Subject: Re: Approaching the Prisoners

?I do not hold you to be evil for such warring, lest all men be found equally evil, for all will fight when backed into a corner. My purpose here is not to judge you for these acts, nor is it to help men take your lands. If I fight by their side, it is an accident of circumstance and because there were many innocents in this town needing protection. I notice you did not bring your women and children to battle."

The raider responds evenly.

"No, we do not bring our women and children to battle. We also do not place them in the hunting grounds of a grassland lion. The sunset people place their women and children in such peril."

He pauses.

"It was not our intention to kill any women or children." He looks up from the ground to look directly into Erk's eyes. "Only to drive them back out of our lands. These weak men cannot live off the land - they need their towers of wood and stone. This is not their land. There is no stone or wood for them to build."

"Yet still they invade the grasses and destroy our hunting grounds." He spits.

Erk considers his words, and notes that he has been very forthcoming with information. He realizes that he hasn't asked any questions about Tossuc, or the whereabouts of the other attackers. He's not sure how the man would respond to such questions, and he isn't willing to press the issue.

?If you help me with a few more things, I and my band will move on to other business. What is this ?tall grass? you speak of that the men drive you into? We are following an expedition of men from my city who may have gone into it. Would you know of them? When they were lost, other men followed to find them, and were lost as well. We seek either or both of these bands. Can you tell me anything of them, or the land they went into??

"If they traveled into the Tall Grass, they are lost. You will not find them, and if you look you will not return. The Tall Grass is the land of the animal gods, and those who venture too far are never seen again."

He pauses again, and lowers his voice.

"I can tell you that they were not attacked by my people. Without wood and stone, the sunset people cannot survive the wilds. It is better to wait for them to starve and be killed by predators, then claim the abandoned weapons and equipment."

"I did see a long train of wagons many, many, and my tribe kept an eye on them, waiting for them to fail and turn back - or to die. But they did not stop. They walked into the Tall Grass just south of the buffalo marshes, and we knew then that the gods would claim their spoils."

At the mention of the buffalo marshes, a flicker of recollection passes across Buchek's face. He knows that land. It was several days travel to the south of the territory claimed by his father during his childhood - if this man was part of Tossuc's band, and Tossuc had expanded that far... he may truly be trying to unite all the People. Otherwise, this was a man whose tribe was destroyed, and he joined the Tossucat for survival.