull as you might, he’s dragging you. Why not let go, and save yourself from the fire? This is not a game for striplings!”

“Silence,” Morget hissed from between clenched teeth.

Yet his grin was faltering, for it was true. Torki’s grasp on the panther hide was like the grip of great tree roots on the earth. His arms were locked at the elbows, and with the full power of his body, trained and toughened by the hard life of the steppes, he was pulling as inexorably as the ocean tide. Morget slid toward the coals a fraction of an inch at a time, no matter how he dug his toes into the grit on the floor.

At the mead bench closest to the fire a reaver of the Great Chieftain placed a sack of gold on the table and nudged his neighbor, a chieftain of great honor. He pointed at Torki and the chieftain nodded, then put his own money next to the reaver’s-though as he did so he glanced slyly at the Great Chieftain in his place of honor at the far end of the table. Perhaps he worried that his overlord might take it askance-after all, Morget was the Great Chieftain’s son.

The Great Chieftain did not see the wager, however. His eyes never moved from the contest. Morg, the man who had made a nation of these people, the man who had seen every land in the world and plundered every coast, father of multitudes, slayer of dragons, Morg the Great was ancient by the reckoning of the East. Forty-five winters had ground at his bones. Only a little silver ran through the gold of his wild beard, however, and no sign of dotage showed in his glinting eyes. He reached without looking for a haunch of roasted meat. Tearing a generous piece free, he held it down toward the mangy dog at his feet. The dog always ate first. It roused itself from sleep just long enough to swallow the gobbet. When it was done, Morg fed himself, grease slicking down his chin and the front of his fur robes.