"Don't it sometimes make you wish you was?" he asked. "To see em so?"

Zalia made no reply.

"Not right, woman. Not right. Never has been."

"But since time out of mind-"

"Bugger time out of mind, too!" Tian cried. "They's children! Our children!"

"Would you have the Wolves burn the Calla to the ground, then? Leave us all with our throats cut and our eyes fried in our heads? For it's happened before. You know it has."

He knew, all right. But who would put matters right, if not the men of Calla Bryn Sturgis? Certainly there were no authorities, not so much as a sheriff, either high or low, in these parts. They were on their own. Even long ago, when the Inner Baronies had glowed with light and order, they would have seen precious little sign of that bright-life out here. These were the borderlands, and life here had always been strange. Then the Wolves had begun coming and life had grown far stranger. How long ago had it begun? How many generations? Tian didn't know, but he thought "time out of mind" was too long. The Wolves had been raiding into the borderland villages when Gran-pere was young, certainly-Gran-pere's own twin had been snatched as the two of them sat in the dust, playing at jacks. "Dey tuk im cos he closer to de rud," Gran-pere had told them (many times). "If Ah come out of dee house firs' dat day, Ah be closer to de rud an dey take me, God is good!" Then he would kiss the wooden crucie the Old Fella had given him, hold it skyward, and cackle.

Yet Gran-pere's own Gran-pere had told him that in his day-which would have been five or perhaps even six generations back, if Tian's calculations were right-there had been no Wolves sweeping out of Thunderclap on their gray horses. Once Tian had asked the old man, And did all but a few of the babbies come in twos back then? Did any of the old folks ever say? Gran-pere had considered this long, then had shaken his head. No, he couldn't remember what the old-timers had ever said about that, one way or the other.