5
NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that
this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the
publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment
for this "stripped book."
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this
book are either products of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously.
NOT EXACTLY THE THREE MUSKETEERS
Copyright © 1999 by Joel Rosenberg
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions
thereof, in any form.
Edited by Claire Eddy
Scanned by Brrazo 02/2004
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor.com
Tor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
ISBN 0-812-55046-3
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 98-43785
First edition: February 1999
First mass market edition: February 2000
Printed in the United States of America
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

6
This one is for (in order of seniority):
Doran, Judy, Kendra, Rachel, and Zara

7
Contents
1 - Their Attention is Arrested ..................................................8
2 - The Dowager Empress.......................................................28
3 - Doria..................................................................................56
4 - A Night in Riverforks ........................................................98
5 - Leaving Rivcrforks ..........................................................132
6 - A Night on Woodsdun.....................................................160
7 - Treseen and Elanee..........................................................174
8 - Dereneyl ..........................................................................194
9 - Simplicity Itself ...............................................................210
10 - A Night in Town............................................................235
11 - Uneasy Lies the Head, Part I .........................................261
12 - Durine............................................................................270
13 - The Road .......................................................................285
14 - Biemestren.....................................................................314
15 - The Road, Again............................................................323
16 - Bats and Owls................................................................340
17 - Seemings........................................................................362
18 - Brutal Necessity.............................................................371
19 - Division .........................................................................388
20 - Uneasy Lies the Head, Part II ........................................401
21 - Miron .............................................................................421
22 - Pirojil and Durine ..........................................................467
23 - The Baroness and the Proctor ........................................472
24 - New Pittsburgh ..............................................................489
25 - Geraden..........................................................................497
26 - Death of a Dragon..........................................................512
27 - Burials............................................................................530
28 - Uneasy Lies the Head, Part III.......................................537

8
1 - Their Attention is Arrested
here will be payment for your crimes, foul
deceiver. Justice demands an accounting!''
Enh.
Beneath the flickering of the uncaring stars, the
smoking torches, and the slow, crimson-to-orangeto-
blue pulse of the distant faerie lights, the
handsome young warrior leveled the point of his
absurdly too-short spear at where the obese form of
the wicked prince cringed in a bed that was too
small, although understandably so: a full-sized bed
would have taken up too much room.
"Aye," the young warrior said, his voice a stage
whisper that could carry as far as need be, his accent
foreign although impossible to place, "you may
count on it, traitor Prince. You sold out Barony
Furnael, and today there'll surely be an accounting."
T

9
That had already been said, and not particularly
well, either.
"By my fathers and theirs, I swear there'll be an
accounting," the ramrod-straight nobleman echoed,
clapping his hand to the young warrior's shoulder. "I
swear that to you, Pirondael, and to you, Walter
Slovotsky."
Again, he repeated himself. Redundantly.
Argh.
Neither the warrior nor the nobleman at his side
seemed to notice how the prince's hand fumbled
with a blade under his pillow. It wasn't as though it
was hidden from them, but their gaze never left the
prince's face.
"An accounting," the evil prince said with a
snicker, "you'd have an accounting, would you? Of
course I sold off your barony, Furnael. It was dead,
gone, lost, a rotting corpse, stinking in the sun. Are
those words you do not understand, dear Baron? If
the corpse could serve Bieme, then how could I not
let the Holts consume the body bite by bite? Why
should I not have allowed them to feast on the
carrion?" He leaned forward, as though about to
impart a secret, and the baron leaned forward as
though to receive it, pausing dramatically, as no

10
word would have been able to be heard through the
gasps.
Pirojil leaned back in his seat as the scene played
itself predictably, inexorably, repetitively toward the
moment that Pirondael would stab Furnael, and then
Walter Slovotsky would kill the prince with the
single throw of a knife.
He had seen much better, but what had he
expected? Birth of an Empire was hardly a classic in
the spirit of Iranys or Tea for the Tendentious. The
stage was too small, and the actors were by no
means the best in the empire.
It did have some virtues, though: for one thing, of
the three playhouses open in Biemestren, the House
of Wise Tidings was the only one featuring a
production Pirojil had not already seen at all, much
less repeatedly. For another thing, the lighting was
well done: save for the stage, the room was dark,
and in the dark, Pirojil was no more ugly than
anybody else; his massive, irregular brows, his huge
broken nose and jutting jaw did not offend.
At that thought, his blunt fingers went to the
signet ring on his finger, the gem as always turned
inwards. Of his birthright, it was all that he had kept,
though he didn't know why he kept it; Pirojil had

11
long since given up any nostalgia about his short
childhood.
The worst thing about the play, though, was the
play.
Who was this idiot playwright, and what could be
done to stop him before he wrote again?
"Aiee!" Baron Furnael screamed. "I am stabbed."
Enough. That was enough for Pirojil. Some light
theater in the dark was one thing; to watch an
incompetent pretty boy - the hair at his temples
whitened to simulate middle age because he wasn't
enough of an actor to simply act middle-aged -
prance about the stage awkwardly pretending, well,
that was not a way to spend the rest of the evening.
Enough.
Time to go back to the rooms, or maybe stop by
the barracks. The small detachment from Barony
Cullinane was billeted in the imperial barracks, and
perhaps there would be something interesting to do
there, or in one of the taverns that sprouted up in the
neighborhood like mushrooms on a cow flop.
There would be, at least, a fight to get into. The
feel of blood on his knuckles or even in his mouth

12
would distract him, for a while. You did the best you
could, after all.
He rose and apologetically worked his way to the
aisle - there was no need to interfere with the rapt
enjoyment of the audience - then up the stone steps
to the exit passageway, just barely conscious of the
way he reflexively re-rigged his sword to hang
properly at his side, hilt forward, not quite
projecting from his cloak.
As he walked down the sharp-edged stone steps to
the mud of the street, three men silently detached
themselves from the shadows outside of the theater
and moved quickly across the street toward him,
If Durine and Kethol had been there, he would
have braced them without thinking of it, planning on
faking at the one on the right, then taking the center
one for himself, leaving left-handed Kethol the one
on the left; Durine could take the one on the right,
and then turn to help him out, if needed. Best to get
in close, fast, before he found out whether or not
they had pistols. And if there were more waiting in
the shadows, best to get these three out of the way.
But he was alone, and they were three, and he was
many things, but he was not a fool; without warning,
Pirojil broke from a walk into a run and made for
the alleyway.

13
There were cries behind him, which suited him
just as well. He added his own: "Fire, I smell fire!"
and broke from a trot into a full run, dodging refuse
and leaping over a drainpipe, figuring that whoever
the three were, they'd not be foolish enough to
follow an armed man into a dark alley.
If they were, they'd find him waiting for a moment
at the other end of the alley, and have two down
before the third one was ready. But he'd only wait
for a moment, to see if they were fools.
Four others were waiting for him as he exited the
alley at a dead run. One held a naked sword in one
hand and a flintlock pistol in the other; the second, a
short fighting spear with a brass ferrule at the butt
for when he preferred to club rather than stab; the
third, just a sword; and the last carried a lantern on a
pole.
The larger of the two swordsmen, the one with the
pistol, took a step forward, brushing aside his own
cloak to reveal the red and silver livery of the Home
Guard, with the embroidered cuffs that labeled him
an officer, as though the pistol hadn't.
Well, maybe the pistol hadn't - but displaying the
pistol had. Pirojil's flintlock pistol was concealed in
his cloak; he wasn't an officer.

14
"You're the one they call Pirojil?" he asked.
The one with the spear snickered. "He's sure ugly
enough to be."
In another country, in another time, Pirojil would
have had his ears for that. Not out of rank, but in a
fair fight, one on one. He entered the face for his
very private mental book of accounts; someday, if
possible, he would repay the fellow with interest.
But that was for some possible future, and this
was here and now, and all he did was say, "I am
Pirojil."
The leader nodded. "Very well. The dowager
empress wants to see you."
Pirojil could have asked, Which one?
There were, after all, two dowager empresses:
one, Andrea Cullinane, the widow of the Old
Emperor and the mother of the former heir; the
other, Beralyn Furnael, the mother of the reigning
emperor, Thomen Furnael. And both dowager
empresses were in Biemestren at the moment, along
with some others from Castle Cullinane accompanying
Walter Slovotsky, who had mysteriously
disappeared three nights ago.

15
But Pirojil knew which of the two widows of dead
emperors would send armed men after him, and
which one would merely have sent for him, trusting
him, as well she could, to come to her side if he had
to hack his way through bodies to do so.
"Then I am, of course, at her service," he said, as
dryly as he could manage.
He nodded as he unbuckled his sword and handed
it over along with his own pistol - that saved them
the trouble of searching him. If necessary, he could
sell his life dearly with the small dagger strapped to
his left forearm.
Or with his bare hands.
It didn't make much difference.
"It doesn't make much difference," Kethol said,
adjusting the patch over his right eye before
reaching across the table to remove a single bone
from the stack and add it to his pile, and it didn't
matter much at all: the stack was topped by a
triangular bone, point up, and there were exactly two
bones below that could possibly be removed without
causing the stack to collapse. Granted, things were
made no easier for playing on a rough-hewn table,
finished only in dirt and soot and dried beer, but it
would have been the same on a proper, smoothly

16
polished oak table as well. The only difference
would be the sound of the bones as they hit the
table.
He tilted up his bowl, draining the last of the beef
and barley soup.
He had won again, and it was one of Tymael's
men who would pay for his food and drink, and not
just tonight's, but a good tenday of eating and
drinking. There was little to it: just a matter of
thinking things through a few more steps than the
others could; just a matter of saving the bulk of his
drinking until after he was done gambling for the
night.
Kethol liked the feel of that. The money might be
coming from the pockets of the soldiers, but it had
been put there by Tyrnael, and there was a certain
pleasure in taking money from the nobility. It
wouldn't have been as pleasant, of course, as taking
it off Baron Tyrnael's dead body, but this was much
safer.
Fister ran unclean fingers through his beerspattered
beard, then turned and spat on the ground.
"Agh. No place to play, and only three plays to
make."

17
"Two," Kethol said. "Pull the pinbone like you're
thinking, and the round one will give enough to
lever the base to one side."
Fister cocked his head to one side. "You think so,
do you?"
"Double the stakes, and you win if it works."
Kethol was already stacking his own bones when
the sounds of tick, bop, and rattlerattlerattlerattle
told of the collapse of the stack.
His fingers, moving much more dexterously than
such large-knuckled digits ought to have, finished
stacking his own bones, then stacked Fister's on top
of them. "Twenty-three, I make it," he said. Kethol
couldn't read, but he could count just fine.
It was while Fister was reaching below the table
that Kethol finally noticed that all the other soldiers
in the tavern were in the green livery of Tyrnael,
except for one youngster in brown Adahan garb who
was already making for the front door. He affected
not to notice the way that two Tyr-naelians had
taken their beer mugs and edged down the bar
toward the front door, neatly blocking his escape.
It was past time to leave.

18
"Now," Kethol said, "if you'll just be paying up,
I'll be on my way." He stood slowly.
That was the wrong thing to say. "You'll be
playing again; let a man have a chance for some
revenge."
It was suddenly quieter and colder in the room.
"I'll be seeing the money first," Kethol said. No
harm in making that move, even though Fister had a
counter to it. Fister would bring the money out, and
then Kethol would have to play him again, and
again, until either Kethol lost - as though he could
lose against an idiot like this - or the Tyrnaelian
owed more than he possibly could pay, at which
point the fists would start flying. That was
something that Kethol could only forestall with a
blade or pistol, but to draw either without
provocation - and surely nobody present would
testify that he had been provoked - would bring him
into conflict with the laws against informal dueling,
and not merely the expected-to-be-violated
regulations against an honest fight now and then.
The emperor himself had been a judge before
assuming the Silver Crown; he took his laws
seriously, and offenses personally.
The informal rules had almost the force of law
themselves; they were clear, and not often violated:

19
Kethol would be left beaten, though not beyond the
easy repair of the nearest Spidersect healer, and in
the confusion all his money would have disappeared,
and his weapons, too.
So as Fister shrugged and brought his pouch onto
the table, Kethol echoed his shrug and started to take
his seat. Moving smoothly, neither quickly nor
slowly, Kethol drew the knife from the belt of the
Tyrnaelian on his left and stabbed downward, hard.
The knife pierced Fister's sleeve, pinning his arm
to the table. Kethol grabbed at Fister's purse with
one hand, pulling the table - beer mugs, bones,
Fister and all - toward himself. He slipped the purse
down the front of his own tunic, freeing both hands:
his left hand to scoop a beer mug up to slam into the
face of the Tyrnaelian who had unwittingly donated
the knife, while the back of his right fist snapped up
and into Fister's jaw, slamming it shut.
Now all he had to do was escape. The front door
was blocked, but the door to the kitchen stood open,
waiting, inviting. Kethol plunged through -
- bowling over the fat innkeeper's even fatter
wife, who had been standing in front of the manhigh
hearth, stirring a bubbling vat of the same beef
and barley soup that now warmed Kethol's belly. He
snatched the blackened, food-encrusted ladle from

20
down over the fireplace and splashed a stream of hot
soup toward the door to forestall any pursuit before
exiting out the back door and into the night, picking
his way carefully through the alley while he
switched the patch from his right eye to his left,
brightening the night considerably.
Shortly, he would be able to dispense with the
patch entirely, and by the time the Tyrnaelians went
looking for a dark-haired Cullinane man with an eye
patch, Kethol would have the dye washed from his
red hair and be looking out at the world with his two
good eyes.
All in all, not a bad evening, although it would
have been nicer if -
"One moment, if you will," sounded from behind
him. Kethol turned to face a large Tyrnaelian, sword
drawn.
"Bide a while, if you please," sounded from in
front of him. There was another; he was surrounded.
"Very well." He drew his own blade. "As you
will." Two against one wasn't Kethol's favorite odds,
but if running was impossible, then so be it: let the
night end with a spurt of blood. Although it was
times like this that he wished he hadn't given up the

21
buskins and hunting knife of a woodsman for a
soldier's boots and sword.
But that decision had been made long ago, and
now ...
He took a hesitant step forward. Feint toward the
one in front, and then -
"As entertaining as this would be," another voice
sounded, as a squad of imperials surrounded Kethol
and the Tyrnaelians, stepping out of the darkness as
though from behind a curtain, "we have some
business with this soldier, if you're Kethol of Barony
Cullinane."
Kethol doubted that denial would do him very
much good, even if it was believed. None of the
imperials looked like the gullible sort. "That I am."
"I know." The imperial, a tall, long-faced man
whose clothing and well-tended beard spoke of
noble origins, waved his free hand at the
Tyrnaelians. "Begone, in the name of the dowager
empress." He turned to Kethol as though they had
already left. "She has business with you, Kethol," he
said.
Just as well, Kethol thought.
Just as well, Durine thought, as the two footpads approached
him from the rear.

22
If it had gotten much later, I'd have had to go back
to the rooms and get some sleep. It would be a
shame to go home empty-handed, but that happened
sometimes. Kethol would understand; not every
hunt brought game.
The footsteps slowed, sounding tentative. They'd
realized how big he was, and were getting nervous.
So he huddled deeper into his cloak, and added an
extra little weave to his step, then clung to a
lamppost for support for a moment before staggering
on.
The two behind him separated, one ducking down
a side street; off in the distance, his feet made
pittapittapittapitta sounds as he started to run down
three streets, three sides of a square, while Durine
staggered down one.
Durine stopped, shook his head as though clearing
it, then continued on rapidly, the footpad behind him
picking up the pace. He gathered his fox-trimmed
cape more tightly about himself for just a moment,
using the movement to cover how he untied it from
his shoulders. Durine wore the cape for more
sensible reasons than the way its formlessness
tended to hide his size.

23
The two of them had fairly good timing: the
runner came around the corner, half out of breath,
just as the other one closed from behind.
"Please, good sir," the runner said. He was really
too young to be doing this: perhaps fifteen, beardless
without effort, dressed in a workingman's blousy
coarse-woven shirt and cheap wool trousers that had
been patched often, if not well. But he had just the
right look of desperation as he said, "Please, sir, you
must help me. My mother - "
That was the moment when the lead-shot-filled
cosh was supposed to come down on Durine's head,
knocking him down, dazing him. It might not be
enough to knock him out, of course, but a bit of
work with their boots would fix that. They might not
kill him or even leave him crippled, but they would
leave with his valuables in their pouches and his
blood on the ground.
It would have worked neatly, but Durine had
already ducked to the right, his left arm flinging his
cloak back like a fisherman tossing a net; there were
several gold coins sewn into the hem of it, both as
weights and as part of their collective cache of
money.
His left foot came up and caught the robber in the
gut, kicking him away, the combination of the cloak

24
and the kick taking him out of action at least for a
moment, although Durine wouldn't have minded if
the robber smashed his head open on the wall behind
him.
Moving swiftly, the boy in front of him brought
up a knife, but Durine had been looking for that, too,
and his left hand came down, seizing the wrist and
squeezing it tight so that he could feel bones grind
against each other, while his right hand slapped the
boy's head back and forth once, twice, three times.
Durine let the limp body drop to the ground, then
stooped to pluck the knife from the boy's fingers. No
sense in letting a nice knife go to waste.
The other robber had bounced off the wall and
fallen on his too-pretty face. The fool didn't have the
presence of mind to lie still and hope Durine
wouldn't bother with him - he was starting to
struggle under the cloak, trying to get to his hands
and knees and get it off him at the same time. Durine
didn't want to get it all dirty and bloody, so he
simply brought the bottom of his fist down on the
hidden head, then snatched his cloak away.
The cosh fell from nerveless fingers, and Durine
kicked at the head with his boot, just once.
Once was enough.

25
Durine neither dawdled nor rushed as he retrieved
their weapons, using the boy's knife to slice both of
the coshes open, letting a stream of lead shot fall to
the street. Durine never believed in carrying a cosh;
he had hands, after all.
The older robber's knife was a long rusty blade of
cheap steel; Durine bent it double against the wall,
and threw it to one side. But the boy's knife was
another matter. Not a bad knife, at that. A fingerlong
blade of good sharp steel, single-edged,
wooden hilt tightly wound with brass wire, flat steel
pommel. The sort of thing a nobleman might carry at
his waist. Certainly stolen, and probably worth
keeping. With a little work on a new hilt - perhaps a
thicker one that would fit better in Durine's
oversized fingers? he would have to think about that
- it would be unrecognizable, as it would have to be
if he were to keep it.
He wouldn't want to be accused of theft, after all.
Durine sliced off a piece of the boy's shirt,
wrapped the knife tightly, and stashed it in his own
pouch before he knelt down next to the bodies.
Sometimes it didn't work. Sometimes, even on a nice
bright night like this, a night made for robbery, a
pair would go to ground after their first score, and if
that was so, if Durine was their first intended victim,

26
that meant that Durine would have to find another
set of robbers or go home none the -
Ah. A fat purse gave up a nice handful of bright
coins, and the hidden coachman's-style belt pouch
disgorged a trio of engraved rings and a small
handful of unmounted - well, now unmounted -
jewels, although it was hard to tell what they were in
the dark.
No matter. The rings would melt down easily
enough. The jewels, along with the money, he
pocketed, and walked away, not bothering to check
to see if by some chance either of the two footpads
had survived. What were they going to do, go to an
armsman and complain?
Durine grinned to himself as he picked up his
pace, now without a trace of weave in his walk.
It was all logical, and Durine prided himself on
being logical, if not particularly clever. He and his
friends needed more money than simple soldiers
earned, but Durine was unable to take it by honest
means like gambling, and he was almost as
unwilling as he was unsuited to being a thief.
On the other hand, there was more than one way
to graze in the tall grasses that Biemestren had
become with the growth in trade of the empire, and

27
there was little enough else to do with the family
safely in residence at Biemestren Castle. If he could
not or would not graze in the grasses himself, he
could eat of those that did, and sometimes the
grazing was good, and when the grazing was good
the animals were fat with coin.
He was still silently congratulating himself as he
approached the barracks and found himself
surrounded by a troop of men in imperial livery.
"And you would be Durine?" the officer asked.
"Well, yes." He shrugged. "Somebody has to be.
Why not me?"

28
2 - The Dowager Empress
he wind from the city below changed again,
bringing the smell of horse urine and
woodsmoke to her nostrils.
Beralyn Furnael, dowager empress of Holtun-
Bieme, quickened her pace along the broad stone
walkway atop the battlements, a walkway that was
lit only by flickering torches, widely spaced.
She seethed as she walked the parapets, and swore
half-remembered oaths taught to her in childhood by
a family retainer more years ago than she tried to
think about. As she passed the guard station, both of
the soldiers leaped to a brace, despite her standing
orders that everybody simply stay out of her way but
otherwise ignore her during her nightly walk.
She would have stopped to discuss the breach with
them, but she was too tired, and felt that if she
stopped, she wouldn't be able to start again. Besides,
she already had an appointment to put a scare into
T

29
some soldiers; there was no need for an appetizer
before the meal.
On to the next guard station...
There were fourteen such stations along the outer
wall of the keep; she had now passed a dozen, and
had but two more to trudge past if her count was
correct, which it was, more often than not.
She had been making an effort to count of late. It
felt as though the last few guard stations got further
and further apart every day. She was getting too old,
that was the problem, and while that problem would
cure itself eventually, the rest of it wouldn't. This
daily walk - rain, shine, sleet, or hail - around the top
of Castle Biemestren's walls helped to keep her
going, but tenday by tenday, it took more time and
more effort, and the climb up the ninety-three steps
to the parapet got harder and harder all the time.
But iron will would succeed where soft flesh alone
would have failed, and before she stepped off into
the Great Dark, her son would be secure on his
throne and his new dynasty established. Her nightly
walk didn't just help to keep her thick old blood
oozing slowly through her veins; it was a time to
help her focus her thinking. The Widow of Biemestren
Castle, they called her, and the walkway
above the walls that encircled the outer ward was

30
now called the Widow's Path, the term laden with
equal portions of scorn and fear.
Good. Let them all fear her. Scorn was perfectly
acceptable, if the fear came with it. She had lost her
husband and one son to the cursed Cullinanes, and
while that maniac Jason Cullinane, the Cullinane
heir, had chosen to abdicate the throne in favor of
Thomen, that earned him and them no good will.
Not from her. Thomen ought to have been the heir
in the first place, not given the crown because Jason
Cullinane just didn't want to be emperor.
Besides, the Cullinane heir could probably reclaim
the crown if and when he pleased. Beralyn didn't
believe in fooling herself; while she didn't share the
awe of the almost legendary Cullinanes and their
Other Side friends, that put her in a small minority.
Idiots, all of them.
She had known the late, great Karl Cullinane all
too well. He had been deft with a sword, no doubt,
had had a certain air of authority and competence
about him, but he had been clumsy enough to let
both Rahff and Zherr get killed in his presence. And
he had been reckless enough to get himself killed -
and not leading his troops in battle, for which there
would at least have been some sense and sanity, but

31
while leading some pursuers away from his son, like
a mother deer leading hunters from her hidden
fawns.
He had gotten what the mother deer usually got,
and Beralyn Furnael missed him not at all.
It wasn't like he was completely gone, either.
Even dead, he lived on in legend: Karl Cullinane,
the Old Emperor.
If she had had any spare spit, she would have spat.
On all the Cullinanes. Jason Cullinane was off
somewhere, haring about, searching for some
childhood friend who was in trouble, knowing full
well that even though he was avoiding his
responsibilities in the empire, others would look
after his barony and his family for him, just as
others had looked after his father's responsibilities
for him. Jason's mother, Andrea, and his sister, Aiea,
now slept safely in a guest suite not two floors away
from Thomen, their doors guarded by soldiers from
Barony Cullinane and Thomen's explicit and very
public command that no harm was ever to come to
them.
Pfah. Beralyn could have laughed while they were
murdered in their beds. If that wouldn't have made
Thomen look like an accomplice in murder. If that
wouldn't have made the emperor look like he

32
couldn't even protect people under his own roof. If
Thomen wouldn't have known that Beralyn was
behind that. If, if, if - the bile rose in her throat at the
taste of ifs.
Captain Derinald was waiting for her at the last
guard station. He was a tall, slim man with a careful
way of speaking in counterpoint to the sloppy handwaving
gestures that spoke of his Nerish upbringing.
"Good evening, Your Majesty," he said, his hands
spread wide as though in greeting to a longlost
friend. "It's good to see you looking so well."
She grunted. "I understand that it is quite dark,
Derinald, but even in the blackness of night you
should be able to see - and smell, if that tiny nose of
yours is good for anything beside impressing the
ladies with how large the mustache underneath it is -
that I'm sweating like a pig, just as you should easily
be able to hear that I'm wheezing like a horse. I'm a
feeble old woman, and easily gulled - as you well
know - but I'm not easily moved by hollow pity or
empty flattery."
"Your Majesty is, of course, correct that she is not
easily moved by such; permit me to tender my
apologies." He offered the crook of his elbow, which
she accepted with a quick tightening of her lips in

33
gratitude. Walking up the stone steps was painful,
but walking down was dangerous.
"Since you've returned, I take it you found them?"
she asked.
"Of course, and as Your Majesty instructed,"
Derinald said, "they await you in the throne room."
"And my son?"
"Abed, presumably asleep."
"Good."
Thomen probably wouldn't approve of her
intentions with the Cullinane soldiers, but what he
didn't know, he wouldn't protest. What her son
hadn't forbidden, Derinald would know better than
to report to him. There were legends that the way a
wizard created a thrall was to steal its soul and keep
it in a bottle. There were simpler ways to do that if
you were the dowager empress. It was merely a matter
of finding someone who you could persuade you
would reward for loyalty and silent obedience, and
who you would even more certainly punish for any
lack of either.
It was hardly necessary to ride such a thrall with
sharp spurs and a heavy bit. The certainty of
punishment and an occasional reward were

34
sufficient in and of themselves; taking the thrall into
one's confidence sealed him in his obedience and
industry.
In this case, it was in essence a very simple plan,
and there was no need to keep it from loyal
Derinald.
Thomen had wanted that horrible Walter
Slovotsky to investigate that problem in Keranahan,
thinking it not much of a problem at all - and,
besides, it was his sort of thing. A no-doubt-pretty
young noble girl, who needed some assistance? The
legendary and entirely overrated Walter Slovotsky
was perfect for such an assignment He would likely
charm half the women of Keranahan out of their
clothing and onto the nearest flat surface, and if in
doing that he - whom Beralyn held responsible for
Zherr's murder just as surely as if he himself had
wielded the knife instead of Pirondael - might leave
his own back open for someone else's knife, Beralyn
would waste no tears.
Which was why she had been prevailing upon her
son to order Walter Slovotsky to Keranahan.
It was just his sort of thing. He could take a
carriage and ride out there, planning on retrieving
the girl to Biemestren, spending his days pumping
her in the carriage while enjoying the scenery.

35
He certainly would make himself a nuisance there;
perhaps he could just get himself killed.
But Walter Slovotsky had dodged: he had left
unceremoniously, in the middle of the night, before
Thomen had the chance to make his suggestion and
order.
Still, with Walter Slovotsky gone, a few Cullinane
soldiers would do.
Either they would succeed in Keranahan, and their
success would be hers, although it would only be a
small one, or they would fail, and their failure would
be the Cullinanes', and Beralyn would make that a
major embarrassment. It was like that child's game
of egg, rock, and water. Egg floats in water, rock
smashes egg, water washes rock.
If your opponent picked before you, you could
always win. And if you could force him to choose ...
She touched at her pocket, where the letter rested.
'Take me to my rooms. I'll want to bathe and
change before I meet them."
Derinald nodded. "Of course, Your Majesty. It
will do them no harm to await your pleasure."
She gave a derisive sniff at the very thought that
one could even think otherwise.

36
Pirojil had never liked throne rooms, and this one
was worse than most. Too many memories, some of
them personal.
Even before the conquest of Holtun had turned the
two countries into the empire of Holtun-Bieme, the
Old Emperor - then, technically, Prince Karl
Cullinane - had had Prince Pirondael's bric-a-brac
self-portraiture stripped away from the walls, the
carpets rolled up and put away, and the tables and
chairs and rows of benches moved over to the Home
Guard mess, leaving the large room stark and empty
save for the elevated throne at the far end. The
throne room hadn't gotten much use for audiences,
not during the war years, and not during the
following ones - although the Old Emperor had been
known to bring in a bunch of randomly chosen
Home Guard soldiers for a practice melee with
padded sticks every now and then, giving a special
bruising to any one of them who he even suspected
might be taking it easy on him.
Pirojil rubbed at his shoulder at the memory. The
truth was that he had just been suffering from a spot
of indigestion that day - but that hadn't saved him
from the Old Emperor.

37
He suppressed a grin at the memory. He had done
a lot more for Karl Cullinane than take a few bruises
with good enough grace.
There was a time when he and the other two had
ridden through hell at the Old Emperor's side, the
sole survivors of the whole troop that Karl Cullinane
had taken with him on the foolish escapade that had
gotten him killed, as Durine had always known that
his excesses would. Nobles didn't go out and risk
their own tender hides; that's what they had soldiers
for.
But even after Karl Cullinane's death, while Jason
Cullinane was the heir and Thomen Furnael but the
regent, Pirojil, Kethol, and Durine might have been,
at least in theory, ordinary soldiers, but they had
been his companions in battle, and that had brought
a certain status.
But now it was different. Lush Kiaran tapestries in
deep, restful shades of rich forest green and
midnight blues covered the walls, and ankle-deep
carpets, dark crimson like fresh blood, covered the
floors.
The oak tables and chairs and benches were back,
and they had spawned others - when Parliament met,
the barons and major lords were dined here - and

38
another, equally large and majestic chair had been
added next to the emperor's throne.
Kethol's head cocked to one side. "I don't know
why she added another throne for him," he said.
Durine just grunted; the big man didn't think it
was funny, either.
Pirojil's hand dropped to where the hilt of his
sword should have been, would have been, in the old
days. The Old Emperor used to grin at that habit of
Pirojil's, a habit that Pirojil had to consciously
control.
But these days there was no Cullinane on the
throne, and there was no sword at his hip. These
days, the three of them were to come unarmed into
the Residence, on the rare occasions when they were
summoned to the Residence at all.
Pirojil turned at the sound of footsteps to see the
arrival of the dowager empress, accompanied by
Captain Derinald and a quartet of soldiers from the
House Guard.
Her dumpy bulk was concealed by a long-sleeved
black muslin dress that didn't quite cover the blocky
shoes, and her dark gray hair was tied back tightly
behind her head, as though keeping it tight kept her
lined face from falling off.

39
Derinald and the rest of the soldiers were decked
out in the black and white uniform of the House
Guard: black leather tunic over a rough-woven
cotton shirt and black cotton trousers for the
soldiers; blousy white shirt and black leather vest
over silver-trimmed trousers for the officer. There
were some that said the House Guard were the very
elite of the Home Guard, the emperor's personal
troops. And there were others, like Pirojil, Kethol,
and Durine, who just thought they dressed better -
but Pirojil, Kethol, and Durine knew well enough to
think that and not say it.
Pirojil and the other two had come to a stiff brace,
which the dowager empress dismissed with a flip of
her liver-spotted hand.
"Be easy, you three, be easy," she said, her eyes
sunken pits in her piggish face. The flickering light
of the torches on the walls enhanced the alreadydeep
hollows in her cheeks.
The bright gold clasp at her throat, holding the
collar of her dress tightly closed against her livery
flesh, provided the only bright note in her dress, or
her person. Her withered lips were pursed into a
permanent frown, and her jawline was jowly and
doughy, but the eyes still held more intelligence than
Pirojil was comfortable with.

40
Intelligence was an important thing, he had long
ago learned to his anguish and pain, but intelligence
was not always a friendly thing.
"I have a problem, and I require your help in
solving it," she said. "It will require some time and
effort."
Kethol nodded. "Our pleasure, of course," he said,
lying for all three of mem.
"But you haven't heard what it is yet," she said
with the slightest of sneers, as though she had taken
Kethol at face value.
Pirojil smiled in agreement, enjoying the way that
forced her to look upon his ugliness. 'True enough.
Your Majesty, but whatever you might ask us to do
would be our pleasure, of course, once we explain
the necessity of our absence to the baronial regent."
She sniffed.
That had been a mistake, and he should have
known better; Pirojil forced himself not to wince.
Doria Perlstein was holding down that job at Castle
Cullinane; and Doria Perlstein was one of the Other
Siders, all of whom this dowager empress hated. He
shouldn't have mentioned her.

41
"No," the dowager empress said, "that won't be
necessary. Any necessary explanations will come
from Biemestren and the emperor. You will go by
way of Castle Cullinane, but you are to follow
orders, and not let your tongues wag excessively.
Understood?"
A pointless demand, as she certainly should have
known and almost certainly did know. The three of
them were fealty-bound, by oaths of the mouth and
intents of the heart, to the Cullinanes. The chance
that they would not report in full to the Cullinane
regent was, at best, infinitesimally small.
But the dowager empress knew that, which meant
that either she was just venting her spleen
pointlessly or she had some subtler, deeper motives
for giving an order she well knew they wouldn't
consider obeying.
Pirojil nodded. "As you wish, Your Majesty, of
course." Lying came easy to Kethol and Durine, as
well:
"As you command," Durine said.
And from Kethol: "We won't discuss it."
She grunted. "Good. And as to where," she said,
pulling a letter out of her pocket, "it is Keranahan.
As to whom, it is Lady Leria Vor'sen."

42
Kethol looked over at Pirojil, who kept his face
studiously blank.
Pirojil didn't know where Kethol had gotten the
idea that Pirojil knew something about noble
families, and he didn't much like Kethol hinting to
others that he did. Durine, too, had, over the years,
hinted that he suspected that Pirojil had been born
noble, perhaps, but from the wrong seed perhaps,
perhaps planted in the wrong womb. But there was
nothing in that that Pirojil cared to display wantonly
even to companions, much less to enemies.
Pirojil shook his head and spread his hands.
"We're three ordinary soldiers, Your Majesty; we
don't know much about such things."
Her laugh was quiet, but harsh, and held not a
whiff of amusement. "I'm sure you'll do quite well, if
you try hard enough. Now, Lady Leria is from an
ancient Holtish lineage. You've never heard of Lord
Lerian? As in Lerian's Vengeance?"
Pirojil could tell from the way Kethol didn't move
that he knew what the dowager empress was talking
about, but Pirojil didn't and it was only a little harder
to tell the truth than it would have been for him to
lie convincingly: "Apologies, Majesty, but..."

43
The dowager empress dismissed it with a wave.
"Never you mind that, then. It doesn't matter. It
probably won't matter to you, either, that she
probably could make a good argument that she's the
Euar'den heir to the Tynearian throne, but
Keranahan and Holtun swallowed up Tynear and the
Euar'den lineage five generations ago almost as
neatly as an owl swallows a mouse - as neatly as I
would have wished Bieme to have swallowed up
Holtun.
"The problem is that she is a young, marriageable
woman of some property and more potential
political importance, placed in wardship to the
barony, and she's managed to smuggle a letter out to
me, asking my help, claiming that Elanee, Baroness
Keranahan, is pressuring her to marry the putative
baronial heir."
Durine let out another grunt. When you have spent
enough years fighting and sweating and sometimes
swiving side by side with someone, you could
almost read that someone's thoughts given only the
smallest of cues, and Durine's grunt spoke volumes.
Durine thought it was a trivial matter to involve the
dowager empress and themselves.
He was wrong. Pirojil would have shrugged and
explained it to him if it had been politic. Anything

44
involving the movement of money or power toward
the baron's family might not be important, but it
wasn't trivial.
Barony Keranahan was a conquered Holtish
barony. The Keranahan family had given their name
to the barony over which they reigned, but they
didn't rule, and while imperial policy under the
Cullinanes had been to quickly return loyal Holtish
baronies to home rule, that had slowed during Thomen
Furnael's emperorship. Pirojil thought that
wise, but it didn't much matter what a common
soldier thought about it.
"It's just a minor matter, perhaps, of an overly
romantic young girl," the dowager empress went on,
"but she has appealed to my better nature, and I
want to be sure that things go well with her."
Well, that was surely a lie: the dowager empress
didn't have a better nature. And Pirojil didn't believe
for a moment that the fate of one girl was something
that Beralyn cared about.
But it still would bear looking into. There really
shouldn't be a problem. The baroness of a ruled
barony shouldn't have had enough authority to force
any such thing.

45
Where was the governor, and what was he doing?
Sitting on one thumb, counting his graft with the
other?
It wasn't the fact of it. An overbred, spoiled chit
had been forced into a politically convenient
marriage before, and surely would be again. But the
implications bothered him.
His thoughts must have been too easy to read on
his face, because the dowager empress was looking
him in the eye.
"The governor's name is Treseen," she said. "His
regular reports to the emperor suggest no such
problems, and while there have been some
occasional interruptions in the telegraph from
Neranahan, his reports do come in regularly,
suggesting that there's nothing at all serious wrong."
She sniffed. "Except, perhaps, one hysterical girl
who overreacts to an obvious sort of suggestion
from the baroness of an alliance that should benefit
both families, the barony, Holtun, and the empire.
Or perhaps the girl is not hysterical, and is merely
reacting to the head of a snake, while the body lies
concealed? You will investigate, and report fully, do
you hear? Fully."
"Of course." Pirojil nodded. "Understood, Your
Majesty. But - "

46
"But nothing." She turned to Captain Derinald,
who handed over three scrolls, each wrapped with a
ribbon and sealed, although with what seal, Pirojil
could not have said.
"This," she said, holding up the first one, wrapped
in a beige ribbon, "is your orders, unsigned; the
second is the copy for the imperial archives." She
paused for a moment, as though she had changed
her mind about saying something, and then went on:
"You'll need to get it signed by either Baron
Cullinane, if he's honoring his home with his
presence," she said, her voice dripping sarcasm, "or
the Cullinane regent. You'll want to present these
orders to Governor Treseen, as I doubt he'll take you
seriously otherwise. You leave at first light;
Derinald will travel with you to Castle Cullinane,
see that the orders are signed, and will return with
our copy. Just so there will be no problem later."
The third scroll she held hesitantly. "This is a
death warrant, signed by my son. The name is blank,
although the ... object of the warrant is described as
'a noble or subject of Barony Keranahan.' " She
smiled briefly. "Yes, I know the story of Pirondael's
Warrant, and while I think it's merely a tale, I've
learned from it. If you were to use this, I would have
to explain why to my son, and although he's a

47
patient listener, I'll not try his patience
unnecessarily. You are very simply not to use this
unless you're willing to explain the necessity to me,
and I am not a patient listener. But if you find it
convenient, you may threaten somebody with it."
She looked from face to face to face. "Do we have
an understanding here?"
Pirojil nodded. "Yes, Your Majesty. But I do see
some problems."
Her mouth twisted. "Oh?"
"For one thing, there's the matter of supplies and
such. We're just ordinary soldiers, and while I'd be
happy to spend the little I have in your service ..."
"Adequate monies will be provided," she said.
Pirojil ducked his head. "We are grateful for - "
"I said adequate, not generous. And there will be a
full accounting, so I'd suggest you practice some
economy. If you've need of coin for luxuries, you'd
best speak to your patron, and not expect it from the
Throne. This is not some furlough to be paid for by
my son from the pittance he's able to eke out in
taxes, and I'll look very unkindly on anybody who
sees it otherwise. Do you all understand me?" She
was looking very directly at Kethol for some reason.

48
Kethol nodded. "Of course."
Durine did, too. "Understood, Your Majesty."
"I understand, Your Majesty," Pirojil lied.
That was the problem. He didn't understand, not
really. There was a lot about this that he didn't
understand at all. He doubted that the dowager
empress was lying to them, not exactly, but there
surely was much she was leaving out, and that could
easily be much of the same.
"Good." She turned to Derinald, and laid a
wrinkled hand on his arm. "You will leave with
them, first thing in the morning." She turned back to
Pirojil. "Now get out of my sight."
When they stayed in Biemestren, the three rented a
pair of rooms at a rooming house near the imperial
barracks, just down the hill, at the base of the road
that led up to the keep which dominated the city
below.
It was far enough away from the Biemestren
refuse heap that they didn't have too many rats, and
a row of two-story buildings provided enough shade
that their rooms didn't heat up too much during the
day.

49
For a small bribe to the cooks, a fresh, covered
tray from the soldiers' mess arrived twice a day,
which kept them out of the way of the officers.
House Guard officers all too often felt that they had
to keep billeted baronial troops busy with doing
something, and Pirojil had mucked out enough
stalls, cleaned and oiled enough polearms, and
walked enough extra guard patrols in his time.
Besides that, their pair of rooms gave them a
private enough place to share an occasional whore
brought up from the city. Safer than a dungtown
brothel, and cheaper, too, when you split the cost
three ways.
Arranging for the rooms had taken a bit of the sort
of barracks politics that Kethol always despised
aloud, that he said his father, a soldier-turnedhuntsman,
used to swear was the ruin of good
soldiering, but Pirojil didn't much mind when such
things brought the sort of privacy that he and the
other two liked for their own private reasons.
If Durine was moved by it, or by anything else, he
didn't show it. It was the usual pattern: Kethol
complained, Pirojil endured, and Durine didn't
mind. Or at least he didn't mind aloud, not even to
the other two.

50
It was one thing, of course, to be a private soldier,
another to be a valued retainer, and yet another to be
an expendable baronial man-at-arms in an age when
private loyalties were being dissolved in an imperial
soup, like overcooked turnips turning into
textureless mush.
Pirojil had been a soldier long enough not to flinch
at eating what was set before him, but he had been
raised far away, in a house where one ate with one's
backside on a well-carved chair and one's boots on a
polished wooden floor, not on stools on packed dirt,
and he had been used to dishes cooked properly and
separately, each having its own character, not
thrown in a pot to be turned into indistinguishable,
neutral mush.
Pirojil had little use for mush, in any sense. If he
had to be somebody's hireling, and he clearly did,
he'd rather serve the Cullinanes, each of whose faces
he knew, and not some dough-faced dowager
empress or, much worse, an empire. You could put
yourself in the way of a sword - and he had -
thinking that it was your job to protect the sleeping
children of the man who made sure you were housed
and fed, or you could do it for the food and housing
and money ...
But not for a faceless mush of an empire.

51
Durine shook his massive head as he sorted
through the gems and coins scattered across the
rough-hewn surface of the table. "It looked better on
the street," he said. "But it's still an edible piece of
meat."
"Well," Pirojil said, "if it fills the belly, it will
serve."
"Aye," Kethol said.
They never spoke among themselves about money
and valuables, except by indirection. You did the
best you could to be sure you weren't overheard, but
maybe the best wasn't enough, and it was of a
certainty that uncountable throats and bellies had
been slit for much less than this.
Pirojil picked up one gem, a fine amber garnet
with only a minor flaw, and that just a speck close to
the surface. It probably hadn't been visible when
mounted.
Fairly cheap gems, certainly - he had hardly
expected to find Durine taking a bag of rubies and
diamonds off a pair of street thieves - but the garnets
were good, and the crimson quartz was superb.
Kethol had been listening at the door long enough.
At Durine's and Pirojil's nods of agreement, he
joined them over by the small brazier they kept in

52
front of the unlit fireplace. They always kept it lit,
carefully stoked with expensive hard coal from
Tyrnael, banked to a low heat, a cauldron of vilesmelling
water useful for boiling fouled pistols clean
always ready.
Durine took a couple of hooks from his rucksack
and used them to lift the heavy cauldron. He took
one careful step to the side, then set it gently on the
dirt floor, while Pirojil and Kethol donned gloves
and carefully moved the iron brazier itself.
A flat stone was set underneath, intended to give
the brazier a flat surface; Durine took up his hooks
again and lifted the stone up, revealing a hole
beneath, and a leather bag, which he handed to
Pirojil, who opened it.
The bag was opened to reveal a pair of leather
strips, carefully intertwined with small, mostly silver
but some golden imperial marks, the leather to
prevent the money from jingling together.
The gems were unceremoniously dumped into the
bottom of the bag - they wouldn't clink; the bottom
quarter of the bag was filled with wool yarn, and the
coins held jewels against it - and the bag closed.
Pirojil smiled, and while Durine pulled up his
tunic and shirt, Pirojil strapped the bag to the big

53
man's broad and hairy back. All three of them
carried ordinary pouches containing the few coins
that an ordinary soldier might have, but this was
their cache. An ordinary soldier couldn't put away a
lot of money, not on cot and stew and a handful of
coppers at the end of every tenday, but if you kept
your eyes and your mind open, and hung around
with the right sorts of people, it was entirely possible
to quietly put away a little something to see you and
a couple of friends through your old age, on the off
chance that you should reach an old age.
Particularly when you spent time as bodyguard to
nobles who were less concerned about money than a
commoner had to be. Money was hard to come by
when you couldn't simply tax for it.
They replaced the flagstone lid over the hole in the
floor, Kethol carefully setting three telltale pebbles
in place before covering it with a light layer of dirt
and making some sort of woodsman's mark in the
dirt. The brazier was replaced, and the cauldron over
that. While they would take their money with them,
they would try to rent this same set of rooms the
next time they were billeted in Biemestren, and if
this hiding place remained undetected, it would be
useful then, too.

