"You are Gall the Far-Seeing," stated an elderly Melkan, probably far older than Gall suspected.  For all their softness, the Melkan saw many more summers than the Aruch, if they survived childhood.  And this man, lean and grey and wolfish, with a leather band covering one eye, had clearly long since survived childhood.  "You are here to slay a dragon, yes?"<br/><br/>"I am," Gall replied, meeting frankness with frankness.  He had not been invited specifically, but word of this gathering had traveled far among the Melkan and Aruch, and among the stranger folk of the hills and mountains, the Gentle Folk of whom he had been warned as a child.  He honestly hadn't believed them to be real, but he had seen a few on the edges of the Melkan camp.  "And I have slain the mammoths of the hills, and the great bears of the caves of the Iron Horn mountains."  His hand stroked the heavy, shaggy cloak he wore.  "And now I will slay a dragon, or die in the attempt.  I have spoken."<br/><br/>"It is well," the elderly Melkan said solemnly, nodding his head.  "It is well."  He refilled Gall's horn with amber mead, carefully squeezing the skin that held it to prevent it from speaking.  "Had I seen even a single span of summers less, I would join you."  Capping the skin, he touched his right eye.  "The others may see only an Ork, but with my eye I see a mighty man of valor, a hero of renown like many others who have come to this gathering of the tribes." He raised his own horn.  "Biodh do mhic mòran agus grànda, agus do nigheanan brèagha."<br/><br/>"You speak the tongue of the Aruch?" Gall asked, intrigued.  So many Melkan felt it was necessary for others to learn their language, as if they were the masters of the world.  "I..."<br/><br/>"I speak many languages," the old man replied, staring over Gall's shoulder.  "And I know many things.  For instance, I know they are gathering the heroes now.  Agus bidh feum aca air gaisgich."<br/><br/>Gall turned to look, and found a stocky man in leather breeches approaching.  "Come, Or... Gall."  It clearly took the man an effort to not dismissively address him as 'ork'.  "It is time to gather to the council fire."<br/><br/>Nodding, Gall turned back to the old Melkan.  "Be well..." he began, the stopped.  The old man was gone, leaving only the stump upon which he had been sitting.  With a shrug, he rose to his feet and turned to face the stocky man who was making such an effort to not be rude.  "Then let us gather," he answered.  "Let us gather, and let us hear of the woes of your people, and then let the assembled heroes of the land speak of how we will slay the wyrm that plagues us all."<br/><br/>Bold words, but the sight of the gathered heroes gave him pause.  A Melkan woman who sat with the same predatory ease as the lynx that crouched at her side.  A Melkan man with the gaze of eagles who wore the pelts of wolves and great cats.  Another Melkan woman, draped in bones that rattled as she breathed and surrounded by the spirits bound to her fetishes.  But there were two more figures who sent a shudder through him.  A blonde female, graceful beyond anything dreamed of by Aruch or Melkan, whose every movement inspired lust and fear in equal measure.  And a shape that he first took for a moving boulder, until he realized that it was actually dressed in clothes made from the indestructible greystone that the Aruch prized even above the copper and bronze they traded for or stole from the Melkan.  Two of the Gentle Folk out of dark tales told about the cookfires.<br/><br/>Deliberately, he took a seat between the three Melkan and the two uncanny beings.  Gall the Far-Seeing had been called many things, but coward was not and never would be one of them.