‘I can’t see any army making its way over this lot,’ gasped Tirke at one stage, as he and Dacu heaved one of the pack horses back on to its feet.
‘Armies can get over anything when they want to,’ Hawklan said, overhearing the remark. ‘Mountains and rivers are obstacles only to the will, and only the will falls before them.’ Dacu looked at him strangely. What quality was it in this man that made him at once so approachable and so frightening? He realized that at times he felt before Hawklan as he had when he first saw this mountain looming ahead of them, far bigger than he had imagined, and dominating their way forward, utterly oblivious in its ancient patience to their fleeting needs.
Yet Hawklan was also the opposite. He was wholly concerned with the needs of others.
As if catching his