54
Pirojil lay down on his straw bed, his sword and
pistol beside him, and wrapped his cloak about him.
Durine would have preferred that the cache be
kept somewhere in Castle Cullinane - the old castle
had secret passages and hiding places galore - but
Kethol agreed with Pirojil that they were best off
keeping it with them.
Pirojil wouldn't have left it to two-out-of-three,
anyway. Not on this. Not when it came to trusting a
place. Places could betray you.
Pirojil could recall a time when an ugly young boy
had been kicked out of what had been, up until that
moment, his home, sent out into a cold and rainy
night with nothing more than his cloak, his blade,
and a spavined horse, to ride far away. He had sat all
night in the rain, on a hilltop overlooking that place,
figuring that surely, certainly, it was all a mistake,
that it would be corrected, that somebody would
come after him, to apologize, to explain, to bring
him back into the dryness and the warmth.
In the morning, shivering in the damp cold, his
eyes finally dry, he had gotten on the horse and
ridden away.
Since then, he had too often let himself get
attached to people, but never, ever to places. A place

55
would let you down, a place would betray you, and
there was no way to erase the pain of that betrayal.
Not when you tried to forget it, because you
couldn't. Not when you tried to live with it, because
it burned at you.
And not even when you returned in the middle of
the night and burned it to the ground, watching from
a nearby hilltop while flames and screams turned to
ashes, because even after that, and even after you
pissed on the ashes, the betrayal still stung.
No. Put not your trust in places. Put your trust in
small bags, and watch the small bags. If you kept it
with you, it was yours.
As long as you could fight to keep it.
He was quickly asleep.

56
3 - Doria
ike mice scrabbling in a constantly panicky
but utterly futile attempt to escape from a
closed cardboard box, spells pushed at the
back of Doria Perlstein's mind, as they had for years.
It would have been simplicity itself to let one of
the few remaining ones spew out, pleasantly
vomiting from her mouth into the warmth of the
baronial study, gaining substance and reality,
hardening in the air like streams of melted sugar
turning into hard candy, a dream given flesh.
One of the spells could have persuaded the
annoying, handsome Home Guard captain of
anything whatsoever, and the same impish sense of
humor that used to get her into trouble as a child was
tempted to make him believe he was a duck. It
would be more fun than she had had in years to
watch him fold his arms back like wings, squat, and
quack his way around the study.
L

57
But no. The years with the Hand had taught her
self-control in ways she was still learning to
appreciate, and suppressing that sort of urge had
been an early lesson. If you were going to be a
Daughter of the Healing Hand, dispensing healing
comfort through a gentle touch even more often than
through a healing spell, you had to manage yourself
before you could begin to manage others' hurts.
Doria had no regrets. She had given up the Hand,
and with that the possibility of the Hand restoring a
spell, once used. Spending one of her few remaining
utterly irreplaceable spells on a moment of
amusement for herself and embarrassment for a
pretentious, pompous twit wasn't worth considering
seriously.
But the thought did relax her.
She sat back in the overstuffed chair next to the
man-high fireplace and considered the captain over
the rim of her cup of herb tea. She had been thinking
over it too long; the tea had gone lukewarm,
nowhere near the almost scalding heat she preferred.
She grimaced. It was her job to handle things like
this - that was what Jason Cullinane had made her
regent for, and the emperor had approved it himself -
but it would have been nice to have some advice.

58
But Walter Slovotsky and Bren Adahan and the
dragon had hared off after Jason - via the Home
colony in what the Therranji elves still stubbornly
insisted on referring to as the Valley of Varnath -
and Andrea and Aiea were still in Biemestren.
Walter Slovotsky's wife and daughters were still
here, of course, but Kirah didn't have a lot of sense,
Doranne was a baby, and Janie had her father's
impetuousness. Best to keep them out of the way.
Handling this was her responsibility, after all, not
theirs.
You 're the regent, she said to herself, so rege.
"So," she said, "Thomen's mother wants to send
those three into trouble, and she wants me to order it
for her."
"That's not the way I would put it, Regent."
Derinald's hands fluttered like an Italian's. "I would
not put it that way at all, but I don't object if you
do."
She let a smile creep across her face, and
recrossed her legs, conscious of the way the slit in
her long skirt revealed them to good advantage.
"Call me Doria."
He returned her smile, with interest that didn't feel
simulated. Hmm ... that was unusual for Beralyn.

59
She usually chose flunkies who preferred men, as
the generally unspoken but very real prejudices
against such could bind them more tightly to her.
This Side or the Other Side, if you held the key to
somebody's closet, you owned what was inside, and
if they were inside, that meant you owned them.
On the other hand, even if this one liked women,
it would be beyond credibility for Beralyn to send
one her way whose loyalty could be turned in bed,
even if Doria was willing to.
"Very well, then: Doria. Doria, I hardly see it as
much trouble," Derinald said. "It makes sense to
have the matter looked into, and to do it without
creating the sort of disturbance that an official
imperial envoy would mean is simple courtesy."
"You mean politics."
"Can it not be both?"
"Well, I'll have to think on it some," she said. It
would have been good to have somebody who she
could discuss it with, although thank God Jason
Cullinane wasn't around. Jason was a good kid, but
he had probably made the best political decision of
his life when he had abdicated the imperial throne to
Thomen. Politics wasn't exactly a Cullinane family
specialty, unless the politics involved shooting,

60
slashing, or punching. The Furnaels were much
better at real politics, and wasn't that a two-edged
sword, eh?
Too bad Jason's mother wasn't here, though.
She could talk things over with Andy, and then do
what seemed sensible. But Andrea Cullinane and her
daughter Aiea were in residence in Biemestren,
albeit temporarily, and while they weren't overtly
being used as hostages, there was always that
implication. There was a reason why kings and
emperors enjoyed having their subordinate nobles
and their families pay a call upon them every so
often, effectively baring their throats to the ruling
swords.
And why did Parliament - well, what they called
Parliament; Doria would have called it the House of
Lords - meet at Biemestren?
"That's certainly a reasonable request," Derinald
said carefully. "I can't see how anyone could give
voice to a complaint were you to sleep on it tonight,
and then give your answer in the morning. But Her
Majesty did emphasize to me that she doesn't mink
of this whole matter as particularly negotiable."
The veiled threat again. A threat was nonetheless
real for being less than explicit.

61
"I'm shorthanded here, though," Doria said, "what
with most of the baronial troops either on occupation
duty in Holtun or off in Barony Adahan chasing
down those orcs. But some of them are due back any
day - I'd rather keep these three around at least until
we're back up to some minimal strength."
The best way to deal with it was to delay, at least
until she could decide which way to play it. Ellegon
was due in a few days, and having a telepathic, firebreathing
dragon sitting out in the courtyard was a
definite asset in any set of negotiations.
"I can understand why you would want that,"
Derinald said, shaking his head, "but I doubt that
Her Majesty will brook a delay. She's not the most
flexible of women, and perhaps wouldn't see the
necessity." He sipped at his wine. "Particularly since
I'd have to report that I've counted at least a dozen
soldiers' beds in use in your barracks. Not, certainly,
anything more than a skeleton crew, but I can't see
how she would see that another three would be
essential."
"Doria, there's a problem," U'len said as she burst in,
ahead of schedule, wiping her hands on her ragged
apron.

62
U'len was a massive chunk of middle-aged
woman, comfortably homely from the wart on the
side of her nose that had three wiry black hairs
projecting from it down to the preposterously
battered toes that peeked out from under her skirts.
Her blouse, a dingy gray to start with, was spattered
with grease and bits of food and God-knew-what;
she had been in her kitchen since before dawn and
would be supervising the two junior cooks until past
midnight, supported by an occasional sip from a clay
bottle of hideously sweet blackberry wine and two
short naps, one after serving breakfast, one after
lunch.
Doria rose to her feet slowly, carefully, simulating
regret probably not well enough to fool the imperial
captain, but he probably wasn't disposed to be
fooled. It wasn't as important to fool him as it was to
stall him.
Some problems could handle themselves, if you
just left them alone, and political machinations in
the capital might well turn Beralyn's attention to
some other matter, or time alone might give Doria
some other opportunity to duck this problem without
confronting it directly.

63
"What appears to be the problem, U'len?" she
asked. "Surely there's nothing and nobody about at
this hour who needs attention."
"It's Verden. The warden from Lenek village."
Doria was irritated. U'len was supposed to have
had Doria called away on a matter out at the Farm,
and if Derinald insisted on coming along, a fast rider
would have been dispatched to the Farm to be sure
there was at least some problem out there that the
baron or his regent would have been disturbed for,
but U'len was obviously improvising. Lenek was
one of the closest villages to the baronial keep, and
certainly one could expect loyalty and obedience
from the village warden, but it was unlikely that
whatever emergency could be improvised there
would stand close scrutiny, and the threat of looking
closer was another card that Doria didn't want put in
Derinald's hand.
And what if Derinald wanted to see Verden? What
if he offered to help with whatever the problem
was?
He was already on his feet. "Might I be of some
assistance?" he asked, with a smile that could have
been merely friendly. "I do have a small troop with
me, if there's any - "

64
"No, I don't see any need, after all - " Doria
swallowed her improvised excuse when U'len
beckoned Verden inside the study.
A village warden wasn't a lofty noble position; it
was a commoner's job, and Verden looked like the
peasant he was, from the simple sandals strapped to
his feet to the rough haircut that could have and
probably had been done with a wooden bowl and a
pair of farming shears. It paid to look less
prosperous than he in fact was. As the tax money
passed through his hands toward the baronial keep,
it was likely that a copper or two would stick to
those hands, but it wouldn't do to either let that show
or alienate his neighbors by putting on airs.
His face and arms were covered with dust and
sweat, and his breathing was still ragged as U'len led
him into the study, although he had the presence of
mind to keep his dirty feet on the wicker runner.
"There's trouble at the village, Lady Doria," he
said, without preamble. "One of those urks, or orcs,
or whatever the foul beasts are called, has broken
into the house of In-grel Leatherworker and made
off with his baby boy." He spread his hands
helplessly. "The village is up in arms, and torches
are lit from one end to the other, but..."
"But that won't do any good," Doria said.

65
Nor, likely, would it do any good for the child,
who was probably already dead by now.
Trouble had arrived ahead of schedule. The orcs
hadn't been seen this far east, not yet, although the
troops in Barony Adahan, across the river in Holtun,
had been busy clearing out a hive of them near New
Pittsburgh, accompanied by most of the small
contingent based at Castle Cullinane.
Trouble always arrived ahead of schedule, though,
and the hulking creatures that Walter Slovotsky had
named orcs that had flowed out of the breach
between Faerie and reality were definitely trouble.
"U'len," she said, "send for my riding gear, if you
please. And for Durine, Kethol, and Pirojil. Horses
for all four of us."
"They're just outside - the soldiers, I mean - and -
"
"Then get them, get them. Find a bed and some
food for Verden after you call for the saddle horses."
"Excuse me, if you please." Derinald held up a
restraining hand. "But this is foolish. Dashing off
into the night to chase down some hulking, clawhanded
beast? That's not only unlikely to do you any
good, it's unsafe, and I've always hated to see a
lovely lady do something dangerous, even when it's

66
not this unwise. Assuming you're so unfortunate as
to find the creature - and I mink that's not going to
happen, not if it doesn't want to be found - do you
want to find it jumping out from behind a hedge in
the dark? No. This is not a matter for a regent and
soldiers at night, it's a matter for huntsmen, in the
morning." He patted the air, as though telling her to
sit down.
Doria shook her head. "The gamekeeper and his
son have been off hunting for several days now; I
expect we'll see them in a day or two, with some
dressed-out deer and perhaps a boar. This is a small
barony, Captain, and we're quite civilized, but I don't
have endless gamekeepers sitting on call. Most of
our meat comes from the Farm, not the forest.
Unless - "
"May I make a small suggestion?" Derinald
smiled and bowed. "Perhaps you could use the
assistance of another huntsman's son, one who has
spent most of his adult life in service to the Crown,
but who still remembers how to follow a trail."
"You?"
"None other." He smiled and bowed again. "In
fact, two of my troopers are also experienced in
trailing; they were a scout and a ranger during the
war. I prefer to keep a balance of talent in my troop.

67
With your permission, we shall leave before first
light; I'd ask that you have fresh horses and
provisions ready." He turned to Verden. "And I'll
have you hold yourself ready as guide to your
village, man."
Verden looked to Doria before nodding.
The peasant started as Durine, Kethol, and Pirojil
walked into the study.
Kethol, long, lanky, a tangle of red hair and an
easy smile that spoke of an easygoing attitude that
his clever eyes denied. Durine, the big man, a head
taller than Kethol and twice as wide, built like a
barrel and covered with black hair from the bushy
beard that looked more hacked than trimmed to the
backs of his hands, hands with fingers that were too
thick to use anything more delicate than an ax
handle. Pirojil, the ugly one, his face heavy-jawed,
and with an eye ridge that would have made him
look like a Neanderthal if the forehead had sloped
back. He should have worn a beard. A beard would
have covered the double chins and the twisted
mouth, but there was nothing much that could have
been done about the sunken, piggish eyes.
Without a word or gesture, the three of them
spread out, as though dividing the room among
themselves. But there were no hands on weapons, or

68
any overt threat, and in fact Kethol leaned back
against the doorframe while Durine moved closer to
the fireplace as though to warm himself, and Pirojil
just watched.
They didn't say anything.
"I'm sure you heard what's happened," Doria said.
"We'd all better get some sleep," she went on.
"We've got a ride in the morning. Early in the
morning. U'len - "
"I'll have Harria have food ready for you," she
said firmly. "I'll be sleeping in, in the morning,
myself."
Despite the situation, Doria smiled. "Oh? You
will, will you?"
U'len nodded grimly. "It'll be a long night, but I
won't sleep anyway, not with these orcs or urks or
whatever you want to call those horrible monsters
lurking about."
Derinald smiled indulgently. "No need for fright,
old woman. The keep ought to be more than safe
enough - "
"I'm not worried about the little stringy meat
clinging to these old bones," she said with a derisive
snort. "Besides, any such creature would surely gag

69
and choke to death on my flesh. But my babies sleep
upstairs, and I'll be sitting up outside their rooms
tonight."
Derinald looked her up and down, no doubt
noticing the wrinkles and gray hair that suggested
that the time for her to have babies was many years
past, but he just smiled and nodded as she turned
about and waddled out of the room.
Doria didn't explain that U'len's "babies" were the
Slovotsky girls, particularly little Doranne. Ever
since Kirah, their mother, had taken up with Bren
Adahan, the girls had been getting less attention than
they needed, and U'len had always been fond of
Doranne and Janie, and had them under her wing.
Hell, most nights Doranne fell asleep on a pile of
blankets in a corner of the kitchen, carried up to her
room by U'len before U'len turned in for the night.
The keep was a lousy hunting ground for any
creature, but if U'len had decided to spend the night
sitting up outside the girls' rooms, no doubt with a
heavy cleaver lying across her lap, Doria knew
better than to argue with her.
"And so, Captain," Doria said, "we'd best see
about getting you settled in for the night." She
turned to Pirojil. "See to his men, if you please, and

70
make sure they have fresh horses in the morning,
when we leave."
"We?" Derinald shook his head. "I think it best if
you simply leave this to us, to myself and my men."
Durine grunted. Whether that meant he agreed or
disagreed was something that Pirojil and Kethol
probably could have figured out, but not Doria.
"No," she said. "I'll want to look into it myself. I
trust that these three can keep me safe while you
hunt down whatever it is."
"Accidents can happen," Pirojil said. He looked
her in the eye, then at Derinald, and then back. Yes,
accidents could happen, and they could be arranged.
She shook her head once. No. "No, accidents can't
happen. It's your task to make sure that they don't.
It'd be a bad idea if anybody got hurt."
Sure, if it had been necessary, Derinald and his
troopers could be killed, their bodies buried
somewhere. But questions would be asked, and the
explanations would not satisfy those who wouldn't
want to be satisfied. You just didn't go around
killing imperial troops, not without a damn good
reason, and the irritation with them for conveying
the dowager empress's machinations wasn't a good
reason.

71
If Derinald had the sense to feel the menace in the
room, he also had the sense not to show it. "As to
these three," he said, "I'd feel better about haring off
after some rampaging creatures if I could explain to
Her Majesty that they had been dispatched, as
instructed, to Keranahan."
"We can discuss that in the morning," Doria said.
"Perhaps."
Doria had assigned Derinald a room across from her
own, just around the corner and down the hall from
where U'len sat in an overstuffed chair hauled from
the late baron's game room.
"I hope you'll be comfortable here," she said,
setting the lantern down on the nightstand.
"I've no doubt I shall. Much nicer accommodations
than I'm used to," he said.
It was a nice room, at that. The bed was a large
one, and the feather mattress on top of the broad,
interlaced leather straps was always freshly aired.
The walls had been whitewashed recently, and were
decorated with an opposed pair of small tapestries -
deer frolicking in a meadow on one side, a familiar
looking fire-breathing dragon coming in for a
landing on the other side. The nightstand held a

72
pitcher of water, a corked glass bottle, and a pair of
mottled green glasses, while a gleaming porcelain
thundermug and basket of corncobs stood in the far
corner.
In the morning, the barred window would look out
on the apple tree standing at the top of the grassy
knoll at the west side of the inner bailey. A pleasant
view.
It was a pleasant room, always left prepared for an
unexpected guest, and the metal bar hidden behind
the heavy oak door could be instantly inserted into a
brass socket hidden in the hall floor under the carpet
and then jammed into the door, turning it into a
comfortable prison, just in case.
It also had the advantage of U'len being down the
hall on one side, and the staircase at the end of the
hall on the other side leading down past the
kitchens, where U'len's assistant cooks and the
housemaids were busying themselves with the
night's cooking and baking. Feeding a troop of
imperials in addition to the household was
something that the staff was ready for, but it
required pressing some staff into unaccustomed
duties.

73
Keeping a close eye on visitors, on the other hand,
wasn't an unaccustomed duty for any of the castle
staff.
Derinald hung his sword belt from a bedpost, and
then pulled a small bottle out of his leather bag. "I
hope you'll join me in a drink."
"I don't think - "
"Please," he said with a smile. "I find it helps me
sleep, but I've long had a problem with the bottle,
and find that I can best manage it by never drinking
alone. And this is a particularly fine Holtish wine,
the grapes, so I'm told, grown from vines a thousand
years old."
"Well, if you insist," she said.
He poured them each a small glassful. She liked
that. An indirect overture, not just a ploy to get her
drunk.
"Barony Cullinane," he said, raising his glass.
'The empire," she returned. She sipped at the
wine. It was sweeter than she usually liked, but rich
and inky, a taste of berries and sunshine that
lingered on the tongue.

74
He smiled at her over the glass, one eyebrow
raised in a question that could have been about the
wine, but wasn't.
Well, Doria decided as she set the glass down and
went to him, there was more than one way to make
sure someone didn't prowl around the castle
unaccompanied.
Morning broke over the castle threateningly, gray
clouds on the western horizon more promising than
threatening a storm.
The horses whinnied, and the soldiers holding the
reins had to struggle to keep them from bolting. The
horses sensed something, although Doria wouldn't
have wanted to guess what. It couldn't still be
nearby, could it?
The leatherworker's wife stood red-eyed next to
her stony husband, occasionally turning to hush at
the children hiding inside the low, wattle-and-daub
house at the end of a row of such houses. Shutters
over a shattered window told where the creature had
gotten in, and out.
Doria wanted to go to her, to say something. But
what? What could she say? She shook her head.
There was nothing to say, and it wasn't her job as

75
baronial regent to comfort; it was her responsibility
to see that this thing was chased down and killed.
Durine eyed the path into the woods, and then
Doria, and then took another step toward the
midpoint position between the two, while Kethol
and Pirojil, each with a pistol in hand, kept watch.
Pirojil, in particular, seemed to want to position
himself between Doria and Derinald, perhaps as a
way of expressing disapproval of last night.
She assumed he knew. Castle life didn't leave one
much privacy. Her morning plate of biscuits and pot
of almost bubbling-hot cinnomeile tea, along with
her riding clothes, had been just outside the door of
Derinald's room, and if Pirojil and his companions
didn't know how she spent her night, it was because
they didn't particularly care to. Maids always
gossiped.
Last night had been the first time in longer than
she cared to think about, and Doria had apparently
been storing up some appetite. She wouldn't have
changed a moment of it, but the truth was that she
was sore, and while long habits and training had
forbidden more than casually considering the idea of
using healing draughts to make it less painful to sit a
horse, it was still a temptation. Bouncing up and
down on a hard saddle was painful enough normally,

76
but the stableboy had picked a robust young mare
for her, light-footed and spirited, and the damn horse
had felt obligated to keep pace with Derinald's big
bay gelding.
But while only remnants of her magical abilities
persisted, there had been more to being a daughter
of the Hand than simply spurting spells, and she
took the few moments of relative quiet to perform
an exercise she had both learned and taught.
Pain was important. It was a warning, perhaps of
danger, perhaps of an excess of pleasure, but it was
a good thing, something to be grateful for, not to
fear. It was a matter of recognizing her various
aches and pains, accepting them as they were, and
then dismissing them, with thanks to her body for
reminding her of its limitations.
The pain was still there, and it would still be
there, but it was put in context.
That was enough.
Derinald grumbled to himself as he looked at the
ground behind the leatherworker's small wattle-anddaub
shack. "Too many feet, too many feet shuffling
around the ground," he said, motioning with one idle
hand for the rest to keep back while he squatted,

77
looking at the ground, squinting as though he was
trying to read words in a foreign language.
Finally, he shook his head. "No good at all." He
waved a hand toward where a raised path toward the
forest separated two cornfields. "Probably went that
way; let's see if I can pick up the trail."
One of his men, a crooked little man with a face
like a ferret, gestured at a gap in the corn, where
perhaps half a dozen stalks had been knocked down.
"Perhaps there, perhaps, Captain?"
"I think not, Deven," Derinald said as he shook
his head, looking more closely.
"You never can tell, Captain. Even the big animals
can fool you. I've seen - "
"Yes, and nobody's hunted anything like these
monsters for a dozen generations, but if he was
clumsy enough to leave a hole like that, he would
have knocked down some stalks going further in."
The rows were closely spaced, and there was room
enough for somebody to walk between them without
knocking against them, but just barely.
Durine grunted. Kethol walked toward one side of
the gap while Pirojil eased to another side, all three
of them drawing swords and pistols.

78
The ferret-faced little man grinned, revealing a
missing front tooth. "I think the soldier-boys are
worried about him hiding there, Captain, I do."
"Well, let's show them better." Derinald picked up
a rock and flung it sidearm into the gap. The rock
whipped through the leaves, and some yards away, a
small bird that had been hiding fluttered into the air
and arrowed away, just skimming the tops of the
plants... but there was no motion. Nothing.
"No, there'd be no reason to hide there," he said.
"Not overnight." Motioning at the rest to stay still,
he walked down the path and disappeared into the
woods.
In a moment, he was back, beckoning at Deven
and another, larger man. "It went this way, some
hours ago. Probably long gone, but the two of you
see if you can pick up the trail."
He had a quick whispered conversation with
Deven, who nodded and retrieved a leather bag from
his saddlebags before heading into the forest.
Derinald walked over to Doria. His face was grim,
and pale.
"You'd think," he said, "that one gets used to such
things, but. . .we'll search for the creature, and most
likely run it to ground. Clumsy thing; doesn't pay

79
attention to where it's putting its feet. But it ripped
the head clear off the child, and left it just a short
way in," he said quietly. "The boy probably was
screaming too loudly, and frightened the thing. Were
it my choice to make, I'd say it would be enough if
we tell the parents that we know it to be dead and
leave it at that, but it's not my choice, and I'll not
intrude."
Deven, walking, while the rest followed along on
horseback, led them along the web of an old hunting
trail back up toward the hills at a good clip, scouting
ahead and picking up traces of the creature's flight
that Derinald apparently saw as well, but were
utterly invisible to Doria.
As the trail forked and split, Deven was able to
find some indication of which way to go, even
though in a couple of cases he made them wait at the
fork while he jogged down first one path, then
returned to find some spoor and lead them up
another.
A scraped tree here, some broken brush or
disturbed leaves there, an occasional partial print in
soft soil was all that the two of them needed. There
had been spots where the creature had left the game
trails and cut through the woods, but it kept

80
returning to the beaten paths. Understandable, really;
the forest was dense, the ground covered with brush
in the shade of the leafy giants, their crooked limbs
arching above in a green canopy that kept the forest
cool and musty.
Around midmorning, they forded a shallow stream
to catch up with Deven and his latest find: a small
bone by the side of the trail. Deven made as though
to throw it into the woods, but stopped at Derinald's
gesture, nodded, and handed it over to the captain,
who in turn handed it to Doria.
The ants had gotten to it first, although there
barely was a gobbet of flesh on it. Part of a femur,
maybe six inches long, and it had been thoroughly
chewed. She wrapped it in her scarf and tucked it in
her saddlebag.
"Ta havath," the captain said. "Easy, now. It could
be anywhere, anywhere at all." He frowned at the
trees around them.
"No, Captain." Deven shook his head, his voice
low, barely carrying the few yards from where he
squatted up the trail. "Paw marks up here - but I
think we're getting close. They're fresh, and he's not
even trying to keep his claws in. I think he's tired -
prints are getting less regular, like he's gasping for

81
breath. No piss markings, but you wouldn't expect
that, not here, not now."
Derinald glanced at Doria, then back at Deven. He
would make his point later, no doubt, about how
Doria and her people couldn't have followed it, not
that he was right, but -
Her horse's nostrils widened, and it whinnied as a
vestige of Doria's old sensitivity flared brightly in
the back of her mind, hot and red with hate and fear.
"It's here - " She started to turn, as Kethol sprung
from his saddle, Pirojil and Durine a heartbeat
behind.
A black, hairy mass leaped from an overhanging
branch behind her, pulling one of Derinald's troopers
screaming from his saddle and down to the ground.
It was a huge beast, half as tall as a man and covered
with short hair or fur, like a bear, and for just a
moment Doria thought it was a bear, except that,
thick as it was, it was too slim, too humanlike in its
shape.
But it wasn't human. Claws slashed at the
screaming man's face, and a mouth filled with sharp
teeth sank into his neck, turning the scream into a
horridly liquid gurgle.

82
Doria's horse panicked, whinnying in terror,
rearing back. She tried to cling to the saddle, but she
hadn't been braced for it trying to throw her, and she
tumbled off, falling hard on her side on the trail, her
right foot caught in the stirrup for a horrible second
before it twisted loose, her horse bolting.
She was surrounded by sounds and stomping
hooves, and it was all she could to do roll off the
path and into the brush, ignoring the way it clawed
at her, her hands covering her face to protect her
eyes.
Shouts mixed with the loud neighs of the horses,
the screams of the injured, and the growls of the
beast.
Doria staggered to her feet, the brush grabbing
and clawing at her before she could pull free.
The horses had scattered, taking the imperials with
them, but Kethol, Durine, and Pirojil had somehow
dismounted before their own mounts had fled,
although none of them had managed to remove his
flintlock rifle from his saddle-boot in so doing.
The orc was still shaking its prey. Kethol took
careful aim at the creature's broad back with his
flintlock pistol. It fired, with a gout of flame and
smoke accompanied by a surprisingly quiet report.

83
The creature shuddered, dropped the battered,
bloody body of the imperial trooper, and spun, not
even slowed by the shot as it dropped to a threepoint
crouch and leaped for Kethol, claw-tipped
fingers outstretched. Two other shots rang out,
although Doria couldn't see where they came from.
Kethol had managed to get his sword out, and had
it extended, but the orc reached out a hand and
twisted it away, ignoring the way the sharp blade
sliced its thick hairy fingers to the bone.
Its claws had barely touched Kethol when Durine
hit it in a full-bodied tackle that took both it and the
big man to the ground. Pirojil, moving more
delicately and precisely than a man that big and ugly
should have been able to, danced in among the
flailing limbs, his sword tip jabbing and probing.
One booted foot stomped down hard, pinning one of
the creature's arms to the ground.
A swipe from a hairy hand caught Durine on the
side of the head, but Durine just shook his head as
though to clear it and fastened both his massive
hands on the orc's neck. His growls mingled with the
ore's as he squeezed, harder and harder, his own
beefy face reddening with the effort, while Pirojil's
sword, now bloody halfway to the guard, continued
to probe and stab.

84
And then, with a shudder and a groan and a
horrible flatulence, the creature went limp, and
dead.
Maybe Durine didn't believe that it was dead, or
perhaps he just didn't like to take chances; he didn't
stop squeezing until Kethol patted his shoulder and
said, 'Ta havath, Durine."
Dead and still, the orc somehow looked smaller than
it had in life and motion as it lay stretched out on the
ground, flies already gathering in the pool of blood
and shit.
It reminded Doria of pictures she had seen of
Bigfoot, back on the Other Side, although it was
perhaps somewhat slimmer, and the dark coarse hair
shorter than she remembered, over the years. A
ragged muslin breechcloth lay across its loins, tented
in the middle in a way that Doria couldn't, despite
the situation, help finding vaguely comical.
"Dead, but not forgotten." Pirojil poked at the
breech-cloth with a stick, pulling it aside to reveal a
surprisingly small pink penis peeking out through
the fur. The tip of the penis was ringed with a crown
of barbs, like a male cat's.

85
"Well." Kethol chuckled. "No wonder they've got
a bad temper. The orc bitches, I mean. Hmmm ...
come to think of it, no wonder they all do."
"I don't know," Pirojil said idly, his smile
something ugly. "Could be that once you have one
with spikes on his prong, you never go back."
Durine grunted, and pulled his belt knife. He
looked over at Doria. "Well?"
"Well what?" She was more than vaguely
disgusted. "Do you want a trophy?"
She knew she'd said something stupid when all
three of their faces went blank and expressionless.
"No, Regent," Pirojil said quietly, calmly. "Do
you want me to make sure that this is the one that
ate the little boy?" He rested the point of the knife
against the protruding abdomen of the orc. "It would
be a shame to turn around and go back if we haven't
gotten the right one, to leave the one we're hunting
still out there."
He was right, of course. It wouldn't really make
any difference whether they knew or not. This
probably was the one, and the baby was probably in
pieces in its stomach, and they could just tell the
parents that they were sure.

86
But no, not knowing didn't make it better. It made
it worse.
She worked her mouth, but no words came out. It
was all Doria could do to nod.
Pirojil was helping Doria down from her horse when
U'len stormed out of the kitchen and pushed more
through than past the imperials, leaving scowls and
rearing horses in her wake.
"What have you done to her?" U'len wailed as she
shoved Kethol aside, then snatched at Pirojil's
sleeve.
Durine, still looming above on horseback, took in
the scene with his usual equanimity as he returned
Pirojil's grin. Yes, any of the three of them could
have gutted the fat old woman like a trout; no, they'd
no more think of raising a hand to U'len in
protection of the regent than they would in
protection of the Cullinane children. U'len was as
loyal as a good dog, and she was a good Cullinane
dog. Every bit as expendable in a crisis as, well,
Pirojil and Durine and Kethol were, of course.
Doria held up a hand. "Be still. I'm... not unwell."

87
"Oh, you're not unwell, are you? And are you not
quite undead, as well? And would you then decline
to deny that you do not appear to be other than not
unhealthy, too?"
Derinald's too-pretty face was split in a too-easy
smile as he stepped forward, his arm extended. "If
you'll permit me? Lady Doria and I have matters to
discuss."
"They can wait. Now get yourself and your little
men out of my way, and - "
"It's nothing, U'len," Doria said. "Just a strenuous
day, and I'm not used to so much riding."
U'len's snort threatened to drown out the snort of
the horse just behind Pirojil. "Be that as it may,
child," she said, "you need a hot cup of tea, and a
hot bowl of soup, and a hot bath before you'll be
discussing anything with anybody."
She started to lead Doria away, but Derinald
interposed himself and laid a gentle hand on her
arm. "Please, Lady, permit me," he said, the
familiarity of his tone and manner grating in Pirojil's
ears.
Durine's mouth twitched, and he cleared his throat
loudly enough to get everybody's attention. Pirojil

88
wouldn't have seen Kethol quietly reclaim his own
gear and move away if he hadn't been looking for it.
In fact he didn't see it - he was deliberately
focusing his attention on Durine, just as the big man
wanted.
"I think, Captain, you'll stop right there," Pirojil
said, trying to keep his voice light despite the
metallic taste in his mouth. "I think, Captain," he
said, deliberately ignoring the way that the dozen or
so horsemen were moving into a shallow arc around
where he confronted the imperial captain, "that
you'll lay not so much as a finger on the hem of her
garment without permission. Twice."
His body felt all distant, but precise, as though he
was outside it, manipulating it from a distance that
lent objectivity to his every word, to his every
motion. Or maybe it was that it wasn't just his body,
wasn't just bis mind, but all three of theirs. Perhaps
it was a mind that the three of them shared, that had
Durine's horse backing up a few steps and turning
away so that the big man's hand was covered as it
dropped to where his long saber was lashed to his
saddle, that had Kethol, only slightly out of breath
from his run up the stairs and to a keep window, his
bow strung, an arrow nocked, and a half-dozen
others set point-first into the flooring, while Kethol

89
stood back from the window, concealed in shadow
from the sight of anyone, but not from Pirojil's
knowing what he would do.
"Pirojil." Lady Doria's voice was firm, if quiet.
"Stand aside."
"Let it be, Lady," Pirojil said. "Now's as good a
time as any, and this is a fine enough place." There
were a full dozen of the imperials, and only three of
them, but if it were to be necessary, this was the
time and place: the old watchman would drop the
gate upon command, trapping the imperials in the
killing ground. Durine was well placed to cover
U'len's and Lady Doria's retreat into the keep, and
Kethol was ready and able to send half a dozen
shafts whispering through the air before anybody
could possibly tell where he was and where they
came from.
Pirojil and Durine would be unlikely to survive, of
course, but you couldn't have everything. In life you
had to keep your priorities straight, and Pirojil's
priority was that that smirking pretty boy, Derinald,
not touch the Lady under their protection without
her permission.
It could be now, or it could be later, or it could be
never at all.

90
Derinald's face paled beneath his even, aristocratic
tan. He had seen Pirojil, Durine, and Kethol in
action against the orc, and had some sort of idea of
what the next few moments held in store for him.
"Let it be, Lady," Pirojil said again as he turned to
Derinald's men. "My name is Pirojil," he said
loudly, "and I rode with the Old Emperor on his Last
Ride, as did my companions, I promised him before
he died my loyalty to his family and friends, and I
don't think that includes letting some imperial
lackey lay his overly familiar hands on the Lady
Doria."
It would keep the politics simple, at least as
simple as the politics ever got. The three of them
would disobey Lady Doria and kill more than their
own weight in imperials in the doing. It would help
to maintain the principle that it was unsafe to mess
with the Cullinanes without putting the barony into
open conflict with the dowager empress. Cut
through Beralyn's machinations, and if that left
blood on the ground and bodies stinking in the sun,
well, that was the end result of most political
maneuverings anyway.
There was only one problem with it.

91
"No." Lady Doria stepped in front of him. "That's
not a suggestion, Pirojil. Step aside, and let my
friend Derinald help me inside. Now."
Pirojil's ears burned red as Derinald escorted her
inside the keep, but Durine just shrugged, and high
above came a deep laugh from Kethol.
Doria sat in front of the fireplace, a cup of hot tea at
her elbow, the orders Beralyn wanted her to sign on
the writing desk next to her.
It would be possible to ignore Beralyn perhaps,
she decided, particularly now. One orc, even one
rogue one, without companions or weapons,
probably presaged the appearance of others. And
while Derinald and his men had been able to track it,
it had been her three who had brought it down, and
there was a good argument for keeping them around.
She could explain that to the emperor, if she had to,
and she probably would have to.
"May I interrupt?" Derinald stood in the doorway.
His hair was wet from the bath, and his clothes were
fresh and clean, the crease on his trousers razorsharp,
his loose shirt white as an egg.
She nodded. "Of course." She gestured to a chair
on the other side of the fireplace.

92
"Hederen's resting comfortably," he said, sinking
comfortably into the chair. "He'll have a few scars to
brag of, but he'll keep the eye, most likely - those
Spidersect healing draughts were none too potent in
the first place, and they'd probably been sitting in
my bag too long."
"There was a time ..." Doria shook her head. There
was a time when she could have put out her hands
and let the healing flow into him, a current of power
and magic warming her even while it drained her.
But that time was gone, and most of her powers
along with it. She had defied the Mother, and had
been excommunicated from the Hand, and while she
had often regretted the fact of it, that was done. "I'm
glad he didn't get hurt worse."
Derinald's fingers fluttered. "Yes. It could have
been much worse. Those three, they're quite good at
what they do, aren't they?" he asked. "Their horses
spooked just as badly as the rest of ours did, and
every bit as quickly. But the three of them were out
of their saddles at the first warning."
"They were, at that." She smiled. "Yes, there's a
reason why they've survived when others haven't,
and it's not just luck. Nor is it just loyalty."

93
"Yes. But I'm still surprised that they've survived
this one. One would think that they really wanted to
spit themselves on my men's spears."
Was he really that stupid? No. He couldn't be.
Anybody with half a brain could see that Kethol was
a heroic suicide, looking for a place to happen, and
Durine and Pirojil weren't much better. Dying didn't
scare any of the three of them. What was important
was that they preserve themselves until they found
the right place to die.
She shook her head. "No. It's important to them
that they serve the Old Emperor, and his death only
made that more complicated for them, and they're
three men who do not dote on complexity."
"Which is why you're not going to order them to
look into things in Keranahan, correct?" He shook
his head. "I think that unwise, but..."
"No," she said. "I am."
"Eh?"
"I said I am sending them. I'll sign the orders
tonight, and they'll leave in the morning."
"I see." He smiled knowingly, smugly. Stupidly.
She smiled back, not meaning it for a moment.

94
Men were men, no matter what their profession. A
soldier, a sailor, a bookkeeper, a farmer, a mechanic:
most - all? - of them thought themselves magicians
who could cast a spell over any woman with the
magic wand that sprouted from between their legs.
But last night had been pleasure, and today was
business.
Chasing the orc had reminded her of something
that she would have liked to forget, or at least to
ignore: Barony Cullinane was, like all the others,
dependent on the empire. During the Holtun-Bieme
war that had created the empire, the barony had had
no more chance of holding out alone against the
Holtish forces than any other, and the Holts had
spent much of the war simply slicing off baronysized
chunks of Bieme, selling peasants off to the
Slavers Guild to finance their war, and were in the
process of cutting up Barony Cullinane - then
Barony Furnael - when Karl and his people had
taken a hand.
Peace hadn't changed things, not permanently.
There were bordering countries to worry about, and
with the flush of magical things from Faerie over the
past few years, it was entirely possible that the
barony would need much help from beyond the
borders.

95
Pirojil had only illustrated the problem with his
manufactured confrontation with Derinald. In a
conflict between the barony and the empire, the
empire's needs had to be considered, even if at the
moment the barony could prevail.
Yes, Pirojil and the other two could have killed
the small troop of imperials, and perhaps the crime
could have been covered up, or more likely swept
under the carpet... but what good would that have
done?
It was the classic individualist dilemma, on a
baronial scale instead of a personal one.
As long as things went well, as long as the rest of
the universe cooperated, it was possible to go it
alone and make it work.
But you couldn't go it alone, not always. The
world was not a gentle place. A person needed a
family, a community, a nation, perhaps. And there
had to be a balance between what you gave and
what you took.
Yes, Kethol, Pirojil, and Durine had handled that
one orc by themselves, and they could have taken on
more.
But what if it had been a dozen? Doria might well
have needed Derinald and his scouts to track down

96
the orc before it did a lot more damage, and while
Durine and Kethol and Pirojil had been the ones
who put it down, it could just as easily have been
Derinald's troopers.
And what about next time?
One rogue orc wasn't all that important, not by
itself.
Derinald being a trifle overfamiliar was nothing;
she could have handled that with a glare or a gesture
or a word.
But both the orc and Derinald's overreaching
could serve as a reminder that the balance was
always there, was always precarious, and that
whatever Doria's feelings were about that dried-up
bitch Beralyn Furnael, she represented, in a very real
if not a formally legal sense, the empire that kept the
scales even and unshaking, that would provide help
and would demand service, as well.
And if three soldiers would have to be risked to
keep that balance, even if the three of them had just
saved Doria's life, well, they were expendable. Even
if they had just shown themselves willing to die to
prevent a slight-that-was-barely-a-slight.

97
Even though they were more loyal than a good
dog, they were expendable. And it was her job to
expend them, if necessary.
She was vaguely disgusted with herself as she
reached for her pen.
But she dipped it in the inkwell anyway.

98
4 - A Night in Riverforks
he wizard had been drinking for hours,
Pirojil decided. Most of them looked halfdrunk
most of the time, but this one's eyes
were barely able to focus as he raised a finger to
signal for more of the sour beer that already had
Pirojil's head buzzing.
The Wounded Dog - Pirojil had asked for an
explanation of the name of the place, and had
promptly forgotten it - wasn't the best of the inns in
Riverforks that catered to travelers, and it wasn't the
cheapest, but it was the only one that had a private
room to let... at least for the likes of the three of
them.
They could have gotten off cheaper by taking floor
space in the common room at the Bearded Thistle
and spent the night sleeping in turns to avoid the
predations of some light-fingered thief, but they
weren't that eager to save the dowager empress a
T

99
few marks that they would probably try to cheat her
out of anyway, and their room down the hall from
the bath wasn't excessively expensive.
Kethol had bolted down a bowl of stew before
finding a game of bones in the common room with a
bunch of teamsters, and Durine had stalked out into
the night, probably looking for thieves rather than a
whore. Riverforks, having become a trading center
of sorts, was more than big enough to have its own
criminal class ... in addition to the nobility, which
you had everywhere.
Kethol would probably relieve his newfound
friends of their loose coin and head out into the night
in search of another game, but Pirojil was content
enough to sit over a pitcher of beer while he waited
for his turn in the bath. It would be nice to be clean
again, at least for a while. After even a few days on
the road, it felt like the road had ground its dirt into
you beneath the skin, as well as into it.
The innkeeper, rawboned and surprisingly skinny,
brought another wooden pitcher of beer over to the
table where the wizard sat alone in his stained gray
robes, stopping for a moment to chat before he
hustled back through the swinging wooden doors to
the kitchen.

