And he took with
him too that clarion of the centaurs, that famous silver horn, that in
its time had summoned to surrender seventeen cities of Man, and for
twenty years had brayed at star-girt walls in the Siege of
Tholdenblarna, the citadel of the gods, what time the centaurs waged
their fabulous war and were not broken by any force of arms, but
retreated slowly in a cloud of dust before the final miracle of the
gods that They brought in Their desperate need from Their ultimate
armoury. He took it and strode away, and his mother only sighed and
let him go.
She knew that today he would not drink at the stream coming down from
the terraces of Varpa Niger, the inner land of the mountains, that
today he would not wonder awhile at the sunset and afterwards trot
back to the cavern again to sleep on rushes pulled by rivers that know
not Man. She knew that it was with him as it had been of old with his
father, and with Goom the father of Jyshak, and long ago with the
gods. Therefore she only sighed and let him go.
But he, coming out from the cavern that was his home, went for the
first time over the little stream, and going round the corner of the
crags saw glittering beneath him the mundane plain. And the wind of
the autumn that was gilding the world, rushing up the slopes of the
mountain, beat cold on his naked flanks.
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