The Place
The Grassy Steppe is a plain of tall grass that runs 300 km from the river's edge to the far hills, and no wall and no roof cuts its horizon. The grass grows in silver heads, and when the wind crosses the plain, the whole steppe turns to moving metal. The grass is green at midday, and the green is the steppe's only color where no one has walked; where the herds have passed, the grass is brown and flat, and the brown is the steppe's memory of the day. Two waters cross the grass in the middle of the day: the broad, slow Wandering Water, green-brown at the shallows, and the thin, sharp Needle Creek that cuts the grass at the eastern bend. At the crossing-stones where both waters meet, the stone is grey and the water is white where it breaks, and the white is the steppe's only light that is not the wind.
The red deer move across the grass in herds at the morning, and their tracks lie on the steppe like a page that is read and then let go. The herds come down to the crossing-stones to drink, and the drinking is the steppe's noon. In the summer the grass grows to a man's chest and the wind has to climb it, and the climbing is the steppe's voice. In the winter the heads freeze silver and the wind cuts them flat, and the flat is the steppe's way of resting. At dusk the silver heads catch the last light, and the whole plain burns gold for an hour, and the gold is the steppe's way of saying the day is honest. The steppe smells of cut grass and horse sweat and distant rain. The wind is the steppe's voice, and the steppe is the wind's body. A rider who crosses the steppe never walks alone, because the grass moves around him as he goes, and that moving is the steppe's way of looking. This is the oldest open ground in the unknown world, and it keeps the oldest oaths.
How They Live
The Centaurs keep the steppe open, and what they build is not a wall but a camp-ring of stone and timber that stands 2 m high and is struck every night. The ring is struck and re-raised as the herds move, and the moving is the steppe's way of keeping the grass from going to seed where the oaths are made. Food comes from the grass and the herds: the red deer that are hunted on the gallop, the fish that are taken from the Wandering Water, and the milk of the foals that is left in the grass. In the summer the fish are taken at the shallows with the long spears, and in the winter the deer are taken on the flat grass where the wind has cut it, and the taking in the winter is the hard word of the steppe. Water is taken at the crossing-stones where both waters slow, and the herds drink at dawn and the riders drink at dusk, and the drinking is the steppe's way of keeping the day. Light comes from the open sky, and the heat of winter comes from the fire-pits that are kept in the hollows of the grass, and the fire-pits are the steppe's only hearth.
The defense is the steppe itself, and a visitor who crosses the plain is already inside the gallop, and the gallop is the alarm, the welcome, and the sentence. The day is measured by the wind, and the wind is also the calendar, because the steppe is the only clock the oath needs. The rite of the steppe is the crossing: when a young centaur rides the 300 km from the western bend to the eastern bend in one night, the herd names him, and the grass keeps his name. The named one rides back at the dawn, and the herds do not look at him, and the not-looking is the steppe's way of saying the name is kept.
People
Home of the Centaurs, whose herds are counted by gallop, and the great herds ride the western grass in the thousands, and the small herds keep the eastern bend in the hundreds. The mares lead the herds, and rank is decided by the crossing, because the one who rides the farthest without rest holds the word of the herd, and the word of the herd is the steppe's only rank. No wall is built on the steppe, and a visitor who builds one is turned off the grass by the dawn gallop, and the turning is done without a word. A human trader who has crossed once calls it the honest ground, and he says the wind there speaks plain and the oaths there do not lie, and he says the grass there does not hide what the wind has said.
In Stories
The place where the oath is the only honest thing, and the thing is the gallop, and the gallop is the wind, and the wind is the end. Uaellaen crossed the steppe in the winter of the first year, and the wind there did not lie to him. Rumzuck drank the Wandering Water at the crossing-stones and swore, in the centaur way, that his strength was the wind's.