100
Over in the corner, a half-dozen or so dwarves
bent their heads together over their pitchers - the
dwarves shunned simple mugs - in quiet
conversation. Pirojil had been raised in a country
that had been pretty much free of the Moderate Folk,
and they still looked funny to him: as broad as a
muscular man, but barely chest-high. The knuckles
on the hands that rested on the table looked like
walnuts. Broad faces, with heavy jaws covered by
thick long beards, and brows even more solid than
Pirojil's own. Pirojil could remember slamming in
the face of a soldier who had once suggested that
Pirojil should go hunt himself up a dwarf sow
because she might not find him as ugly as any
decent woman would.
Pirojil would have tried to join them in
conversation - he spoke fairly good dwarvish,
although his accent was too nasal - but that would
have drawn attention of a sort that wouldn't be wise.
The idea was to keep a low profile here, to get in,
find out what this minor matter in Keranahan was
really about, and then get out without a fuss.
It would have been nice to know what the dwarves
were doing here, though it could have been any of a
hundred things, and not just the mining that they
were famous for. The Old Emperor himself had

101
hired a company of Endell dwarves to redo the
sewer system in Biemestren, for example; and dwarf
warriors were awfully handy to have around in a
fight.
Pirojil caught the wizard watching him watching
the dwarves, so he raised his own mug in a friendly
salute, and then looked away, not particularly
wanting to get involved in a conversation or draw
attention to himself by trying to avoid one.
But the drunken wizard took his movement as an
invitation and staggered over to the table, mug in
one hand, pitcher in the other, and seated himself in
a chair opposite Pirojil. In the flickering of the
overhead lanterns, his face was lined and tired, his
gray beard forked into two uneven tufts. "A good
evening to you," the wizard said, his voice slurred.
"Do you drink?"
"I've been known to," Pirojil said, lifting his own
mug and taking a measured sip. "I'm called Pirojil."
"Erenor the Magnificent," the wizard said,
refilling Pirojil's mug with a surprisingly steady
hand. "Formerly of glorious Pandathaway, and now
of this ... somewhat less glorious place."
Pirojil could have rolled his eyes. Every third
drunken hedge-wizard seemed to claim origin in the

102
Pandathaway Wizards Guild, no doubt having
studied under Grandmaster Lucius himself. Pitiful.
Predictable, but pitiful. Couldn't one of them bill
himself as, say, "the Moderately Competent"?
Pirojil's thumb stroked against the hidden gem of
his signet ring. Yes, it was pitiful. As pitiful,
perhaps, as a simple soldier reminding himself every
now and then that he'd been born noble, as though
that made a difference in his present estate.
Did it matter if it was true or not? No. Not for
him, and not for this wizard.
So he just nodded. "Interesting place,
Pandathaway," he said.
"Ah." Erenor raised an eyebrow. "That it is. You
know it well?"
"Not well." Pirojil shook his head. "I was there
just once, some years ago." He was tempted to
mention, say, the fountain at the end of the Street of
Two Dogs, just to see the reaction - the street
existed; the fountain didn't - but what point would
there be in making the drunken old wizard out a
liar?
Particularly if he was, as seemed likely. Tell the
ugly truth about a man, and he'd never forgive you.
Pirojil had looked at his own reflection in too many

103
mirrors, too many pools of water, too many faces, to
think that knowing the truth was always a good
thing, and had cut too many men for speaking it to
diink that saying the truth was always safe.
"So. Tell me about Riverforks," Pirojil said. "A
good place to live, is it?"
Erenor shrugged. "There's worse, and there's
better. I spend most of my time doing farming magic
these days - helping to get a barren mare with calf,
casting preservative spells on granaries, the like.
Death spells, of a certainty - but only on rats." He
smiled slyly. "But there's always call for love
philters among the nobility, and I've quite a hand
with those, as well."
"A lot of those, eh?" Pirojil doubted this
disreputable wizard had much connection with the
nobility, but he could always be wrong, particularly
in Holtun. Pirojil didn't have quite the same feel for
Holtun that he did for Bieme. The Holtish nobility
had always been more stylish and overly formal than
the Biemish, and while the Biemish victory in the
war that had created the empire had modified that, it
hadn't changed it totally.
"Well, yes," the wizard said, producing a small
vial stoppered with wax. "Take this one," he said.
"Not just your ordinary love potion, mind, one that

104
will make a resistant woman more willing. But
sprinkle this over your food and your lady's, and
you'll find her eyes wide and loving as she stares
into even yours, I mean even as she stares into your
eyes."
Pirojil knew what he meant. Even drunk, the old
wizard could see a man too ugly to get a woman
other than a rented whore, and would be happy to
sell a traveler a potion, and if the potion worked, all
the better, eh?
It was one thing for inbred nobility to play at
games of love and dominance, a love potion
seducing an already half-willing girl for a night. It
was another thing for somebody like Pirojil to use
one.
The kind of love that even an effective love potion
brought was cheap and unsatisfying and would turn
to hate and disgust the moment the spell wore off,
which it would. Pirojil had tried that, only once.
Only once that was long ago, only once that was far
too recently. Only once that was far too many times.
"Or, if that didn't suit your fancy, a seeming,
perhaps," the wizard went on.
"Of course." Pirojil snorted. "A seeming. Thank
you, no. I've no use for seemings."

105
"Ah? And that would be because ... ?"
"Because it's just an illusion, a vapor, dispelled by
a touch or a breath or the morning sun. There's no
truth to it, no substance, that's why." Even a major
seeming was easily dispelled, and a minor seeming
would flicker when seen out of the corner of the eye.
And neither would make Pirojil any less ugly. That
was the way it was. Why? Did it matter? He was
ugly.
"Ah. You suffer from the common fallacy. Permit
me to persuade you otherwise." The wizard muttered
harsh syllables under his breath, barely audible.
Pirojil tried to hear them, tried to remember them,
but he couldn't: they vanished on his ears like
snowflakes on a warm palm.
But the wizard changed. Stains faded and vanished
from his robes, and his crooked back straightened;
his beard shrank and receded while it darkened. His
wrinkled skin grew smooth and young, and while his
eyes remained glazed, they grew brighter and
sharper.
"As you can see," he said, his voice still low, but
now the more powerful voice of a younger man, not
the wheeze of an old one, "there can be substance to
a seeming."

106
Pirojil would have liked to slap the grin from the
wizard's face, but attacking a wizard would be a
stupid way to get killed. And besides ... "But a
seeming is just that," Pirojil said. "It's not real. It's
just illusion. One touch, and even if it doesn't all fall
apart, it doesn't have any reality to it. It just - "
'Try it," the wizard said, extending a hand. It
wasn't the wizened hand that had poured Pirojil's
beer moments before; it was a strong, unlined hand,
that of a powerful young man.
Pirojil took the hand in his, and the wizard smiled
and set his elbow on the table.
"Wrestle arms with me, Pirojil," he said, "and
perhaps I can show you that a seeming is, in the
proper hands, sometimes more than just a
momentary illusion."
Years of working out with polearm and bow and
sword had left Pirojil's arms as strong as a farmer's,
and while there certainly were stronger men than he,
even a young wizard should be no match for him,
and this one man ...
Unless, of course ...
"So," Pirojil said, placing his own elbow on the
table and gripping Erenor's hand in his own. "You're

107
ready to cast a spell of weakness on me, eh? Or
perhaps one of strength on yourself?"
"No." Erenor grinned wolfishly. "Of course not; I
intend nothing of the sort."
Pirojil grimaced. "Of course not."
'Truly, friend Pirojil. Would you not take a
wizard's word on that?"
"Do I look like that kind of fool?"
"Well, perhaps not." The wizard shrugged. "One
never knows."
"You place a geas on yourself, bind yourself to
use no magic, and perhaps I'll believe it. But I'm
willing to let you win a spot of arm wrestling, with
magic." There was no shame in losing to magic,
after all.
"I've a simpler way." Erenor lifted his beer mug
with his free hand. "I'll hold a mouthful of beer
while we arm wrestle. If I spit it out before the back
of your - before the back of one of our hands rests
against the table, I'll admit myself full and fairly
defeated. I can hardly murmur instigators or
dominatives with a full mouth of beer, and while I
could barely move my tongue for hegemonies, that
would do me no good without the rest, eh?"

108
Pirojil was suspicious, but he was more curious. "I
assume we're doing this just for our own
amusement, eh? There's no local custom that the
loser of an arm wrestling match serves the winner as
a body servant for years, or buys the winner's wares,
is there?"
Erenor's smile was a row of sparkling white teeth.
"Buying the winner some beer, perhaps, would be
but simple good manners. But I ask nothing more of
you, my suspicious friend, than simple good
manners. Do you care to try, or do you care to dither
and delay and try my patience?"
The tavern was quiet, and if Pirojil hadn't been
drinking he would probably have already noticed
that most eyes were on him and Erenor. The
dwarves over in the corner had risen from their
benches and moved in close. Wrestling was
considered a high art among the Moderate People,
and while Pirojil had never heard of them being
involved in this simpler sort of contest, their interest
was not surprising.
One beefy man in a cotton tunic split down his
hairy chest to his ample belly snickered out loud and
whispered behind his hand to one of his fellows, and
there was a comment whose origin Pirojil couldn't

109
quite place about how ugly men usually weren't
cowards.
It had been many years since he had given up
accepting a dare for fear of being called a coward,
and as many years since he had given up declining a
dare for fear of being thought a coward, because if
they knew that you feared something, they owned
you.
You could fear anything as long as you didn't let
anybody know. And you could even let others know
as long as you were willing to do what you had to,
no matter what anybody said, what anybody knew,
what anybody feared.
"Very well." Pirojil gripped Erenor's hand tighter.
"Do let's try."
Erenor took a deep breath, and then a deep
swallow of the beer, then slammed the mug down on
the table with unexpected vigor, then gripped back
at Pirojil's hand. His grasp was stronger than Pirojil
had expected, but Pirojil's own hand was strong.
An old stableman who worked for his fath - an old
stableman had taught Pirojil how to do this long ago.
It was all in the grip. If you could squeeze your
opponent's hand hard enough so that he couldn't grip
you back, his strength would fade.

110
So Pirojil squeezed back, hard, and pulled, hard,
harder. He was a strong man; there were few
stronger. Durine, certainly. Kethol, possibly, if you
gave him the right leverage. But few, damn few.
Strength wasn't just in the arm, or the back, or the
leg - it was in the mind, the spirit, the resolve.
But there was strength in the arm and in the hand,
and Pirojil used it, too.
He squeezed, and he pulled, and while Erenor's
own arm trembled with exertion, it didn't move. The
wizard's young face was impassive, and his nostrils
flared wide, although his mouth didn't open.
Pirojil pulled harder, his feet flat against the floor,
braced for maximum leverage, putting not only his
whole arm into the contest, but his body. He
concentrated, harder, harder yet, until his whole
body shook and quivered.
And still, Erenor's arm didn't move.
Pirojil hated himself for having been duped,
although he couldn't figure out how he had been
duped. But while it galled him, there wasn't anything
he could do about it except pull yet harder, until
lights danced in front of his eyes and his breath
came in little gasps.

111
And slowly, bit by bit, Erenor's arm began to push
his own down.
Pirojil's left hand rested on his left thigh, and it
would have taken but a moment to snatch up his belt
knife and plunge it into the wizard, but as angry as
he was, he let his hand rest where it lay ...
... until his right hand was pressed back, hard,
against the table.
Erenor released his hand and spat his mouthful of
beer out onto the floor in a long stream. "And that,
friend Pirojil, may suggest that there's some virtue in
a well-crafted seeming, now and then, eh?"
Erenor was clearly more of a magician than Pirojil
had thought, as he had figured out a way to give
more body and shape to a seeming than he had
thought possible. What was such a powerful user of
magic doing in Riverforks?
"It isn't permanent, of course," the wizard said. "In
the morning I'll look as I usually do, and have no
more than my usual strength. But the morning is
another matter, perhaps, for a man who would wish
to, say, bed a beautiful woman and be gone before
sunrise?"
Or who would wish to not be fooled by such.
"Perhaps there is some business we can do, after

112
all," Pirojil said, rubbing at his arm. "I assume
there's an antidote to such a seeming? And that you
might, for a price, be willing to part with a sample of
such a countermeasure?"
Erenor's youthful smile broadened. "Ah. It would
appear that you are a wise man, after all." He patted
at Pirojil's aching right arm. "In addition to a
remarkably strong one, as well. You did very well."
Kethol caught up with Durine outside of a riverfront
tavern.
Durine had been leaning against a railing
overlooking the embankment, mostly doing nothing:
just relaxing, listening to the quiet whisper of the
river beneath, watching the water dance in the
flickering of the overhead stars, and the slow, green
and blue pulse of the Faerie lights above.
The quiet was nice.
The Faerie lights were in a quiet mood tonight,
going through a gentle pavane from a deep red and
understated orange through a series of quiet blues
and finally to a cool green, and then back again.
There were times when one or another of them
would pick up the pace, as though trying to whip the

113
others into a faster rhythm, only to finally,
regretfully subside into the same slow beat of the
other Faerie lights, either dragged down to their
gentle somnolence or moderated to a reasonable
pace, depending on how you looked at it.
Inside the riverfront tavern, past the mottled glass
windows, smiling young men and young women
raised their voices in laughter and song,
accompanied by the clattering of dishes and the
ringing sounds of glasses, their needs served by a
bevy of buxom barmaids.
Durine smiled to himself. There was a reason why
ripe young women of peasant stock would often
seek work in a city tavern, and it wasn't just to make
a few extra coppers now and then from a tumble in
the hay. It was a gamble that could pay off much
better than that: if the bones fell right, a woman
might find herself a young tradesman or perhaps
even a merchant to marry, and be free of the farm
forever. Spending one's life working a plowed field
during the day and herself being plowed at night by
a farmer who stank of sweat and pig shit was
something that a young girl of attractiveness and
ambition might well want to avoid these days.
Of course, far too many of them ended up back on
the farm, accepting what was available, and a few

114
always found that the occasional tumble turned into
years on their backs in a lower-town brothel, but
there were risks to everything, and Durine had no
more desire than ability to rescue endless hopeful
young girls from their destinies.
Hero was, after all, just another word for fool.
Durine heard the footsteps behind him, and for a
moment grew hopeful at the thought of a footpad,
but then he recognized the footsteps.
"A good evening to you, Kethol," he said.
Well, he could hardly be surprised. A man as large
as Durine would be an unlikely target to choose
when there were so many others, from the nobility
crowding this tavern to the drunken sailors from the
ore barge making its way downriver toward Barony
Adahan and New Pittsburgh. "Fortune, or intent?" be
asked Kethol.
Durine would have shaken his head if he thought it
politic. Kethol was the handsome one of the three of
them, good-looking in an earnest and rugged sort of
way. And in a fight he was just as rock-steady
trustworthy as Pirojil always would be and as Durine
prided himself as being, with a keen eye and a wrist
like a striking snake. He could find his way down a

115
trail as well as a true woodsman; he had a better eye
for horseflesh than most horse traders; and his
abilities at a game of bones would have been
legendary if Kethol hadn't been too smart to be so
indiscreet.
But when it came to following a simple question,
sometimes he was dumb as dirt.
"I meant," Durine explained slowly, "have you
found me by accident, or are you seeking me out?"
"Some of both."
"Oh?"
"Well..."
Kethol would get to the point in bis own time.
Durine leaned back against the railing. Below, the
river rushed and whispered. Maybe someday
somebody would tell Durine what it kept whispering
about
"Not a good evening?"
Kethol thought about it for a moment "Well, truth
to tell, I was looking for another game, but I didn't
think much of my chances of getting into the Golden
Eye here, much less persuading the young nobles of
Neranahan to risk their hard-taxed coin on a fall of
the bones with the likes of me."

116
"Well, now." Durine laughed at the mental picture
of a bunch of overdressed dandies bent over a
gaming table with Kethol. "I think you've found the
right of that"
"On the other hand," Kethol said, "I've heard word
that some of the sailors off the Metta Dee are
squaring off to toss some bones against some
overpaid dwarf copper miners just come to town,
and it occurred to me that I might be able to finger a
stack or two and turn some profit before turning in
for the night, and it would be nice to be able to
concentrate on the game for once with somebody
else to watch my back and help me make my way
out if it comes time to do that. When it comes time
to do that."
There would be worse ways to pass an idle hour.
Not much more boring, but worse. Durine nodded.
"It could be worthwhile, at that. As long as it doesn't
go too late; I don't watch backs well when I'm
yawning and nodding off, and I do it even less well
when I've fallen asleep wrapped in my cloak. You
know, I would suppose, where this game is
happening?"
"A warehouse, down on the Old Docks," Kethol
said. "Probably the fastest way to get there would be
along the boardwalk next to the piers."

117
Well, that made sense; nobody ever said that
Kethol couldn't think tactically. Much better to scoot
along the boardwalk than to plod along muddy
streets.
Kethol led the way down a set of steps that led
down the embankment, under the stilt-pillars that
supported the back ends of the riverfront taverns and
other buildings, giving a wide berth to the
overflowing dung heap beneath the tavern's
garderobe - which was just as well, as a stream of
ordure plopped down just as they passed, and would
have splattered them. You didn't make it as a soldier
by being overly fastidious, not when it mattered, but
that still didn't mean you liked being covered with
shit.
The street above slanted down as it curved
inwards toward the warehouse district, and the
cutaway of the river-bank did likewise. They passed
few people at this late hour, and those few hurried
along.
Durine was used to that, when he wasn't huddled
inside his cloak to minimize his size, deliberately
weaving to use himself as bait. He was a big man, in
a soldier's cloak and sword, and few tradesmen
would want to trust that his motives were benign,
not late at night when there was nobody to bear

118
witness and deter misbehavior. The military outpost
was out of town, and while the town nightwatch
patrolled the streets, true, they were mainly there to
keep the street lanterns lit and watch and smell for
fire more than crime.
They were about to cross the mouth of a road that
cut down the now-lower riverbank, leading onto the
docks, when Kethol froze in midstep.
"I hear something," he hissed, his voice barely a
whisper. "Up ahead."
Their cloaks were a dull brown by design; they
wrapped them about themselves as they faded back
into the dark shadows under a riverfront building,
Durine stepping aside to avoid a piling. The road
was now close enough to the riverbank that the
bottom of the building was suspended on pilings not
quite a manheight tall: Durine had to bend his head
as he stepped back and flattened himself against the
wall between two large barrels, although Kethol
simply squatted down, pulling his cloak around him,
turning himself into a shapeless dark mass.
Kethol's hearing was even better than Durine's; it
took another few moments before Durine could
make out the muffled sound of somebody trying to
shout or scream or at least make some sort of sound
over a gag, and it was a few moments later that a trio

119
of young men dragged a struggling woman down the
street and onto the docks, moving quickly out of the
splash of light from the streetpole lantern and into
the dark.
They were nobly dressed, although perhaps not
expensively. Shirts that white, even stained by dirt
and wine, were not clothes for the common folks,
and while nobles were hardly the only ones to carry
swords, such short basket-hilted rapiers were
weapons for duels, not for war.
They were also drunk - at least the three men
were, as they dragged their captive off the street and
onto the boardwalk, unceremoniously shoving her
along. She had apparently given them more
resistance than they had cared for: her right eye was
already swollen shut, and she had been gagged with
a wadding of cloth tied in place, her wrists bound
behind her with leather straps.
Durine wouldn't have wanted to bet that she was
overly pretty under the best of circumstances, and
this wasn't the best of circumstances. Her hair was
long but tied back, and her shift and coarse-woven
skirt militated against any middle-class origin. Large
unbound breasts flopped under her blouse, and her
unswollen eye was wild over the gag.

120
One of the men unfastened his cloak and spread it
on the boards, while the other two held her. He
made a sarcastically extravagant gesture and bow, as
though cordially inviting her to take her place on it -
and then he dumped her to the ground with a quick
cuff and leg sweep when she didn't immediately
comply.
Durine frowned. He shouldn't be here. It was no
concern of his if three local bravos wanted to take
their turns riding a local girl. Yes, Durine would
have quickly and economically dispatched anybody
who tried any such thing on somebody he was
bound to protect, but some random Riverforks
tradesman's daughter or barmaid or whatever she
was wasn't under his protection. The girl would be a
little sore in the morning, no doubt, but she'd likely
heal, and getting involved in others' squabbles was a
bad habit that Durine had never had to struggle to
give up because he had never considered taking it up
in the first place.
Durine searched about for a convenient exit, and
suppressed a sigh. There was no way out that didn't
involve leaving himself and Kethol open to
observation by the three bravos, and that could be
awkward. They were armed, of course, and might
take offense at an interruption in their fun. Durine

121
didn't think much of their fun, but he didn't believe
in looking for a fight when there was no profit in it.
He was big, and he was strong, and he was fast, but
a blade in the hands of a better or luckier swordsman
could cleave through his flesh just as easily as it
could a smaller, weaker, slower man's. That had
happened to him before, and while he would surely
have to demonstrate that again eventually, he had no
desire to do so to no good purpose at the moment.
The girl's hands were retied to a support post, and
two of the bravos each grasped an ankle and pulled
them apart while the third dropped to his knees
between her legs, unbuckling his sword belt and
setting it aside before he untied her skirt and pushed
up her blouse, then unbuttoned his trousers.
He was already erect; the exercise had apparently
stimulated him.
Well, Durine decided, the best thing to do would
be to just wait until they finished with her. There
was always danger of the nightwatch coming by, and
while that risk clearly hadn't dissuaded these three -
something that also spoke of noble birth and
connections - it would encourage them to be quick
with" her. Durine had spent enough time in line at
various cheap brothels or at whores' tents at the
outskirts of encampments to know how quickly men

122
could finish with a woman when they were in a
hurry, himself included.
With a bit of luck, Kethol would still be able to try
his hand at a game of bones with the sailors and
dwarves. Durine leaned back against the wall and
settled in for the wait.
It was all reasonable, and to do anything else
would have been either risky or downright stupid, so
it only came as a vague surprise to Durine when
Kethol rose up from where he crouched and
launched himself toward the three, barely showing
the discretion to muffle the shout that came to his
lips.
Durine would have sworn at Kethol, and he gladly
would have grabbed him by the shoulders and tried
to shake some sense into him, but neither would
have done any good, so he just straightened and rose
from his hiding place, and followed his companion
out onto the dock.
Kethol grabbed the leader's hair - at least, Durine
assumed it was the leader; surely the leader would
have chosen to go first - and yanked him, hard, off
the girl, then booted him smartly in the butt.
As the would-be rapist tumbled across the wood,
Kethol drew his sword and, with a quick back-and

123
forth motion, cut the leather straps binding the girl's
wrists to the post. Durine had to admire Kethol's
technique and control, if not his good sense -
slashing at the straps that way with the tip of a
sword was the sort of thing that was likely to get
fingers severed, but there was not even a muffled
groan from the girl, and the straps fell away, while
the leader of the group struggled back to his feet,
yanking his trousers up as best he could.
The now wild-eyed youngster had unbuckled his
sword belt and set it to one side so it would not get
in his way.
Durine figured it couldn't do any harm to put his
own foot on the scabbard. There was still ample
opportunity to turn this into merely an example of
Kethol's stupid heroics and not a full-scale fight, and
Durine would try to take advantage of that
opportunity if he could. If they let him. If they could
let him.
The other two had released the girl's ankles and
leaped to their feet; they stepped back, hands on the
hilts of their swords.
"Ta havath," Durine said, letting his voice rumble.
"Stand easy, the lot of you." His own hand was on
the hilt of his sword, but he hadn't drawn. It would
have been good to have his sword in his hand, but

124
things were balanced on a knifepoint here, and
drawing now would surely start a fight that would
profit nobody.
The girl didn't wait to see how it would all turn
out: she snatched up her skirt as she dashed off in
the direction that Durine and Kethol had come from,
her free hand working at her gag. She quickly
vanished around the bend, naked legs flashing.
The last Durine saw of her was the bouncing of a
surprisingly nicely rounded rump. He didn't blame
her for not waiting around to see how it would end.
For all she knew, Durine and Kethol would have
taken up where the noble bravos had left off.
Kethol had taken a step forward, well within range
where a quick bounce and lunge could bring his
sword tip through either or both of them before they
could draw their own swords. Kethol was, no
question, acting like a fool, but at least he was acting
like a sensible fool, not inviting them to draw their
swords. Nobles had more time to spend practicing
with the sword, and most of the time they could
count on being able to beat lessers, particularly
ordinary soldiers who had to spend their training
time mastering bows and pikes - and, in the case of
imperial troops, guns as well.

125
"Be easy," Durine said. "Let's let it end here. You
can't expect my friend Erven to stand by while you
rape his cousin, and I can't see why it has to get any
more exciting than this. Erven," he said again,
figuring even Kethol would pick up on the necessity
of not using their real names, "let it go. We'll just
head back the way we came, and you fine young
gentlemen can head back the way you came, with
none of us the poorer for it than a few bruises on the
girl and a few splinters in the buttocks. Let's all be
on our way and gone before the girl summons the
nightwatch and has us all hauled before the lord
warden to be held for the next judge."
"I'm not afraid of a good Holtish judge hearing of
us having a bit of innocent fun with a peasant girl,"
the leader said. "And get your foot off my sword and
I'll show you who is much the poorer," he went on.
He buttoned the last button on his fly, showing
either an overdeveloped sense of dress or, more
likely, a feeling of less vulnerability with his
suddenly flaccid penis tucked away instead of
flapping in the chilly breeze.
One of the others started to make a move, and
Kethol took a quick step forward, sword tip out,
stopping when his opponent thought better of it.

126
Durine kept his irritation off his face. But, still...
Kethol hadn't done anything quite this stupidly
heroic since the Old Emperor's Last Ride. But back
then they were traveling quickly through neutral
territory, trying to get out and away before word that
the emperor was vulnerable brought the slavers
down on them; as long as they could move faster
than any news, they were fine. In those days, in the
old days, the right thing to do would have been to
just kill the three of them, hide the bodies under the
docks, perhaps, and get out of town before the smell
would lead to their being found.
That might still be the best thing to do here, but
the girl was the problem. If she'd been seen with
these three, when they turned up dead, the Lord
Warden or mayor - Durine didn't know which
governed Riverforks - would surely have the town
wardens speak with her, and Durine wasn't sanguine
about the possibility of her not giving a description
of the two of them if asked.
Loyalty was a tree that grew slowly, over years;
not something you could instantly stick in a scared
girl by sending her running off naked into the night.
He and Kethol should have waited while the three
took turns sticking something else into her.
But it was too late for that.

127
Durine swept his foot to one side, flinging the
sword belt over the side of the boardwalk, letting it
thwuck on the muck at the river's edge below.
"Enough," he said. "It's over. Let it be over." He
started to move away, kicking the leader's cloak to
one side to clear the way for Kethol to back up
without tripping. They could fade back into the night
and be done with this.
The other two seemed to relax as Kethol's careful
retreat brought them out of range of his sword. That
was the most tense moment - would they take it as
an opportunity to draw their own weapons and
charge? There wasn't much reason to worry about
flintlocks in Holtun, except among the most elite and
trusted occupation troops. And a man moving
quickly, dodging from side to side, would be close to
safe from a pistol at all but the closest range. Legend
aside, the things were deucedly hard to aim.
So it was all perfectly reasonable that they'd
disengage with no further damage, which was fine
with Durine. You got in enough fights for necessity
and money, after all.
But the leader snatched at the hilt of one of his
companions' swords, and shoved him aside in order
to draw it.

128
Well, that was the way of fighting, and of war. It
could make all the sense in the world to avoid it, but
if anybody didn't want to be sensible, nobody could
be.
"Mine," Durine said.
Kethol was the better duelist of the two of them,
but it was without protest or even a look sideways
that he took a delicate, dancing step to one side and
backward, his sword tip momentarily wavering as he
brought it into line with the attacker for just a
moment, then back to hover near the chest of the
remaining armed young bravo, who had the sense to
keep his hands up, fingers spread as wide as his
eyes.
Durine already had his own sword in his hand,
although for the life of him, he couldn't remember
when he had drawn it. It wasn't a light duelist's
rapier but a heavier saber, rigid and inflexible the
way Durine liked his swords, sharpened on the top
edge a handsbreadth back, to allow for a backhanded
slash that a weaker man couldn't have considered.
Yes, the point was deadlier than the edge, but the
point and the edge were deadlier than the point
alone.

129
Yes, skill was far more important than strength in
sword-play, but skill plus strength was better than
skill alone.
Yes, there were swordsmen who could best
Durine, but no, not these swordsmen, not today, not
here, not now.
Sober, ready, braced, the young swordsman could
probably have given a better accounting of himself,
but he was drunk and angry, and too eager. Durine
engaged and parried easily as they closed, coming
almost chest to chest.
This was where the hidden left-handed dagger was
supposed to have ended things for Durine, but
Durine's own left hand had already seized his
opponent's shoulder as they closed, and his bruising
grip, combined with the pressure of the forte of his
blade, spun the youngster half around, at least
momentarily bringing the hidden weapon out of
play, and Durine's raised knee that slammed into his
opponent's buttocks, lifting him clear into the air,
kept him off balance long enough for Durine to slam
the brass pommel of his saber into the other's
shoulder, causing his borrowed sword to clatter to
the boards.
There was still some - too much - energy left in
him, so Durine just fastened the fingers of his free

130
hand on the boy's left wrist to keep the knife under
control, at least for a moment, and dropped his own
saber so that he could fasten his other fingers on the
seat of the boy's trousers. He lifted him up, flinging
him easily over the boardwalk's rail and into the
water below, where he landed with a loud splash and
a louder shout of anger and indignation.
"Follow your friend, if you please." Kethol
gestured with his sword tip toward the railing. "No,
no, not the stairs. Just jump over the railing."
"But..."
"Or take up your weapons," Durine said,
straightening with both his own sword in his right
hand and the newly acquired rapier in his left, "and
since your friend didn't just let this be, let's let it end
with you splattered either with mud or with blood
and shit, and bodies all over the boardwalk." His lips
tightened. "I've had about enough of this, and of
you, for one evening. Choose."
They looked at each other, and then the one who
still had his sword shook his head and the other
walked to the railing, clambered over, and dropped
down, while the last of them looked them over very
carefully before vaulting neatly over the railing.

131
Durine hefted his newly acquired sword. A good
sword was always worth money, but he didn't have
the contacts to sell it quickly and discreetly here,
and carrying around a clearly identifiable sword like
this one wouldn't be a good idea, so he hid it in the
corner near where he and Kethol had hidden, and
walked on.
There was probably still time to get to the game,
let Kethol win some money, fight their way to
safety, and make a profit on the evening.

132
5 - Leaving Rivcrforks
irojil woke to the scratching of rats. And
alone. Except for the rat. The rat was a large,
fat animal, bristling whiskers twitching as its
long yellowed teeth gnawed at the seam of Kethol's
leather saddlebags. Pirojil quickly had a knife in his
hand - but the rat caught the movement and skittered
off into the shadows of the corner, vanishing into
what was no doubt some improbably small hole.
Rats were like that. If you wanted to kill one badly
enough - and Pirojil had once been hungry enough to
eat rats, and eat rats he would again, were he again
that hungry - you had to think ahead of them.
He levered himself out of bed and stood
unsteadily. His bladder was full to bursting, his head
ached, and his gut clenched like a fist at the smell of
food coming from somewhere. The reek of cooking
sausage made him gag.
Too much beer last night.
P

133
The chair was still propped under the door latch,
which wasn't surprising. The other two would have
woken him when they returned so he could let them
in. A chair propped up against the door wasn't a
guarantee against a middle-of-the-night invasion,
but it was much safer than trusting to keys provided
by the owner.
Dawn light more oozed than streamed in through
the dirty greased-paper window.
He was vaguely bothered by their absence, but
Kethol could have found a game and Durine an allnight
whore. Or they both could be dead. Either
way, it could wait.
He quickly checked their cache - it was intact -
and pulled on his trousers and boots before heading
down the hall to the privy at the end of it.
It must have been the hangover; the smell of
rotting excrement made him gag badly enough to
vomit up what was left of whatever he had eaten last
night. He quickly finished relieving himself and
headed back to their rooms, then rinsed out his
mouth with a deep draught from the water pitcher.
Beer. A quick mug of beer would clear his head
and settle his stomach.

134
The common room was busy in the morning,
although not in the noisy way it had been at night.
Over in the corner, the six dwarves from last night -
at least, Pirojil assumed it was the same six; he had
trouble telling dwarves apart - were busy bolting
down their breakfast of bread, onion, and that
nauseating-smelling sausage, while the teamsters
took their time over huge wooden bowls of stew.
Erenor the wizard was nowhere to be seen, but you
wouldn't expect that an old man would be up that
late at night and again up this early in the morning.
The innkeeper wasn't in evidence, either, so Pirojil
poured himself a large mug of sour beer from an
open firkin and sat down at the same table he'd had
last night, the one where he had lost the arm
wrestling match to Erenor.
Well, it wasn't the best beer he'd ever had, but it
did wash the taste of vomit from his mouth, and that
was something, and in a little while, it had cleared
the fog from his brain and the fire from his stomach
enough that he was starting to think about food.
A ragged boy of about ten, maybe twelve, pushed
through the inner set of swinging doors into the
common room, his ferretlike face scanning the room
before he settled on Pirojil.
"Is your name Pirojil?" the boy asked.

135
Pirojil didn't see any need to deny it. "Yes."
"Your friend said you'd give me a copper."
Pirojil smiled. "And why would he say such a silly
thing as that?"
"He said to tell you that - how did he say it? - once
a woman's had an orc, she won't go back, whatever
that means, and that when I said that, you'd give me
a copper."
It meant that the boy had come from Kethol.
Maybe nothing more, but... but Kethol wouldn't be
sending a boy if there was no problem.
"Fine," Pirojil said, digging into his pouch and
coming out with a small copper quartermark that he
set on the table.
The boy reached for it. Pirojil slapped his hand
down over the coin. "What else did he say?"
The boy hesitated, then shrugged. "He and your
big ugly friend are in the jail, and they thought you
would pay to know that."
Pirojil stood steadily. Breakfast could wait. He
pulled another coin out of his pocket and held it up
for the boy. "Where's the jail?"

136
Getting in to see the Lord Warden was impossible;
the Lord Warden was off hunting or tax collecting,
or flogging peasants, or sitting under a tree writing
poetry, or whatever such a worthy would spend his
time doing.
Getting in to see Durine and Kethol was a lot
easier. Getting them out would be the problem.
The jail in Riverforks had been carved into the
stone of the riverbank itself, the entrance just above
the high-water mark. Pirojil walked down the carved
steps. There was another way in, of course, but
Pirojil had no particular desire to be dropped down
through the gratings at the top, or even lowered via a
ladder that would be withdrawn before the grating
would be sealed.
Some spring, the river would rise enough that a
flood would fill the jail and drown its occupants like
rats, perhaps - but maybe Pirojil was just being
ungenerous. The jail wasn't a dungeon, after all; it
was mainly a place to store a troublesome traveler
until the arrival of somebody who would pay their
way out of trouble - as well as the occasional more
serious miscreant, who would have to wait for the
high justice of the baron's or emperor's judges, when
those worthies got around to Riverforks.

137
Getting in was no problem. The bored jailer was
used to having a barge captain or farmer come to see
an abashed sailor or farmworker and hear his
protestations and promises before agreeing to pay
his fines, and the bribe was smaller than Pirojil had
expected.
Pirojil surrendered his sword belt at the entrance
and was led down a dark, dank corridor to a barred
cell where Kethol paced back and forth while
Durine stretched his bulk out on a pile of straw,
seemingly asleep.
The bars of the cell were flat pieces of black iron,
riveted together at the junction. A good dwarven
metal saw could cut through any of the bars, perhaps
- say, a night and a day of sawing, if you had to do it
quietly - but it would take a good eight, ten, maybe a
dozen cuts to create a hole big enough for Kethol,
and Durine would require a larger one. There was
one gap large enough to pass a slop bucket or food
bucket in and out, but that was hardly big enough for
a baby.
No door at this level. The only entrance or exit
was the barred hatch in the ceiling, more than a
manheight above their heads.
Pirojil didn't say anything for a moment. Then:
"What happened?"

138
Kethol shook his head. "We ran into a little
trouble last night. I... started a fight with a trio of
young bravos, and it turns out that one of them is
Lordling Mattern, Lord Lerna's son."
"It seems that this Mattern broke his leg in a fall
he took, vaulting over a fence and into the river."
Durine's eyes didn't open. "With some help from the
Spider, he's limping around on it, but he's not happy,
and Lerna isn't due back in town for a full tenday.
The Lord Warden's not going to want to let us go
without his permission."
There were a dozen questions that Pirojil would
have liked to ask, for effect if not because he didn't
know. Like why, if Kethol had started a fight,
Durine had been drawn into it. But he knew the
answer.
The question wasn't how to make the two of them
feel like the couple of idiots they were - you just
didn't get into fights with the nobility - but how to
deal with the problem as it was, and preferably
without drawing a lot of attention.
"I'll see what I can do," he said.
He would need help, and the only two friends he
had in town were in jail, so he couldn't count on
them. For a moment he toyed with the idea of the

139
wizard Erenor and a seeming, but he couldn't figure
out a way to turn that into an escape.
Hmm...
There was another option.
The dowager empress would surely have
forbidden it if she had been here, but that was the
nice thing about Riverforks:
She wasn't here.
He quickened his pace. A quick jog-trot would
clear the beer and sleep and cobwebs from his brain.
The local military garrison was an old castle on a
hill a short ride outside of town. The wall was low
and narrow, Euar'den style, and the ramparts were
crumbling in spots; until it had been taken over by
imperial occupation troops, it had probably stood
empty for a generation or more. The main gate was
closed, and the grass growing in front of it showed
that it wasn't in common use, so Pirojil rode around
the dirt path circling the hill. A single sleepy-eyed
guard slouched against the postern gate, and made
no objection when Pirojil asked to see the captain.
With a good chunk of luck - say, the sort that Kethol
habitually had over the bones table - the captain

140
would be somebody Pirojil knew from the old days
of the Holtun-Bieme wars, or from Biemestren
during the Old Emperor's time, but Pirojil's luck
wasn't in.
Captain Banderan shook his head. "I don't see a lot
that I can do," he said. He probably had cut a fine
figure in his uniform and armor in the old days, but
he had run to fat, and what had probably been a
strong and noble chin was just sagging jowls.
"Steady the horse, will you?"
He gave a testing tug to the halter that kept his
large black gelding fixed to the hitching post, and
moved his three-legged stool back to the rear of the
horse. Pirojil took a solid grip on the halter, and
gave the horse a reassuring pat on the neck while
Banderan sat himself down and bent up the horse's
leg, digging clotted dirt and dung out of the bottom
of its hoof with a dull knife.
Pirojil wasn't sure whether to think less of an
officer who couldn't trust his own stablemen well
enough to make sure they gave proper attention to
his horse, or to admire him for doing it himself and
being sure it was done right, so he settled on both.
Life was like that.

141
"You said you're from Furnael," Banderan said as
he picked up the stool and moved around the back of
the horse to the other rear leg.
"That's right." No, it wasn't right, but Pirojil didn't
correct him. Legally, the barony was Barony
Cullinane, but it had been the barony of the Furnael
family until Thomen had become emperor.
"Well," Banderan said thoughtfully, "I might be
able to put in a good word with Lord Lerna if I could
tell him you were old companions from the war, and
I guess that's close enough. I could talk to the Lord
Warden, but he's going to want to wait for Lerna. He
has to wait for Lerna, really. And he's not going to
want to go to the governor over it, and neither am I."
He tapped the knife against the heel of his boot to
clear it, then spread his hands. "And the jailers are
mainly his relatives. Doubt you'd find them wanting
to let your friends go for any kind of money you'd be
likely to have. Family's important around here."
"It would be best if my friends and I are well out
of Riverforks and on our way as soon as possible."
"I don't see how that could be arranged." Banderan
shook his head. "Although, for all my opinion's
worth, your friends probably should have beaten
Mattern worse. He's the second son, and always
been a wild one." He frowned derisively. "His

142
brother's off on the borders, leading a company
chasing down those orcs, while Mattern rides around
the city and the countryside, chasing down peasant
girls to stick something entirely different than a
sword in them." He raised an eyebrow. "Your
friends must be good with their blades, though, if
they managed to disarm him without doing more
than that. Mattern's back from Biemestren just this
year, and in between jumping the local girls he was
supposedly studying the sword with some decent
sword-master, some fellow with a good reputation."
"Wartsel?"
Banderan smiled. "Well, that's the name I heard.
You know him?"
"I've heard the name, and I think I may have seen
him once or twice, but no, I don't know him." Pirojil
shook his head. A soldier didn't have a lot of time to
take lessons with a swordmaster in the finer points
of dueling. What you learned, you learned in the
troop, and if you were of a mind, from some extra
sparring. And if you had actually picked up more
skill than you were supposed to, it was best to
minimize it, not brag about it.
"An honest answer, eh? I like that" Banderan
pursed his lips. 'Tell you what: you tell me what
three Cullinane soldiers are doing prowling around

143
Neranahan, and perhaps I'll see what I can do to get
your friends out of jail as quickly as I can."
"But I told you we're out of that now. We're off
seeing if there's some good work in Holtun,
something maybe more profitable than soldiering for
the Cullinanes."
Banderan shrugged. "Yes, that's what you told me,
and it's not something I particularly believe." He
dropped the horse's hoof and straightened, wiping
the scraper on the sole of his boot. "Care to swear to
that on your sword?" His light smile dropped. "I
knew a man who beswore himself on his sword
once; it twisted out of his hand the next time he
drew it."
Pirojil never much liked swearing on his sword,
not even if he was telling the truth. Asking for
magical intervention was too much like asking for
trouble, and Pirojil had always found trouble easily
enough to come by without asking for it.
Still, telling the truth might not be the stupidest
idea here. Banderan and his light company might be
well settled in, but they were technically still
occupation troops - Biemish, not Holts - and would
be unlikely to be offended at the idea of somebody
investigating some problem in a Holtish barony, as
long as it wasn't his Holtish barony.

144
And besides, he didn't have much of a choice, not
if he wanted Banderan's help.
Pirojil didn't have much of a lie ready, but he did
have the signed orders and the death warrant in his
pouch. "Well, perhaps I'd better explain everything
to you."
Banderan unwrapped the scroll and read it. And read
it again. "Well," he said. "Now that you've brought
me into this, it would seem that I'm best off making
sure the three of you disappear and are never heard
from again if I don't want the dowager empress to
take a personal interest in me, which, if this goes
wrong, she quite possibly would. Which means that
I'd better see that all three of you are quietly buried
in unmarked graves, or perhaps I'd best help you."
Pirojil nodded.
Banderan raised an eyebrow. "You don't happen to
have a few golden marks on you? I could use a bribe
myself, and it always helps to spread some money
around."
Pirojil shook his head. He had more than a few
golden marks stashed, but admitting that in a keep
surrounded by Banderan's men didn't make a lot of
sense. Yes, if you could fight to keep it, it was

145
yours, and all that was fine, but looking for
opportunities to prove it yours that way wasn't
something that appealed to Pirojil.
"Didn't think so. Well, we'll have to see if loyalty
can still buy what coin might." He looked Pirojil in
the eye. "I've always set a high value on loyalty
myself," he said quietly. "I expect that's understood,
no matter how the bones finally fall."
Pirojil didn't know quite what the fat man was
getting at, but he nodded anyway. "Loyalty and
honor are not something I talk about much."
Banderan's mouth twisted into a grin. It didn't look
like a comfortable expression on his face. "Just as
well. A man who talks too much of loyalty and
honor isn't one I'd trust." He sighed. He handed the
scrolls back to Pirojil and straightened himself.
"Well, let's get a solid meal in our bellies; there's
much to do before nightfall." He beckoned toward a
soldier. "I'll need some volunteers, Ereden. Let's
start with you, Alren, Manrell, and the blacksmith."
A cold wind was blowing in, scattering wispy
threads of clouds through the night sky.

