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- pushed the estuary in a north-easterly direction, but on rounding the

point it made a sharp right hand turn into a long narrow lagoon

bisected by the state line. ' The lagoon itself was separated from

Lake Superior by two low needle-like spits of sand and gravel which

reached out from the opposing shores to form an almost unbroken line

running from the north-west to the southeast.

In pre-Holocaust days the upper and lower sandbars were separated by a

three-hundred foot wide shipping channel kept open by dredgers. With

the passage of time, the channel had silted up, narrowing to half its

original width, and was now only thigh deep. The land to the south and

west of the trading post consisted of rolling plains sloping gently

upwards away from the lake, but on the Duluth side, the estuary sandbar

and the lake beyond were dominated by six-hundred foot high bluffs that

rose steeply from the narrow shore.

The first thing that struck Mr Snow on reaching the trading post was

the size of the D'Troit and C'Natti encampments. Traditionally, the

delegations from the six bloodlines were camped around the outside of a

huge octagon marked out by a line of stones. The She-Kargo and D'Troit

- who were both allocated two segments faced each other across the

central reservation, flanked on each side by the supposedly neutral,

lesser bloodlines - the M'Waukee, C'Natti, San'Paul and San'Louis.

This arrangement was designed to minimize the violent confrontations

which, despite the general truce and the restraining presence of

marshals and capos, always flared up as groups of young bloods from

both sides prowled around the outer edge of the vast encampment looking

for trouble.

This year, the dispositions of the various groups was the same, but not

only were the individual D'Troit and C'Natti delegations much larger

than usual, there were a great number of turf-markers belonging to

Clans who had never been represented before.

Discreet enquiries through intermediaries elicited the reason: the Iron

Masters, because of some internal upheaval, had withdrawn the boats

which normally called at Bei-Sita, the second trading post serving the

Mute clans inhabiting the plains close to the Eastern Lands - the

pre-Holocaust states of Ohio, Indiana, and the broad peninsular

bordered by Lake Erie, Huron and Michigan - the original home of the

D'Troit.

As a result of this temporary closure, the delegations had made their

way to Du-aruta. No one wanted to miss the once-yearly opportunity to

exchange skins, furs, dream-cap and rainbow-grass for new knives,

crossbows, tools, woven cloth and utensils. And, of course, there was

always the hope that more clans would be able to obtain examples of the

rifles supplied to the clan M'Call the year before.

To understand what went through Mr Snow's mind it is necessary to

explain that mathematics was a branch of learning the Plainfolk had

little use for, especially when the sums embraced numbers larger than

twelve - the number of fingers and thumbs possessed by the majority of

Mutes. It had always been accepted that the She-Kargo were numerically

superior to the D'Troit but prior to this fateful gathering the rival

factions had never carried out a head-count of their supporters. This

also meant they had no clear idea of the number of warriors their

opponents could muster. On this occasion however, the D'Troit had

received some outside help.

Over the years of trading with the Mutes, the YamaShita family had

amassed a great deal of information about the various bloodlines and

the multiplicity of clans grouped within. And with the Iron Master's

passion for paperwork, everything had been duly recorded in great

detail by a battery of scribes.

In some respects, such as the size and breakdown of each clan, they

probably knew more about the Plainfolk than the Plainfolk themselves,

and like any military-minded organization gathering intelligence about

a potential enemy - or client-state - they had even identified the

distinctive headgear and turf-markers that placed a clan within a

particular bloodline but set it apart from its neighbours.

As part of the larger picture the wheel-boat captains knew the relative

size of the various bloodlines and the numbers they could expect to

find waiting for them at the trading post. The She-Kargo bloodline

contained 242 clans, the M'Waukee 103 and the San'Paul 38. Each sent

an average of 150 delegates - making a grand total for the She-Kargo

faction of some fifty-seven thousand five hundred delegates - adult

males and females from 15 to 55, all fit and able to fight.

Under normal circumstances the D'Troit, C'Natti a