Description: Dark-Eyes'' War, The Chapter 1 SOUTHERN CENTRAL PLAIN, FAL''BORNA LAND, MEMORY MOON WANING, YEAR 1211 H e was being hunted. Somehow he had become their prey, like the rilda that grazed on this plain. Except slower. So much slower. Stam Corfej had been peddling his wares among the Fal''Borna for the better part of eight fours, more than half a lifetime. He knew as well as anyone how hard the white-haired sorcerers of the Central Plain could be. He''d bargained with them, been threatened by them, been called a cheat and a dark-eye bastard and worse. More than once he''d considered giving up on the Qirsi and returning to his native Aelea. A peddler could do well in the Mountain Nation, perhaps not inland, but along her rocky shores, in Redcliff or Yorl. But it had never taken him long to dismiss the idea of returning to the sovereignty. Whatever gold he might make in Eandi territory he could double and then some trading among the Fal''Borna. He knew the tastes of the golden-skinned clan. He knew their ways, and he knew how to best them in a negotiation. And while he didn''t particularly like the white-hairs, he had never felt threatened by them. At least not until now. It was said among peddlers in the Southlands that commerce cared nothing for the color of a man''s eyes. Qirsi and Eandi, white-hair and dark-eye; they had spent nearly a thousand years fighting the Blood Wars, learning from their fathers to hate the other, and passing that lesson along to their children. But when it came to trade, men and women of bothraces managed to put aside their enmity. Gold was gold. The Qirsi might have thought the Eandi brutish and cruel, but they loved Qosantian honey wine; Eandi nobles cursed the white-hairs and their frightening magic, but they decorated the hilts of their swords and the hands, wrists, and necks of their mistresses with gems from the Nid''Qir. Stam had done well over the years catering to such appetites. He''d traveled the length and breadth of the Southlands searching for wares that would fetch a good price. He''d traded in the fishing villages of the D''Krad and the woodland towns of the M''Saaren, the shining cities of the H''Bel and the septs of the Fal''Borna, and he had learned a great deal about the likes and dislikes of all the Qirsi clans. So when he saw those Mettai baskets that Brint HedFarren was selling at the bend in the wash, where he and his fellow merchants often gathered, he jumped at the chance to buy them. The Mettai were renowned for their basket weaving, and these baskets were as beautiful as any Stam had ever seen. Tightly woven, brilliantly colored, and, best of all, clearly dyed by hand, which increased their value. If Barthal Milensen and Grijed Semlor and Lark hadn''t been there claiming their share, Stam might well have bought every one that Young Red was selling. As it was, he only got twelve. Who would have guessed that twelve Mettai baskets--fewer, actually, since he still had three in his cart--could kill so many people? Who would have thought that they could destroy two good-sized septs so quickly and so completely? That night in the first sept, Stam had no idea what was happening. At first it seemed that the pestilence had come and he assumed that he would fall ill like the Fal''Borna around him. But as the night wore on and the white-hairs began to destroy their z''kals with fire and shaping magic, he realized that whatever illness had struck at the sept was nothing like any pestilence he had ever seen. He fled the village, amazed that he had managed to survive and wanting only to put as much distance as possible between himself and the horrors he had witnessed. Three nights later, when the same disease struck at another sept he was visiting--a sept more than eight leagues away from the fi rst--he began to suspect that this was more than mere coincidence. He still didn''t understand, but he knew that he wanted nothing more to do with white-hairs and their magic. He decided that he''d lingered too long in the north. He resolved to turn his cart south and make his way to the warm waters of the Ofirean Sea. The Snows were coming; the plain was no place for an old merchant during the cold turns. A few days later Stam stopped at a Fal''Borna village along the Thraedes River, intending to trade for some food and wine. This wasn''t a sept, but rather a small, walled city, known as H''Nivar. It had once belonged to the Eandi, but it was taken by the white-hairs during the last of the Blood Wars. As Stam approached the north gates of the village, he saw a line of peddlers'' carts stretching in his direction. He slowed, unsure of what to make of the column. "Pardon, friend," he called to the trader at the end of the line. "Can you tell me what''s going on here?" The