146
Pirojil crept through the night, keeping to the
shadows near the buildings, The last thing he wanted
to do was to draw attention to himself.
Their horses and gear were hidden down the road,
watched over by one of Banderan' s men, Pirojil
hoped, and three others were now in Riverforks,
waiting for the midnight bell, their signal to begin
their parts of the plan.
Meanwhile, Pirojil hid himself in the shadow of a
warehouse overlooking the jail. The five hatches
over the cells were secured by a metal ladder that
was used to climb in and out of the cells: the ladder
was slid through two huge staples on either end of
the row of hatches, then chained and locked in
place. Picking the lock would perhaps have been
possible for a dedicated thief, but he would then
have been faced with the problem of sliding the
ladder out and away without drawing the attention
of the jailer below, who could quickly ring the alarm
bar, waking the whole city within moments,
including the nightwatch.
It wasn't an arrangement that would have been
useful to keep somebody locked up for years, but
that wasn't the purpose of the Riverforks jail, after
all. Elves would - had - turned offenders into trees
for transgressions that a human might not even be

147
able to understand. Dwarves might lock a miscreant
in a tunnel that required expanding or perhaps
reshoring and reward him with food only as the
work was done, but the Moderate People were
different. Justice in the empire was often formal, but
punishments were swift, be it a whipping in the
public square, a fine, or an execution.
It would have been nice to have a detachment of
dwarves right about now, Pirojil decided. They
would be able to tunnel into the cells faster than a
human who hadn't seen them work with stone could
have thought possible.
Or, better yet, Ellegon the dragon. Ellegon could
land, tear up the hatches with his immense claws,
and be in the air with Pirojil, Durine, and Kethol
practically before the jailer would have finished
soiling himself.
Of course, these days, that might not be safe. With
all the strange things that had flowed out of the
breach between reality and Faerie, the cultivation of
dragonbane had become more and more common,
and many bowmen made it a point to keep their
arrows tipped with fresh dragonbane extract
But it didn't matter much. The dragon might
answer to the emperor, and he - it? Pirojil was never
sure how to figure out the sex of a dragon - probably

148
would answer to one of the Cullinanes or Walter
Slovotsky, but the dragon wasn't about to place
himself at the disposal of the likes of Pirojil, and on
balance that suited Pirojil just fine.
A fire-breathing dragon that could read your mind
wasn't his idea of a pleasant companion.
The night was cool, but not cold, and the guard
had chosen to sit outside the jail, his chair propped
back against the jailhouse wall. It would have been
easy to silence him - permanently - but that assumed
not only that he was the only one within earshot, but
that Banderan and his people would put up with a
deliberate killing in the freeing of the other two.
Well, that simplified things.
Pirojil dropped down lightly behind the jailer, and
as the blocky man turned, Pirojil slipped a canvas
bag over his head and jerked him out of his chair,
kicking him carefully in the pit of the stomach to
knock the wind from him.
It was a matter of moments to tie him, hand and
foot, and just a few moments more to pull up the bag
for a moment and gag him thoroughly. He was
disposed to struggle at first, but the prick of a
knifepoint against the back of his neck disposed of
that inclination.

149
Silencing the guards was always a lot easier when
you didn't mind if they ended up dead, but the idea
here was to get Durine and Kethol out with as little
fuss and attention as possible. An escape from jail
would be forgotten more quickly than a murder.
And besides, this wasn't an ordinary escape from
jail.
Pirojil snapped his fingers once, twice, three
times. Two men moved out from the shadows, and
headed for the ladder that secured the cell's hatches.
Everen, the troop's blacksmith, was quick and deft
enough with his lockpicks to quickly and quietly
open the padlocks, while his partner, whose name
Pirojil either never learned or immediately forgot,
thoroughly greased the staples holding down the
ladder, so the two of them could slide it out quietly.
So far, so good.
Pirojil lifted the hatch on the third cell, and with
the aid of both of Banderan's men lowered the
ladder.
Kethol swarmed up the ladder, a cloth-wrapped
sliver of stone in his hand, relaxing only when he
saw Pirojil holding one finger to his lips.
Durine was next, and Pirojil pushed the bound
guard to the lip of the hole. "It was magic," he said,

150
his voice low and guttural. "Some sort of magic.
You were just keeping watch, and then there was a
flash of light and a puff of smoke, and you were
inside the jail, unable to speak, while your charges
were gone, leaving behind nothing but a foul smell."
He forced a chuckle. "The other choice, of course, is
that you paid so little attention that not only could
you be overpowered, but you helped find the keys
and free the prisoners without even being tortured
first. So it must have been magic, and what's a poor
jailer to do, eh?"
The bound man nodded, and Pirojil guided him
toward the ladder, freeing his hands with a quick
admonition to leave the bag over his head in place.
The guard slid down the ladder, which was
quickly withdrawn. Banderan's soldiers disappeared
back into the shadows, and were gone. Pirojil didn't
blame them much; there was no point in hanging
around.
Pirojil beckoned to Durine and Kethol. Half done;
the rest to go. The wizard was a wizard, after all,
and his loyalty could be obtained with coin.
In the gray light just before dawn, the sign over the
door read ERENOR, WIZARD. This was followed by a

151
string of fuzzy symbols that ran down the sign onto
the doorframe and onto the door itself.
The sign looked newer than Pirojil would have
expected. He had been expecting years of
weathering, but the letters and runes were freshly
carved, not more than a few tendays old. Strange.
Hedge-wizards tended to stay in place pretty much
forever; it was a sinecure sort of job.
Low pay, perhaps, as magical occupations went,
but without the risks that major magic involved. The
worst danger was probably boredom.
The door had no lock, which didn't surprise him at
all. Wizards didn't tend to use locks; they had better
ways of protecting themselves and their property,
and Pirojil had no desire or intention of becoming a
demonstration of that.
He knocked hard on the door, and then even
harder.
There was no answer.
There was always the window - Erenor had a real
glass window - but it would be protected, as well.
So he just knocked again, then drew his knife and
pounded the hilt against the wood. There would be
no danger to that; a door was supposed to be

152
knocked upon, as long as it was done by somebody
not trying to break in.
"I'm coming," a voice grumbled from inside. "Just
hold on; I'll be there in a moment."
There was a whisper of hushed voices from inside,
and as the door opened Pirojil saw a flash of slim
naked legs vanishing through a beaded curtain into a
dark room beyond.
It seemed that the wizard had been busy.
"Oh," Erenor said. "It's you."
He was dressed only in a pair of blousy
pantaloons. His seeming as a young man was back
in place; strong muscles played under sweat-soaked
skin. There was, it would appear, more use for a
seeming than simply winning a bout of arm
wrestling in the bar.
No, that didn't make sense.
Seemings were by definition relatively minor
spells - even major seemings were easily broken.
If Erenor had developed a spell of such power as
to turn a seeming real and could employ the energies
and forces necessary simply to spend a night in bed
with a girl, he wouldn't be spending his days as a
hedge-magician in Riverforks.

153
Henrad, the emperor's own wizard, certainly
wasn't capable of such a thing, and Henrad was
supposedly quite good at what he did.
Pirojil was no expert on magic, but...
No. Erenor wasn't that good.
Which meant that Erenor had been using a
seeming in the tavern, but not to make himself
appear young and strong. It had been used to make
him - a young, strong man - appear old and feeble,
and all he had done had been to dispel it, and then
legitimately beat the surprised Pirojil at arm
wrestling and sell him a useless amulet.
"I've come to talk to you about this amulet you
sold me," Pirojil said. "The one that dispels these
powerful seemings of yours." He reached out and
touched it to Erenor's sweaty chest. "How
fascinating! It doesn't appear to be working. Imagine
that."
"Well," Erenor said, "one wouldn't expect - "
"That a wizard of such power and wisdom would
be here in Riverforks. And I should have, not being
a local buffoon. And if I'd been sober, I'd not have
thought twice about it. But perhaps a minor, young
wizard, barely more than an apprentice, a man of
more cleverness than learning, would find himself a

154
town to spend at least some time in while selling
impotent amulets, before moving on. Magic has
value, but belief in magic has more, eh?"
Pirojil pushed Erenor aside and stepped into the
wizard's shop, something he wouldn't have
considered moments before. Erenor was more of a
scoundrel than a wizard, and Pirojil had no
particular fear of scoundrels.
Pirojil tossed Erenor the amulet he had bought.
"Get rid of the girl," he said. "We have a deal to
make."
"But - "
"Just do it."
"So?" Erenor poured himself a drink from a mottled
clay bottle, not offering one to Pirojil. "You have
some sort of offer to make?"
Pirojil didn't like working with wizards. But there
could be some advantages to having one around who
had more cleverness than talent, and there was no
advantage whatsoever in leaving this one behind to
swear that the escape from the jail had involved
magic.

155
"Given your skills," Pirojil said, "I assume you
know how to ride a horse very fast."
"Because ... ?"
"Because you've probably had to ride it very fast
out of town on more than one occasion. Here's
another one."
"And I should do this because ... ?" Erenor sipped
at his mug.
"Well, because there's been an escape from the jail
that may be thought to involve magic just a short
while ago, and if you're not around to investigate the
magical source of it, you're likely to be suspected of
being involved. So you'd best be riding out."
"Which is why I'd want to be sure to stay here,
no?"
The point of Pirojil's sword was at Erenor's throat.
"No," he said. "Particularly given that my friends are
faster than I am, and far more irritable, and they
would much rather the local lords be fearfully
considering chasing a wizard rather than bravely
riding in search of us."
Erenor smiled weakly. "I see their point. And
yours, as well."

156
"Do you need much time in packing? Or would
you prefer to decide things here, between the two of
us?"
Erenor was a younger man, with a right arm that
he no doubt kept strong and powerful with exercise
in order to cozen the credulous, but Pirojil wouldn't
have given a copper shard for Erenor's chances
against him in a real fight, not even one that didn't
start with Pirojil's sword out and ready.
Erenor took barely a moment to come to the same
conclusion. His smile was too broad by half, but it
was a smile of concession. "I've a bag packed and
waiting."
"I'd have thought so."
Kethol and Durine were waiting with fresh horses at
the north end of town. Banderan had been generous;
there were six horses, and while they were hardly
highbred Biemestren warhorses, they looked sound
enough. Kethol and Durine had each picked a brown
gelding; Pirojil took the remaining saddled horse, a
large gray mare, and boosted Erenor up to the bare
back of a small bay, adding the wizard's bag to the
gear strapped to the coal-black packhorse.
Let the wizard bounce along on bareback.

157
"It occurs to me," Kethol said, "that after we're
clear of town, Erenor here might want to turn around
and ride back here, perhaps to clear himself with the
locals, perhaps setting them upon our trail in the
doing."
"It's occurred to me, too," Pirojil said. "I think
we'd better have a new companion, at least for a
time."
Erenor spread his hands. "It would be my pleasure,
of course. I so much enjoyed being woken this
morning to find that I have to flee my all-toocomfortable
existence here that I'd not think of
departing from your company." His mouth
tightened. "But if I did decide to part ways with you,
I'm not fool enough to return here. Too much
attention would have already been drawn to me, and
I'm unfond of that." He patted the neck of his horse.
"Now, shall we go?"
"In a moment." It might be handy to have a wizard
along, even one who was barely an apprentice.
Pirojil opened the wizard's bag and dug through it
until he found three leather-bound books.
"Now, friend Pirojil - "
"Be still," Durine said, his face grim.

158
Pirojil pulled out the smallest one, a slim book
bound in brown leather and fastened shut with a
buckle and strap. He unbuckled the straps and
opened it. It was impossible to focus on the letters
on the page; they shifted and swam in front of his
eyes. It wasn't just that they were out of focus,
either; it was like trying to read something in a
dream, where you knew you'd never be able to, but
your eyes couldn't help but try.
He closed the book, and wiped at his eyes. He
didn't have the gift of magic, and he'd no more be
able to read the words than he'd be able to fly. It was
painful to try, in a way he couldn't have explained to
anybody else.
The two other books were thicker, and bound in
finer black leather, but they were the same inside.
Pirojil tossed one book to Durine and another to
Kethol. "We'll hold on to these for you, for the time
being."
"Well, that does seem reasonable, under the
circumstances," Erenor said, sounding pleasant
enough about it; he should probably have gone into
acting rather than magic. "I see no problem with
that. And perhaps we can discuss it further at some
later time, eh?"

159
Kethol opened his mouth to say something, but
Durine frowned him to silence. "Discussion later,"
the big man said. "Let's get out of here before we get
into worse trouble."
Erenor actually chuckled. "I would hardly find that
likely."

160
6 - A Night on Woodsdun
ight on the flat-topped hill overlooking the
village of Woodsdun was crisp and cold, but
too dry without beer. Durine missed beer.
At least there was food, even if the food was
military field rations. The best part of it was the
amazingly fresh-tasting, cedary water from the water
bags and the tiny pieces of honey candy wrapped in
greased paper. The rest, though, was unchewable
hardtack - you had to break off a piece and let it
soften to tastelessness in your mouth - accompanied
by a handful of tiny, dried smoked sausages that
looked like a crooked old man's dismembered
fingers and probably tasted about the same.
On the other hand, Durine thought, the meal was
also without bars or walls that it would take a dwarf
to tunnel through. That was, all things considered,
not the worst possible deal.
N

161
Take the sort of simple mound that small children
make in the dirt, enlarge it to giant size and cover it
with grasses and brush, then slice off the top with a
giant's sword, and you had the hill that the locals
called Woodsdun, same as the village below. Parts
of an old road twisted up the side toward the top, but
much of it had been overgrown.
Some rocks and rabble remained, ruins of a castle
that had overlooked the surroundings long ago, but
only the largest and smallest stones; the bones and
guts of a dead castle were useful for building more
mundane structures, and anything both large enough
to be useful and small enough to be easily portable
had long since been loaded on sledges and dragged
down the hill, or perhaps just rolled downhill to help
build, say, a house or a road in the village below.
Woodsdun was a smallish village, a cluster of
perhaps thirty or so hovels where the road crossed a
creek, but there probably was at least a towner with
a room or a barn to let for the night. On the other
hand, the top of the hill was a much better place to
wait and see if a band of a lordling's men-at-arms
was riding in pursuit, and Kethol and Pirojil had
pushed all four men and all six horses hard to make
it this far by dusk, harder than Durine would have.

162
Horses were stupid creatures - push one too far,
too hard, and it would up and die on you. Better to
bet on your fighting arm, and those of your
companions, than on a horse's sense of selfpreservation.
This time, the gamble had worked. The horses had
worked themselves into an unhealthy lather, but they
were grazing peacefully downslope, twist-hobbled
against wandering far off during the night. By
morning they would be ready to travel again.
What really irritated Durine, though, besides the
presence of the wizard, was the lack of a fire. It was
unlikely but possible, of course, that a villager below
would notice the sparks from their fire on the hilltop,
so there was to be no fire this night, not while they
couldn't be sure there was no pursuit. No fire didn't
just mean cold food. Durine had been a soldier far
too long to really worry about food, as long as there
was enough of it to fill the belly.
But there was more to fire than something to cook
with. Durine liked fire; it warmed him in a way that
went beyond the physical. Even with his horse
blanket beneath him to keep the ground from
sucking the heat from his body, even wrapped in his
cloak, it would be a cold night, and even if it hadn't,
he would have wanted a fire.

163
Durine knew himself well: tonight he would
dream of stones heated in a campfire, then buried
under a thin layer of dirt beneath his bed of cold
ground. His dreams - as opposed to his nightmares -
were always satisfying to him, as they filled in
whatever lack he most felt during his waking hours.
When he was younger and more hot-blooded, his
dreams had been filled with blood and thick yellow
worms of intestines writhing on the ground, but he
had long since had enough of that to satisfy any such
lust, and his red dreams had turned all pale and
sallow, the color of a dead man's face.
His dreams had been about food from time to
time, and even now, every so often it was a woman,
although those urges had long started to wither and
fade. Even for a long while after he had found
himself partnered with Kethol and Pirojil, he had
dreamed of being able to leave his back unguarded,
but those dreams were gone.
Warmth was the thing that he would miss most
tonight, and he would miss it until he fell asleep.
And then all would be fine; he would spend his
sleeping hours wrapped in the warmth of dreams of
warmth, and if he awoke to a cold reality, so be it.
Kethol had already wrapped himself in his own
cloak and fallen asleep. Or pretended to, perhaps; if

164
he hadn't grown tired of Pirojil's long discourse on
the stupidity of Kethol's heroics in Riverforks, he
was the only one of the three listeners who hadn't,
including Pirojil - and Pirojil had volunteered for
first watch, as usual.
Pirojil would take first watch; Durine, who could
easily wake up for his own watch and then fall back
asleep when it was finished, would take the second;
and Kethol, the third.
Erenor, of course, wanted to stay up and talk, but
that was fine with Durine. He would learn quickly
enough when traveling with the three of them that
you slept and ate when you could when you were on
the road, and if that lesson were to cause the wizard
a day of misery on the next day's ride, that was more
than fine with Durine, as well.
Durine wrapped himself in his cloak and stretched
out on his horse blanket, his sword under his right
hand, a sack of feed grain as comfortable a pillow as
there was. He lay back in the cold, and listened to
them talk though the haze of oncoming sleep.
"Well, I had a disagreement with my master, back
when I was an apprentice," Erenor said, "and all
things considered, it seemed wise to strike out on
my own."

165
"Disagreement?" Durine didn't have to turn his
head or open his eyes to see Pirojil's twisted smile in
his mind's eye. "What did you try to steal from
him?"
"Stealing? No. It wasn't a matter of stealing,"
Erenor said. "And that's such an ugly word. It was
an issue of how ... advanced an apprentice I was. He
felt that his spell books were perhaps too, oh,
sophisticated for me, and that my talents should be
better focused on sweeping out his quarters,
preparing his food, and waiting upon his needs, both
professional and personal - with my only reward that
honor, plus an occasional bit of training of a minor
cantrip or trivial glamour. I felt that my fires were
banked too deeply, and might go out without proper
feeding.
"So, after some perhaps overly vigorous
discussion, we parted ways, and I've made my own
way since then. It's not a bad life, and those seeming
spells I've managed to master, I'm really quite good
at. I doubt there's a man in Riverforks who doesn't
think that the wizened wizard is the real me, and the
muscular young man an illusion I find convenient to
make seem real every now and then."
"You went quickly past that discussion. Did he
survive it? This discussion, I mean."

166
"Possibly."
Pirojil laughed. "So you didn't quite cut his head
all the way off and burn it separately from the body,
eh?"
"Now, now, now, we're not talking about Arta
Myrdhyn or Lucius of Pandathaway, after all, the
sort who have prepared spells to regrow a cut tongue
and spoken the dominatives and all the rest with a
tone of permanence, needing but a tongueless grunt
as an instigator. My . .. belated and lamented teacher
was a fine wizard, certainly, but not the sort to
survive losing so vehement an argument. He made a
point or two, certainly, but I felt I got the better of
the debate, and well, since I wasn't quite competent
to take his place - "
"You weren't good enough. And you'd have had
your head hacked off for killing a useful wizard."
"You have a way of putting things so
unpleasantly. Could we not say that my abilities are
not unlimited, and leave it at that? The good people
of my teacher's home abode had come to expect
perhaps a higher level of competence than I was
immediately ready to demonstrate, and I found it expedient
to depart for less demanding fields of
endeavor."

167
Pirojil laughed.
Kethol woke to a rush of wind like that of a violent
storm, and the loud flapping of leathery wings
beating hard against the crisp, cold night air. He
didn't remember throwing off his cloak and blankets,
but he was already on his feet, sword in his hand.
Durine was already on his feet, his cloak wrapped
about him and flapping in the wind, his sword
sheathed.
*Good evening,* sounded in Kethol's mind. He
had heard that mental voice before, and while he
knew people who were comforted by it, he wasn't
among them.
The dragon dropped the last manheight to the
ground, shaking both Pirojil and the wizard out of
their sleep.
Pirojil rose slowly, although the wizard only
struggled.
If it hadn't been for the dragon, Kethol would
have had to laugh out loud. Durine or Pirojil had
clearly tired of watching out for the wizard and
taken the appropriate precautions against the three
of them being knifed in their sleep: Erenor had been
bound, hand and foot, with a rope around his neck
tied to a nearby bush. Any excess movement would

168
have rustled the branches, and on the road, not one
of the three would sleep through a warning sound
like that. They might be able to snore through the
tramping of horses or the cries of a drillmaster on
the field or the cries of a market outside, perhaps,
but not something as threatening as the rustling of
branches.
You had to keep your priorities straight, after all.
The dragon craned its huge neck to look down at
Kethol with huge unblinking eyes, each larger than
the formal dinner plates that the Old Emperor used
at table. The dragon's head was vaguely like a forest
lizard's, except that it was longer, teeth the size of a
man's forearm showing even though its mouth was
closed.
It was a huge beast, its body the size of a large
house, even excluding the immense leathery wings
that it folded down around itself with a few quick
final flips that sent sand and dust whipping into the
air.
*Is there some problem?*
Kethol had faced things he feared more, but
nothing before that made him fear stuttering.
"Little enough, Ellegon," Pirojil said, saving
Kethol the embarrassment "A cold night - "

169
*And a fire would be unwise. I understand all too
well.*
Durine grunted. "That I'd doubt."
The dragon snorted. Derisively, Kethol presumed.
*Then you're a fool. With all the things that
leaked out of Faerie not too long ago still about
during the day and particularly the night, the number
of arrows and bolts and wall-top spikes coated with
dragonbane has gotten to the point where it's enough
to make even the most daring dragon nervous, and
I've always been the cautious type, myself.*
The bush that Erenor was tied to was shaking
hard. If Erenor could have escaped by wriggling
across the ground like a snake, he would have been
gone quickly. His eyes were wide in fear, and he
couldn't stop trembling, and from the stink that
made its way to Kethol's nostrils, he'd been unable
to control himself in other ways as well.
*I'd just as soon you not untie your new
companion,* the dragon said. *Unless you're sure
there's no dragonbane within reach.*
The Old Emperor had once said that one thing you
should never do was lie to the dragon. Lying to
yourself was much safer.

170
Ellegon didn't often choose to read minds, but...
"No, there's definitely some," Kethol said. "The
arrows in my quiver are coated."
Kethol gestured toward his gear, but he didn't
make a move toward it. Yes, the dragon could
certainly read his mind well enough to know that he
meant it no harm, but what if it didn't bother to?
Kethol had seen a man die, writhing in dragonfire,
more than once. It wasn't something you forgot.
Particularly the smell. It could be argued that the
dragon was the most important weapon that turned
the war Bieme had been losing into the Biemish
victory that had created the empire.
*So, you, too, have dragonbane on you, eh?
Should I be concerned? Or vaguely irritated?*
"Nothing to do with you, Ellegon," Pirojil said.
"But, as you said, with things having rushed out of
Faerie, it seems reasonable to have some around,
no?"
*Umph.* Folding its tree-trunk legs beneath its
body like a cat, the dragon settled down to the
ground. A netting of ropes tied to its huge torso held
a collection of lashed bags and boxes. In its spare
time - when it wasn't busy doing whatever it was
that a dragon did; the way Ellegon spent his time

171
wasn't something to be shared with the likes of
Kethol and his friends - the dragon had been known
to help out the emperor by carrying the imperial
mail faster than the imperial messengers could, and
in far greater bulk and with much greater secrecy
than the telegraph.
Steam whispered out from between its leathery
lips. *And it would be reasonable to have some
dried, powdered aconite root in your spicer kit, just
in case you wanted to poison a fancier of
horseradish, eh?*
For some reason, that made Erenor stop struggling
for just a moment.
Kethol realized that he still was standing with his
sword in his hand, and that was a silly thing to be
doing under the circumstances. Ellegon meant no
harm, and even if the dragon did, a sword would be
as useful against it as a curse. Less; the dragon
might be offended or insulted by a curse, but an
unenchanted sword had no more chance of cutting
through those scales than a leaf did.
So Kethol just stooped and resheathed his blade in
his scabbard.
The dragon's massive head turned toward where
Erenor lay bound. *I see you have a new pet.*

172
Pirojil laughed. "It was convenient to have a
wizard along."
*As it might still be. Keep your eyes and ears
open in Keranahan. I'm delivering some dispatches
there,* the dragon said.
"I know," Pirojil said. "We've been sent by the - "
*By the dowager empress to investigate some
arranged marriage. Yes, I know. She tried to get
Walter Slovotsky to look into it, but he was smart
enough to slip away before he was exactly ordered
to do it, and then didn't have to have any discussion
with Thomen or Beralyn about what his status was
or is.*
"I see."
*And it seems,* the dragon said as it rose to its
feet, *that some people aren't as smart.*
There was another explanation, of course: the
possibility that it had nothing to do with being smart
or not being smart, but that Kethol and the rest were
simply obeying orders, that they simply had had no
choice ... That possibility didn't occur to the dragon.
*Oh, that occurred to me, Kethol, truly it did,* the
dragon said. *But it just didn't occur to me that it
was an important distinction.*

173
The dragon craned its neck toward one of the
larger rocks. Its massive jaw parted slightly, and a
gout of orange fire issued toward the rock, fingers of
flame licking and caressing the rough surface for
only a few moments.
Heat washed against Kethol's face, even when the
dragon closed its mouth and then leaped into the air,
massive wings beating hard enough to drive dust and
sand painfully into the lids of Kethol's now-tightiyclosed
eyes.
*But,* it said, as it rose into the sky and flapped
away, *there's no reason that even the stupidly
obedient shouldn't be able to sleep with some
warmth and comfort*

174
7 - Treseen and Elanee
overnor Treseen was just returned from the
Residence when the message arrived. It had
been a slow and pleasant ride back from his
breakfast with the baroness out at what used to be
the baron's country home, and a leisurely ride was a
rare treat these days, what with the work of his
office.
It wasn't like the old days, but then again, these
days he slept in a clean bed, a warm meal resting
comfortably in his belly. There was much more to be
said for the new days than the old days.
And the future was bright with promise.
He doffed his riding coat and tossed his gloves to
the chair in front of his desk and sat down.
Work, work, work.
There were tax reports from the village wardens to
go over and scouting reports from the occupation
G

175
troops on the borderlands that had to be read. A case
of fulghum rot had hit outside of some of the
northern villages, and it was proving resistant to the
Spidersect spells that should have stopped it cold.
He'd have to have a word with Trewnel the wizard
about that, and while he had little faith in Trewnel's
honesty, it was either him or Baroness Elanee, and
his plans for intimate talks with the baroness didn't
include much discussion of the diseases of plants.
Running a barony was an amazing amount of
work, and it was barely possible to get in a couple
days' hunting each tenday, not to mention the birds
that he had been neglecting. His young sparrow
hawk was ripe for training - and a sharp-eyed little
killer she was! - and it was all he could do to handfeed
her every now and then. Yes, she would come
to the lure, but only if the lure was in the hand of his
bird keeper, Henros. He had no intention of
spending the mountains of coins it cost to feed and
take care of his birds merely for the pleasure of that
oily Henros.
He had heard but mostly ignored the clattering of
hoofbeats outside his window. There was always
somebody coming and going, and usually they were
coming and going in a hurry. That was the trouble
these days. Too much hurrying. It was one thing to

176
ride quickly into battle, but another entirely less
noble, less interesting thing to hurry and scurry forth
on matters more mundane.
He turned back to the papers on his desk and got
to work.
"Governor?" Ketterling stood in the doorway, an
envelope in his hand.
"Yes, yes, what is it?"
"Message, Governor."
Treseen frowned as he took the envelope. The
imperial mail rider wasn't due for a couple of days
yet, and the telegraph line barely reached into
Barony Neranahan; stretching it into the hinterlands
of Keranahan was a low priority. There was good
and bad in that; Treseen was not eager for more
imperial supervision. An occasional troop of the
Home Guard coming through was more than enough
for him.
"Where?"
"It's from old Banderan, sir."
Treseen smiled. Banderan was a companion from
the old days, and while there was little to
recommend the old days in comparison with the here
and now, loyalty and dedication were tested far

177
better with the clash of steel than with the clink of
copper.
"But how did it come in?"
"The dragon Ellegon, of all things."
Treseen swallowed heavily. He felt vaguely
nauseous. "Ellegon. Here?"
"He was. Last night. He's long since gone."
Ketterling pursed his lips. "I've never much cared
for that creature, Governor. He knows too much
about too much and tends to find out more about
more." Ketterling brightened. "Even when, of
course, as I well know, there's nothing to worry
about anybody finding out."
Treseen nodded tolerantly. Ketterling was an idiot.
There was always something to worry about. One
could have the most innocent intentions in the
world, but if those innocent intentions might result
in some benefit, there was always somebody else
who would want the benefit for himself. One might,
for example, wish to marry a baroness - an
appropriate reward for long service first to Bieme,
and then to the empire, and then to the baroness and
the barony itself - and it was entirely possible that
that would interfere with the plan or preference or
even the whim of somebody in a position to stop it.

178
One might have urged the emperor to put off the
naming of the heir as baron for just that reason, and
yes, the baroness finding that out was something to
concern oneself with.
The dagger that Treseen had once carried into
battle lay on his desk, holding down a stack of
papers. It looked different these days than it had at
that time. It had been an expensive blade, the
manufacture of which had cost Captain Treseen half
a year's salary, made from a small ingot of dwarven
wootz that Treseen had managed to come by as a
battle prize.
But in the old days, the blade was kept merely
working-sharp, not honed to a razor's sharpness -
too sharp an edge could chip, and Treseen's arm was
strong - and it had had a hand guard, to catch and
deflect another's blade. It had long since been
remounted with a simple bone-inlaid handle, and it
lay on his desk merely as a letter opener, and a
reminder to Governor Deren Treseen of any number
of things.
He used it to slice off the wax thumbprint with
which Banderan had sealed the letter, and quickly
scanned the contents.
Ah. He should have guessed.

179
Banderan was merely overreacting, as had always
been his wont. Three ordinary soldiers from Barony
Furnael - Treseen knew he was now supposed to call
it Barony Cullinane, but his thoughts were his own -
had been dispatched in response to some note that
silly little Leria had managed to smuggle out -
Elanee would want to know how that had happened
- and which had ended up in the clutching hands of
the dowager empress, of all people.
Well, if that was all this was, there was nothing to
worry about, and certainly nothing to do. Leria was
resisting the idea of marriage to Miron, and while
that was a minor complication for the baroness, it
was hardly a problem that justified or needed
imperial scrutiny.
Which was fine.
Much more important: it was a problem that could
easily stand imperial scrutiny.
Some minor reconciliation issues with the taxes
collected and those passed on to Biemestren was
another matter, but that wasn't the sort of thing that
three ordinary soldiers - or a hundred soldiers -
would be about to try to sort out, much less be able
to sort out.

180
Besides, if enough coins flowed through one's
hands, one or two could only be expected to stick to
one's fingers now and then. After all, a man did have
to think of his future, and as Treseen's father had
always said, it was just simple good sense to put
more than one arrow in the air.
And Treseen had more than one arrow in the air.
Until Leria married, her lands were administered
by Treseen, and that was perfectly fine with him.
Tax money went for roads and mills, and Treseen
had used some of that to help sponsor a company of
dwarves from Endell who had wanted to take up
residence in the Ulter Hills. Wherever dwarves
came, money flowed. And the more money that
flowed, the more that might be diverted without
notice.
Looking at it that way, Elanee's attempts to urge
Leria into a marriage with Miron were just a minor
problem.
To him, that is, it was a minor problem, but from
the point of view of the baroness, it might seem
more than minor. It might, in fact, be utterly
embarrassing for somebody as adept as Elanee
thought herself to find the dowager empress taking a
personal interest in her minor machinations.

181
Which certainly boded well for a man who could
handle such a minor/major problem, or at least point
the way toward a solution. There was, perhaps, more
than gold to be had out of it, and in an empire that
had been created by a usurper, what limits could a
man with intelligence and ambition have?
"Ketterling," Treseen said, "have a fresh horse
saddled, and an escort mounted. I'm afraid I'll have
to ride out to the Residence again shortly."
"Yes, Governor."
Treseen sat back in his chair and thought about
how he would answer the note. The trick would be
to thank Banderan without thanking him too much,
but surely Treseen was capable of that much
subtlety. Drafting such a message should take but
moments.
And if not, well, if Treseen wasn't able to easily
manipulate a loyal and straightforward old soldier,
who was he to marry a baroness, eh?
Elanee knelt down on a folded blanket and
considered the rosebush in front of her.
It was lush and full, dense with thorny branches
and dozens of flowers the color of fresh blood, their
musky perfume filling the late afternoon air.

182
Definitely wrong. She suppressed a tsking sound.
It never paid to reveal your feelings, even when you
were alone. She had neglected this bush too long; it
had grown too dense, with far too many flowers, a
puffball of a plant. A rosebush was not a wheat field,
after all, to be judged by the weight and volume of
its yearly crop.
It was a work of art.
This one should, she decided, be cut back to
perhaps half a dozen branches, each bearing one or
two roses as far from the base of the plant as
possible. Let it dominate as much space as it could
with its beauty, but let it do so subtly: and let the
empty space make the crooked branches stand out
more.
She took her favorite tool, a slim serrated knife,
and set to work. The trick was to cut enough to bend
the bush to her vision without cutting so much that
the plant would die.
Nobody - nobody - was allowed in the inner
gardens when Elanee was working with her plants.
Were an interruption absolutely necessary, there was
a bell by the gate that could be rung by anybody
willing to quite literally bet his or her life that she
would have them killed for relaying whatever the
matter was. The bell had never been rung, for that

183
purpose or any other, and Elanee had been mildly
amused to discover, some years before, that servants
always kept a fresh, dampened rag wrapped about
the clapper to prevent it from an accidental ring.
Certain kinds of privacy came easily with her
station; others were simply unavailable.
She could easily arrange to be left alone in her
bath, or in her room to sleep or read or eat or, more
frequently, to think; she could not possibly arrange
for a walk about the Residence itself without
encountering somebody - it took a large staff to
maintain even such a simple country home - and it
would not only be beyond stupidity but remarkably
noteworthy for her to go for a ride by herself across
the countryside or even there without an escort.
The pile of branches on the black soil next to the
bush grew slowly, as did the separate pile of roses.
There was no need to waste them, after all; a servant
would separate the petals and add them to her bath.
Tonight.
After, of course, Elanee abandoned her garden for
the day.
The privacy of her garden was special. It belonged
to her, not to anybody else.

184
It wasn't just a matter of her privacy, although that
would have been sufficient in and of itself. There
was also the matter of vanity, and Elanee considered
her vanity an asset, not a liability. She was
remarkably unbecoming and appeared to be very
much a woman of her age with her hair tied back
and wrapped in a cloth like a peasant woman's, her
face protected from tanning by a floppy straw hat,
wearing a loose pair of man's trousers, an oversized
shirt, and a pair of pigskin gloves to protect her
hands.
She didn't mind getting dirty, be it with dirt or
blood, should the situation require it - she was, after
all, the Euar'den heir to Tynear, even if the Euar'den
Dynasty had long since ended its rule of Tynear, and
Tynear itself was swallowed up by Holtun five
generations before - but part of what made her what
she was was her insistence on appearing above it all.
Tanning like a peasant wouldn't fit with that, and
neither would it do to be seen wrapping herself up to
avoid it.
The hardest thing to do in life was to float through
it without effort. Elanee had never managed that, but
floating through life without apparent effort was a
sufficient substitute.

185
Elanee tended her roses herself, working slowly
and carefully. There was no reason to rush, and one
of the reasons she maintained this section of the
gardens herself was as a reminder that there was no
reason to rush many things.
Patience had been one of the two virtues she had
been born with, and while exercising them came
naturally, she enjoyed the exercise as much as she
presumed a born horseman like her son, Miron,
enjoyed the feel of the powerful animal between his
legs. She smiled a private smile. That was an
enjoyment that, in an entirely different way, she
shared with her son. And would share in a third way,
someday soon.
The bush was now what she wanted it to be: a
scant half-dozen crooked branches, each terminating
in a single rose. It reminded her of a crippled old
woman extending rich fruit in a supplicatory pose.
Very pretty.
She rose to her feet, ignoring the pain in her lower
back from her long crouching, and stretched. The
sun lay on the castle walls, and it was time for
Elanee to leave her garden for the day.
Life was so unfair, so demanding sometimes.

186
Elanee, fresh from her ablutions, swept down the
staircase and into the great hall, with its table that
could have seated a hundred but was set for three. It
was a matter of standards, and one of the many
battles she had won with her late husband: supper
would always be eaten in the great hall.
Miron was waiting for her at table, Leria across
the table from him. She could tell from his hand
motions and her patient expression that he had, once
again, been regaling her with some hunting story.
He rose at her approach. "Good eve to you,
Mother," he said.
She regarded him with a sincere affection,
although she flattered herself that it was an affection
tempered with a sense of reality. He was a
remarkably handsome young man, something of her
own strength in his face, and his legitimacy as the
son of his late father evident only in the squareness
of his jawline and the broadness of his hands, with
their very un-Euar'den stubby fingers.
The rest of him, though, was classic Euar'den:
curiously warm and compelling blue eyes above an
aquiline nose and a generous mouth that seemed
always ready to part in a smile or a laugh; the body
long and lean, shoulders as broad as a peasant's, and
a posture that reminded her of her father's father:

187
motionless but never at rest, as though balanced to
move from utter stillness into sudden activity at any
moment.
She had never seen him with a leg thrown lazily
over the arm of a chair, and she never would.
Leria was on her feet, as well, and Elanee forced
herself to broaden her smile. "And you look so
lovely this evening, my dear."
"Thank you, Baroness," Leria said.
Elanee was pleased to see what appeared to be a
flicker of genuineness in the girl's returned smile.
Elanee, in her own way, spent as much time and
effort courting her as Miron did, and much more
than the long-absent-and-unmissed Forinel, who had
seduced her apparently without effort and certainly
without Elanee's help or blessing.
Leria was a pretty little thing, although her pert
little nose and rosy lips were a trifle overdainty to
Elanee's way of thinking. But there was
determination in her pointed little chin, and she was
slim and willowy enough to be clearly of noble and
not peasant ancestry. Perhaps she was too slim - she
really should have had a strand of gold chain at the
waist of her dress to emphasize its smallness, or had
the bodice cut fuller to call attention to the slight

188
swell of her firm young breasts. But the soft black
satin had been a good choice in her dress, even if the
cut was too ungenerous for such a young girl. It set
off her smooth white complexion dramatically, and
even somehow enhanced the flow of long golden
hair that fell to the girl's shoulders - although the
shoulders should have been bared.
Ah, if only the problem were educating the little
twit into how to display herself better. Elanee could
have handled that in an idle afternoon.
Elanee took her place at the head of the table,
allowing Miron to seat her, and waited for the maid
to bring in the first course.
Footsteps echoed behind her on the smooth
marble, but they were heavier than they ought to
have been. She turned to see Thirien stop and draw
himself to attention.
The Old Emperor had allowed her late husband to
expand his personal guard, and Thirien, who really
ought to have commanded nothing larger than a
single troop, had found himself in charge of the
whole company. His chin was weak and his ears
large - he wasn't handsome, he wasn't bright, and he
wasn't much of a leader, but he was loyal as a good
dog, and that was good enough for Elanee.
Intelligence in servants was an often overrated

189
commodity. Elanee had more than enough of that
quality, she had long ago decided, and valued other
characteristics more in others.
Keeping her guards loyal was important, even
though it was so easy.
They were just men, after all.
"Your pardon," he said, his usual parade-ground
bark muted, "but Governor Treseen is here."
She raised an eyebrow. She had, in theory,
dismissed Treseen after breakfast, and had not
expected to see him for several days at least, at least
not out here.
"I'll pardon you, of a certainty, but I don't recall
having sent for him." Technically, of course, she
could no more send for Treseen than she could send
for the emperor himself. Barony Keranahan was
under imperial governance, and while she was every
bit as much baroness in theory now as she had been
before Holtun had been conquered, it was the
governor who ruled.
That was a technicality only, as long as he ruled as
she pleased, just as it had been a technicality when
the late baron had ruled as she pleased. Elanee was
not concerned with the forms as much as with the

190
substance, and the substance was that he was here
uninvited.
So she made a special effort to put a precise
measure of coldness in her smile as she rose to greet
him.
He was a handsome enough man, his raven-black
hair turning quite becomingly silvery at the temples,
despite the way that in middle age his chest had
started to slide down and become a belly slopping
over his sword belt. But there was something wrong,
something weak about his eyes, as though he could
never quite focus them properly.
Not even when looking at her. Pity.
"I'm sorry to disturb your dinner," he said. "But I
foolishly left my seal out here this morning, and
there are reports that have to be promptly sealed and
sent off to Biemestren. A troop of soldiers slithers
along like a snake on its belly, it's said, but an
empire sails along on a sea of paper."
A clumsy lie. Either Treseen was more of an idiot
than she thought he was - which was always
possible; it was a capital error to underestimate an
adversary, and everybody was always an adversary -
or he couldn't possibly have expected to be believed
in that.

191
"Now, now, Governor Treseen," Miron said,
rising politely, "if I didn't know better, I'd think that
you're so much taken with my lovely Leria here - "
the girl frowned briefly at the possessive, but Miron
didn't pause " - that you couldn't bear to wait until
you next saw her and left your seal behind as an
excuse to return today."
Leria looked Miron square in the eye. "I? I'd think,
were I asked - "
"Oh, please, please," Miron said. "Do tell."
"I'd think that perhaps the governor is more likely
to be taken with Baroness Elanee than me, were he
to be taken with anybody."
Miron laughed. "There certainly would be a point
to that, and as a devoted son," he said, with a quick
bow toward Elanee, "I'm embarrassed that I wasn't
the one to make that observation." He walked
around the table and crooked his arm toward her.
"Please, Leria, help me hide my shame with a short
stroll in the gardens. I couldn't bear to sit at table and
blush."
Clearly despite herself, Leria laughed, a sound
light and bubbling.
She rose and took Miron's arm.

192
Elanee waited until they had exited through the
doors that opened on the portico overlooking the
gardens before she turned back to Treseen.
This had best be important, she thought
His light expression had grown somber. "I'm sorry
I couldn't think of a better reason than that pretext
about the seal," he said, patting at his belt pouch to
indicate where it, quite properly, still rested. "But I
thought you would want to see this without a wait."
He produced a piece of paper. "It seems that the
dowager empress herself has taken an interest in
your... domestic situation. My first thought was that
it's an unimportant matter, one worth waiting to
inform you of, but my second thought was ..." He
shrugged.
"Now, Governor - "
"But your son is quite right, as I'm sure you know,
and I shamelessly employed it as an excuse to see
you again." He started to tuck the paper back into
his pouch. "I must apologize for disturbing the
tranquillity of your meal, and hope you'll both
pardon and excuse me." He bowed, and made as
though to leave.
"Please, please." She hoped her smile warmed
him; she would have preferred that it burned him.

193
"Now," she said, "you know you are always
welcome here, Governor Treseen, that I think of you
as a dear friend - " The most she had ever allowed
him before was "good friend," but this was no time
for half measures. "I'm so delighted to see you that I
couldn't be so rude as to scold you. Please, please
join me for dinner," she said, gesturing him toward
Miron's seat. "And if you think that this ... message
is something I should look at, well, I'm only a
woman, and know little of politics and such, but I'd
be happy to look at it and will listen with great
interest to whatever sage advice you'd be generous
enough to offer."
She didn't need his intelligence - what there was
of it - but she did need his position.
Treseen returned the smile. He figured he'd won
something, and perhaps he had.
For the moment.

194
8 - Dereneyl
he road twisted down into the side of the
valley, entering and emerging from a small
stretch of forest that fringed the farmlands of
Keranahan. Out in the fields, peasants in floppy hats
carrying weed bags stooped to pluck out unwanted
plants growing among the green leafy plants that
they were tending.
Whatever the plants were. They didn't look
familiar. Durine didn't know, and he didn't much
care.
It had been years since the war had ended, but the
baronial capital still showed scars from the war,
particularly if you knew where to look, and Durine
knew where to look.
Some things never heal.
The castle on the hill overlooking the town was
the easiest sign to see. The breach in the wall had
not only not been repaired, but it had been expanded
T

195
into a very broad and permanently open gate. The
gatehouses at the other two gates were gone as well,
leaving them permanently open. What remained of
the wall was useless for defense, and would
probably eventually suffer the same fate as the
Woodsdun castle, of being disassembled, stone by
stone, for construction down in the town. For the
time being it was the residence of the governor and
his troops, but even if and when control of their
baronies was fully returned to the Holtish barons,
they wouldn't be returning to their castles.
Holtish nobles were not going to be permitted to
hole up in their castles and resist a siege.
A castle wasn't just a place to live. In fact, as a
place to live, it was a lot less comfortable than an
unfortified house.
It was a weapon.
It was a stronghold, a safe place from which to
hold out to fight at the owner's time, on the owner's
terms. Certainly, the empire could crush a rebellion
in any one barony at a time - as long as the borders
were quiet, of course, and you could never count on
that, particularly these days, with magic turned loose
in the Eren regions, upsetting balances of all sorts,
political included - but that just encouraged coalitions
and conspiracies among the barons. A wise

196
emperor didn't encourage such things; they grew
aplenty without nourishment.
But Durine didn't much care about that, either.
Conspiracies could be solved with some complicated
political maneuvering - or, better, with the sharp
edge of a good sword slipped between the right ribs,
or a pair of massive hands fastened around the right
throat.
But that was other people's problems. He was just
the sword, just the pair of hands.
Not caring was the safe way, the good way.
Everything, everybody he cared enough about died
on him. There had been a couple of women - well,
four, if you included his mother and his sister - and
two horses, and once an officer he had served under,
and a stray dog that followed him and these other
two around for a while. But they had all died on
him. He had had to kill the dog himself.
The last person he had truly loved, truly cared
about, was the Old Emperor, and the inconsiderate
bastard had blown himself to little bloody chunks
protecting his son, Jason.
All the bastards died on him.

