So they made the three-hour trek through the woods to the Rindge village and were there by midday. On their journey, they learned more about the land to which they had traveled. The Rindge who did all the talking was called Obatedequist Parsenon, or something that sounded very like it, according to Panax. Since the Dwarf was unsure, the cumbersome name was quickly reduced to just Obat. Obat was a subchief in the village hierarchy, the son of a former high chief. It was clear from the deference showed him by the other Rindge that he was a respected member of the community. Obat told them the land of his people was called Parkasia and they had been there two thousand years, since the beginning of time. He did not speak of the Great Wars, but seemed to date everything from then, as if nothing had existed before his people's appearance in Parkasia. It was difficult to be certain, but it appeared to Panax that Parkasia was a peninsula attached to a much larger body of land north and west in which tribes other than the Rindge made their home.
There were various tribes of Rindge living in Parkasia, Obat explained, some of them hunters, some farmers. They were a self-sufficient people and engaged in little trading. Wars sprang up between them now and then, but their greatest common enemy was the thing that lived in Castledown's ruins. Antrax, Obat called it, but he could not find a way to explain what it was. He said it was a spirit, but it commanded creepers and fire threads, strange things that seemingly had nothing to do with spirits. Antrax warded Castledown against all intruders and had done so for as far back as anyone could remember. But it also raided the villages of the Rindge now and then and stole away the people. Those taken were never seen again. They were sacrificed to satisfy Antrax's hunger, their bodies dismembered and their spirits enslaved so that they could never die or be at rest.
It was the same story the company had been told earlier and it made no more sense than it had then; dead was dead, and you didn't enslave souls once the body was gone. But Obat insisted on it, even though he could offer no explanation as to why Antrax took the Rindge and treated them so, what he needed them for, or why he would bother with humans when he possessed command over such formidable technology. Every time the name Antrax was spoken, the Rindge showed signs of discomfort, casting glances in all directions, making warding motions, even when they were several hours away from the ruins.
Still mired in his discomfort at leaving Bek, Quentin Leah listened to it all with half an ear. Exhausted and battered from his struggle against the creepers, he knew he was staying upright through sheer force of will. But he was heartsick at abandoning his search for his cousin, and he could not stop thinking about it. They had promised they would look out for each other. Bek would never break that promise, no matter what, unless he was unable to carry it out. It didn't matter that Quentin had no idea where to look for his cousin other than in the ruins, and that looking for anyone in the ruins was suicide. It didn't matter how tired he was. All he knew was that he was walking away from Bek at a time when Bek might need him most.
Obat was talking about Antrax again, saying that many of the Rindge tribes believed that Antrax had created humans at the beginning of time and took some back now because he was dissatisfied with their behavior. Antrax was a god and must be worshipped and respected or disaster would result. So they made pilgrimages, bringing gifts to the ruins several times a year. Sometimes, they brought humans as sacrifices to the wronks who were once their kindred. They did not do those things in Obat's village, but that was because the Rindge there believed in the old stories that said humans were created from the earth and given life long before Antrax discovered them. In Obat's village, they believed that Antrax was a demon.
Quentin absorbed all that and consoled himself about Bek by deciding that his cousin, with his newly discovered magic, was probably better equipped than he to ward off demons or creepers or anything else. That Bek should have magic of any sort still astonished him, yet it made sense in light of what they had both decided about Walker's decision to bring them along. It explained why they had been chosen when there were so many others who might have been taken instead. But it left the Highlander pondering anew his cousin's origin and the reason it had been kept secret so long. It made him wonder how much Coran and Liria knew and had been keeping from them.
They arrived at the village of the Rindge by midday, newly footsore and barely mobile. The village sprawled through a series of connected clearings in a wooded area backed up against foothills leading west into a spine of mountains and consisted mostly of open-air huts and pavilions constructed of wood and bark with blankets and reed screens used as dividers for rooms. The people came out to look at them, men, women, and children alike, all henna-complexioned and red-haired, the youngest darker than their elders.
No palisade or moat warded the village, and when asked, Obat said there was no point; the wronks and creepers could push right through such defenses in any case. When a raid took place, the Rindge simply fled into the hills until it was safe to return. A good system of outposts kept them safe most of the time. The defenses that made a difference were the traps they set out in the woods, deep camouflaged pits with jagged rocks at their bottoms. The creepers and wronks often fell into them and if damaged or not sufficiently mobile, could not climb out. If the metal predators were found and the pits filled in quickly enough, they could no longer hear the commands of Antrax and so remained there.