peddler, an old Eandi man with long grey hair and a full beard, shrugged, puffing on a pipe filled with what smelled like Tordjanni pipeweed. "Word is, th'' white-hairs are searching all peddlers'' carts." "What for?" The man shrugged again. "Don'' know." "Baskets," came a voice from farther down the column. A young woman peered back at them, the wind making her long red hair dance. "They''re looking for baskets, just like all the Fal''Borna." Suddenly, Stam found it hard to draw breath. "Why?" he asked, barely making himself heard. The woman frowned. "Haven''t you heard about the plague?" He felt light-headed. "What does the plague have to do with baskets?" She waved her hand, seeming to dismiss the question."Probably nothing at all. But you know the Fal''Borna: They''re always looking for some new reason to hate the Eandi." "They claim it''s a Mettai curse," said the merchant in line ahead of the woman. "They think that the Mettai and some merchants have conspired together to destroy them." He laughed. "As if the Mettai would trust us." The woman said something in return. Stam didn''t hear what it was. His mind was racing. Baskets? A plague? A Mettai curse? What had he done? What had HedFarren done to him? Had it been his baskets that sickened the people in those two settlements? He didn''t understand how it could be possible, but then again, the blood magic of the Mettai had always been a mystery to him. He shouldn''t have left the way he did. He would have been better off waiting there on line for a while longer before pretending to grow impatient. Then he might have been able to steer his cart away from the city without drawing attention to himself, without giving anyone reason to think that he''d had anything to do with the baskets. He might even have learned more about this curse the others were talking about. But in that moment, all he could think was that he had to get away from the Fal''Borna as quickly as possible. He knew just how brutal the Qirsi of the plain could be with their enemies. And he was their enemy now. He hadn''t intended it; he hadn''t known what he was doing. But they wouldn''t believe that, nor would they care even if they did believe it. He was a dead man. He turned his cart around and started back the way he had come. "Hey, where are you going?" asked the man who had been in front of him in line. Stam didn''t look back. "I have to go." "It doesn''t affect us, you know," the man called to him. "This pestilence. It won''t make you sick. You have nothing to worry about." Stam nodded, but he said nothing and he didn''t look back. It was all he could do to keep from using his whip to make Wislo, his cart horse, go faster. "What an idiot," he heard the man say to the others. About the only thing Stam did right that day was turn north rather than immediately striking out eastward, toward the Silverwater Wash and the safety of Eandi land. As a lone rider heading away from the city to the east, he would have been noticed instantly by the guards at the gate. By steering Wislo to the north for a league or so, he was able to use the column of waiting peddlers'' carts to conceal himself from the Fal''Borna. Not that any of this occurred to him at the time. Instead, his mind was consumed with questions. Had Young Red known when he sold those baskets what they would do to the white-hairs? He had been awfully eager to be rid of them. At the time Stam believed that the young merchant didn''t know the value of his wares, though looking back now he realized how foolish he''d been to think so. Brint HedFarren, despite his age, was already one of the most successful merchants in the Southlands, a rival for old Torgan Plye himself. Of course he would have recognized the quality of those baskets. He sold them for a bargain price because he wanted to be rid of them. It was the only explanation that made any sense. Was HedFarren in league with the Mettai? It seemed a ridiculous question, or rather it would have only a short time before. Now, though ... He followed the river north from H''Nivar for several hours before realizing that he was making a mistake. He needed to get out of Fal''Borna land, and instead he was driving his cart into the heart of it. He considered his options for a moment or two, but quickly recognized that he had none. To the north lay the septs of the rilda hunters; to the south he''d find only the Ofi rean and the great Fal''Borna cities along its shores. The J''Balanar held the lands west of the plain, and though the Fal''Borna and J''Balanar had fought battles in the past,both clans were Qirsi. If the Fal''Borna declared Stam their enemy, he''d be no safer among the J''Balanar than he was here. He had to turn east and hope

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