197
Except, he thought, keeping a secret smile, for
Kethol and Pirojil, except for these two.
But he had solved that one. Durine had finally
figured out a way to cheat fate: he just didn't let
himself care about them. They were his companions,
certainly, but that was all. He didn't like them as
much as everybody thought he did, as though the
three shared some deep and intimate bond. Kethol
was too brave and reckless, and ugly Pirojil not
nearly as smart as he thought he was, and both of
those qualities grated on Durine in a way that he
constantly thought about, constantly picking at a
scab so it wouldn't ever heal.
Erenor was complaining again.
"So why do I have to be outfitted like a servant?"
he asked, his voice whiny.
The pack he had kept ready for a quick exit
contained, among other disguises, a soldier's cloak,
sword, and belt - the wizard didn't seem to want to
have to use a seeming as part of a quick exit. Erenor
looked silly with a sword in his hand - typical for
wizards - and Pirojil had decided that he would pass
as their servant. A silly idea, three ordinary soldiers
with a private servant to cook and clean for them,
but Pirojil probably had some scheme in mind. He

198
usually did. There was a brain behind that ugly face,
even if it didn't work as well as Pirojil thought it did.
Erenor was decked out in a light cotton tunic and
leggings that they'd procured in Woodsdun. The
tunic, belted with an ordinary rope belt that held
only a belt pouch - not even a knife - gave him an
entirely inoffensive and decidedly unwizardly air.
"You want reasons?" Kethol asked, letting himself
smile. "I'll give you three. One: Pirojil says so. Two:
Durine says so. Three: I say so."
"How persuasive," Erenor said.
"I'll give you five." Pirojil counted out the reasons
on his fingers. "One: because Erenor the wizard is
being looked for for his help at Riverforks, so you
don't want to look like a wizard. Two: because there
are two soldiers who escaped jail, and we being
three soldiers and a servant, we aren't them. Three:
because servants sometimes hear things that others
don't. Five: because nobody but a wizard is going to
be able to pierce that disguise, and maybe not even a
wizard."
Erenor sniffed. 'I'll thank you not to try to teach
me about magic. Any wizard is going to be able to
see at a glance what I am. It takes a lot of skill to

199
bank your flame down to the point where another
can't see it, and I don't quite have that skill yet."
Pirojil laughed. "Meaning you aren't anywhere
near powerful enough."
"That's another way to put it, certainly. And you
missed the fourth reason."
"No." Pirojil shook his head and frowned. "No, I
didn't. I just used a seeming to make it invisible."
Erenor's laugh sounded genuine. "You're not
likely to forgive me for outwitting you, are you?" He
tugged vigorously at his forelock in a sarcastically
overdone display of a peasant showing respect
"Very well; I'm a servant."
Durine permitted himself to like this Erenor
person, just a little. He wasn't much of a wizard,
perhaps, but he had been smart enough to swindle
Pirojil, and that was unusual in itself.
And he had been useful in getting Durine and
Kethol out of jail and as a sinkhole for some of the
blame that would go with that. And while he
resented his sudden change in station, he at least had
a sense of humor about it. With any luck, Durine
would learn to like him just enough to get him
killed, but not enough to care about it.

200
Kethol preferred to keep things straightforward
when he could, and the other two didn't have a
problem with that, not this time.
It took some time to talk their way past the guards
at what had been the castle, but Keranahan had been
at peace for too long, and eventually they were let in
without escort and pointed toward what had been the
southeast corner guard tower. The keep at
Keranahan was older than the one in Biemestren,
and had been built with but a single wall, rather than
the double-walled arrangement that had been more
common for the past while. Surrounding the keep
with two walls added a tremendous amount of
protection: if the first wall was breached and enemy
forces entered the outer ward, they could be attacked
from above from both walls, from both in front and
behind. Attackers would have to not only breach the
outer wall, but at the very least evict the defenders in
order to have a real chance to try their luck with the
inner wall and the relatively soft meat of the inner
ward beyond.
But this castle had had but a single wall, and a
single ward, and with the wall breached and never
repaired it was no longer a castle, just a collection of
stone buildings surrounding the donjon.

201
There was something pitiful about that, if you
could feel sorry for something made of stone and
mortar.
The ward of the castle was now the home of the
occupation troops, with ramshackle wattle-and-daub
buildings set up against the inside of the walls as
barracks and stables, as well as storehouses and
such. The grasses and low shrubs of the ward had
long been war casualties; it was bare dirt, baked and
hardened in the sun, weeds growing at the juncture
of what remained of the walls and the ground.
They had been pointed toward where the governor
was, and soon found themselves climbing up the
absurdly long, winding staircase to the top of what
had been a corner guard tower in the old days.
Knock down the walls on either side of a corner
guard tower, and it isn't good for much. A lookout
tower, perhaps, but if you really need a lookout
tower, you really need castle walls. Not much of a
place to live, not with hundreds of stairs on the long,
winding staircase to climb in the dark every time
you dragged your weary body home to sleep. About
the only benefit Kethol could think of, offhand, was
that with the garderobe that high off the ground,
even the lightest breeze would blow the smell from
the dung pile away.

202
Treseen had put his birdery up there.
What had, in the old days, been a useful place was
now filled with wooden cages, five of them holding
big scowling birds, the rest empty, save for a big one
in the corner that held a dozen or so pigeons on
various perches, either too stupid or too sullenly
pessimistic to figure out what their purpose was.
One curved wall held a curved workbench, tools and
gear set out on it in careful order. A straw mattress
lay against the wall behind the big cage. Kethol
figured that it probably wasn't Treseen who slept up
here.
Of all the silly ways that the nobility could waste
their time while the rest of the world worked to
support them, Kethol ranked falconry somewhere
between discerden and dueling. There was nothing
wrong with hunting rabbits and such. But why not
just leave that to a peasant's snares? There was a
certain efficiency in turning the pests that fed on a
peasant's crop into his dinner, but this was just a
matter of sport to the nobility. As a way of procuring
food for the pot - not that they needed to - it was just
plain silly. Nobles didn't need to hunt their own
food.
And Treseen wasn't even nobility. He had been a
commander under General Garavar during the war,

203
and the Old Emperor himself had put him in charge
of the troops occupying Keranahan, and eventually
he had replaced the governor.
And was busy putting on airs, it seemed. He
ignored them while he adjusted the hood on the
small falcon clinging to his left forearm, which was
protected by a thick glove that covered him up to the
elbow, and then tickled its beak with the end of a
long shred of meat, carefully snatching his bare
fingers back when she snapped it up.
His assistant, a wild-haired little man whose face
and arms were peasant-brown, scowled. There was
something about the way Treseen was doing this that
bothered him, or maybe he just didn't like Treseen in
the first place.
Treseen fed the bird another few pieces of meat,
then sighed and returned the bird to the cage.
Stripping off his glove and tossing it to his assistant,
he shook his head. "Think she'll be ready for the
jesses soon?"
"I think she's ready for the jesses now, and I can
prove myself aright in that by telling you that I've
had her out on them seven days of the last tenday,"
the little man said. "She'll be ready to fly free for the
lure before you know it," he went on, just the

204
faintest emphasis on the word you, "and bringing
down game soon after."
Treseen ignored that, or at least affected to.
"Good," he said. "The sooner the better."
"That, of a certainty, is true."
He had been ignoring them long enough. Kethol
cleared his throat.
Treseen turned to the three of them, and his gaze
wavered for a moment before he settled on Kethol.
"Yes? Well, what is it?"
Kethol glanced over at Pirojil, who nodded
microscopically. Kethol would have preferred that
Pirojil handle Treseen, but it didn't look as though
he was going to be given much of a choice. "We've
come from Biemestren, Governor. We've been sent
to look into a problem here," he said.
Treseen arched an eyebrow. "By whom?" He
snickered. "The emperor himself, perhaps?"
"Almost." Pirojil dug the papers out of his pouch.
"Perhaps you should look at these, sir," he said.
"They'll explain it all."
Treseen walked to the window and held the papers
out in the light. Kethol would have sworn that the
man's hands didn't tremble in the slightest. Which

205
meant that he was brave, although it probably didn't
have anything to do with his innocence or guilt.
"I see." Treseen shook his head. "I can't see what
the problem is, and why the dowager empress has
had to involve herself, but there's nothing to it. Just a
matter of a nervous little girl with some overly
romantic notions about - well, about life, and such."
"As may be." Durine frowned. "I don't doubt that."
"But..." Pirojil seemed to be choosing his words
with extra caution. "We haven't been ordered just to
come out here and talk to you, Governor. We've
been told to talk to the girl herself, and find out what
the situation is, and I'd not care to explain to the
dowager empress that we came all this way and then
didn't do what we've been told to do."
"You have done what's necessary," Treseen said.
"You've spoken with me. Do you doubt my word? Is
that the courtesy they teach soldiers in Barony
Cullinane these days?" His lips tightened. "These are
not the days of the Old Emperor, you know, where
insolence is rewarded, where - " He stopped himself
with visible effort and raised a hand. "But enough of
that." He turned his back on them. "You may go."
"Very well," Pirojil said. "As you will, Governor.
We certainly can't flout your authority to order us

206
out of Barony Keranahan and go back, emptyhanded,
frustrated, and ignorant, to Biemestren."
Kethol looked over at Pirojil, whose eye closed in
a wink. They'd be looking up the baroness
immediately, more likely than not. The dowager
empress wouldn't take their word on the governor
having ordered them out of the barony, and in fact
he hadn't. Not in so many words.
Nor would he. Treseen turned back. "I didn't say
that, now, did I?" He frowned. "I'm irritated with
you doubting my word, and I can tell you that there
will be a note dispatched to Baron Cullinane about
your manners, I can promise you that. As to ordering
you out of the barony, I didn't say anything of the
sort. Do what you will. It seems like a lot of fuss
over a little problem that I understand has already
been well settled, but..." He handed the papers back
to Pirojil and turned back to Kethol. "But far be it
from me to interfere with the wishes of the dowager
empress."
He placed his palm on his chest, over where his
heart was supposed to be. "I've been a loyal servant
to Bieme and to the empire for my whole life, and
I'll not stop now. If you insist on seeing Lady Leria,
then go ahead and do so. She's at the Residence."
"Residence?"

207
"Before the war, it was the old baron's preferred
place to spend most of his time. I can understand
that: it's out in the country, away from the sights and
sounds and smells of the city. He kept the castle as a
going concern only in case of need. Ever since the
war, of course, the family's been in residence there,
and it's been called the Residence, out of deference
to them." He smiled slyly. "I understand some of the
other Holtish barons suffered rather a lot more, but
then most of the others weren't as cooperative as the
late baron."
Kethol suppressed a snicker. It was easy for the
last of the Holtish barons to be conquered to see the
benefit of cooperation.
He shook his head, as though to dismiss the
thought. "You can ride two sides of a square of the
roads around the forest, but there's a nice path
through. It's a pleasant ride, and I'd guide you there
myself, but I'm otherwise occupied this morning.
Tell the captain of the guard to have Ketterling draw
you a quick map; there're only three or four forks on
the path." He cocked his head. "And tell him that
you've the run of this place, and you can be billeted
in the barracks, if you'd like, or you can find lodging
in town, if that's more to your taste."

208
He turned back to his bird assistant, dismissing
them. "Now, about the jerfalcon ..."
As they walked down the long, circular staircase,
Kethol could practically hear Pirojil frowning.
"That went awfully easily," Pirojil said. "I've seen
token resistance before, but..."
"Yes. And you've seen it again." Durine grunted.
It had gone too easily.
But why shouldn't it? Kethol thought.
It was just another one of the spats and arguments
that the nobility used to occupy their time instead of
honest work, and having somebody see that the
problem had been resolved, while it might irritate
the governor, shouldn't be a big deal. He could guess
what it was: the overbred little bitch had decided to
marry the man the baroness had insisted that she
should, and it was all over.
All they had to do was ride out to hear that, then
ride home and tell the dowager empress that there
had been nothing to it, and let the old biddy live her
little victory: she would have proved that she could
get men from Barony Cullinane to run a minor
errand for her, and that would be that.
Durine grunted again.

209
Kethol nodded. It could be that easy, it could be
that simple, but it wouldn't be.

210
9 - Simplicity Itself
he little country home, of course, was
nothing of the sort. Pirojil had expected as
much. His... he had known some nobility in
his youth, and the only dwelling he could recall that
one of them owned that was little and ordinary was a
primitive hunting lodge high in the mountains, little
more than a shack.
They paused their horses on the crest of a hill.
Below, a stream twisted beneath the Residence,
which had been built on the rocky crest of a further
hill along Darnegan lines: a central, generally
cubical stone building that rose a full three stories,
flanked on either side by a long two-story wing,
each wing fronted by a full-length portico. The
whole structure was overgrown with ivy, and
twittering birds fluttered in and out of nests hidden
in the green tangle.
T

211
There were the outbuildings one would expect: a
stable next to the barracks, although Pirojil expected
that was a remnant of the old days, and the barracks
would be occupied by a skeleton guard. It was one
thing to permit the occupied barons to have a small
force of guards; it would be another thing to allow
them to raise armies.
A quick series of whistles shattered the afternoon
quiet, sending a flock of birds fleeing into the air
from their nests, a few minutes later followed by a
half-dozen mounted soldiers issuing from the
barracks, who quickly cantered in their direction.
Well, Pirojil thought, at least somebody was
paying attention. That was nice. Maybe.
The men were lancers, their spears pointing
innocently toward the sky, for the moment. It was
possible for a swordsman on horseback to take on a
mounted lancer - if you could get past the steel-clad
point, he was yours - but it wasn't easy
The leader of the squad was a big black-haired
man riding a huge black gelding. The horse had
overly thick legs that spoke of some plowhorse
ancestry. The man had thick legs and arms, as well.
Pirojil was tempted to ask if they were related, but
he figured that probably wasn't a good way to start
off the conversation.

212
The big black gelding came to a prancing halt.
"You are... ?"
"Pirojil, Kethol, and Durine," Pirojil said, not
introducing Erenor. Erenor was just a servant, after
all. "We've been sent from Biemestren. We're here
to see the baroness, and the lady Leria." And why, he
thought, don't I have any doubt that we're not telling
you something you don't already know?
Well, if so, that boded well. If the baroness had
just decided to have them killed, they'd already be
dead.
The leader waited a measured two beats before
answering. "You've a letter of introduction to show
me?" he asked, his hand out.
Pirojil pulled his copy of his orders out of his
pouch, and handed it over. The paper was getting a
bit ragged around the edges; he'd been pulling it out
a lot lately.
"Hmmm..." the leader said, "this seems to all be in
order."
Then why are you holding the paper upsidedown?
Pirojil didn't ask. He just accepted the paper
back, and stowed it away.
"Follow us."

213
Their horses unsaddled and let loose in an empty
corral to be fed and watered by Erenor - who
accepted the reins with a grumble and some quiet
muttering - the three were led inside the Residence.
Pirojil's eyes took longer to adjust than he would
have liked, but that was the way of it on a bright
day.
The afternoon was getting hot outside, but the
great hall was cool and dark, and there were two
women waiting for them, seated at the end of the
long oaken table.
The woman at the head of the table was in her
forties, an age at which a peasant woman would long
ago have gone all dumpy and faded, but she was no
peasant woman, and the years had only added a
depth of character to her face. Twenty years ago,
perhaps, when she was younger and more rounded,
her chin would have been weak and her cheeks
chubby, but now her face was angular, her cheekbones
high and exotic, and the eyes that watched
Pirojil seemed to radiate both power and sexuality.
Her hair, black and shiny as a raven, was done up
in a complicated braid that left her slender neck
bare, and made his hands itch.
She rose at their approach, tall and trim, a smile
that was only polite, no more, on her lips. "I am

214
Elanee, Baroness Keranahan," she said. Her voice
was lower than Pirojil had expected, and more
musical. Her eyes swung past Pirojil and Durine and
settled on Kethol.
"I've been told that you wish to see me," she said,
addressing him, "and Lady Leria."
The girl was lovely, although Pirojil thought her a
little slim and boyish for his tastes. Her long blond
hair was faintly curly, as though it had just been
released from some sort of braid. Probably
something as complicated as the baroness's; a noble
girl would hardly have her hair in a simple braid,
after all.
"Yes," Kethol said. "We ... we've been asked to
look into a message she sent to the dowager
empress." Strange. Kethol didn't stutter, not usually.
The girl didn't quite blush as she lowered her head.
"Oh, that silly thing." The baroness shook her
head. "It was just a mistake, and the matter has long
since been handled. Isn't that correct, my dear?"
The girl nodded. "Yes, Baroness. I was ... it was a
mistake."
Kethol looked over at Pirojil. He should be
handling this, but the baroness assumed that the tall,

215
rangy, good-looking one of them was the leader of
the group.
"Mistake?"
'The baroness and I had a misunderstanding," the
girl said. "I... I thought she was pressing me into a
marriage."
"When," the baroness said, "nothing could be
further from the truth." She rested a hand on Leria's
shoulder. "I would swear on the blood of my son
that I'd not want to force this lovely girl into a
marriage with anybody at all." Her voice had the
ring of truth, but of course that was often the way
with liars.
The baroness gestured them to seats, picked up a
small bell, and gave it a quick ring. A housemaid, a
plain girl in a plainer white shift and gray apron,
walked through the door almost instantly, as though
she had been waiting just outside, as she probably
had been.
"These men," the baroness said, "have had a long
ride out here; they'll need cold drinks and some
sustenance. A platter from the kitchen, if you please,
and hurry about it."
"Yes, Baroness," she said, scurrying away.

216
"It's common knowledge," the baroness said,
turning back to Kethol, "when my husband was still
alive, Leria had a... a flirtation with Lord Forinel,
my stepson." She smiled tolerantly.
"Understandable, really: Forinel was a fine figure of
a young man, and had quite a way with young girls.
And he was the heir apparent to Keranahan, which
still does mean something, even these days?"
Was?
"And where would Forinel be?"
"I'm not at all sure." She spread her hands. "He
was a romantic young man, very much taken with
the idea of making his own way in the world and not
simply inheriting the barony." She smiled tolerantly.
"I think, perhaps, he heard too many stories about
the Old Emperor and his ... exploits."
Which exploits got the Old Emperor killed.
"Three years ago," she said, "Forinel rode off for
the Katharhd, so he said, to - now how did he put
this? - to 'prove himself with sword and lance and
bow, and to show that the blood of Keranahan does
not run thin.' I think he resented the occupation, and
perhaps his father's quiet acceptance of it, at the
same time that he worshipped the Old Emperor."
She shrugged. "I thought it foolish, but - " she

217
spread her hands " - I'm but a woman, and my
counsel wasn't heeded." She shook her head sadly.
"He's not returned, and we've had no word of him."
Her mouth set itself firmly. "And with his father
dead, he's the heir to the barony, but..."
"But if he's ridden off to the Katharhd and hasn't
come back, maybe that's because he's dead," Kethol
finished for her. "Which would make your son,
Miron, the heir and the baron."
She nodded. "Eventually, the emperor himself
will have to decide. I've not pressed the point; it
would be unseemly." And it would make her the
dowager baroness, as well, although she didn't
mention that. For now, with the barony under
military government, perhaps the distinction wasn't
much, but it was something.
"Perhaps poor Forinel will yet return," she said,
"and perhaps not - but for me to push for the
accession of my own son would be improper, at
best."
And, Pirojil thought, if Forinel was dead, which
seemed likely, there was no rush, not with
Keranahan still under the authority of the governor.
Particularly if the governor could be influenced by
those dark eyes as much as Pirojil wanted to let
himself be. On the other hand, it didn't take a wizard

218
squatting over the guts of a chicken and muttering
unrememberable spells to divine whom the baroness
wanted Leria to marry. Tie a young woman with a
good heritage and a large inheritance to her son, and
she and her son would remain a power in Keranahan
even if Forinel returned.
Assuming, of course, that he was alive.
Assuming, of course, that she hadn't dispatched an
assassin to kill him and leave his body buried in
some unmarked grave. No, she would have been
unlikely to do that. The dowager empress was a
suspicious type, and what if she insisted on
testimony under the influence of a truth spell? Or
what if they simply called in Ellegon? The dragon
didn't like to read minds, but he could tell a lie from
the truth if he had to.
Pirojil would have shaken his head. There was a
lot about this that he wasn't required to understand.
It was his job to do things. But he did know that the
statement of the girl under the baroness's roof, with
the baroness herself present, wasn't going to be
given much weight. Not by the dowager empress,
and not by him and Kethol and Durine.
"Well," he said, "that explains that, but I see a
problem. We've ridden a long way, and the dowager
empress has gone to some trouble and expense to

219
send us out here. We can't just ride back and tell her
that this was a mistake - "
"But it was."
The baroness's lips tightened. "Now, don't
interrupt, dear, it's not seemly." She turned back to
Kethol. "I've a letter," she said, "apologizing for the
misunderstanding." She tapped an envelope that
rested on the table. It was wax-sealed at four points.
"All you'd need to do is to take this back to
Biemestren. It explains everything." She gave a
shrug. "I'd have posted it by imperial messenger, but
Leria only confessed her... indiscretion to me the
other day, and we've been discussing how to handle
it with the least embarrassment. The letter was
written but a few days ago, and we've not had the
opportunity to send it into Dereneyl and the ... the
governor's residence, as of yet."
A fascinating coincidence, if true, which it wasn't.
Just too much of a coincidence.
Kethol looked to him, while Durine grunted. No,
that wasn't going to do. "I think your first thought
was right," Pirojil said. "Send the letter by imperial
post. I'm sure that will... ease Her Majesty's mind,
while we ride back to Biemestren - "
She smiled.

220
" - with Lady Leria."
The smile vanished. The baroness sniffed. "I
couldn't possibly agree to such a thing. Subjecting a
delicate young girl to such a trip? And with the ...
well, that hardly seems proportionate punishment for
such a small flight of fancy on her part."
She had been focusing her attention on Kethol, but
now it was Pirojil's turn. Her expression was
haughty and distant, but there was something about
her eyes.
They locked on his, and he found that his heart
was beating hard, so hard he could hear it, could feel
it thumping in his chest like a drum. She was a
lovely woman, and those were eyes to die for, to kill
for. For the life of him, he couldn't tell what color
they were, but it didn't matter. He had seen beautiful
women before, and he had wanted beautiful women
before, but it hadn't ever been like this. That had
always been the sort of pressure he could relieve
with a quick trip to the nearest brothel.
These eyes not only aroused, but they promised.
Pirojil was glad he was sitting down; he found
himself suddenly, painfully erect. At her slightest
nod, he would have laid his sword at her feet,
begging for the touch of her hand on his head. He
was hers.

221
No.
His will was his own, and he was not the vassal of
this woman. He would not be.
Pirojil forced his eyes away from hers as he shook
his head. "She has nobody to blame but herself,
Baroness," he said, hoping nobody else heard how
ragged his voice felt. He swallowed once, hard, then
turned to Leria. "Lady, your station will, of course,
be respected, but if we were to return with nothing
more than a piece of paper, I'm confident that Her
Majesty would not be satisfied. She thought it
important enough to have us sent out here, with
letters of authority, and with very specific
instructions. I'm sure you'll find it inconvenient and
awkward to travel with us, and we'll certainly
borrow a coach and team for your comfort, but that's
the way it must be. You can explain it yourself, in
person, to Her Majesty, that you meant nothing of
what you said, and you can let her ... acceptance of
that burn your ears."
He looked over at the baroness. Her expression
was hard to read, but he didn't like it. Was there a
trace of amusement in her smile? Or was it just
contempt and arrogance?
The baroness looked them over for a long time.
"Very well. But I'll hold the three of you responsible

222
for her safety. I'm fond of this young girl, and
should word come to my ears that any of the three of
you has so much as - -"
"Please." Kethol held up a hand. "We know our
place, Baroness."
"Well, since you seem to have the authority, and
since I've been given no choice, I'll surrender with
what dignity I can muster." She smiled graciously.
"She's in your charge." She turned to the girl and
patted her knee. "Don't worry, my dear. We'll have
you packed and my coach rigged immediately."
Her eyes fixed on Pirojil's, and again it was all he
could do to control himself. "Will you three be able
to manage the coach, or must I provide you with a
coachman?"
Why the rush? Pirojil wondered. Surely, waiting
the rest of the day wouldn't make a difference. And
why the sudden switch from resistance to almost
eager compliance? Fair questions, certainly, but the
baroness's expression made it difficult, perhaps
impossible, to ask.
And besides, it was vanishingly unlikely that
they'd get an honest answer, and completely
impossible that they'd get one they could trust.

223
"We'll handle it," Durine said. "Unless you've got
too many people serving you, and need to cut the
number down."
She laughed. "Ah, no, there's barely enough staff
to keep this old house running; I've none to spare
idly."
A group of three young serving girls arrived, each
bearing a tray. All three were slim and lovely, the
tan shifts that served as livery cut to emphasize their
small waists. The baroness liked to surround herself
with pretty girls, something that Pirojil understood.
He would have liked that, too.
The prettiest one, a blond girl with a delicate face
and full lips that reminded Pirojil of another time
and place, was barely able to repress a shudder as
she looked him in the face. He would have tried to
smile reassuringly, but all he could do was stare at
her until she first looked him in the eyes, and then
dropped her gaze.
Yes, he wanted to say, I'm ugly. I've been ugly all
my life, and lovely young women have been
shuddering at me all my life, and I'm used to it, and
it doesn't bother me anymore.
Most of that would have been true, more or less.

224
But not now. If he had been another man, he could
have -
But never mind that. He wasn't, and he couldn't,
and so be it.
The three girls set the trays down on the table in
front of them, and then scurried away.
The bread was a basketful of fist-sized rolls,
almost too hot to the touch, as though they had come
fresh from the oven. Fresh apples, clearly sliced but
moments ago into thin crackers, just barely starting
to brown in the fresh air, surrounded tiny, fingersized
sausages that reeked of garlic and perimen.
Another tray held wedges of cheese, one a buttery
yellow, another just a shade off pure white,
delicately veined with a rich blue; yet another, a rich
dark brown the color of tanned deerhide. The last
held a half-dozen ramekins, each filled to the brim
with a different compote.
"Enjoy this small collation," the baroness said as
she rose. "Leria and I shall go help the maids pack,
while I'll call for the carriage. Please, refresh
yourselves, and before you know it, you'll be back
on the road." She took the girl by the arm. "And the
sooner begun, the sooner ended, yes, my dear? I'm
not sure how Her Majesty will deal with these three
for having discommoded you so much over so little,

225
but I doubt that will be your problem, and I'm sure it
won't be mine."
She smiled genially at the three of them, and then
swept away.
Durine checked the rigging again of the four-horse
team that was necessary to pull the carriage. Erenor
had already checked it - he was taking well to the
role of a servant, surprisingly - but Durine had to be
sure not only that the horses were properly hitched,
but that he himself could not only unhitch them
when they stopped for the night but put the whole
mess back together in the morning. None of the
three of them had had a lot of experience driving
teams, and these harnesses were rigged differently
enough from the ones they used in Barony Cullinane
that he would have been nervous about it, if he got
nervous about such things.
He was more irritated than anything else. Durine
would have grumbled if grumbling would have done
any good. More trouble and expense feeding four
dray horses, and more trouble hitching and
unhitching the team every night - couldn't the little
chit just ride on the back of a horse? She had been
born to spread her legs for some nobleman to bear
more noble brats - couldn't she just spread them over
a saddle?

226
But no, not nobility. She had to ride like the lady
she was. Riding was a sport for a lady, although with
all the time some of them spent riding, she was
likely better at it than any of the three of them. But it
wouldn't do for her to have to ride. For travel, it was
a carriage.
Pfah.
With the carriage, they couldn't take the hunting
path back to Dereneyl; the carriage needed a wider
road. And that would mean a longer trip back than
out, as they would have to stick to the main roads.
You could ford a stream on the back of a horse, but a
carriage would break a wheel or an axle, or just get
stuck and not be able to move.
Enh.
Well, there was a good side to it. At least the
carriage was of the old Euar'den style, with a flat
roof where the baggage could be tied down. With a
little effort in rearranging it, once they were out of
sight, it would be possible to leave a space between
the bags where you might lay down a blanket and
stretch out. Kethol prided himself that he could sleep
anywhere, and if it was possible to sleep while
traveling, that would be nice for Kethol.

227
Pirojil tied his horse's reins to the hitching rings at
the rear of the carriage; he'd take the first turn
driving the team from the driver's bench. It was a
plain wooden bench, of course, not the leatherupholstered
couch for the passenger inside. If the
jouncing of the coach bruised a pair of buttocks, it
wasn't going to be the occupant's.
He beckoned to Kethol, and Durine walked over,
as well.
"Eager to get back to Dereneyl?" he asked, his
voice low but casual.
Kethol shrugged. "Not particularly."
Pirojil nodded. "There's more than a little strange
going on here." He patted his saddlebags. "We've
got enough water and field rations to keep you a
couple of days, if we pool all of ours. Once we're out
of sight of the Residence, are you willing to sneak
back and take a look around? I'll have Durine ride
out with your horse and meet you on the trail, say,
sundown, day after tomorrow."
Kethol? The hero? Durine grunted. No. Not a
smart way to do it.
Pirojil raised an eyebrow. "You've got a better
idea?"

228
"Yes." Durine nodded. "Me."
Kethol was more of a woodsman, and was better
at keeping out of sight, but he wasn't better at
keeping out of trouble. He had demonstrated that in
Riverforks, and as a result they'd been saddled with
Erenor, and had had too much attention drawn to the
three of them. Durine didn't like that. Attention was
something that you got enough of when you were
big and strong, but being big and strong didn't make
you invulnerable. You were the first target for an
archer, or a lancer, or even a swordsman, because
they always saw you as the dangerous one.
There were times when you could use that to
advantage, but those times were rare ...
Kethol frowned. "Sounds more like my kind of
thing, I'd say."
"Well..." Pirojil rubbed the back of his hand
against his misshapen, bulbous nose. "Durine's got
the right of it. Kethol, you can probably do better at
charming Lady Leria than he can. You just ride
beside her and chatter brightly with her when I give
the signal. Durine will drop off."
Erenor had joined them. "And my part in it?"

229
"Two things," Pirojil said. "You take the reins of
Durine's horse, and then you just ride behind the
carriage, so that she can't see you."
"I can do that. Or I can do better than that," Erenor
said brightly.
"Eh?"
"If friend Durine will be kind enough to cut off,
say, a lock of hair, and wrap it tightly in a rag, then
bind it to his saddle, I can put a seeming on it." He
looked Durine up and down, his head cocked to one
side. "It won't be able to talk, or anything of the sort,
but for a few hours, it'll look like him enough to fool
a casual observer, certainly." He pursed his lips
thoughtfully. "I will need one of my spell books
back, though. The smallest one."
Durine thought about it. Erenor was probably
good enough with illusionary magic to make himself
disappear, but in the long run, trying to hang on to
him against his will would probably be impossible,
and besides, even if Erenor had one of the books, the
two others were still safely stored, and that probably
anchored Erenor to them.
And if he wasn't going to let the wizard do magic,
then what was the point of keeping him around?

230
They didn't need a servant, particularly one they
couldn't trust.
So he nodded. "As soon as we're on our way."
"And why wait until then?" Erenor shook his
head. "You are blind, aren't you?" He jerked his chin
toward the house.
"The baroness has the Talent. I can see her flame
from here."
"Which means that she can see that you're - "
"Please." Erenor rolled his eyes, as though
imploring some magical help that would make it
possible for him to deal with the stupidity of such as
the three of them. "Would I be standing here
casually talking to you if I thought for a moment
that she could see that I was, well, what I am, rather
than just a servant? I've taken to my heels before,
and I can't imagine a better time." His lips made a
thin line. "It's a raw flame, as we call it." His mouth
worked as he groped for the words. "She's got the
Talent, but she's no more trained at the use of it than
you are." He looked again toward the Residence.
"I'd swear she's getting some use out of it, but..." He
shook his head. "It's not focused the way it would be
if she had even the rudiments of training, and I'd just
be guessing as to what."

231
"Guess," Durine said.
Erenor shrugged. "It could be something sexual,
perhaps. Women can do that to men ordinarily,
without magic. If she found, when she was a young
girl, that she could twist men to her will with a smile
and a flash of leg, it could be - and I'm just guessing
- that her Talent might have started to express itself
that way. It would be like exercising a muscle she
didn't know she had, but that wouldn't mean she
couldn't make it strong with enough practice."
"Yes." Pirojil nodded. "That's entirely possible,"
he said, trying to keep his voice level.
Durine would have chuckled. Pirojil had
practically drooled over the baroness, as though he
was sure he had found some sort of bliss in her face
or could find some between her thighs. Well, maybe
he could, for a few moments. It never lasted longer
than that.
Durine smiled. It was clearly time for Pirojil to
find himself a whore when he got back to Dereneyl.
Pirojil would bristle at the suggestion - Pirojil broke
out in fastidiousness at the strangest times - but
Durine could have a quiet word with Kethol, and the
two of them could brace him together.

232
Shit, if it would make it easier for Pirojil to
concentrate on the job ahead, Durine would be glad
to pay for it himself, and Kethol would probably go
halves on it.
Pirojil frowned at him. You wouldn't think that
face could get any uglier, but somehow Pirojil
managed it. "What are you grinning about?"
"Nothing," Durine said. "Just eager to be going."
"Then let's get going."
Durine's departure went smoothly and easily. At the
first bend in the road, the moment that their
procession was out of sight of the Residence, the big
man slung his bags over his shoulder, dropped to the
ground quietly enough that he probably couldn't
have been overheard even without the clopping of
the horses to cover it, dashed quickly and quietly
through a gap in the trees, and was gone.
Erenor, riding beside Durine's big bay, had
already opened his spell book, his reins clamped
between his teeth while his fingers danced through
the pages until he found what he was looking for. It
took him just a few moments to impress the words
in his mind, apparently, for he quickly stowed the
book and turned to the small bundle bound to the

233
rings at the front of Durine's otherwise empty
saddle.
Pirojil didn't make any effort to overhear the
words. The wizard's voice was too low, and he'd
been through this too many times. Without the spark
of Talent, the words could no more remain in his
mind than a wisp of paper could survive in a raging
fire.
The air over the saddle wavered for a moment,
like the air in the distance on a road on a hot day,
and then Durine was there.
Well, almost.
It looked like Durine, and it was dressed as Durine
had been, and the figure even swayed appropriately
with the movement of the horse, but while the left
hand was clenched as though it held the reins, it
didn't. And then there was the head and the eyes.
Durine wasn't the fidgety type, but he was always
looking around, always aware of his surroundings.
That was one of the reasons that Pirojil trusted him.
It might not be impossible to take Durine by
surprise, but it wouldn't be easy.
And there was something else, something that
Pirojil wished he could have put his finger on. He

234
would have known at first glance that that was just
an illusion, and not Durine.
Kethol caught his eye, and smiled. He'd been
riding on the other side of the carriage, chattering
with the girl while Durine made his exit, but he'd
first let himself lag behind, then kicked his horse
into a short canter to bring himself with where
Pirojil sat on the driver's bench.
The illusion wasn't great, but it was good enough,
good enough to fool anybody who was watching
them ride away.
Good enough would do.

235
10 - A Night in Town
n the ruins of what had been the castle of the
Keranahan barons, there remained at least one
well-appointed suite for visiting notables, and it
was a matter of but a few words with Treseen's
lackey, Ketterling, to see Lady Leria safely settled
into it.
Despite Kethol's attempts to engage her in
conversation, she had been quiet during the ride out,
which didn't particularly surprise Pirojil. Making
idle conversation with ordinary folks, he said, was
not something that nobility had a lot of use for.
Giving commands was more their style.
She was settled in for the night, two of the
governor's guards at her door with instructions from
Ketterling that the governor himself would be
personally offended if any harm came to her -
unlikely, in Kethol's opinion - or she wasn't there in
the morning, which was much more likely. She had
I

236
been quiet to the point of being almost
monosyllabic, and it didn't take great insight into the
noble mind to figure out that this whole trip wasn't
something she was looking forward to.
Kethol didn't blame her, but it wasn't about blame.
It was about putting this little blond thing in front of
the dowager empress and then getting back to the
barony, where not every face was a stranger's. Home
was where if, say, you found yourself protecting
some innocent girl from being raped by a bunch of
drunken dastards, it would be the would-be rapists
who would find themselves in fear for their lives,
not the rescuer who would find himself in a jail.
That was the trouble with the here and now. Back
in the old days, on the Last Ride, the rule was cut -
as in slice - and then run, leaving bleeding enemies,
bruised feelings, and indignant nobles behind.
Here, now, in these supposedly more peaceful
days, you were supposed to get proper permission
before slicing into some deserving piece of crud.
Pfah. It made him wish he'd never gone asoldiering.
There was much to be said for the life of
a huntsman.
Pirojil wanted to go settle in at the barracks, and
wasn't only resistant to Kethol's idea of heading

237
down into the town and finding a game, some beer,
and a whore - in just that order - but just this side of
forbade Kethol from doing the same thing. That
irritated Kethol. It wasn't what Pirojil said - the three
of them were companions, not officer and followers
- it was mainly the knowing look on his ugly face, as
though it had been Kethol's fault for the trouble in
Riverforks.
But, shit, it wasn't his fault.
Things had just turned out badly, but the idea was
right.
So they headed across the dirt ground for the
barracks. In the old days, it had clearly been a stable
- the loft spoke of that - but the occupation forces
needed more stable room than the small contingent
of baronial soldiers stationed at the castle had, and
the stable was now one of the long wattle-and-daub
buildings built up against what remained of the
keep's outer wall, while the former stable had been
converted into barracks.
Pirojil sniffed, as though he could still smell the
reek of horse dung - which he couldn't; it had long
since been cleaned out.

238
It smelled like a barracks, with the peculiar reek of
old sweat that made some people gag. Kethol didn't
mind.
It had been a good move to turn the stable into a
barracks: you could fit a lot more soldiers into a
given space than you could horses. Quadruple-rack
bunks, their mattresses intertwined leather strips,
stood in rows, while above, the loft had been divided
into small rooms, presumably for the decurions. The
officers would be billeted in the former castle, which
was better for everybody. You couldn't get a good
game of bones going with some captain or his
subaltern looking over your shoulder all the time.
But the bunks were almost empty, except for
perhaps a dozen men, one all alone in a corner bed,
interrupting himself every few moments with a loud
and heroic snore that caused him to shift and then
settle back down. Not a pleasant way to sleep.
A short soldier limped over. Not a big man, not a
small man, but there was something about the way
his eyes searched theirs before his hand moved away
from the hilt of the knife it had seemed to drift near
that impressed Kethol.
"You the ones from Barony Furnael?" he asked.
His voice was cracked around the edges, as if he'd
strained it by shouting at one too many troopers.

239
"Barony Cullinane," Kethol corrected, more
feeling than seeing Pirojil's glare out of the corner of
his eye.
"Sure." The other man shrugged. "Barony
Cullinane, fine. My name's Tarnell. I've been left in
charge of the barracks, not that there's a lot to do."
His forehead wrinkled. "They said there was four of
you."
"The other's down in town right now. He'll join
us," Pirojil said. "When he's finished ... running an
errand or two."
"Errand, eh?" Tarnell chuckled. "Ah. The girl got
to him, eh? Or was it the baroness?" He licked his
lips and made a sucking sound between his teeth. He
shook his head, as though dismissing the thought,
then looked Erenor up and down with an expression
of distaste. "You have your own little servant, eh?"
he said, although the top of his head was barely level
with Erenor's chin. "I guess I should have gone
soldiering in a different barony."
Kethol started to bristle, but Tarnell held up a
palm. "No, take no offense at an old soldier's
griping," he said. "Things are too quiet around here
right now, and complaining is about the only sport
around that doesn't cost anything." He jerked his
thumb at a quadruple bunk. "You can take one of

240
those racks over there," he said, "and you'll find
blankets in the big chest over at the far end, if you
don't have enough of your own. If you're the
sensitive sort, there's mattress bags in the chest, too,
and you can fill them with straw over at the stables.
Me, I'm not the sensitive sort, and don't mind the
feel of leather under my aging back."
Pirojil's mouth twisted. "Where is everybody?
Seems kind of late for an all-hands patrol to still be
out."
Tarnell shrugged. "Yeah, it does, at that." He
started to turn away.
"Is there some secret?" Kethol asked, letting his
irritation show in his voice.
Tarnell turned back, and stared him flat in the eye
for a moment, for long enough for his silence and
flat expression to say that he wasn't going to be
pushed around by anybody, and that if it was going
to be his single knife against two swords, that was
the way it was going to be. Amazing that he'd lived
so long with that kind of attitude, but stranger things
had been known to happen.
Pirojil cleared his throat. "Kethol's manner
sometimes leaves something to be desired. He spent
the afternoon riding back from the baroness's

241
residence, trying to get a conversation going with
Lady Leria, and she ..."
Tarnell grinned, and the tension in the air dropped
away. "And she didn't have any more use for an
ordinary soldier than you'd expect, eh?" He laughed,
and shook his head. "I've seen that before. Not met
her, although I've heard she's supposed to think
kindly toward us lesser types." He laughed again.
"Some things never change, eh? Let's get you settled
in." He picked up one of Pirojil's bags and guided
them over to the bunk he'd indicated before, setting
it down on the flat leather straps that served as the
mattress. "And there's no secret, not particularly.
Somehow or other, the governor got word of some
orc trouble on the border, and he sent most of the
detachment off to run them down." He shrugged.
"There's maybe a dozen of us left here, but this
hasn't exactly been overflowing with real soldiering
to do for the past few years. We spend more time
accompanying the tax collectors to Neranahan than
anything else except for this orc-chasing."
"Easy duty, eh?"
"Enh. Boring, most of the time, unless you like
haring after orcs. Or bandits." Tarnell grimaced.
"We had to chase down a nest of bandits a few
tendays ago, but the hard part of that was tracking

242
them down. After that, it was just a matter of getting
a couple of archers in close enough to do their
sentries, and then an ordinary slaughter - a dozen
lancers could have done it, but the governor's never
believed in sending in one man when a hundred will
do."
Kethol smiled. "Neither did the Old Emperor."
"Naturally." Tarnell snickered. "Of course. Knew
him real well, did you?"
A sharp response was on Kethol's lips when
Pirojil cleared his throat.
"We're going down into the town," Pirojil said,
"and see if we can find a game or a drink, or maybe
some other entertainment. Feel like coming along?"
Tarnell raised an eyebrow. "You take your servant
drinking and whoring with you?"
"We - "
"I'll stay here, if you don't mind, good sirs,"
Erenor said, tugging at his forelock. "I know you'd
like me pouring your beer for you, but I've got your
clothes to wash, and your beds to make, and
suchlike. I'll be happy to watch over the barracks for
you, if you'd like to go along with them, Tarnell."

