A Woman of the Horseclans

Epilogue

For long years after that great gathering, roving riders from Clan Krooguh rode the prairies and the high plains, the deserts of the south and the frozen-earth regions of the far north searching for, if not Behtiloo herself, at east some trace of her, some memory of her recent passing. But at last the search was given up as useless by Clan Krooguh.

But still, it is whispered in the felt yurts and the hair tents of the Horseclans Kindred, she rides.

On cloudless nights when the silver moon floats over the lowing herds, when boys and girls yet too young for war training hunch in their saddles and hug themselves for warmth, mindspeaking each other and the prairiecats who help them to guard against wolves and bears and lions, on such still nights, they sometimes see her on the horizon or upon the crest of a ridge—an old clanswoman on her horse, trailed by her faithful prairiecat. Then they straighten in their saddles, forgetting their drowsiness and the cold, and raise their spears in salute to her. To old Behtiloo Hansuhn of Krooguh, accompanied by the prairiecal Blackback, riding still to rouse the Horseclans and remind all Kindred of the value of honor.