243
"You never did any soldiering, did you?" Tarnell
shook his head. "I like swapping lies over beer and
bones as much as anybody else does, and more than
some, but I'm on duty. Just because there's only a
few of us here doesn't mean that the captain doesn't
expect us to do our jobs, eh?"
There was a game of bones going on in the corner of
the Tavern of the Three Horses, and Pirojil wasn't
surprised to find Kethol quickly working his way
into the small group of men watching the play, some
making side bets, others, perhaps, waiting for their
chance to get in the game.
Not much of a crowd, but the place mainly catered
to the occupation troops, and most of them were off
after the orcs.
Pirojil wished them the best of luck. The beasts
were tough and mean, and he would just as soon
they die on somebody else's sword rather than his.
The night was getting cold; Pirojil picked a spot
near the large fireplace, and sipped at his beer. It
was sweeter than he really liked, but it did wash the
grit and the taste of road dust from his mouth and
throat, and that was all he really expected beer to do.
Three burly men walked into the tavern in
company. All wore swords, but they were plainly

244
dressed in coarse-woven loose tunics over blousy,
equally coarse-woven trousers and boots. Not
nobility. If these three tried to rape a local girl,
Kethol could carve them into bloody little chunks,
for all Pirojil cared.
They had already been drinking, they were visibly
weaving as they made their way to a table over in
the corner, and one held up three fingers when he
caught the taverner's eye. The fat, bald, sweaty man
reached a mug deep into the open hogshead, coming
out with it full of beer. He set it on the counter, and
then bent over the hogshead with another mug. Why
he had the top off the hogshead instead of putting it
up on a table and tapping it at the bottom was
something Pirojil wondered about idly. Easier to
turn a tap than to constantly be reaching over, after
all.
And why, come to think of it, were most taverners
fat, bald, sweaty men, anyway? He'd known quite a
few - in most villages and towns, there was little to
do at night except sit around and drink - and more
than half of them were fat, bald, and sweaty. Fat
made sense, maybe. They were around food all the
time, and it would be easy to make the day a
nonstop eating binge. And sweaty? Well, working
around cooking fires and all, rarely getting outside

245
except to step out the back door for a breath of fresh
air every now and then, that probably explained it.
But bald? If you ate too much, did sweating make
your hair fall out?
Or was it that if you sweated a lot, eating too
much made your hair fall out?
Cold wetness splashed down the back of his neck,
wetting him across the shoulder. He turned in his
chair quickly as the remaining two mugs dropped
from the swordsman's hand, drenching his leg as
they splashed on the floor.
"You mangy son of a half-breed Katharhd," the
swordsman said, his voice slurred with drink. "You
bumped my arm, and look what you've done." He
reached out a hand to grab at Pirojil's tunic, but
Pirojil blocked it easily as he rose. "And look at
you," he went on. His eyes seemed to have trouble
focusing. 'That face of yours is the ugliest thing I've
seen since the hind end of a pig, and there's some
pig's asses I'd rather look at. Makes me want to
puke, it does."
Getting into a fight with a drunk wasn't what
Pirojil had come down into town for, and while
under other circumstances he would gladly have
given the dolt a lesson in manners - preferably with

246
his bare hands; there was something satisfying about
doing it that way - this wasn't the time or place.
"Ta havath," he said. "It's just spilled beer."
"But it's my beer." The other took a wild swing at
Pirojil, which Pirojil again blocked, grabbing the
wrist and twisting it up and around behind the
fellow's back easily.
"Now just go back to your table and I'll have the
taverner bring you over your mugs, eh?" He pushed
the wrist up until the other grunted. "Eh?"
His friends were on their feet, but the taverner was
suddenly in between them and where Pirojil stood, a
short staff, ferruled in brass at both ends, in his
hand. His face was creased in an irritated frown, but
he looked comfortable holding the staff in his
massive hands, the knuckles the size of walnuts. Big
walnuts.
"I don't mind fights in my tavern," he said. "Can't
sell beer to men who want to drink themselves drunk
without having a fight every now and then, and a
fight means some smashed furniture and broken
barrels. But I'll want to see the silver you're going to
use to pay for the damage before you go after each
other." One of the two seated drunks set his hands
on the table and started to rise, but the taverner

247
slammed one end of the staff down barely short of
the ends of his fingers, scoring the wood but
stopping the movement cold. "Sit, I said, and sit I
meant."
He waved the end of the staff toward where Pirojil
stood, still holding the drunk with his arm twisted up
behind his back. The fellow lifted his right boot -
probably to stomp down on Pirojil's foot - but Pirojil
just twisted the arm up higher, forcing something
halfway between a scream and a groan from the
other's lips.
"Now, as to you, you with the ugly face," the
taverner said, "you just let him go, and let's be done
with this, since I don't see anybody eager enough to
fight showing some coin to pay for the privilege."
Kethol had been trying to get into the game, but
now he was working his way through the suddenly
quiet, suddenly attentive crowd. He'd made no move
toward his weapon, or any sound at all, but it wasn't
a coincidence that he was positioned to move against
either of the seated men if they tried to get up, or
that one of his hands gripped the back of a chair,
ready to use it as an improvised weapon.
Pirojil didn't look directly at him. Kethol had his
flaws, but you could count on him in a fight, even if
the fight hadn't started.

248
The taverner took a half-step toward Pirojil. "I
won't tell you three times to let him go," he said, his
voice more threatening for its quietness.
Pirojil shoved the drunk away, and took a careful
step back to get himself clear from any sudden back
kick.
Kethol caught his eye, made a slight jerking
movement of his chin toward the exit, and then
quietly started to edge his way around the crowd,
toward the door. Pirojil didn't need the advice: he
was covered in beer, his head still flushed from the
sudden rush of anger, and he wasn't thirsty anymore.
He tossed a copper coin on the table. "I'll be
leaving now. I'd appreciate it," he said to the
taverner, "if you'd buy them a round of beer on me,
and see they stay to drink it."
The taverner shrugged. "Just get going. They're
too drunk to catch up with you, if you make yourself
gone quickly enough."
"Coward," one of the three said.
"An ugly coward, at that," another snickered.
"Run, run, run," the third muttered, his voice, if
anything, thicker and more slurred than those of the
other two. "Men fight; cowards run."

249
Pirojil, Kethol at his side, bowed graciously
toward the taverner, spun around, and walked
swiftly out and into the night.
The way back through town toward the main road
that twisted up the hill toward the keep was a long
one, but Pirojil didn't mind the walk. It gave him a
chance to calm down, or at least fool himself that he
could. He had more than once drawn on somebody
who had made fun of his ugliness, and he had both
given and received the scars to show for it, and not
just blade scars. There had been this fellow back in
Biemestren - a baron's man, not an imperial - whose
ear Pirojil had bitten half off, and he still
remembered the feel of the flesh rending between
his teeth, the warm taste of the salty blood in his
mouth, and the way the snickers had turned to
squeals of pain.
Silently he cursed the dowager empress for
putting him in a position where he had to take the
abuse a drunk wanted to dish out. He cursed the
taverner for stopping the fight, because even though
it was stupid, he wanted to carve the drunk's face
until it was uglier than his own.
Pirojil could have justified fighting back. He
probably should have. Kethol certainly would have,
and so would Durine. The drunk had not only

250
splashed beer on him, but he had thrown the first
blow. If his steel had started to clear its scabbard
first - and a quick move toward the hilt of his own
sword could have persuaded the drunk to draw -
Pirojil could have drawn and killed him without a
qualm. Nobody who had ever held a sword in his
hand expected you to take it easy on somebody who
had started a sword-fight just because he was drunk.
It wasn't like hand-to-hand, where anybody with any
backbone would look down on you for beating up an
obviously incapable opponent. Swords were sharp
and steel moved quickly, and the blade of even an
incompetent, blind-drunk opponent could find its
way to your heart or through your neck if you let up
on him for even an instant.
Kethol kept quiet as they walked. Say what you
would about Kethol's judgment, but, just like
Durine, he was a good and loyal companion.
They had turned down a side street toward the
main road that led up to the keep when Kethol
nudged him. "Footsteps behind," he whispered, then
stopped in his tracks, bending over in a fit of
coughing that covered his moving his hand toward
his sword, while it let Pirojil move a few steps away,
close enough to aid him, not so close as to get in his
way.

251
Pirojil stopped, and looked back at where Kethol
was half bent over. There was nobody on the dirt
street behind him, and the shops that lined the street
were shuttered and locked up for the night. Kethol
hadn't just been hearing things - whoever it was
must have ducked into the alley.
Kethol must have thought the same thing, because
he continued his coughing fit, staggering toward the
darkness of the alley.
Very well. If Kethol was handling the alley, that
left it to Pirojil to deal with another threat, if there
was another threat.
"What is it now?" Pirojil asked, not letting his
voice get too loud.
It was then that the two men came from around the
corner, swords glistening in the starlight.
They were, of course, two of the three from the
tavern.
"We have some unfinished business, ugly one,"
the heavyset man who had slopped the beer on
Pirojil said. He didn't sound quite so drunk now, if
indeed he ever had been drunk at all. "Coward."
Pirojil set his hand on the hilt of his own sword.
"You use words like 'coward' quite a lot," he said.

252
"Are you brave enough to come at me one at a time,
or do I have to skewer both of you at once?"
Kethol's coughing fit seemed to worsen; he leaned
up against the wall next to the alley.
The heavyset man smiled thickly. "Oh, I think I'll
be able to handle you myself," he said, stepping
forward, while the other stood waiting.
Pirojil drew his own sword. It was hard to see it by
the dim light of the overhead stars; its coating of
lampblack made it difficult - well, impossible - to
handle without getting dirty, but it also put an
opponent at a disadvantage in a fight in the dark, and
made no difference in its ability to cut or stab.
He closed, and engaged blades, tentatively testing
the other's defenses. A quick feint that could have
preceded a lunge drew an instant parry - not the
delayed movement of a drunk. No, this man wasn't
drunk, and he hadn't been drunk in the tavern, not
with reflexes like these. There were those who could
hold their beer well, but it did not sharpen the eye or
steady the wrist.
Another series of equally tentative moves drew
only defensive responses. This fellow was at least an
adequate swordsman, and a cautious one. The time
you were most exposed was when you were on the

253
attack, and it was a matter of simple strategy to try
to draw a predictable attack, allowing your opponent
to bring his arm, particularly his wrist, into your
range.
Great swordsmen and greater idiots could show
off by trying for the heart or the belly, but anybody
with anything less than a master's touch and
anything more than a cow's brain went for the
extremities, for the sword arm or the legs. An
amazingly small cut to the wrist would make it
impossible for your opponent to fight, even if he
could still, just barely, clutch his sword. A jab to the
knee, or the thigh, or as little as a thrust to the toe
could slow your enemy down enough to let you
control the space, the timing, and if you could
control the fight, you would win it.
Pirojil was still feeling around the other's defenses
when he heard the sounds of fighting behind him,
followed by a bubbling groan and Kethol's laugh.
Pirojil's opponent's eyes widened, and he retreated
several paces while Kethol rejoined Pirojil, his
sword extended, the blade darkly wet
Even out of the corner of Pirojil's eye, Kethol's
grin was warming. "Seems there was a bowman
waiting in the alley for you," he said, walking
crabwise away from Pirojil's opponent to engage the

254
remaining man. "The idea, I suppose, was for you to
be busy watching the one in front while an arrow
pierced you from behind."
The three of them carried healing draughts in their
pouches - that was one of the benefits that came
with working for the Cullinanes, who insisted on it,
despite the expense. But even the best healing
draughts would do no good whatsoever to a man
who had been injured by an arrow - not if the
swordsman in front of him had used the injury as an
opportunity to run him through.
Remove the arrow and thrust a sword through the
wound, and what you had lying on the ground was
the loser of a duel, somebody who had been run
through. Maybe slash his wrist and sword arm a few
times, too, to make the killing wound look like the
last of several blows.
Steel clashed on steel as Kethol engaged with his
man - Kethol was always eager, perhaps always too
eager - but Pirojil didn't let himself get too anxious.
A sword fight wasn't won as much as it was lost.
"Put up your sword, and tell us who sent you and
why," he said, "and you'll go free." He raised his
voice. "Kethol, that goes for the other, too. The first
to surrender lives."

255
Pirojil's opponent started to speak, but all he made
was choking sounds. "I'd like to," he said, with a
friendly smile. "But I'm afraid that just won't be
possible. Not this - " He interrupted himself with a
quick feint toward Pirojil, probably hoping to draw a
response.
"Not this time?" Pirojil said.
His opponent shook his head. "I'm afraid not," he
said, suddenly lunging toward Pirojil. "My regrets."
Perhaps next time his assassin wouldn't agree to
having a geas put on him, one that would make the
back of his throat close up tight if he tried to tell
who his employer was.
Then again, if there was a next time, Pirojil
wouldn't be around to care about it.
Their blades clashed again as they thrust and
parried, counterthrust and riposted. Pirojil's
opponent left his wrist high and exposed
momentarily. Pirojil feinted toward it, then thrust
low and in, under the other's blade, in full extension,
the tip of his sword slicing high into the other's
thigh, near the groin, while his opponent was busy
sticking the point of his sword high into the air
where Pirojil's arm was supposed to be.

256
Pirojil recovered instantly, beating his man's
sword aside as he did, and he took a few cautious
retreating steps while blood fountained from the
other's thigh like a stream of dark wine pouring from
a keg with its bung pulled.
Despite the deadly wound, the heavyset man was
game enough: he took a half-step forward, but he
grunted as a bloody sword point thrust out of the
front of his chest. He barely had time to look down
and see a hands breadth of steel thrusting through
his ribs before he was flung forward as Kethol
kicked him off his sword, twisting it as he did so.
He was dead before he hit the ground, although
the body did twitch for just a moment before fouling
itself with an almost funny flatulence, followed by a
horrible stench.
Kethol's man was down and dead - Pirojil had
been too busy with his own fight to take in the
details - his throat cut open, most likely to finish him
off. Kethol was aggressive, but not likely to go for
the throat until his opponent was down.
Kethol cleaned his sword on the cloak of Pirojil's
dead opponent. "I think we'd best wake up the
governor and report."
"Before somebody else does." Pirojil nodded.

257
"Who do the three - two of you think you are?"
Treseen fumed. "You had me taken from a soft,
warm bed in the middle of the night to tell me that
instead of simply retiring for the evening, you found
yourself a drunken duel, and that three men lie dead
on the street?" His hair was disarrayed, no longer
covering the bald spot that it had so assiduously
been combed over, and he had not bothered to put
on shoes when he had pulled on a fresh tunic and
trousers to come downstairs.
It wouldn't do to get into a fight with the governor,
of course - the guards weren't close enough to hear a
low conversation, but a shout was another matter -
but if it were to happen, Pirojil would start off by
stomping, hard, on the governor's toes. It was a trick
he had learned from Durine so long ago that he had
almost come to think of it as his own, so long ago
that he almost didn't wince at the memory.
Pirojil let Kethol do the talking. Treseen had
decided that Kethol was the leader of the three, and
that was fine with Pirojil.
Kethol shook his head. "No, Governor, that's not
what we're saying. We're saying that those three
were looking for us. First they tried to pick a fight
with Pirojil, and then when that didn't work out, they
waylaid us. Two of them were supposed to draw our

258
attention while the third filled us full of arrows from
behind."
"Pfah." Treseen's mouth twisted into a sneer.
"That's hard to believe. Abrasive and offensive the
three of you are, surely, but I can't see how you
could have irritated anybody here so much as to
dispatch three armed men after your blood." He
cocked his head to one side. "On the other hand,
perhaps you have the right of it. So, those nobles
you went out of your way to offend in Riverforks
decided not to let things rest so easily. Eh?"
What he was suggesting just wasn't possible. In
order for these to be from Riverforks, whoever had
sent them would have had to locate three assassins,
hire them, get a wizard to put a geas on them to
prevent them from speaking his name, and put the
assassins on their trail - and do it all quickly enough
that these men had arrived in town less than a day
after Pirojil, Kethol, and Durine had. With the local
wizard in tow.
No. It hadn't happened that way, and it hadn't
happened by accident.
There was only one question in Pirojil's mind
about the assassins: was it the dowager empress or
Elanee who had targeted them?

259
Either made sense. If they had been killed in what
would be portrayed as a drunken brawl, as Treseen
had put it, that would have reflected badly on
Barony Cullinane, and perhaps that was what the
dowager empress had intended all the time. It would
have been nice to know if these three had been on
their trail since they had left Biemestren, perhaps
waiting to make their play until Kethol, Pirojil, and
Durine had managed to get Leria out of Elanee's
hands.
That way, if they failed, Beralyn's agents wouldn't
have had to do anything at all. And if that was the
case, then was Treseen working for the dowager
empress, too?
Or was it Elanee? She had given in perhaps too
easily at the Residence, and let them take Leria
without protest or obstruction.
But that would have meant that she would have
had to have had the assassins standing by, already
her retainers. There just hadn't been enough time for
her to go about recruiting such, even if she knew just
whom to see and where.
Either way, it wasn't just a bar fight gone serious,
and it wasn't a retribution for Riverforks.

260
Pirojil couldn't quite figure out whether Treseen
was willfully avoiding the obvious explanation or
was just stupid. The Old Emperor used to say
something about not ascribing to malice what
stupidity could explain, but the Old Emperor had
always had a better feel for the amount of stupidity
in the world than he'd had for the malice.
"No," Pirojil said quietly. "No. It wasn't because
of Riverforks. And I think you know that very well,
Governor."
Treseen raised a finger. "I would be very careful,
were I you, of making wild accusations, soldier. I'm
not disposed to listen to such, and I would suggest
that you not dispose yourself to making such." He
sighed. "But enough of that, and enough of all this.
You've a long trip to start in the morning, and the
Lady Leria to guard. Perhaps it would be just as well
if you did so well rested, eh?"

261
11 - Uneasy Lies the Head, Part I
he emperor's dreams were soft and gentle
this night, for a change. He was out riding a
large ruddy horse through fields of clover,
under a sky of pure blue decorated with huge, fluffy
clouds.
Not hunting, not trying to escape the endless
infighting among the barons and the staff, not
getting exercise - just riding. He pricked at the
horse's side with his heels, and the huge animal
broke first into a canter, then a full gallop, Thomen's
legs straight as he stood tall in the saddle.
Usually, when he dreamed of riding, it was all
smooth and effortless, but this time, it felt real - it
took all his skill and most of his strength to go with
the motion, to prevent the saddle from smashing his
tailbone into splinters.
It was wonderful.
T

262
The horse didn't think so. It raised its head and
snorted at him, its neck craning around at an angle
that would have broken its spine in real life.
"Wonderful for you," it said, in his mother's voice,
"but what of the realm?"
That took all the fun out of it in an instant. He was
suddenly in his office in the west wing of
Biemestren Castle, his desk rammed against the
comer of a box canyon whose walls were gigantic
piles of paper that threatened to tumble at any
moment, smothering him in their dull gray-ishness.
And the horse was still there, and still sounding
like his mother.
"It's about time you got married," it said, its face
changing into hers, then back. He tried to tell
himself that he had never noticed the similarity
before, but Thomen Furnael didn't like lying to
himself. Or to anybody else, for that matter.
Yet another reason that he shouldn't be emperor.
Deception was an important tool of statecraft. Not as
useful as fear, perhaps, but at least as important as
loyalty.
"Mother," he said, "we've had this discussion
before, and we'll no doubt have it again." He
climbed up on his desk and then made his way up

263
the sheer wall of paper, clinging by suddenly bare
toes and fingers to the canyon walls. Another tax
request from Parliament was coming undone, and if
he didn't push it back into place in time, it all would
fall in.
Not that it mattered what he did, mind. But he had
to look at it, pretend to consider it, and, while
hanging by toes and fingers from the walls perhaps
ten, fifteen stories above his desk, sign it.
It should have been somebody else. Thomen was a
second son, and while myth and legend had second
sons as being poor relations of their elder brothers,
Thomen had always thought it the best of things to
have the privileges and wealth that came with
nobility without the responsibility. Second sons
were wastrels, yes, by popular consensus - but it
would have been nice to have been a wastrel.
But Rahff was long dead, and Father was long
dead, and the Old Emperor was long dead, and Jason
Cullinane had abdicated the throne and the Silver
Crown in Thomen's favor, and if there was a path
out of this dead-end paper canyon, he couldn't find
it, not in his waking hours, and not in his sleep.
And, truth to tell, in a sense he didn't want out
There were days - few of them, but some - when he
thought that he was doing a decent job of all this.

264
Knitting together two formerly hostile principalities
into one empire and eventually one country took a
certain touch, and maybe a certain sense of history
as well as proportion. The Old Emperor might have
had some of the latter, but not a trace of the former.
"Well, then," his mother the horse said, "if you
have any sense of history, young man, you'll
understand that the first duty of the ruler has always
been to survive, and the second duty has always
been to perpetuate bis line." She/it punctuated the
sentence with a sniff that was born pure Mother and
pure horse at the same time. "You've not so much as
a bastard child, much less a proper heir."
Yes, that was the plan, be it sleeping or awake.
Bind him tightly with a wife and children, and he
would be trapped in this canyon forever, without any
possible means of escape.
"Escape?" A new voice chimed in. Walter
Slovotsky stood in front of him, one hip thrown over
the edge of Thomen's desk. He was taller than
Thomen, both in dream and in reality, but not much,
and while age had begun to let his chest fall and
become belly, that war was by no means over. His
beard was well-trimmed, and his eyes seemed to
smile genially, but the grin that seemed a fixture on
bis lips was neither friendly nor hostile, but entirely

265
one of self-appreciation. Any realm wise or lucky
enough to host Walter Slovotsky deserved to be
graced by that smile.
Thomen didn't know whether he loved or hated
Walter Slovotsky, but he had always liked and
resented him.
"I know," Walter Slovotsky said. "Now tell me
about this escape, if I heard you aright."
"Yes, escape," he said, gesturing at the paper
walls. "From this."
Slovotsky chuckled. "Now, let me understand this.
You work in a nice, clean room, with food, drink,
and companionship on call and available at any
time; you get to make decisions that count - in fact,
that's your fucking job - and you don't have to deal
with hairy, smelly strangers who want to slit you
from guzzle to zorch and back again; and you
complain that all this is a trap from which you need
escape."
Put that way - and if Thomen could be sure of
nothing else, he could be sure that Walter Slovotsky
would put it just that way - it didn't sound bad at all.
"Well, of course it doesn't," Slovotsky said. "And
that's because it isn't that bad. In fact, it's as soft a
touch as you're likely to find outside of a dream."

266
His mother was suddenly behind Slovotsky, her
arm raised, an improbably long, improbably needlepointed
dagger clenched in a white-knuckled fist.
Slovotsky made a face and, and without looking
around, reached up and grabbed her descending
hand and twisted the knife out of it, looked at it for a
moment, then tossed it aside, into nothingness.
"Now, now," he said, chiding her in a gentle voice
that in real life would have enraged her, but in the
dream actually served to calm her down. "That's not
nice. I'm just telling him the truth. You wouldn't
slay the bearer of bad news - " He stopped himself
and raised a palm. "Never mind. Of course you
would."
He chucked Thomen under the chin with the hilt
of the knife that he had just tossed away. "Always a
bad idea, kiddo. If you punish people for bringing
you bad news, then the only people who will bring
you bad news are those whom you can't punish. And
you want to get your bad news hot off the presses,
while there may still be something you can do about
it. By the time you reach the point of your pyramidshaped
society, the point is sharp enough to cut you,
and will be most unpleasant if the universe decides
to shove it up your backside."

267
Well, Walter Slovotsky in a dream still had much
in common with the real-life Walter Slovotsky:
Thomen could only understand about half of what
he was saying.
At best.
"So," the Emperor asked, "what is this bad news
that you're bringing me?"
"It's pretty horrible." Uncharacteristically,
Slovotsky looked shy. "I hesitate to even mention it
in front of your Imperial Majesty, for fear."
"For fear of what? That I'd have you killed?"
"Well, no. Not in a dream I'm not. I mean, you
could have me killed, but, this being a dream and
all, it wouldn't quite take."
"Then what are you afraid of?"
Slovotsky sobered. "I'm afraid I'll hurt your
feelings. Wouldn't want that." His smile was back in
place, and Thomen's mother was gone, vanished as
he wished - as people only do in a dream.
Thomen's mouth was dry. "I'll live," he said. "Tell
me."
"Okay: the truth is that you like being Emperor.
The truth is that it tickles you to hold the closest
thing to absolute power that you're ever likely to see.

268
The truth is that you think you do a fairly good job
at it. And the truth is that you wouldn't give it up.
Your mommy wouldn't let you, and if she was dead,
you'd find another reason. You like having the
Ladies accompanying the barons to Parliament
trying to sneak up to your room to have you father
an heir on them, and you like - "
"Do you really think I'm that shallow, that venal?"
Slovotsky's face went blank. "Doesn't matter what
I think. This is only a dream, after all. The problem
is that you think you're that shallow, that venal - or
at least you're afraid that you are."
Mother was back again. "This is the man," she
said, her jaw tense, her lips and knuckles white,
"who got your father killed. How dare you, his son,
just lie there and let him speak to you that way?"
Thomen's jaw was tight. "Because," he said, "I
think he's right. Anybody can say anything to me, as
long as they're right. I need to hear truth, Mother."
"Hey, take it easy." Slovotsky laughed, and took a
step forward. "It's a fucking dream, kid. You don't
have to be rigidly fair. You don't even have to be
honest with yourself. If you're mad at me for living
a life, wild and free, doing what I want when I want,
well, then, go ahead and hurt me for it - in a dream.

269
I won't mind. Really. I won't even know." He
slapped Thomen once, lightly, across the face. "But,
shit, if this'll make it easier for you ..."
Thomen Furnael, former heir to what was now
Barony Cullinane, former judge of the realm, former
child, former younger brother to Rahff Furnael, now
prince of Bieme and emperor of Holtun-Bieme,
awoke from his sleep to find himself on his knees in
his nightshirt, trying to choke the life out of his
blanket.

270
12 - Durine
eer were amazing creatures, Durine had
long ago learned. He had seen them run
silently out of brush you'd swear a mouse
couldn't make his way through, and bound across a
trail into even denser brush without so much as a
hoofbeat. It wasn't as though they were quiet; it was
as if your ears couldn't work to hear them.
Durine wished he was a deer just about now.
As he worked his way through the woods toward
where forested land broke on plowed ground on the
far side of the baroness's residence, he sounded to
himself a lot more like a cow trampling through the
humus and detritus littering the forest floor.
Well, be that as it may, he had volunteered for the
job, and it made a lot more sense for him to be doing
this than Kethol. A better woodsman, certainly, but
too much the hero.
D

271
Branches and twigs clawed at his clothes and
body, but the few scratches were nothing to worry
about, even though every insect in the forest seemed
to be using his cuts and scratches as dining troughs.
As long as his eyes were left alone, the cuts could be
healed.
It took him longer than even the generous amount
of time he had allowed himself to work his way
through to the far side, and the sun had set by the
time he peered out onto the fields. He was bonetired,
hungry, and thirsty enough to consider another
draught from his half-empty water bag, but that was
to be expected.
What wasn't expected was the party at the stables
saddling up for a ride, a half-dozen soldiers led by a
woman in riding breeches and cloak, her hair tied
back, who looked for all the world, even from this
distance, to be the baroness herself. It was, of
course, possible that she was fond of a nighttime
ride every now and then, and it would certainly be
prudent to take along a bodyguard or seven, but
Durine didn't believe that for a moment.
Where was she going? And why?
Saddled, the party clopped away at a slow walk on
a dirt road that led away from the Residence, the
baroness in the lead. An extra horse trailed along

272
behind, pulled along on the end of a rope by the last
of the horsemen, barely able to keep up, even though
it was unencumbered by a saddle or a rider. Why
they wanted a spavined old horse as a spare was
something Durine couldn't quite figure out; the
others all had decent mounts.
They quickly disappeared over the hill, and in a
moment, even the sound of the hooves had faded in
the distance.
Well, this wasn't the first mistake Durine had ever
made, and he hoped it wouldn't be the last. Kethol,
long-legged and lanky, could probably have
followed them for quite some distance at a fast
soldier's pace, a dogtrot. Kethol could keep that up
as long as he had to.
Durine, well, Durine was large, and he was strong,
but he wasn't Kethol.
Cursing himself silently for a moment as he
stripped off his cloak and wrapped it around the rest
of his gear before hiding the package under a pile of
brush - it wasn't that he was really angry at himself,
but it gave him something to do - he shook his head.
Well, if Kethol wasn't available, then Durine
would have to do the best he could. He worked his
way through to a path that exited the woods, and

273
plodded his way along the edge of a wheat field
toward the road that the baroness and her party had
taken. He was exposed for at least a short while to
anybody looking out the back of the Residence, but
it was a risk Durine would have to take; it would
have been impossible to make his way through the
woods around to the road that the party had taken
before dark, and he wasn't a dwarf, able to see in the
darkness.
As it was, the sky had gone slate-gray and the
stars and the distant pulsing Faerie lights had begun
to show by the time he reached the spot where the
riders had vanished over the hill.
So far, so good.
He started off at a slow walk, getting into the
rhythm of walking before gradually picking up the
pace. The road was as good as a dirt road ever got:
baked in the heat of the sun since the last rain, it was
relatively free of holes and divots, although it was
by no means the sort of solid road that the imperials
built and maintained. His slow walk became a faster
one and he forced that up into a jog, with each step
landing on the heel of his boot and pushing off from
the balls of his feet. Running wasn't something
Durine was built for, but this whole mission was
something that none of them were really built for,

274
anyway. You just had to do the best you could, and
hope that was enough, and hope that was enough not
to get you killed.
His scabbard kept slapping against his leg, so,
without slowing or stopping - he had the sense that
if he had the sense to slow or stop, he'd turn right
around and go back, instead of chasing horsemen on
foot - he unbuckled his sword belt, then rebuckled it
and slung it over his shoulder. His pouch still
bounced against his right buttock, but that didn't
bother him. It was kind of reassuring, really, and
helped him keep the rhythm.
It was said that a man could run down any other
animal, if given enough time, and surely that had to
include a horse carrying somebody.
Of course, it wasn't said that any man could pull
that trick. A one-legged cripple certainly couldn't. A
young child unsteady on his first legs couldn't.
And maybe Durine couldn't. His heart thumped
madly in his chest, and his lungs burned with a
horrid fire. His feet hurt from blisters broken open
and bleeding, and his shirt hung damp with sweat. It
should have been Kethol. It should have been
Kethol.
He began running to the rhythm of that thought.

275
It should have been Kethol.
It shouldn't be me.
It should have been Kethol.
It shouldn't be me.
It should...
He never could remember how long he held that
thought as he held that pace, but the thought and the
pace carried him down the road as it twisted across
the landscape, up and down hills.
The hardest moment came as he approached a
wide wooden bridge that arched above a stream.
Running across that expanse would sound like
somebody beating a drum, and would carry probably
into the next barony. So he let himself ease down
into a slow walk, wondering if he would be able to
force himself to run again.
Durine had been wounded more times than he
cared to count, and there had been a time,
somewhere high in the mountains, when he had
come down with an awful fever that had left him not
only in agony but hallucinating, wanting to run
away, even though that would have meant falling
down the mountain in the dark. It had been all the

276
other two could do to hold him down and keep
forcing water down his throat.
But he had never tried to run down a horse before,
and while Durine was used to doing what he set out
to, there was no sense in trying to fool himself. It
would have been useful to know where the baroness
and her party were going, but...
He walked slowly, quietly, across the bridge.
Maybe just a little further, and then he could, in
good conscience, give up.
Just a little further, he thought, his feet breaking
into a brisk walk.
Just a little.
Just a little.
Then he would rest.
The brisk walk became a trot, the broken bloody
blister on his right heel stabbing up into his leg
every time he landed on it. He had developed a
stitch in the side that felt like the blade of a thin,
sharp knife. His breath was ragged and his heart felt
as if it would burst out of his chest and splatter all
over the road.

277
A dark storm was rolling in from over the horizon,
blotting out distant stars and Faerie lights. Wind
whipped dust into the air, and into his eyes.
Just a little farther, he thought.
The road climbed up a steep hill, and Durine
accelerated, just out of pigheaded stubbornness,
even though the effort caused him to hurt even more.
He stopped dead in his tracks at the top of the hill,
then took a few shaky steps back. He dropped to the
ground, gasping for air like a fish on the bank of a
stream. Near the bottom of the hill, where a dark
hole - a cave? a tunnel? Durine couldn't be sure -
opened on the side of a rocky hill, a half-dozen or so
horses waited in a small corral.
It was awfully large for a dwarven tunnel -
dwarves tended to dig to their own scale, whether
for habitation or mining - but it was regular and
even enough to be. Most of the original dwarven
inhabitants had long been driven out of the Middle
Lands and most of the Eren regions, but some of
their burrows persisted, those that they hadn't sealed
up behind them or been sealed up in. The Old Emperor
had invited some to move back in, but that was
mainly out in Adahan, not here.

278
Had Elanee persuaded some to take up residence
here? Was this some sort of mine?
If so, no wonder she didn't want any attention.
Gold could do magical things, in more ways than
one, and the imperial tax on mined gold was
intended to concentrate the wealth into imperial
hands. The last thing the emperor needed was some
Holtish baron with a secret cache.
Whatever the origin of the tunnel, a lantern had
been placed in a niche carved neatly into the rocks
just outside the cave, and in its flickering light four
soldiers crouched over a small fire, although the
night wasn't particularly cold.
Durine could understand that, though. There was
something about a fire that made you feel safer from
whatever lurked out in the darkness.
Even if it was only a big, sweaty, tired man,
whose every bone and muscle ached. It would have
been awfully nice to be the one sitting around the
campfire instead of out here in the dark and the cold.
The soldiers were keeping a lousy watch; they
seemed to spend most of their time watching the
entrance, rather than the horses, as they talked
quietly among themselves.

279
The night was bright, and Durine had good night
vision - for a human, at least - but he couldn't make
out anything inside the entrance to the tunnel or
cave. If the baroness and the other two had gone in,
what had they gone in for?
A familiar kind of whinnying scream filled the
night air, giving the four men in front of the cavern
entrance a start. A horse's scream of terror and pain
is a distinctive sound, different from anything else.
Durine had heard it before, more than once.
And here it was again.
The baroness certainly had impressed Durine as
capable of cruelty, but that wasn't what this smelled
like. If she had simply wanted to torture an animal,
she could have done it out at the Residence, if she
didn't mind others knowing. She couldn't expect her
guard not to talk at all, so even if they were
closemouthed, whatever she was doing she didn't
mind them knowing about.
Unless -
There was the slightest of sounds behind him,
barely audible over the whispering of the wind
through the trees.
Durine rolled to one side as the bearded soldier
behind him charged, sword thrust out in front of

280
him. He scrabbled back, crablike, the heels of his
boots kicking against the dirt of the road, ignoring
the damage that stones were doing to the palms of
his hands.
But not quickly enough. The sword point took
him high in the right thigh, only stopping when it
grated against bone.
The man took a step back, and lunged again, but
Durine was able to kick the point of the sword aside
with a sweep of his good leg while warm blood
poured from the wound in his thigh. It hurt
surprisingly little - more of a shock than pain,
although as he tried to stand, he found that his leg
would barely support him.
Somehow or other, he had managed to get the hilt
of his sword in his hand, and whipped his arm to
clear the scabbard and belt away.
By the pulsing crimson and purple of the overhead
Faerie lights, the enemy's face shone with sweat as
he smiled. "Oh, so you're faster than you look, are
you," he said, beckoning toward Durine with his
free hand. "Come on, let's see how your steel moves,
eh?"
The fool. With his lifeblood pouring out of his
wound, all the other had to do was keep Durine

281
occupied, retreating if need be, until the loss of
blood led to loss of consciousness and Durine fell.
But the idiot wasn't having any of that -
No. He was smarter than he wanted to appear. As
he closed, his lunges and parries were only tentative.
He didn't approach closely enough to be within a
short lunge of Durine, and Durine was in no
condition to lunge at him.
He was just toying with him, and there wasn't
much time. With every thump of his heart, Durine's
blood was dripping away, his life was dripping
away.
Durine had a flask of healing draughts in his
pouch, but his pouch hung from the belt that held up
his trousers, and on the right side. He was righthanded,
after all, and -
That was it. He switched his sword to his left
hand, and dropped back into a ready stance, holding
his opponent's gaze with his eyes as his clumsy
fingers tweaked at the mouth of his pouch.
"Ah," Durine said as the man's eyes widened. His
words were ragged and harsh in his throat. "You
don't like fighting a left-handed swordsman, eh?"
That was true enough - and common enough - but
Durine wasn't a left-handed swordsman, and in a

282
moment the other would realize it, and at that
moment it would be all over but the dying.
His fingers seized the brass capsule and he spun
the cap off and away with a quick, hard motion of
his thumb.
Smooth as smooth could be, a glass vial, sealed
with wood and wax, slipped into his hand. If he'd
had the time, Durine could have scraped away the
wax to pull out the wooden plug, and poured
perhaps a quarter of the contents into his wound.
That would surely be enough to seal it up, to heal it
up.
If he had had the use of both hands, he could have
simply snapped the vial open over his wound and let
the healing draughts pour in. He really only should
have needed part of what was inside.
But he needed one of his hands for his sword, and
there was no time at all.
So he brought the vial up and into his mouth, and
bit down, hard, glass shattering and grinding
between his teeth.
His gums stung in a dozen places, for just a
moment, and then the pain was replaced by a sense
of warmth that flowed into his jaw, then across his

283
face, down his neck and through his body, wiping
away not only pain but even the memory of it.
He felt his muscles seize together and knit, while
the aches in his body were washed away as though
they had never been. He stood firmly on what had
been blistered feet, and he spat out the fragments of
glass, then spat again.
The bearded man closed, but this time Durine
didn't retreat.
Instead, he pushed both of their swords to the side,
then dropped his blade to wrap his arms around his
opponent, his blunt fingers locking tightly behind
the smaller man's back, lifting him up and off the
ground.
Durine squeezed, as hard as he could.
The other's sword fell from nerveless fingers, and
his hot breath, reeking of garlic and onion, came out
in a whoosh across Durine's face. He writhed, trying
to escape, trying to bring an arm or a knee up, but
Durine held him too tightly, and squeezed harder.
Durine squeezed and squeezed, until bones
cracked and the air was foul with the stink of shit.
And then he dropped the corpse to the ground.

284
It would have been worth a few moments to try to
hide the body, but there was no real point. The dirt
road was splattered with Durine's blood, and while
nobody would be able to make it out by starlight and
Faerie light, in the morning the evidence of a fight
would be written on the dirt for anybody to see.
Whatever was going on down in the cave was a
matter for another time, and Durine would make
sure that there would be another time. With the right
weapons and the right companions, he wouldn't
hesitate to try to sneak up and take on a half-dozen
men in the dark. But not now. . He must have been
more shaken than he realized. He almost forgot to
retrieve and empty the dead man's pouch before he
turned and limped down the road in the dark.
But only almost.

285
13 - The Road
ay broke all dark and wet and mean, with
streams of water running down the single
set of stairs down from the top of what
remained of the curtain wall. One end had been
blocked with rubble, it seemed, and a gutter from the
flat roof of the keep had been extended not quite far
enough to dump the water beyond the wall.
Pirojil stood at the window, thinking about how
nice and dry it was here, and how wet and miserable
Durine must be out in the woods. There was only so
much you could do to stay dry under the best of
circumstances, which this wasn't
Kethol probably should have been the one to go
spying on the baroness; let the would-be hero once
again suffer the irritations of his heroism. That
seemed only fair, and while life wasn't fair - Pirojil
had heard that more than once - Pirojil tried to be. It
was something he had gotten from the Old Emperor.
D

286
Damn little else.
Erenor was at his elbow. "Nasty day out. I take it
we stay here until things dry out?"
Pirojil shook bis head. "No. Kethol's seeing to the
team. It won't take us more than a few moments to
pack up. We're leaving this morning, as planned."
The sooner they were out of here and back in
Biemestren, the better. And more: the sooner they
were out of here, the better. Dereneyl in particular
and Barony Neranahan in general weren't good
places to be spending a lot of time. "Go help Lady
Leria pack."
"Of course. I live but to serve." Erenor smiled. "It
will be my - "
"No."
The wizard raised an eyebrow. "No, what?"
"No, don't," Pirojil said. "Whatever you're
thinking, don't. The lady's above our station, and
even though I've little doubt your oily charm and
perhaps a small cantrip or two could get past that,
don't do it. You're a servant for now, until we drop
her off in Biemestren." And then the wizard could
go his way and the three of them could go theirs.
Setting himself up in a new town would be no new

287
thing for Erenor, and it would do Pirojil good to see
the back of him.
But for now, having him along had already proved
handy, and it might be invaluable.
Wizards were not common coin.
Erenor frowned broadly. Had he been on stage,
even the patrons in the back row would have thought
it overdramatic. "Very well," he said, with a tug on
the forelock. "I shall go be a lady's maid, and help
her to pack." By the time Pirojil got back down to
the stables, the rain had eased to a sodden drizzle,
and Kethol had the team hitched and his own horse
saddled, with Durine's large bay, its back bare,
hitched to the back of the carriage. He took a look
out through the open doors toward the rain.
"I figured that Durine wouldn't mind if we didn't
leave his saddle and blanket out on his horse's back
to get all wet," he said in a low voice. He pointed his
chin toward the carriage boot. "Plenty of room in
there; our Lady Leria packed lightly, all things
considered."
The stable storeroom produced some extra oiled
slickers, which would at least keep them less wet for
a while, and a selection of wide-brimmed hats. With

288
march provisions provided by Tarnell stowed away,
it was just a matter of waiting for Leria and Erenor.
That was the point at which Treseen showed up,
half a dozen of his guardsman trailing along.
"I really think you should reconsider leaving
today," he said. "The weather is horrid, in case you
have not bothered to notice."
And you brought along enough swordsmen to kill
us easily if we don't reconsider? Pirojil kept his face
studiously blank. "I have, Governor. But my orders
are clear, and they don't say anything about staying
out of the rain."
"Be sensible, man," Treseen said. "It would be a
nice change." He gestured out at the downpour.
"Yes, the paved roads will be passable for the
carriage - except where they're in need of repair,
perhaps - but anything unpaved has already turned
to mud, and you're likely to get the lady's carriage
stuck, and then where are you?"
Kethol grunted. "So we'll stay to the paved roads,
at least until the weather clears."
"This isn't an inner Biemish barony, completely
rebuilt since the war. All the roads, even the old
prince's road, are gapped in spots."

289
Pirojil nodded. "Yes, we've seen that. But if
peasants have been known to remove paving stones
from roads for their own use, perhaps that's
something the governor should take up with them,
and not with us. We have our orders, and one of our
number has already been dispatched as pathfinder."
Kethol nodded. "Amazing fellow, Durine. You'd
think with his bulk he'd not be good at that, but not
only can he slip through the woods like a spirit, he
can scout out a path better than any man I've ridden
with."
Pirojil's mouth twisted into a grin, but he made it a
confident one. "The man is something to behold.
When you can behold him."
He saw that Treseen took their meaning: So if
there's going to be a bloodletting here, Governor,
word will get out, unless you manage to bring
Durine down, too, and you won't be able to do that.
Even if he didn't believe them about Durine, the
implicit threat might keep the governor cautious.
Pirojil wasn't sure how far Treseen would go, or
why he was so nervous about them. But there were
few witnesses, and if a fight broke out that left
Pirojil and Kethol dead on the ground, perhaps that
would solve several people's problems -

290
- unless one of them were free to tell another side
of the story.
Were they being overly cautious? It was hard to
say at all, and impossible to say for sure. Treseen
was fealty-bound to the empire, after all, but...
"Really," Treseen said, bristling.
Pirojil felt Kethol shifting slightly to one side. It
was going to happen now. His mouth tasted of steel
and blood, as though he had, as he once had before
in the service of the Old Emperor, stopped a blade
with a chomp of his teeth. He forced himself not to
swallow, not to drop his hand to the hilt of his
sword, not to take a step back into a fighting stance.
No need for Pirojil to begin it. He would let the
governor start it all.
And then Pirojil would kill him, while Kethol took
out Tarnell, and the two of them would see how
many could be brought down before they,
inevitably, fell beneath the swords of the local
soldiers.
The governor went blithely on. "I wasn't aware he
had returned at all. I hadn't heard - "
"No, Cap'n," Tarnell put in. "He was here, all right
Came in last night dropped off for a quick sleep, and

291
then was out into the rain while it was still more
black than gray out." His mouth twitched. "Not that
he came in all that quiet; I could hear the clomping
of that little chestnut mare he was riding long before
I saw bis ugly face."
Treseen clearly wanted to question them all
further, but he was interrupted by the sight and
sounds of Erenor splashing his way through the
mud, his hair already plastered down tightly against
his head by the rain.
"The lady is ready, Governor," Erenor called,
peering out from under the hand shielding his eyes
from the worst of the rain. "May I tell her that her
carriage is ready for her?"
Treseen's mouth twitched. "Of course."
Tarnell eyed him levelly, as though to say, / didn't
do it for you. I'm not afraid of you. He looked over
at Treseen, and barely moved his chin to indicate the
governor.
Pirojil nodded. He hadn't needed to be told. The
old soldier was still protecting his captain, and never
mind that Treseen was not the man he had been
twenty years ago. That wasn't something that
Tarnell was to judge, any more than Pirojil would
have thought it his place to judge the Old Emperor.

292
"I see no reason to delay the lady's journey,"
Pirojil said, returning Tarnell's smile.
Treseen misunderstood whom the nod and smile
were for, what the nod and smile were for.
He thought it was relief that Erenor had
intervened in their argument - the effete, sag-jowled
idiot actually thought that Pirojil was smiling in
relief.
He probably never would understand that it was a
salute from one warrior to another, and Treseen
wasn't the other warrior - Tarnell was.
Tarnell would have leaped at Pirojil's throat if his
legs still had the spring of youth in them, and he
would have whipped out his sword if that could
have protected Treseen.
But, instead, he'd just said a few words, disarming
the situation as neatly as a master swordsman, with a
flick of a muscular wrist, could send a novice's
blade tumbling end-over-end through the air.
Of course, that maneuver had saved Tarnell's life
along with Treseen's, and Pirojil's, and Kethol's - but
Pirojil didn't for a moment think that was the reason.
Tarnell's lips tightened into a thin smile that didn't
quite hide the old lion's teeth.

293
No, that wasn't Tarnell's reason. That wasn't his
reason at all. He might not even see it as a benefit.
Pirojil nodded, and raised his hand - slowly,
carefully - in salute. They caught up with Durine
exactly where Pirojil had expected they would: at
the opening in the forest, where the path through the
woods to the baroness's residence split off from the
main road out of town.
At first, there was no sign of him out in the
dreariness and the rain, and for a moment, Pirojil
thought that something had gone dreadfully wrong,
and that Durine wasn't where he was supposed to be.
What would they do? They couldn't go after him,
and not just because that would bring Leria into
danger, but because searching for him in the rain
would be -
But then a large and soggy mass detached itself
from the underbrush and straightened into Durine's
familiar bulk. The big man shook himself off like a
dog, and, shivering, plodded his way through the
mud toward the carriage, while Kethol carefully
stopped his horse next to the carriage so as to block
any possible view from inside.
"What is happening?" came from the carriage in
Lady Leria's voice, higher and sharper than it had
been before. "Is there some problem?"

294
Kethol leaned his face in through the window.
"Not at all, Lady," he said. "Durine has just returned
from scouting for us, and Pirojil is taking his report.
Nothing of consequence, nothing to concern
yourself with."
Durine's grip was every bit as firm as usual, but
his hand was icy cold as he accepted Pirojil's help up
to the driver's bench. It had been a long, cold, and
wet night. Which was to be expected: the only way
to stay dry if you were outdoors in a storm was to
get indoors. Silently but with obvious gratitude
written on his gray face, he accepted a heavy woolen
blanket from Erenor and a corked bottle from Pirojil.
He drank heavily, thirstily, until his huge hands
stopped trembling.
"Long, wet night, eh?" Pirojil asked.
"Yes." Durine grunted. "I've had shorter and drier,
and that's a fact." He eyed the bottle with naked
longing for a moment, and then recorked it with a
steady hand. "And the sooner we get back home, the
sooner they can send out somebody to find out what
is really going on out here." He bit his lip for a
moment, just barely drawing blood. "If they were to
ask me, I'd say they start with a dozen troops of the
Home Guard, or better yet, Ellegon. There's

295
something wrong here, and it's more than the three
of us can handle."
Kethol had joined them while Durine quenched
his thirst. "Three?" he asked with a smile. "You're
not counting Erenor?"
That drew a smile from the big man. "No," he
said.
Durine had finally dried off by the time the clouds
finally began to clear in late afternoon, just as the
sun had finished clumsily trying to hide itself behind
the wooded hills.
The hard rain had given way to gray drizzle, which
had slowly wheezed to a stop. Pirojil had taken a
turn riding point, and then another turn driving the
carriage, leaving the soft, clean seats inside the
carriage to Kethol, Durine, and Erenor. Lady Leria
didn't enjoy looking at his face. Not that she said so,
but she didn't have to.
Who would?
"Right about now," Durine said, as he rode up
alongside Pirojil, his eyes not leaving the road
ahead, "I'm thinking that we have an obvious plan
for the night, and I don't much care for that."

296
"Well, I didn't like the baroness at first sight, but
that didn't matter much, either."
"It would be nice if, for a change, what you and
Kethol and I liked and didn't like made much of a
difference." The life of a soldier wasn't largely about
doing what you wanted. Life wasn't largely about
doing what you wanted.
"Well, it would be a change."
"True enough."
Ahead, the road twisted along the curving
ridgeline, ducking in and out of the fringes of the
forest as though it were a rocky thread, left behind
when some ancient giant had hemmed the world. It
also provided more places than Durine cared to
think about for an ambush, although there was
nothing that he could do about that. Kethol had the
sharpest eyes and perhaps nose, as well, and he was
riding point. Down the slope, a village spraddled
across the silvery cord of stream that marked the
valley floor. It was a short ride off the road, and the
web of dirt roads around it proclaimed it used to
visitors. There would be an inn suitable for travelers,
and that was the obvious place for them for the
night.

297
"Yes," Pirojil said with a nod. "You think we
should do something different?"
Well, there were advantages to trying the village -
innkeepers were professional gossips, and it would
be nice to see if anybody had an idea as to what
Baroness Elanee was up to. And if there had been
anybody looking for the three - no, four of them and
their charge - they could pick up word of that down
there. Definitely better than spending the night out
in the open.
Probably the best thing to do was to keep riding
until they were clear of the barony, but they had to
sleep sometime, and the border was easily two days'
ride away.
Durine said as much.
Pirojil's face twisted into a frown. "I don't like it,
either way. If we keep riding until we're so tired that
we have to stop, none of us will be in any condition
to stand watch. And that would be the worst case."
Durine nodded. "So, the village, you think?"
"I don't like that either."
Durine was tempted to say they had to make some
sort of choice sometime, but Pirojil already knew
that. Ah. Of course. "The local lord, eh?"

298
Pirojil smiled. He was particularly ugly when he
smiled, what with the way that it revealed his gapladen,
yellowy teeth. He pointed the topmost of his
chins at a wisp of smoke rising from behind a
hillock ahead. "It took me some time to figure that
out, too - I'm out of the habit of traveling with
nobility."
That made sense. While three traveling soldiers
would not be expected or welcomed at the local
lord's keep, the presence of Lady Leria changed the
whole recipe - she, of course, would be welcome,
and given how inbred the Holtish ruling class tended
to be, she was probably a medium-close relative.
And while Durine and the others normally would
not be welcome even to sleep in the stables there,
their commission would give them the right to sleep
across the doorstep of her room. It was a lot warmer
and more comfortable on soft blankets over a stone
floor than it was in damp hay in a stable.
Fewer rats, too.
"I'll tell the lady," Durine said, dropping back. He
quickly dismounted from the broad back of his gray
gelding, hitched its reins to a bracket at the back of
the carriage, then ran alongside until he could get
the door open and his foot on the brass mounting
peg. He pulled himself up and into the carriage,

299
ducking his head to avoid smashing it on the
doorjamb. "Lady, may I?"
She nodded. "Please," she said, and reached out a
hand to help him in. Durine tried to keep his surprise
from his face. He had expected perhaps to be
permitted in, but he certainly hadn't expected her to
reach out her hand to him. It was all Durine could to
do keep his balance as he drew himself into the
carriage, no more pulling on her hand than he would
have pulled himself in by grabbing onto her breast.
It was a small hand, smoother than his callused
one, and warm, like a blanket on a cold night. He
released it quickly, and then let the jerking of the
coach drop him into the bench opposite her, next to
Erenor.
"You're looking better," Erenor said. His smile
was a figure's-width too broad to possibly be
sincere. Durine had to remember that. If he didn't
watch himself, he could end up liking the wizard,
and that wouldn't do at all. Be a shame when he got
killed.
Durine shrugged. Yes, it had been a cold and
uncomfortable night, but admitting that didn't,
wouldn't, couldn't make it feel any better. "Nothing
of any importance," he said. "Nothing that a servant
need concern himself with," he went on, giving

300
Erenor a pointed look that he hoped went over Lady
Leria's head.
She pursed her lips together, as though she was
going to say something, but subsided instead. An
awfully pretty little thing she was, but then again,
with her inheritance, she could have a face like
Pirojil's and still have the suitors breaking down her
door. A face like Pirojil's? She could have a face like
Pirojil's backside and still be more than very
marriageable.
Erenor gave him a knowing smile. Durine would
have liked little more than to slap that smile halfway
down the road, as impractical as that was at the
moment. Still, thinking about it warmed his insides
almost as much as the brandy had before, even more
than Leria's surprising act of kindness.
"Lady," Durine said, "we think it best to arrange
for you to stay the night with the local lord. That
would be - "
"No," she said, "no." Her cheekbones flared
crimson. "Lord Moarin and... and I, we ..." She
shook her head. "No."
Erenor leaned forward. "I have been talking with
the lady, Master Durine; it would appear that Lord
Moarin is - well, has been - one of the lady's suitors.

301
An old and wrinkled man, so I'm told, with a most
unbecoming potbelly, and, no doubt, breath that
reeks of garlic and wine."
It would be awkward, certainly, but not as
awkward as she was making it seem. They were
both of the nobility, after all. "I understand," Durine
said, "but there are no other - "
"No," she said. "I simply can't stay under his roof.
He ..." She shook her head. "I can't." Her blush
deepened.
Ah. So that was it. Moarin was a lecher and Leria
was nervous about sleeping where he could get at
her. Durine spread his hands. "Lady, you are in no
danger while you're with us."
He tried to grin reassuringly, but it had no
apparent effect. "I'll sleep across your doorstep
myself, a knife in hand."
Her eyes widened at that, and a faint gasp escaped
her lips as she shook her head. Durine kept his own
irritation from his face. He had not so much as
smiled at the girl; she had nothing to fear from him,
and she should have been smart enough to work out
that the dowager empress would not have sent
somebody so ill-trained as to not know his place
around noblewomen.

302
But there was, of course, no way that he could
simply say that. He looked over again at Erenor,
wondering what it was that the wizard had been
doing that had Lady Leria's nerves so on edge. Not
that he spent a long time wondering.
"Erenor," he said, "I think it would be best if you
rode with Master Pirojil for the rest of the day." And,
he thought, it would be even better if you were
dragged along behind the carriage for the rest of the
day. But to do that would require taking notice of his
having made advances toward the lady, and that
could only embarrass what clearly was an easily
embarrassed young woman further. Durine didn't
want to do that. He and the others were committed to
protecting Leria, and that protection wasn't limited
to physical harm.
Erenor opened his mouth to protest. Durine had
had enough from him, but that wasn't why he
opened the carriage door with his left hand while he
reached out with his free hand, grabbed the smaller
man by the front of his tunic, and unceremoniously
pitched him out the open door. It wasn't for the cry
of surprise and the very pleasant splashing sound
Erenor made as he tumbled to the muck. It was to
reassure the lady, in a way that words simply
couldn't, that he and the other two took their

303
responsibilities seriously, and would brook
interference from no one.
He didn't expect gratitude - that would have been
far too much like the Cullinanes - but neither did he
expect the expression of anger and even disgust on
Leria's face. He would have expected the back of her
hand across his face, but she simply sat, glaring, her
eyes burning into his.
"I'm sorry, Lady, for any ... inconvenience my
servant has given you. I - "
"He did nothing." Her lips tightened. "And I still
don't want to stay at Lord Moarin's. I won't. I won't"
Well, that was as direct as direct could be. If it
was a matter of life and death, Durine would have
overruled her - much easier to explain an angry lady
to the dowager empress, if need be, than a dead one
- but this wasn't that, and it was definitely better to
do as she wanted, if possible.
Durine bowed bis head momentarily. "As you
wish it, of course." Tennetty's Village had had
another name before the war, the innkeeper
explained, when it had housed a Holtish regiment,
but it had been spared being put to the torch during
the conquest of Holtun at, so it was said, the request

304
of the Old Emperor's personal bodyguard herself,
and had been renamed in her honor.
'Truly?" It was all Pirojil could do not to snicker.
He had known Tennetty all too well, for all too long,
and the odds of that skinny, crazy, one-eyed attack
bitch requesting anybody, anything, anywhere to be
spared anything were somewhere between tiny, slim,
and none.
But let the villagers live with their myth; it
wouldn't hurt anything.
Kethol, on the other hand, snickered. 'Tennetty's
Village, eh?" He may not have noticed the way his
right hand dropped to the hilt of his sword, but
Durine did: the big man took Kethol's wrist between
his thumb and forefinger and placed it on the table.
He pursed bis thick lips and shook his head. Kethol
shrugged. "I knew her. Once had to pull her off the -
my master's son."
"You knew her?" The innkeeper nodded too
quickly. "Of course, of course."
Kethol grinned. "I get the feeling you don't
believe me." It wasn't a friendly grin.
"Ta havath," Pirojil said.

305
Shut your mouth, he meant. Showing off for the
girl wasn't just stupid, it was very stupid. It was also
pointless, in fact, what with Lady Leria outside in
the carriage and the three of them in here.
The trouble was that Kethol probably didn't even
know he was trying to impress her. Which didn't
make it any better; he probably thought that he was
just handling the situation well, impressing the
innkeeper that he wasn't to be trifled with. Which
only made it worse. If Kethol was going to be
stupid, as he had been in Riverforks, at least he
should know he was being stupid. Deliberate
stupidity was always better than the accidental,
unconscious type.
Either could, of course, get you killed.
Durine looked at Pirojil, and Pirojil looked at
Durine. Well, Riverforks had been Durine's turn, at
that. "Kethol," Pirojil said, "I need to see you for a
moment. Outside."
"But - "
"Now, please." He turned to go, Kethol reluctantly
at his side. "Durine," he went on, "can negotiate our
lodgings just as well without us as with. And
Durine, please don't lose your temper this time. It
cost the lady most of her purse last time to pay for

306
the damages, and that innkeeper will never quite be
able to sit down comfortably again."
One of Durine's eyes closed in a broad wink. "If
you insist, Pirojil."
There was a reception committee, of sorts, at the
carriage: Lord Miron and three other men, in
varicolored filigreed tunics and leggings that looked
entirely normal on Miron, and ill-fitting and
awkward on the other three. One of them held the
carriage in place, while another stayed on horseback,
holding the rein extensions of the three dismounted
men's horses, and the third stood on the ground
between Erenor and the carriage. They might as well
have been wearing large signs, with a drawing
showing soldiers taking off their livery and uncomfortably
donning civilian garb suitable for minor
nobility.
Erenor was, as Pirojil could have easily predicted,
standing around uselessly, his face studiously blank,
his eyes shouting for help. Miron had evicted him
from the carriage and taken his place next to the
lady.
"Lady Leria informs me," he said, his hand resting
insolently on her smaller one in a way that made
Pirojil want to break his fingers one by one, "that

307
you lot have for some reason decided to spurn Lord
Moarin's hospitality before it is even offered."
Pirojil grunted. "I've always thought that the best
time," he said. "Safer, too."
Miron let that go past without comment. "I - we,
that is - we are concerned about her well-being. I
thought it wise to join you, and ride with you, at
least to the border. Bandits, you know."
Four of them? Pirojil thought about it for a
moment. He didn't like it, but there didn't seem to be
any way around it, at least not at the moment.
"We'd be honored, of course," he said. "Durine is
making arrangements for our own housing for
tonight; I'm sure there will be ample room at the inn
for you and your noble company, as well."
Miron's face was impassive. Which probably
meant he was surprised.
Pirojil stepped up on the mounting peg and offered
his hand to Lady Leria. "If you please, Lady," he
said, resenting but ignoring the way Miron openly
eyed the swell of her bosom as she rose to a crouch
to make her way out of the couch.

308
"Very well." Miron's lips pursed. "Yes, we shall
take rooms here. And you shall join me for dinner in
my rooms, Lady, if it pleases you."
"She'll have the three of us at her side," Kethol
said, too quickly.
"I think it would be crowded in your rooms,"
Pirojil said.
"Perhaps the main room of the tavern would be
better."
"Much better." Kethol nodded.
Miron opened his mouth. "Are you suggesting
that she wouldn't be safe in my company, my man?"
His voice oozed an oily threat.
"I'm - "
"No," Pirojil said, "he isn't suggesting that." And
he isn't your man, either. "He is, though, suggesting
that whether the lady dines in your rooms or in
public, she'll have us at her side. And he is
suggesting that the lady has been put in our
safekeeping at the orders of the dowager empress,
and that in our safekeeping she will remain until she
reaches the dowager empress." He offered her the
crook of his arm. "Lady? If I may see you to your
rooms?"

309
Miron was an expansive host, once he got a skinful
of wine into him. "Well, now, and what did the Old
Emperor do then?"
The sitting room was heated by a huge fireplace,
easily as wide as Pirojil was tall.
Pirojil sat back in the too-comfortable chair.
Miron wasn't the only one who had been drinking
too much. Leria's face was flushed, and Durine was
holding himself with an unusual stiffness. The wine
was deceptively strong - there was a taste of some
piney resin that masked the spirits' strength.
Only Kethol had settled for a single glass of wine,
diluted that with half again as much water, and
sweetened it with honey, Salket style. Not that
Kethol was a Salke, of course, but...
"He drew himself up straight," Kethol went on,
pausing to take another minuscule sip from his
glass, "and announced himself in a voice so loud
that it shook walls. 'I am Karl Cullinane, prince of
Bieme and emperor of Holtun-Bieme,' he said, 'and
if I do not see that miserable excuse of a baron of
yours standing before me in ten heartbeats, I'll see
him dancing on the end of a spear before the dawn
finishes breaking.' "
"And Baron Arondael tolerated that?"

310
Durine gave out a rumbling chuckle, and Kethol
laughed. "Yes, he did more than tolerate it. He came
ascurrying and bowing and scraping, and begged the
emperor to accept the hospitality of his castle."
"All because of one swordsman and a handful of
soldiers? Amazing."
Pirojil kept quiet. Could it be that Miron was as
stupid as he was pretending to be? Or was he just
trying to draw them out?
Kethol, of course, took the bait. "No, it wasn't just
any handful of soldiers, and the emperor wasn't just
a swordsman. He was ... well, he was something. I
swear he could have torn down that castle by
himself, stone by stone."
Durine grunted. "He wasn't by himself, either. I
think Tennetty - the woman they named this village
after - had already silenced a half-dozen guards." He
drew a blunt thumb across his throat and made a wet
sucking sound with his lips. "Tennetty always did
like silencing guards."
Kethol nodded. "She did, at that," he said,
warming to the subject. "She had this way with a
knife, where she'd snake an arm around from behind
and do this stab-and-twist thing, and all you'd hear
was a low gurgle and - "

311
"And then," Durine put in, "there was an army
marching on Arondael - under Neranahan and
Garavar, by the way - and the dragon Ellegon flew
overhead."
"Yes," Kethol said, "his leathery wings a-flapping,
fire issuing from his roar, the sulfuric stench of all
filling the air until all you could do was choke. The
baron was more than happy to see things our way,
under the circumstances. He was something, the Old
Emperor."
Durine smiled thinly. "I can still hear him
shouting. 'Baron!' he shouted, his voice loud enough
to shatter walls, 'when the emperor comes a-calling,
it had best not be because you have refused his
hospitality.' "
Miron spread his hands. "But, still... one man? Or
even a dozen?"
Durine nodded wisely. "You have a point, and it is
well taken. One moment." With a loud scraping, he
pushed himself back from his chair and rose, then
half-staggered toward the arched doorway that led to
the hall, returning in a few moments with two items,
one in each hand: a large onion, still with top and
trailing roots, dripping water as though it had just
been rinsed moments before, and a small bright
knife, wooden-handled.

312
He set both down on the table in front of Kethol.
"The stew is a bit bland for my tastes," he said, his
voice only slightly slurred. "Could you help?"
"Of course." Kethol had already produced his own
knife, as Pirojil had known he would, and quickly
trimmed off the roots and the nubbin left behind,
then decapitated the onion with one quick motion.
Two quick longitudinal slices, and the brown outer
skin was gone, leaving behind only the pale green
flesh of the onion.
Kethol set it down on the rough-hewn surface of
the table and quickly sliced it in half, then took one
half, set it flat on the table, and made six quick
parallel cuts, then another six perpendicular to the
first. A half-dozen quick chops, and the onion half
had been cut into tiny diced pieces, which Kethol
quickly scooped up in one hand and sprinkled over
the top of Durine's stew.
The big man's breath would smell painfully bad in
the morning, but Miron was nodding.
"One cut at a time, eh?" His fingers toyed with the
remaining half of the onion. "I see your point," he
said, taking at first a delicate nibble, and then a full
bite, smiling through the entirely emotion-free tears
that ran freely down his cheeks and into his beard.

313
He took big bites, and enjoyed raw flavors. Pirojil
couldn't help but like that in him.
Of course, should the situation arise where killing
Miron seemed to be the right thing to do, that
wouldn't stay his hand for a heartbeat.
He smiled back.

314
14 - Biemestren
louds concealed the night stars, but not the
Faerie lights. The east wind blew cold and
damp, the sort of wind her husband used to
call the Wind of Foreboding. It chilled her to the
very bone, but Beralyn Furnael, dowager empress of
Holtun-Bieme, persisted in her walk, neither
quickening nor slowing her pace.
It would take more than an icy wind to divert her
from her routine, and more than a diversion from her
routine to divert her from her resolution.
So let the wind blow, cold and hard, chilly and
inflexible as a man's heart. She would still enjoy her
stroll about the parapet.
The Faerie lights were all in blues and purples
tonight, and half-hidden in the clouds. They pulsed
through their narrow spectrum quickly, like a
heartbeat, then vanished, like sheets of silent blued
lightning.
C

315
It was only iron will that prevented her from
shivering as she rounded the last of the guard
stations and started down the steps, slowly,
carefully. The climb up to the parapet was difficult,
and painful to the knees and that cursed right hip
that not even the Hand woman could do much with.
But the climb down was dangerous. One crumbling
step beneath her feet, one failure of knee or hip or
muscle, and she would pitch forward, with nothing
to break her fall but the steps beneath her and the
too-solid cobblestones of the yard below.
It occurred to her that a lesser woman would have
clung to the stone railing that ran down the side of
the steps, but Beralyn was not a lesser woman. Her
womb had long since dried up, and no man had
warmed her bed since her husband had been
murdered by Pirondael through either the
connivance or the incompetence of the cursed
Cullinanes, but she was no lesser woman.
She was the dowager empress, and mother of the
emperor himself, and until she held her grandson
and future emperor in her hands, she would
maintain.
But she had had enough of today.
Let tomorrow's troubles be what they may; they
could wait until tomorrow. It was all she could do

316
not to glare at Derinald as he waited, his hands
behind his back, just inside the archway. She had not
summoned him, and that did not bode well. But her
long-dead husband had once chastised her for her
tendency to blame the augur for the augury, and it
was all she could do not to duck her head and
whisper, Yes, Zherr, I shall never do that again.
The years had, despite her wish to the contrary,
dulled her pain, if not her resolution. But it was at
moments like this that her voice and hands quavered
at the horrid realization that never again would she
be held in those strong, warm arms.
"I had best change my route," she said, using all
her resolve to keep her voice from trembling, her
look daring him to recognize her failure. "I am
becoming too predictable in my old age."
"Not at all, my empress. Rather, I think of it as a
duty and a pleasure to know where to find you."
He had a pretty way with a compliment, but she
was having none of it. "You'd rather lay me out on a
slab for burial, and don't deny it," she said. "What
need does a young man like yourself have of a
withered old woman?" she asked, as she walked
toward the doorway into the keep, ignoring the way
the guard leaped to get the door for her. She had her
control back; as long as she could keep her anger

317
and hate warm and sharp, the pain would recede to
the background.
Derinald grinned. The buffoon. "I'd rather think of
you as reliable, ever steady, my empress," he said,
his smile too broad, too apparently sincere to
possibly be real. "Which does make you a stanchion
of security in an always-insecure world, an utterly
steadfast anchor for my restless and ever uncertain
mind to cling to."
"And what news do you bring that will bind this
stanchion ever more securely to you?" she asked.
This was ridiculous. She was an old woman, living
on tasteless food and salty anger, more set in her
ways than any stanchion, but once again this
charming captain had her taking on his style of
speech, as though she was still a young chit whose
head could be turned with flattery and flowers.
Beralyn had been young once, long ago, but she
had never been that young.
He pursed his lips. "News? I wouldn't say it is
precisely news, but a fast runner was dispatched by
Governor Treseen to the telegraphy station, and his
reports have reached here tonight." He tapped at his
chest. "I was just on my way to deliver this to the
emperor, although as I understand it he will be
retiring - "

318
A distant gong rang, then again, and again, and a
final time.
" - just about now," Derinald went on, his smile
returning, "although it is nothing that needs his
attention before morning."
She held out her hand, palm up.
"I'm very sorry, Your Majesty," Derinald said as
he removed a small leather pouch from inside his
tunic. He held it up to the flickering light. There
were two seals; one was Derinald's familiar
curlicues that always reminded Beralyn of a handful
of snakes trying to escape from a wicker basket, and
the other was one of those engineer glyphs. "The
emperor himself ordered all messages to him sealed,
for reasons I can't explain."
"Can't, or won't?"
He shrugged away the difference. "I'm hardly one
to read the emperor's thoughts at all, and I'm not one
to repeat the emperor's words unbidden."
Nor was he one to keep a secret from her, even
though ordered to by Thomen. That was good. It
showed that he understood his situation.
"And why is it sealed by your ring, as well?"

319
Derinald's lips pursed. "Well, it's been my custom
to bring a tray of tea and trifles to the poor fellow on
evening duty at the telegraphy station, just about the
time that the new telegrapher at Neranahan comes
on."
She snickered. "And he doesn't wonder why a
captain in the guard would be acting as his servant?"
"Engineers," he said, his tone making the word a
pejorative. It occurred to Beralyn that if he used that
tone in public frequently, his oh-too-pretty face
would not have remained so pretty, unless he was
very good with the suspiciously decorative sword
that stuck out impudently from the right side of his
waist, at the angle of a young man's erection.
"It is a lonely job," he said, spreading his hands,
"and surely no simple soldier could possibly read the
tickety-tickety-tackity of the telegraph."
"Oh, really?" She raised an eyebrow. "And you
can, you say?"
"I hope I said nothing of the sort, my Empress."
He raised his palms. "I would not lie to you, and I
am loath to confess my inadequacy so very bluntly,
but since you insist, so be it: I cannot. It's just a
clickety-clickety-click to me, and nothing more."

320
It wasn't like Derinald to present himself a failure.
She waited, letting just a trace of impatience show.
Yes, the guard captain was a useful retainer, but
there were times when his predilections for drama
and self-aggrandizement made her wonder if he was
more trouble than he was worth.
So: he couldn't make out the code of the telegraph.
But he was not announcing failure.
"Very well," she said. "Go on."
"I can, however," he said, "read upside-down." He
stuck his hand into his pouch. "And my memory is
quite good." He extracted a folded sheet of paper
from his pouch, and held it out to her. "It would
seem that the three Cullinane men have successfully
extracted the girl from the baroness's possession,
and are on their way back to Biemestren, having left
something of a mess behind them." "So even if they
are successful..." she said, and let her voice peter
out. She was too old, and there was not enough time
left. A younger Beralyn would not have revealed her
thoughts to one such as Derinald, even though he
likely could have guessed them anyway.
He took her silence as an invitation. "Yes, even if
they are successful, they'll have engendered
sufficient ill-will in Keranahan to reflect badly on
their master."

321
And, of course, there was little reason to assume,
and less to hope, that they would be successful, in
the final essence.
"Well?" she asked. "Isn't there something you
ought to be doing?"
His eyebrow lifted, but his composure didn't
waver for a heartbeat. "Your Majesty?"
She kept a gnarled forefinger against his chest. "I
think the emperor is awaiting the message you carry.
I don't imagine he'd want you standing about and
jabbering with a useless old woman."
"I am sure that is so, but I cannot possible imagine
how that would have anything whatsoever to do with
Your Majesty," he said, bowing as he took a step
back. "But, nevertheless, I'm sure the emperor would
not thank me for dawdling even in such pleasant and
noble company, and if I may be excused, I shall be
on my way."
She smiled at his back. Well, at least the boy had
enough spine for sarcasm.
Meanwhile, it was time to heat things up for the
cursed Cullinanes.
A quick telegram to Governor Treseen, explaining
her wish that the baroness be apprised of Beralyn's

322
unhappiness with the way that Leria had been
treated, and her intention to listen to the girl's full
report before deciding what punishment to
recommend to the emperor...
That ought to stir up some action, and if that
action caused anybody to overplay his - or her! -
hand, then so be it.
She picked up her pace, and if she hadn't long
since been incapable of smiling, she probably would
have smiled. For some reason, Beralyn's joints
weren't hurting as much as usual.

323
15 - The Road, Again
awn was threatening to break; through the
windows, the outside had gone from black
to an incredibly dull taupe, and was now
settling on a nice dark gray.
Kethol rose silently from his bed and crept across
the floor to the door. He listened for a moment, and
then another, and stayed motionless, listening, until
Pirojil wanted to shout at him to get on with it until
he nodded.
Pirojil threw back his blankets and rose quickly.
He had slept fully dressed - save for his boots, of
course, and it was just a matter of moments to lace
them up and tie the laces tightly, and then belt his
sword about his waist:
He took a small tub of grease from his kit, opened
it, wincing at the smell - that goose had died far too
long ago, and the expense of having a wizard put a
preservative spell on the grease seemed trivial, in
D

324
malodorous retrospect - and dipped his index finger
in it, then carefully lubricated the hinges on the
heavy door that led to Lady Leria's room. It was the
only door in or out of that room; their suite was the
usual one for a noble with bodyguards.
She lay sleeping peacefully, her chest barely
moving with gentle breaths, her golden hair spread
out across her pillow as if it were floating there. Had
she been some common wench, she would have
woken with his left hand across her mouth, if not
with his right holding a knife to her neck, but he
could hardly lay familiar hands on a noblewoman
with no more reason than a strong desire for silence.
So he stood well away from her bed. "Lady,"
Pirojil whispered. "Lady."
She came awake suddenly and sat up, her breath
coming in a loud gasp, quickly focusing on Pirojil
standing near the door, his finger flying to his lips.
That was a mistake; he could barely stop himself
from gagging at the smell of the long-rancid goose
grease. There had been time to clean his hands, he
supposed, and it would have been well to use it.
"Lady," he whispered again. "It's time we be
going."
"But... the - I mean, Lord Miron - "

325
"Should still be asleep, given the amount he drank
and the time he retired, and we'll be well on our way
before he wakes, with any luck."
You made your own luck, and if it took a drinking
contest that still had Pirojil's temples feeling as if
somebody was pounding on them with a hammer
and his stomach ready for heaving with a moment's
notice, well, so be it. He and Durine could function
with hangovers, and Kethol's head had been kept
clear for a purpose.
"Quickly, quickly," he said, then closed the door
behind him. If he'd had his way he would have
yanked her out of her nightclothes, stuffed them in a
bag and her in another, and thrown her over his
shoulder, but she was a lady, and he would have to
wait.
He was surprised - pleasantly so, for once - that
she emerged from her room only a short while later,
hair pulled back and tied with a ribbon, and a dark
green cloak covering her brown traveling dress. She
actually was carrying one of her bags herself, with
her own hands.
Not your typical noble lady, Pirojil decided. Not
typical at all.

326
"You said we had to hurry, Pirojil," she said, her
voice a low murmur, her head tilted to one side in a
way that made her even smile seem crooked. "Shall
we be off?"
Durine leaned hard against the traces, ignoring
how much his fingers ached, the way that his thighs,
powerful though they were, complained with every
step.
From a leafy branch overhanging the road ahead
of him, the bright eyes of a jackhen peeked through
the dimly lit leaves in the gray light, and cawed a
noisy laugh. Durine didn't reach out and crush its
head and body with his hands not just because the
bird's perch on the branch was at least two
manheights out of his reach, not just because even if
the branch had been within reach the bird would
have flown away at his first motion, not just because
even if the bird had been nailed to its perch - a
pleasant idea, that - and the perch had been within
Durine's reach, his hands were occupied with the
traces.
Durine didn't blame the bird. If he had been the
one sitting comfortably on a branch, he would have
laughed at the idiot below, pulling the carriage up
what had looked, at first, to be only a shallow rise.

327
It had seemed like a simple idea yesterday, and in
fact it still made sense.
Sort of.
The harness straps didn't cut into his shoulders -
any more than they would have cut into the dray
horses' thick hides - but the trouble was keeping his
hands tight on the harness. The next time they did
this - hah! - he would have some saddlemaker make
him a harness. If Durine was going to pull a
carriage, he could bloody well at least be hitched
properly to it. Horses didn't have to blister and
bloody then-hands.
He wouldn't mind skipping the iron bit between
his teeth, though.
The way Pirojil had explained it, it had all made
sense: it wouldn't be possible to hitch all the dray
horses to the carriage and then clop off down the
road without making enough noise to draw the
attention of Miron and his companions, but it was
possible for Erenor to quietly lead the horses out of
the stable one by one and hitch them all, one at a
time, to a stump a far ways down the road, and then
the only problem was bringing along the carriage
without the clop-clop-clop of hoofbeats.

328
That was the trouble with Pirojil: he thought too
much. Spent too much time worrying over every
little problem, like a dog worrying a bone. Made life
too complicated.
Life should be simple.
Of course, he thought, when you let life be simple,
you found yourself the one stuck pulling the carriage
while Pirojil and Kethol got to walk, so maybe there
was something to this complication stuff after all.
He recognized Erenor's footsteps - far too noisy,
far too self-assured, far too Erenor - before he saw
him crest the hill.
What was it with this wizard? He was all fresh and
clean and well combed in the morning light, even
though he had gotten less sleep than Durine had, and
had been spending his time making trips to and from
the stable for the horses. There was something
suspicious about a man who looked too good this
early.
"That was the last one, Master Durine," he said as
he approached, his voice too loud. Without so much
as a by-your-leave, without even a raised eyebrow in
inquiry, Erenor reached up to the seat of the carriage
and pulled down a set of traces, quickly slinging

329
them across his own shoulders and leaning into
them, just as Durine had.
Hmm ... he really was as strong as he looked; the
weight against Durine's hands lightened, and his
pace quickened.
They crested the hill easily, and before the
carriage could pick up speed, Durine slipped out of
his traces and quickly boosted Erenor to the driver's
bench.
Durine let the carriage roll past, and got a grip on
the straps he'd tied to the tailpiece. He was about to
caution Erenor to use the brake, carefully but firmly,
to avoid letting the carriage break into an unguided
roll, but even before he could open his mouth, he felt
the carriage slow - but just a trifle, just enough to
keep the pace at a fast walk, but not so fast that
Durine couldn't swing the rear wheels to the right,
and then correct to the left, keeping the carriage in
the middle of the road.
It wasn't the easiest thing Durine had ever done,
but it did beat hauling this hunk of wood and iron
uphill, at that.
There was the temptation to let the carriage build
up speed so as to roll-at least partway up the next
hill, but, surprisingly, Erenor was smart enough to

330
resist it even without specifically being told to,
although, unsurprisingly, his resolve weakened and
the carriage sped up as it approached the bottom of
the hill, so much so that Durine had to break into a
dogtrot to keep up with it until, too soon, it slowed
and, iron-rimmed wheels grinding against the dirt of
the road, stopped.
Back into the traces Durine went, Erenor again at
his side.
Years ago, with the emperor, he had flown over
this barony, and from high above, on the dragon's
back, the land had seemed gently rippled, like a
lakeside beach after the water receded. They might
have been gentle ripples from cloud level; here on
the ground they were bloody big hills, and Durine
hoped that this was the last one.
At the top of the hill, the road curved away,
twisting down the slope toward where a glistening
stream divided woods from plowed land. A path had
been worn along the streambed, and it was on the
path that their horses stood, each carefully hitched to
an overhead branch and then twist-hobbled. Pirojil's
big bay was the first to notice; the amber-eyed
gelding lifted its muzzle from the water and snorted,
sending the other horses shifting nervously.

331
Off in the distance, each burdened only by a bag
on his shoulder, Pirojil led Lady Leria down the
streamside path, while Kethol, ever watchful,
brought up the rear.
Where was the rest of the gear?
He turned to Erenor, favoring him with a glance
that would have shriveled a less self-confident man.
"You didn't leave the rest of our gear at the inn, did
you?" The idea was to be gone, long gone, before
Miron and his companions were awake, and they
were getting a late enough start as it was.
Erenor ducked his head in simulated humility and
then gestured a thumb toward the carriage's boot.
"No, Master Durine, I wouldn't think of it."
The arrogant brummagem wizard had had Durine
haul the bags up hill after hill, like a plowhorse,
when he could have simply loaded the gear on the
horses? The nerve of him! Durine would have liked
to strangle him one-handed, right here on the road.
"The bags, eh, Master Durine?" Erenor might as
well have been reading his thoughts. "That is what
angers you now? And if I had left them here
unguarded, when I could have kept them safely with
you and me, Master Durine, would you not choose
to be angry at me for that?" He gestured toward

332
where the hobbled horses stood. "And were I to have
left them somewhere else, would you not be angry at
me for that, no matter where they were and how safe
they might have been?"
Durine's fingers twitched.
"Ah," Erenor said, "very good, Master Durine:
strangle me here on the road, and surely that will
solve all of your problems, for I am unquestionably
the cause of all of them." He turned his back on
Durine, and - after pausing for a moment as though
challenging Durine to strike him from behind - set
the carriage's brake before dogtrotting down the hill
toward the others.
Durine nodded to himself. The wizard might lack
a lot of things, but he had style.
Of course, style was an often overvalued quality.
It was all Pirojil could do to avoid whistling as he
wheeled his horse around and kicked his heels
against her slab sides, sending her into an easy
canter, the cloppity-clop of her hooves a pleasant
rhythm that kept time with the bouncing of the
saddle. Life was good.
High in the crook of an old oak, a trio of jackjays
sang in a harmony that was nonetheless pleasing for
its ragged-ness. At a walk or canter, the air was crisp

333
and cooling without being cold, and in the bright
spattered light that filtered through the canopy of
leaves overhead, there would have been no problem
even at the fastest gallop to anticipate the necessity
of ducking under or guiding the horse to the side of
the odd branch that stuck out over the road.
That was annoying, and a sign of the decline of
the times. Back when the Old Emperor ruled Holtun,
patrol captains would tally any failings in the roads
and fine the barons accordingly until woodsmen
were dispatched to cut down overhanging branches,
or dig out fallen boulders, or repair bridges, or
whatever. Roads were an imperial resource and a
baronial responsibility.
But attention to detail - or, rather, the requirement
that others attend to detail - was not one of the
virtues of the emperor Thomen, and Pirojil decided
that he might as well resign himself to that.
At least it was better than it had been under Prince
Pirondael. If Pirondael had wanted somebody's
opinion, so the wags said, he would have tortured it
out of him.
It was too nice a day for such black thoughts.
Things were going their way for once. His belly
was full and warm with a nice horseback lunch of

334
sausage, onions, and bread, and the still-wet
waterskin lashed to the saddle was filled with fresh
stream water.
The fork in the road lay ahead, this one less acute
than some others. Pirojil decided that it was
perfectly logical that someone would have ridden in
a generally northern way and then turned east, so he
didn't hide what tracks his horse made on the dirt
road. Carriage tracks led back the way Pirojil had
just come, and that would - or should, anyway - be
enough for their erstwhile escorts.
Closing in on a capital - be it simply a baronial
seat or Biemestren itself - was like following a river
toward its mouth: smaller roads tended to join into
larger ones, and as you rode on, your path became
more and more predictable, carrying you toward the
capital like a river sweeping you to the Cirric. The
good side of that was that it was easy to avoid
getting lost - as long as you kept heading in the direction
of the capital, the odds were that any road
would do - but the bad side of it was that it made
tracking you easy.
For now, at least, they were riding more away than
toward, and every fork in the road represented yet
another opportunity to lose any pursuers.

335
By the time the sun had reached its zenith, they
had passed through three forks, and now Pirojil had
covered their tracks and was on the way to rejoin the
carriage, not caring if he tired his horse in the
process.
Kethol was the old woodsman among them, and
each time he had thrown a bale of branches down to
drag behind the carriage, while either Pirojil or
Durine had ridden at least a short way down the path
they'd not taken, then turned about, each masking his
own path with another bale dragged behind the
horse.
Yes, if young Lord Miron was following them, he
and his party would likely be able to double back as
well, perhaps even before reaching the turnaround.
But there was a trick to this: when Pirojil rejoined
his companions, he would swap the sweaty ruddy
mare for a fresh mount, one that hadn't been carrying
the weight of a man on her back, and let this horse
rest at a carriage-paced walk. It wouldn't take much
backing-and-filling for the pursuers, if any, to tire
their mounts, even if they spun about at each place
the decoy rider did.
More likely, they would give up and go home.
And if not, that would be suggestive.

336
Of what, though?
Pirojil didn't know. There was a lot here that didn't
make sense, from the baroness who was feeding
something out in the back country, to the young lord
who was far too friendly to be sincere, to the
imperial governor who was more interested in not
seeing anything than in whatever it was that was
going on.
But it wasn't Pirojil's job to make sense of things;
it was his job to get the girl to the dowager empress,
and then get out from under her eye at Biemestren
and back to the life of a private soldier, soldiering as
little as possible while raising and storing away as
much money as possible. Gold was always a more
reliable friend than any nobility, particularly those
that -
Pirojil cut that thought off, and stopped fiddling
with the ring that he wore, signet side in, on his
hand. It was a country far away, and if the fire he
had set hadn't burned away those wounds - and it
hadn't - and if the years hadn't healed them - and
they hadn't - there was no point in dwelling on it.
Besides, even the Old Emperor had betrayed him
by dying. Pirojil hadn't quite forgiven him for that,
even now, but there was, as usual, nothing that could
be done about it.

337
Pirojil took a deep draught of cold water from his
wa-terskin, then splashed his face with some more
to rid himself of some of the road dust.
There was nothing to be done about it; it would
just have to be lived with. On a nice day, that was
easier than otherwise. Pirojil had been paying
attention to the distant rattling of the carriage and
the clopping of hooves; when Kethol spurred his
horse out of the trees he started. But he kept his right
hand on the reins, away from the hilt of his sword,
although his left hand did rest on the butt of the
pistol stuck in his belt, concealed under his tunic. If
it hadn't been Kethol or Durine or Erenor, it would
have been just a matter of rip, grab, and then cockand-
blam. With Pirojil's limited marksmanship, it
was silver marks to slimy meatrolls that he would
miss even at close range, but so be it. The noise
easily could distract an enemy long enough for
Pirojil's sword tip to find his wrist.
"You can do better than that, Piro," Kethol said,
tsking. "You can't fool me so easily into thinking
you actually didn't spot me, rather than waiting to
see what my move was to be."
Pirojil smiled. "We all have our days."
Kethol was, at times, an empty-headed hero, but
you could always trust him to give a friend so much

338
the benefit of the doubt that doubt itself was
banished.
"I think it's about time we figure we've lost them,
eh?"
"That suits me." Kethol nodded. "No more of this
back-and-fill? Yes, that suits me, I'll tell you." He
cocked his head to one side. "Still, all in all, it pays
to be careful. Let's keep it up for the rest of the day,
and leave one behind on watch."
If we were so careful, we'd be in a different line of
work, Pirojil thought.
But he said, "You or me?"
Kethol snorted, as though the idea of Pirojil being
up to his own standard of watchmanship was a silly
idea. Well, maybe it was, under the circumstances.
Kethol's woodcraft was better than Pirojil's, and so
was his horsemanship. Which was surprising. Kethol
had been a foot soldier almost since childhood, and
had only taken to riding when tapped by the Old
Emperor, while Pirojil had spent many a happy hour
in the saddle -
He cut off that thought, wishing he could cut off
memories with a knife. His thumb felt at the signet
in his backwards-turned ring. "You," Pirojil said.

339
"I'll watch the trail, and catch up to you before
nightfall. Mark any fork." Kethol brought his horse
from its normal to-and-froing to a statuelike stand
with one quick tug on the reins and a squeeze of the
knees, then rose to a precarious balance, standing on
his saddle. He produced the knife from his sleeve
and made three small, parallel slashes on an
overhead branch. They were easy to see if you were
looking for them, but trails were blazed, be it
intentionally or unintentionally, at eye height, not
above the eyes of a mounted man.
Pirojil would have stood high in his stirrups and
used his sword to make such a mark, but you could
trust Kethol to do it another way.
"Very well," Pirojil said. "But just to make things
difficult for anybody after you, we'll mark the ways
not taken."
Kethol smiled, wheeled his horse about, and
cantered off. "See you by tonight, or perhaps
tomorrow."

340
16 - Bats and Owls
hey stopped for the night at a burned-out old
farmhouse that Durine had scouted for them.
The sunken fields around it had been planted
with bitter oats, now almost waist-high, and the road
across the top of the berm that led to the island of
blackened timbers and tumbledown stones was
overgrown and narrowed by weather and time. They
unhitched the horses, and pulled the carriage off the
road into the woods, hiding it from casual view with
branches and brush.
It once had been a prosperous farm; Pirojil could
tell by the number of outbuildings. There had been a
barn or stable, and a knee-high circle of stones was
probably the corpse of a granary. Presumably the
hulk of the building that had straddled the stream
that twisted its way across the property and into the
woods had been a water mill. The water barely fell
over what had been a dam. Another few years, and
all evidence of that would be washed away, unless
T

341
of course some beavers got to it first and made it
their own dam for their own damn purposes.
But the land hadn't been abandoned. Just the
farmstead, which was probably why it had been
planted with a crop that took little weeding and less
attention, like bitter oats. Not the best use of
farmland, perhaps, but one that only needed
attention at planting and harvest - if, of course, you
didn't mind the deer going at the young stalks, which
they obviously were: the edges of the fields looked
as if they'd been nibbled on by a giant.
The horses were unhitched and unsaddled, and
secured in what was left of the barn - the waist-high
wall of stone was broken in few enough places that
they could be sealed off with rope and brambles,
horses bitched into stalls. It would have been nice to
put some hay down to soak up their piss and shit, but
one night of standing in it wouldn't do them any
harm.
But the timbers that had once held the walls had
been standing out in the sun and the rain for long
enough that they didn't even smell of smoke
anymore, and it was easy enough to rig a pair of
tarpaulins to give Lady Leria some privacy for
sleeping, and a simple lean-to, past the remnants of
the silo, to shade the hastily dug privy from which

342
Leria returned, her face clean-scrubbed, her traveling
dress exchanged for a heavy cotton shift belted
loosely at the hips.
Pirojil offered her a mug. "The stream water is
quite good, Lady," he said.
She smiled her thanks. "I know, Pirojil. I've just
washed in it. Cold and refreshing, better than a fresh
dipperful from a well bucket."
Erenor frowned at that last, but returned to
preparing their cold supper. He had gone to work
with a knife and a wooden cutting board, and had
turned an ordinary cold road meal of bread, sausage,
cheese, and onion into an attractive arrangement of
slices and wedges. The sausage had been fanned out
like a fallen stack of coins, and the onions had been
cut thin enough to read through. The whole arrangement
was bordered with some leafy green thing that
looked like lettuce that Pirojil was sure hadn't been
among their travel rations.
He wielded a pair of silver tongs - Pirojil didn't
have the slightest idea where they had come from,
either - with dexterity and flair, piling layers of meat
and cheese atop a slice of bread which he presented
on a plate to Lady Leria, and then repeated the
performance for Durine and finally for Pirojil.

343
It was the same bread, sausage, and onion he had
had for lunch, but somehow the whole presentation
of it made it taste better, or maybe it was just that
Pirojil was so hungry that the sole of his boot would
have tasted good.
Still, Erenor might not be much of a wizard, but
he did make an excellent servant, from time to time.
Leria smiled around a bite of her food. Her mouth
was quite properly closed, but there was something
strange about her smile.
She swallowed heavily. "Very tasty, Erenor; you
have my thanks," she said.
The way she put that bothered Pirojil, although he
couldn't quite figure out why.
"I'm grateful," he said, "that you aren't unhappy
that we couldn't start a cookfire."
She raised her eyebrows. "Really. It had not
occurred to me that such a thing would be possible."
She pursed her lips together. "Or desirable."
"It's possible. Not desirable," Durine said, his
voice a bass rumble, like distant thunder.
"Oh?"
"Draws attention," he said.

344
When you were fleeing, the last thing you needed
to do was start a fire. During the day, even a wisp of
smoke would point like a finger toward your
location; at night, even a carefully banked fire might
send up a few stray sparks, and would of a certainty
send the fragrance of woodsmoke downwind.
If it hadn't been the local sausage, Pirojil wouldn't
have even considered letting them eat such spicy
stuff, for fear that their trail would be marked by the
smell of their shit, or worse - Kethol claimed,
perhaps with only a little braggadocio, that he could
smell a sailor's salt-pork-and-cheap-wine sweat half
a barony away, and a dwarf's mushroomy fart even
further.
"Yes, Lady," Pirojil said. "We've spent the day
trying to hide our trail from Lord Miron and his
friends. It would be ... unwise to cry out 'Here we
are!' for the sake of a cookfire."
She nodded. "But how will Kethol find us, then?"
"It would depend," Pirojil said. "If he comes along
within the next hour, there's a good chance he'll see
us before we see him."
"And if not?"

345
Why the interest? Was she just making
conversation, or was there something going on
there?
Durine caught his eye, and shrugged. Well, if
there was, she'd hardly be the first noblewoman to
want to sport with a handsome soldier, and she
wouldn't be the last.
"No problem," Pirojil said. "He'll catch up with us
tonight, or tomorrow sometime." Kethol had spent a
night alone in the woods before, and would again.
Kethol tsked quietly to himself as the wind brought
him the distant sounds of conversation and the sour
smell of moist air across humus and bitter oats, with
just a hint of horseshit and a distant musky touch of
skunk, both smells that Kethol liked in small doses.
At dusk, he had dismounted and walked his horse -
overhanging branches had a tendency to grow twigs
and barbs that could slash at a face and eyes in the
dark - and what with his leisurely pace, he hadn't
caught up to them until well after sundown.
Well, he hadn't actually caught up with them, not
yet. But even if Pirojil hadn't marked the turnoff,
Kethol would have known that they would use the
ruins of the farmhouse as a campsite for the night.
You don't spend too many of your waking hours
with two other people without developing a feel for

346
how their minds work, even if their minds usually
work better than yours.
There was the temptation to rejoin the party, but...
But there was an advantage to having a night to
himself, to not sharing the watch, to not having to
watch the way his tongue tended to tie itself in knots
around Lady Leria. Kethol liked a good night's sleep
and for once he would have one. For once, let the
two - well, three, if you included Erenor, although
Kethol would have bet marks to chits that Pirojil and
Durine wouldn't - split the watch. His horse was
hobbled in a nearby clearing to graze for the night,
and it was more than slightly unlikely that some
night traveler would stumble across her. Yes, she
would whinny and whicker at an approach, if she
noticed it, but Kethol couldn't fall asleep with only
the horse to watch over him, not out in the open.
There was a better way.
A light string tied to his belt, Kethol climbed high
into the old gnarled oak, then seated himself
carefully before pulling up his gear bag. He pulled
out a roll of leather hide, unrolled it, and threaded
two strong ropes through its reinforced hems.
It was part of his share of their communal gear by
his choice. Stick two fresh-cut poles down its
hemmed sides, and it was a stretcher. Dig two

347
shallow parallel trenches spaced for hips and
shoulders, cover same with corn husks or straw or
nothing, cover that with a blanket and cover the
blanket with the leather, and it was a comfortable
bed.
Or thread two ropes with it, tie them appropriately
tightly to two branches high in a tree, and you had a
comfortable hammock, high above the ground, safe
from prowling animals - particularly the two-legged
kind. Of course, if you were the sort to roll over in
your sleep, it was also a fine way to drop to your
death, but Kethol had learned to sleep in a tree when
he was a boy, and he'd yet to fall out.
There was, of course, always a first time for
everything, so he tied another rope under his arms,
then hitched the free end to an overhanging limb. If
he fell out of bed, it would be a painful fall, but it
wouldn't kill him.
He used the rope to lower himself carefully to the
hammock, then stretched out with just a quick pat at
his pistol and sword to be sure they were in place, as
of course they were.
The night was alive with sounds and smells.
Kethol liked that. He never understood city folk,
who found the distant clickety-click of tappetbugs
irritating and the calls of birds an annoyance. They

348
were the music of the forest, and every forest played
a different tune for your pleasure, if you only were a
quiet audience. His long-dead father had taught him
that, along with how to sleep in a tree.
A tightness in his bladder reminded him of
something else his father had taught him, about
relieving yourself before you climbed a tree to sleep.
Well, at least he wouldn't have to repeat the whole
process, he thought as he carefully lifted himself out
of the hammock, untied the chest strap, then climbed
down the tree. The hammock would still be there.
He could have just unbuttoned his trousers and
relieved himself right there, but the whole idea of
sleeping in a tree was to avoid announcing your
presence. Besides, on the way in, he had smelled
fresh wolf sign on a tree, and that would make good
enough cover for his own spoor.
He found the spot easily in the dark. Memorizing
his way in was second nature to him, and while he
moved as quietly as he could, nothing human could
move silently through the forest, so he didn't let it
bother him. He was good at this, and anybody else
would announce their presence to him long before
he announced his presence to them.

349
He unbuttoned his trousers and relieved himself.
There was something absurdly pleasurable about a
good piss in the woods at night, although Kethol
wouldn't have admitted that to anybody else; it
seemed funny and embarrassing to him.
He made his way back to his tree and up to his
hammock, and stretched out.
The music of the forest would have lulled him to
sleep quickly if he'd have stayed awake to let it.
Leathery wings beat against the night sky above the
field of bitter oats. The night was filled with gnats,
and bats by the dozen had come out of somewhere
to feed. They were only shadows flittering against
the star-spattered sky, but still Pirojil shivered.
Bats. Pirojil hated bats. It was something about
their featherless wings, and the evil faces. He wasn't
sure why - much worse had come flapping out of
Faerie during the Breach, after all; and he had worn
an uglier face than any bat all his adult life - but
ordinary bats bothered him.
The Old Emperor used to say that bats were
beneficial, that they daily ate their weight in noxious
insects, and, he'd add with a secret smile, there was
another virtue or two they had, as the Engineer
would swear - but he would never explain what that

350
was all about, or why caves where bats lived were
Engineer property by imperial fiat.
The Old Emperor had hinted once or twice that it
might have something to do with the secret of
gunpowder. Pirojil didn't know much about magic -
if you couldn't see the glyphs, what was the point? -
but maybe bat wings were an ingredient that made
gunpowder make bullets fly.
No, that seemed unlikely. After all, bullets flew
straight, and bats didn't. They twisted and turned and
capered in the night sky in their search for some
preposterous number of bugs. Somehow - perhaps
they had night vision like dwarves? - the bats never
seemed to bump into each other as they fluttered and
fed, as though they had their own system of
precedence, with presumably commoner bats staying
out of the way of noble bats.
Back when he was -
Pirojil cut off the thought with a savage shake of
his head. He had tried to burn those memories away,
and even the screams in the dark were long
forgotten.
They had to be.
- back a long time ago, somebody Pirojil had
known had taught him a trick to do with bats.

351
His blunt fingers felt on the ground for a round
pebble, and flicked it underhand, high, high into the
air over the bitter oats field.
A small shadow dove on it, then fell almost to the
ground before it righted itself, and cluttered its
discomfort as it climbed into the dark.
Instead of a nice juicy gnat, the bat had found
itself trying to swallow a pebble that probably
weighed as much as it did, and it didn't like that
much. Pebbles weren't supposed to be flying through
the night sky; just bugs and other bats - must have
been frustrating for the little creature.
Off in the distance, an owl hooted three times,
then three times again.
Pirojil's mouth twitched. Trouble.
Kethol had come awake with a start. Not enough to
move, but his whole body twitched.
There was something wrong, and it took him too
long to place what it was:
The night was quiet. No chirping of insects, no
taroo of a distant gray owl chortling over a fresh
field mouse, not even a distant wolf's cry.
Nothing.

352
Anybody who had spent as much as a night in the
woods knew what that meant: something was
moving out there, and that something was either
human or worse. Orcs hunted at night, by
preference, and their bitter smell of sour sweat
would be enough to frighten anybody off.
It probably meant humans, and humans moving at
night ought to be making a lot of noise clomping
down the road. Animals had learned to avoid that
noise.
But it was silent. No sound save for the rustling of
the leaves and the almost deafening lump-lump-lump
of his own heart.
He willed it to be silent, and was unsurprised
when the noise in his ears dimmed.
The night was awash in shades of grays and blacks
as Kethol climbed down out of the tree, moving
slowly, scanning all around with his eyes. That was
the trick of the night: you saw better out of the
corner of your eye than with the middle, and that
was the mistake too many city people made out in
the dark. The dark had its own ways, and you could
either live with them or die with them.
Miron had had four men with him, and five
against three would have been bad enough odds

353
even if Lord Miron hadn't been a noble with so
much time on his hands that he could practice the
sword for pleasure. Kethol begged to doubt that they
could get within sword or even pistol range of
Durine without his sounding the alarm, but that
would still leave five against two.
There was, of course, another alternative.
His bow was stashed near his horse, with his tack
and the rest of his gear. Hauling everything his horse
carried around the woods as night was falling had
had no appeal for Kethol, and if they had been after
deer, while he would have considered having been at
a stand at sunrise - there were spots along the edges
of the bitter oats fields that just shouted they were
deer feeding grounds - but they were traveling fast
and light and couldn't afford the time for a leisurely
hunt.
For game.
The only problem was that the deer trail that led to
the meadow where he had left his horse was a good
hundred leagues back, and the meadow was even
further down the trail. Getting to his horse and gear
meant getting to the road, which was fine, and it
meant walking down the road, which wasn't.

354
Still, there was no choice about doing it. But
regardless of what Pirojil said about him, he wasn't
so foolish as to rush in without thinking, without
listening.
Kethol leaned back against the bole of an ancient
elm and listened again. Nothing. No sound except
for the breeze in the leaves.
Very well. They were out there somewhere, but he
couldn't count on Pirojil or Durine having spotted
them, not yet. They had made a good choice in
campsites; the farmhouse and outbuildings had been
built on a mound overlooking the fields. But it was
possible that somebody really good could sneak up
through the bitter oats, leaving behind a trail of
crushed plants that you would have to be looking for
to see in the dark. Walter Slovotsky certainly could
have done it easily, and Kethol himself could have.
The wind had changed while he slept, blowing
toward the fields, toward the ruins. A shout would
have carried, but it would also have announced to all
and sundry that they'd been spotted. Better than
letting his companions be surprised, but...
Better.
He pursed his lips and gave the hoot of a forest
owl, as loud as he could, three times. With any luck,

355
Miron and his companions wouldn't know that a
forest owl always hooted twice only, or wouldn't
notice.
He waited for a moment for the sound of boots
crashing through the woods in search of whoever
had so badly impersonated an owl, but none came.
Good, Maybe it wasn't such a bad impersonation,
after all.
He crept quietly back to the deer trail he had taken
most of the way into his hiding place for the night -
you didn't want to sleep right next to a trail; that
permitted anybody or anything to walk right up to
your tree without making a sound.
The night felt as if it had a thousand eyes, and
each one of them was fixed on his back.
But the silence still rang in his ears. Which was
good. It meant that whatever was going to happen
hadn't started yet. Miron and his companions were
probably taking their time setting up. By now, Pirojil
and Durine would both be awake and looking out
over the fields, watching and waiting, their pistols
out and ready, their crossbows loaded.
Crossbows. Kethol snickered silently. There was
nothing wrong with a crossbow, except that the rate

356
of fire was pitiful, and the accuracy wasn't much
better.
But it had its advantages.
You could take a peasant conscript right out of the
pig shit, hand him a crossbow, and with even a
tenday or so of practice - aided, if necessary, by a
clout or two alongside the head to assist in the
instruction - he could be a competent shot with a
crossbow. Now, that wouldn't make him stand and
fight, and it surely wouldn't make him hold his
position among a line of archers, but that could be
done, too, with only a little more work, another few
dozen more clouts, and perhaps a blooding here and
there.
But training a real archer took almost as long as
training a swordsman.
Reclaiming his bow took too long, and he silently
congratulated himself for having stashed his hidden
gear on the other side of the meadow from where his
horse stood grazing. Not the most observant of
animals, she didn't stop in her munching in the dark.
Amazing how much clover she could put away.
He strung his bow, and slung his quiver over his
shoulders. It would have been nice to use his
shooting glove, but while the wooden sear laced into

357
the surface of its fingers made his every loose clean
and pure - Kethol had always had to fight a certain
amount of pluck in his loose; there were times it got
so bad that he thought he should have been a lutist -
it also made it impossible to grip his sword with his
right hand, and he could easily find himself needing
his sword without sufficient warning.
He settled on his left-arm sheath and stalked back
down the trail, bow in his left hand, his right hand
reaching up to untie the mouth of his quiver, his
fingers counting the arrows by touch.
Good.
There was only one more bit of preparation.
Kethol carefully set his bow on the ground, then sat
down on the hard-packed dirt and removed his
boots. He tied them together, slung them across his
shoulder, and replaced them with the woodsman's
deerskin buskins he kept rolled up in his pack. It had
been a long time since he'd worn them, and there
was something comforting about their softness,
about the gentle way they held his feet.
It felt too good to be wearing buskins again; he
had been a soldier too long, and this short respite
was like a cool stream flowing through the middle of
his soul. A painful stream - his feet weren't as
toughened as they'd been when he was a boy, and

358
the sharp rocks on the rough path hurt, but the whole
idea was to be able to feel the ground underneath
him. Tales told around campfires about heroic deeds
almost always had somebody stepping on and breaking
a twig at just the right - or wrong - moment, and
while Kethol had no objection to heroic deeds, he
did have a strong objection to making noise. The
idea here was to heroically shoot their attackers in
the back with longbow and barbed arrow, not to
draw their attention and sacrifice himself.
He stopped just short of the road, and looked and
listened. It would have been nice if the wind had
been blowing in his face instead of against his back,
but it wasn't, and circling around to downwind from
them would have required both a lot of time and
knowing where they were.
He moved slowly to the road, and looked across
the fields at the ruins.
Nothing.
There was no sign of life or activity, which was
either very good or very bad. Kethol would have
preferred something somewhere in the middle,
something safer - some hulking motion in the
darkness that spoke of Durine moving about
impatiently, waiting for the attack.

359
He set his boots and his rucksack down on the
ground and stood, still as the boy Kethol had on
stand, waiting for the deer to come within range of
his bow, and waited. And waited.
And waited.
The night was still quiet. He was beginning to
think that maybe he'd been wrong, maybe it had
been that clumsy Erenor who had alarmed the
creatures of darkness into a warning silence, maybe-
No. It took the wind to show him, but there were
dim trails in the bitter oats. Kethol could count ten.
Ten? Where had Miron gotten so many men? He
had been riding with -
Never mind that. Three against ten was horrible
odds, and Kethol wasn't willing to bet a life he cared
about on there being only ten of them.
But one of them was less dexterous than the rest.
A dark shadow rose up momentarily in the sea of
bitter oats, then ducked down.
Kethol nocked an arrow, and drew it back. Nine
against one was almost as bad as ten against one,
but... You kill a band of enemies the way you slice
an onion: one slice, one shot at a time. Nine could be
cut down to eight, could be cut down to seven ...

360
He drew a deep breath, let half of it out, and held
the rest. It would have been nice to have warmed up
with some practice shots, but that was hardly
practicable.
The string pressed hard against the tips of his
fingers, tempting him to a plucking loose. It was all
the same whether the target was straw-filled ticking,
a deer, or a man. It was a matter of years of learning
that burned deep into muscle and mind and bone and
soul, so he waited until he was ready, until every
instinct and every bit of training told him that the
arrow would arc to the spot where the enemy had
ducked down, and let fly with a pure loose that sent
the shaft on a flat arc that ended in a groan.
A dark shape lunged up and out of the darkness,
screaming some painful obscenity.
Everything broke loose at once. A dozen or more
other men rose instantly out of the field, some with
swords in their hands, at least two with long hunting
spears, and rushed the encampment. Kethol already
had another arrow nocked, and let fly, but his target
was bobbing and weaving as he charged up the
slope, and the arrow disappeared somewhere in the
dark.

361
A dozen? The other two didn't stand a chance.
Kethol would do his best to avenge them, but even
Pirojil and Durine had their limits, and -
The darkness was shattered by a flash of light as
white as a cloud, as bright as the sun.

362
17 - Seemings
he three hoots had brought Pirojil fully alert.
For a moment, he allowed himself to smile -
three to split the night watch was a lot better
than two - until the triple hoot was followed by
another, instead of the expected call.
And then by silence.
Durine was already on his feet by the time Pirojil
made it back into the ruins of the stable, belting his
sword and pistols about his massive waist by the
light of a ragged sliver of Faerie silver that he had
picked up somewhere, sometime. His face was
sallow and lined in the pale light, and he looked half
again his age.
'Trouble," the big man whispered. A statement,
not a question. He slipped the shining metal back
into its leather sheath. "What is it?"
"I just heard a forest owl hoot three times."
T

363
Durine grunted, and if Pirojil hadn't known better,
he would have thought that the big man was smiling
in the darkness. "I think, perhaps, he has too much
faith in you and me, Piro."
That was certainly true enough. Well, everybody
has to believe in something.
Pirojil jerked his chin toward the field. Durine
nodded; he cocked his crossbow and nocked a bolt
before he moved, much more quietly than one
would think such a big man could, toward the
skeletal timbers at what had been the front of the
stable.
Lady Leria was sleeping in what had been a stall;
Durine had made his bed at the entrance to it, as
though trouble couldn't simply step over the
raggedly waist-high foundation that was all that
remained of the walls. Pirojil walked past her stall to
the one where Erenor slept, snoring quietly,
peacefully.
He clapped his hand over Erenor's mouth. That
was the only safe way to wake a wizard - a real one
could easily come awake spewing out some
defensive spell - although in this case, it was more
of a way to prevent Erenor from crying out than
spells from issuing from his mouth.

364
The wizard's eyes snapped open, wide and white
above Pirojil's hand. "Quiet, now," Pirojil said,
removing his hand only when Erenor raised his
palms in a gesture of surrender.
"We have trouble," Pirojil said. "How many times
does a forest owl hoot?"
"I wouldn't know," Erenor said quite quietly, his
tone saying, And I wouldn't care quite loudly.
Pirojil didn't know much about owls, and was
about as interested in them as he was in rocks, but
Kethol had always had a tendency to go on about
woodcraft, and he had mentioned over more
campfires than Pirojil cared to count that the forest
owl always hooted twice.
"It's one of Kethol's... preoccupations." He had
stopped himself from saying "obsession." Not in
front of Erenor. Pirojil didn't think friendship
required one to turn a blind eye to faults, but neither
did it permit revealing them to outsiders.
"Forest owls - the big ones, the ones with the deep
voice like a silverhorn - always hoot twice over their
kills." Why hoot at all? Was it a signal to other owls
that there was good hunting, or was it to warn them
away from their prey?

365
Or was it simply the owl announcing, with pride,
that he had caught yet another field mouse or vole?
"So there's a deranged owl out there who hoots
three times," Erenor said. "Thank you very kindly
for the lesson, Master Pirojil," he said, "and now
may I get back to sleep?"
There was the temptation to slap Erenor until his
face sloughed off, but Pirojil manfully resisted it.
"No. What it means is that it's Kethol out there,
and that there's trouble." If Kethol was simply
announcing his own presence, warning them that he
was coming in so that they wouldn't accidentally
send a crossbow bolt through him in the dark, he
would have quickly followed up with a shout, or a
repetition, or something.
It also meant that there was more trouble than
Kethol himself could have handled. One scout -
Kethol's only problem would have been what to do
with the body. Two might be a little trickier, but
Kethol would have trusted in his own abilities to
take on two, and with the element of surprise on his
side, it was a good bet.
Three, maybe. Four, no. But it could be far more
than that.

366
Erenor had worked out at least some of it as he
threw his blankets to the side and rolled quickly to
his feet. He shot a quick glance toward his own bag.
It was packed, ready for a quick grab-and-run; the
only thing left behind would be his blankets, and
blankets could be gotten elsewhere. Erenor might
not have been much more than an apprentice wizard,
but he was a master of the quick getaway.
"When it starts, I want you to take Lady Leria and
sneak her out of here, into the woods. If we win, if
we survive, you rejoin us. If we don't seem to, you
can either safely convey her to Biemestren or you
can bet your life that none of us live to hunt you
down." His lips tightened. "The lady is under our
protection, understood?"
Erenor nodded. "Yes, Lord Pirojil," he said.
Lord? Without thinking, he backhanded Erenor
across the face, and stopped himself with his sword
half out of its sheath.
No. This wasn't the time for that. If he lived
through this night, then he would settle up with
Erenor for his impudence. Nobody had ever called
him Lord, ever, and nobody had called him Lordling
for more years than Pirojil liked to think about. And
then, his name had not been Pirojil. Pirojil had been
the name of his dog. A loyal animal.

367
Erenor wiped at his mouth with the back of his
hand. "No offense was intended," he said. "But you
have to understand that those of us who learn much
about seemings learn to see past the surface, past the
way things seem." Erenor held himself with more
dignity than Pirojil could have managed under the
circumstances. "You perhaps should look beyond
the surface more often, Pirojil," he said, his voice
quiet but unwavering.
Pirojil tried to just let it go, tried to ignore it,
strained to ignore the blood rushing in his ears.
He didn't hear Durine come up until the big man
cleared his throat.
"I count twelve," Durine said, "and they're moving
slowly toward us through the fields." He shook his
head. "Perhaps this is the time we saddle up and ride
out of here fast as we can."
If they could saddle the horses quickly, if Lady
Leria was as good a horsewoman as noblewomen
usually were, they would still have to ride down the
road across the top of the berm, because horses
would surely stumble and fall if they tried to gallop
through the soft dirt of the fields. And that would
make them adequate targets, at least.

368
But one or two would probably get through.
Kethol was out there, and he would have his
longbow ready.
"Wake the lady," Pirojil said. "You first, then
Erenor, then her, with me to bring up the rear. I'll
take your crossbow and your pistols."
Durine eyed him levelly. He knew as well as
Pirojil did that the last man out wasn't going to make
it out.
"You should," Erenor said quietly, "learn to look
beneath the surface, to accept what is." His voice
took on a note of command. "If they attack us all at
once, they'll overwhelm us, but if they run away in
fear, in terror, can you cut them down?"
"With pleasure," Durine said. "How do you
propose to frighten them so?"
Erenor's answer was a quiet stream of words, first
so low-voiced as to be unintelligible, then rising in
volume and timbre. There was a logic and a
grammar in the words he spoke, but as each syllable
fell on Pirojil's ears, it vanished from his mind, gone
where a popped soap bubble goes.
Wrapped in light so bright it should have blinded
Pirojil but somehow didn't even hurt his eyes, the
wizard grew larger, his form changing as he did so.

369
It should have burned Kethol's eyes into his head, or
at the very least left him dazzled, unable to see, but
it vanished immediately, replaced by a huge glowing
beast, easily three manheights tall.
It looked more like a large, misshapen bear than
anything else, although it was easily twice the height
of any bear Kethol had ever heard of, and no bear
could be that white, so white that it glowed in the
dark. And its face was long, like a wolf's, with teeth
the size of hunting knives protruding over its lower
lip.
It opened its mouth with a roar that was loud
enough to be deafening, and took two staggering
steps toward where the dozen attackers stood, frozen
in terror.
Kethol was frightened enough to piss down his leg
- that wasn't the first time that had happened to him,
and if he survived the night, odds were it wouldn't be
the last - but his fingers had nocked another arrow,
and without even thinking about it, he had taken
aim, and let fly again, his blood and bones knowing
that it would fly flat and straight to its target. He
didn't even wait for it to hit before he had another
arrow in hand, ready to be nocked.

370
Kethol looked for Miron among the attackers for a
scant heartbeat, then cursed himself for that
stupidity.
Any target would do. He was leading a stocky
man who was scurrying back toward the road when
his target shouted and pitched forward, screaming in
pain. An arrow or bolt could kill as well as a sword
could, but it was the rare shot that knocked a target
down immediately.
Kethol picked another target, and let fly again.
The monster, whatever it was, wherever it had come
from, could wait. It wasn't doing anything but
standing there and roaring at the retreating figures.
None of it made sense, but it wasn't Kethol's job to
make sense. It was his job to nock arrows and send
them singing off into the night, seeking flesh.
He bent his arm and his mind to his job.

371
18 - Brutal Necessity
awn threatened to break all golden and
peach over a sea of bitter oats dotted by
islands of corpses. Pirojil considered the
stocky man in a peasant's rough tunic who lay on the
ground in front of him, the fletching of a crossbow
bolt barely protruding through the back of his jacket.
Well, he was probably as dead as he looked, and
Durine was back at the farmhouse with the two
survivors they'd taken captive, but it didn't hurt to
make sure: Pirojil lifted the hunting spear he had
taken off another of the dead men and thrust it
carefully into the peasant's back.
It was like stabbing a side of beef. No reaction. No
life.
He moved on to the next one.
In the gray light before dawn, dead men lay
scattered about the field, their blood and their stink
already drawing flies. Pirojil would have to decide
D

372
what they were going to do with them. There was a
strong temptation on his part to leave them to rot
where they lay. That's what they had done in the old
days, when they'd ridden with the Old Emperor on
his Last Ride, cutting through any opposition,
leaving clotting blood and shattered bone in their
wake.
Those were good days, in their way. Blood didn't
bother Pirojil. Neither did the shit-stink of dead
men.
But it could be argued that leaving a trail of bodies
behind them, here and now, was liable to cause more
trouble than it stopped.
He heard Erenor's footsteps on the ground behind
him. More tentative than Pirojil's; noisier than
Pirojil's and much noisier than Kethol's, as though
the wizard took special care to step on the plants
only in the noisiest possible way.
"Do you have another one of those spears
available, Master Pirojil?" Erenor asked.
He didn't look like some huge shaggy monster in
the gray light before dawn. He just looked like a
tired man who had had too little sleep and too much
exertion of late.

373
Pirojil's eyeballs ached. He had some sympathy
for that, although he didn't think of himself as the
sympathetic type.
He grunted and gestured toward where another
spear lay on the soft ground a handsbreadth away
from the outflung arm of another dead man. "You
can have that one. There's another over that way," he
said.
He had expected Erenor to take the spear and
himself back up the slope to the ruins, but instead
the wizard took it up and thrust it clumsily into the
dead man he'd taken it from, and then walked toward
where another body lay.
That was the last one. The dead were all dead, and
Pirojil could turn his attention to the living without
having to worry about an injured enemy at his back.
Erenor cleared his throat. "All in all, it seems to
have gone better than it could have," he said.
Pirojil nodded. "By rather a lot."
"Where I come from," Erenor went on, his lips
perhaps tightening a trifle, "it's considered good
manners for all, from the rudest serf to the most
effete noble, to offer thanks to one who has been of
some ... serious assistance."

374
Pirojil found himself smiling at the wizard's
impertinence. But, still, he had a point. "Thank you
for helping to save all of our lives, yours included
and in particular."
Erenor cocked his head to one side. "Hmm ...
Master Pirojil, it occurs to me that a warrior such as
yourself would be more grateful for my having
helped save the life of Lady Leria - as her welfare is
your responsibility, is it not?"
His contribution to their survival had clearly gone
to Erenor's head. But Pirojil had overreacted to
Erenor's slip of the tongue last night, and even
though he was sure Erenor was taking advantage of
that, seeing how far he could press the advantage,
Pirojil didn't have the stomach to slap that smile
from his face.
Or maybe it had had something to do with the
violence of the early dawn. You couldn't be a soldier
and not be able to handle death close-up. It wasn't
possible to be a warrior if you let yourself be
obsessed with the memories of the cries of the
dying, of the smells of the dead, of the expressions
on the faces of the legions of men you had cut down
with sword and knife, with bolt and bullet.
People reacted in different ways. Durine made a
fetish of not caring, while Kethol thought of dead

375
enemies as he did of dead game. Tennetty had
actually enjoyed the bloodletting, and Pirojil had
always found it vaguely disgusting the way she
would smile and shake almost in orgasm at each kill.
But you couldn't be a human being if it didn't get
to you at all. There was something more perverse in
those who felt nothing than there was even in those
who liked it.
"Is it not?" Erenor repeated.
Pirojil shook himself out of his reverie. "Yes, it is.
It very much is my responsibility, and I'm grateful
that you made it possible. Of course, your own life
was on the table as well, wasn't it?"
The wizard nodded emphatically. "That it was."
"And if the peasants had simply ignored your
seeming, if they had charged upslope and stuck their
spears into the hide of the monster - "
"I would have been very, very uncomfortable,"
Erenor said. "For but a few moments, until I died."
He brightened. "So may I thank you and your
companions, Master Pirojil, for saving my life? It's
not an important life, to be sure, and it's obviously
none too precious to any of you, but it is, after all,
the only one I have, and I'm rather fond of it, and

376
would like to continue to cling to it for as many
years as possible."
Pirojil knew Erenor was trying to get a laugh out
of him, but he let himself chuckle nonetheless.
"Your thanks are accepted, Erenor," he said.
He wasn't sure why, and he wasn't sure what the
terms were, but it felt as if he'd just struck a bargain.
He used the butt of the spear as a staff to help him
up the slope. There were two survivors among their
attackers. Both stocky peasant men, both wounded -
one with Kethol's arrow still stuck through his thigh
- both securely bound. Durine's blunt fingers were
surprisingly good with knots, and it was easy to lash
a couple of thumbs together if you didn't much care
about the health of the thumb.
Lady Leria watched, her eyes wide in horror. That
was understandable; nobility - well, female nobility,
at least - didn't have to get used to blood and pain,
except maybe during childbirth.
And it was going to get worse.
Pirojil heard Kethol making his way up the path
from the stream before he saw him. Dressed in a
fresh tunic and trousers, he carried his wet clothes in
one hand, while his free hand stayed close to the hilt
of his knife, not his sword. He was still wearing his

377
woodsman's leather buskins, not bis boots. Pirojil
smiled to himself. Under pressure, Kethol had
reverted to type.
He was still a warrior, and there was still nobody
Pirojil would have preferred at his back in a fight,
but Kethol had been raised a woodsman, and in
some ways that was what he would always be.
Well, it wouldn't take long with his feet in the
stirrups for Kethol to remember the virtues of hardsoled
boots over the buskins, and maybe by then
he'd be thinking like a warrior again.
"Kethol," he said, "why don't you and Erenor take
the lady and the horses up the road to where we hid
the carriage? We'll want to get moving before it gets
much lighter." And, unspoken: none of us want to
see what we're going to have to do with the two
captives.
He and Durine waited, chatting idly, until Kethol
and Erenor had led the horses and the lady well
down the road before they turned to the captives.
That was a trick he had learned from Tennetty,
back during the conquest of Holtun. Always get two
captives, if you can, and then let them sit and think
for a while before you start in on them.

378
In a real battle, it didn't much matter most of the
time. Foot soldiers - peasant conscripts, particularly
- wouldn't know anything of any importance about
the enemy's plans, and Ellegon was far, far better at
scouting out an army's disposition and strength than
even the cleverest spy.
But, every so often, there were some things you
needed to know, and there were ways to make
people tell you those things.
Durine would do it without hesitation, but...
Pirojil knelt down before the closer of the two -
there really wasn't much to choose between the two
of them - and drew his belt knife. It was shorter than
most such knives - when Pirojil needed a blade with
a reach, he used his sword - and it was single-edged
rather than double, but it was shiny and sharp, and
came to a threateningly narrow point.
The peasant was a blunt-faced man, his beard
ragged and untrimmed, although his hair had been
bowl-cut not long ago. His nostrils flared as he drew
in what air he could, probably more from fright than
from pain.
His wound - or, at least, the only wound Pirojil
could see - had been the arrow to the back of the leg
that had hamstrung him as neatly as a sharp knife

379
blade could have. Hamstringing was one of the
classic ways to prevent the pursuit of somebody you
didn't want to kill, and it was an old slaver's trick for
preventing slaves from running off. Until he could
find a Spider - Spidersect seemed to have a put a
charmed circle around most of Holtun; even the
sisters of the Hand were conspicuous by their
absence - he would be hopping on one foot or
crawling.
Pirojil moved the knifepoint closer to the
widening eyes, and slipped it carefully down the
cheek, under the thong that bound the gag in place.
A quick twist and the thong parted easily. Pirojil
waited for the peasant to spit out the gag, then
beckoned Durine for the water bag.
"Here," he said. "Your mouth is dry, and you've
lost blood." He lifted the horn spout to the bloodied
lips. "Drink all you want, and we can get more if
you like."
Yellowed teeth clamped down on the spout, and
the peasant sucked eagerly, like a child at its
mother's breast.
Pirojil took the bottle away. "We need to know
who you are, and who sent you."

380
Durine loomed above, growling. "I hurt him first,"
he said, his voice a gravelly rumble. "I hurt him lots.
Then he talk."
"No, no, we don't want to hurt anybody. We just
need to know some things." He turned back to the
peasant. "You have a name?"
"Horolf. Horolf Two Fields they call me."
"So, Horolf Two Fields, why were you and your
friends sneaking up to kill us last night?"
"No, no, it was nothing like that." He shook his
head half hard enough to shake his ears off. "We
heard - Wilsh heard about raiders, bandits,
encamped on the ruins of old Marsel's farm, and we
figured to capture them for the reward. Really, Lord,
we had no idea it was you."
Pirojil shook his head. There were about a dozen
things wrong with that story, beginning with how
easily it came to the peasant's lips.
But mainly it was preposterous. A bunch of
peasants trying to attack sleeping bandits? That was
like a bunch of rabbits gathering to ambush a
wayward hunter. Certainly, peasants would be afraid
of bandits - but that was what the local lord was for,
and the reward for leading local armsmen to the

381
capture of a gang would be significant, and could be
gotten without risk.
Durine slapped Horolf across the face, once, hard.
"No, please," Horolf whined. "I've told you what
you wanted to know."
Pirojil shrugged as theatrically as he could. "Well,
we only need one. I'll deal with this one; you take
the other."
Durine fastened one huge hand on the front of the
other peasant's tunic and lifted him easily to his
shoulder, then walked out of sight, around the bend
down the hill toward the stream.
Pirojil shook his head. He really disliked this, but
he had done things he disliked more before, and he
probably would again.
There was nothing fun about torture, but he wasn't
going to go back on the road without knowing what
this was all about. "It's a pity," he said. "Not that we
have anything against bandits like yourself, mind,
but if you're going to lie to me, we'll just see if you
and your friend have any coin on you, and then go
about our business."

382
"Please, Lord. You can look in my pouch. I don't
have so much as a copper half-mark on me. None of
us have much of any hard money. We mostly trade-"
Pirojil sighed. "That's just what a bandit would
say, after he'd swallowed his gold." He shook his
head. "I've dealt with your type before, but I've
never fallen for it. You dress up as peasants and
waylay travelers. Well," he said, drawing his knife,
"we'll soon see what you've got in your stomachs,
won't we?"
A scream came from over the hill. "I think my
partner picked the wrong one," Pirojil said. "You
look to be the leader; you've probably got a full ten
gold marks in your gullet."
Durine walked back down the path, cleaning his
knife and hands of blood with what had been the
other peasant's tunic. "Nothing there," he said.
"Nothing except the stink of bread and onions in his
gut."
"No," Horolf said. "Please. I beg of you, please."
Pirojil ignored him. "Help me stretch this one out.
He looks like a kicker to me."
"No, Lord, no. I'll tell the truth. It is gold, but we
are not bandits. We didn't want to kill you. We just
came for your gold."

383
Pirojil looked up at Durine. Nobody else would
have seen the way Durine held himself still, to
prevent himself from reaching for the money vest
that held all their savings.
"The gold?" Pirojil asked.
"Yes, the gold. The dowry. For the girl." Horolf
had given up any reluctance to tell what he knew,
but he was a peasant, not a storyteller, and not
only wounded, but half frightened to death. Pirojil
was willing to settle for that, but it did make
getting the story out of him a longer task than he
would have liked.
Somebody had been spreading rumors. It seemed
that the word had gone out that three men - a tall,
rangy, redheaded fellow; a huge, hulking
swordsman; and the ugliest man that anybody had
ever seen - together with a handsome, somewhat
uppity body servant, were escorting a minor lady of
Neranahan to Biemestren so that she could attempt
to buy herself a Biemish husband.
Her prey must have been somebody of very high
rank indeed, as the three escorts had been personal
bodyguards to the Old Emperor himself, and now
were fealty-bound to Barony Cullinane and the
former heir.

384
Perhaps her future husband was even the former
heir himself? If so, her dowry must have been
immense, as Jason Cullinane was probably the
wealthiest of all the imperial barons, and it would
have taken a great deal of gold to interest him,
indeed, particularly since the lady was known to be
of violent temper and ugly of face.
(Pirojil grinned at that. Horolf misunderstood the
meaning of the smile and voided his bowels. Again.
This interrogation was smelly work.)
The size of the dowry had grown as the tale had
spread, and when Wilsh had spotted them from his
croft, it hadn't taken long for a dozen or more
veterans of the Biemish war to decide that this was
their opportunity, their chance to leave their
miserable crofts and this two-nation empire.
Pirojil shook his head. People who hadn't been
around wealth both overestimated and
underestimated what gold could do. Gold certainly
could buy them land and cattle and horses in Kiar or
Nyphien or - better - in the lands around and
protected by Pandathaway. But it couldn't make
them run faster than their pursuers would, and it
wouldn't stop men who were better with sword and
spear and crossbow from taking their possessions
and their lives away from them.

385
The life of an outlaw was cheap tender, and the
life of an outlaw who somehow managed to have a
stack of gold on him was absolutely worthless.
But that didn't stop fools from trying for their one
chance, and Pirojil was familiar enough with a
crofter's life to have more than vague sympathy for
somebody who wanted to escape the endless days of
drudgery that began before dawn and ended with
exhaustion after sundown. There was a lot lacking in
a soldier's life, but at least you didn't have to grub
your living out of the very dirt you shit in. Pirojil
rose. "Shit," he said.
Durine grunted. "Dowry, indeed." He used the toe
of his boot to flip Horolf over, then drew his sword.
Best to end this now, and be on their way.
At the sound of steel sliding on leather, Horolf
cried out something loud and incoherent, and his
body spasmed. He probably would have voided
himself again if he hadn't run out by now.
"Oh, be still," Durine said as he sliced through
first the leather thongs that bound Horolf's thumbs
together, then the ones that bound his wrists. Even if
Horolf hadn't been thoroughly frightened - and you
could never quite count on fright to stop somebody
from doing what he had to; it had never stopped
Durine - he was still hamstrung in one leg, and the

386
nearest crossbow was lying in a field a fair walk
away.
Durine flipped him back over, then tossed him a
piece of broken blade. Cheap local steel wasn't
worth keeping, anyway; if it was worth a gold mark
a tonne, he would be surprised. "If you don't crawl
down to the stream and cut your friend loose, I'll be
back for you," he said, letting his voice rasp.
He was lying, but he didn't think Horolf would test
him on it.
It took the peasant a long moment to realize what
Durine was saying. "But - "
The point of Durine's sword whipped through the
air and hovered near Horolf's right eye. "Don't even
think me a gentle man," he said. "I've hamstrung
him, same as the arrow did for you. You can cut
yourselves a pair of crutches and hobble on back to
your miserable village and your miserable lives." He
touched the point of his sword to Horolf's nose, just
barely hard enough to draw blood, although he
doubted that Horolf noticed. "I may see you again,
once; I will not see you again twice," Durine said.
Pirojil was already walking away; Durine turned
and followed him.

387
Yes, if it had been necessary, or even desirable,
Durine could have cut little screaming pieces out of
the other peasant all day long.
You did what you had to, after all, and let the rest
of it sort itself out. But one quick stab to get one
long scream had been enough to prepare the way for
Pirojil's talk with Horolf, and while it had been years
since Durine had lost count of the number of men he
had killed, he had long since come up with an
answer for the lot of them when their pale, bloodless
faces crowded his dreams, trying to deny him his
rest.
Yes, he would say, I've killed all of you, and more,
and yes, I probably could have handled many of you
more gently, and yes, you can haunt my nights for
that. But while I've killed many a man I had to, and
probably nearly as many more as I didn't have to,
I've never killed one I knew I didn't have to, he
would tell them.
And while that didn't dispel the ghosts that
haunted his dreams, that was enough for Durine.
Pirojil clapped a hand to his shoulder. "We'd best
be moving fast"
"Yes, but where?"

388
19 - Division
t took less time than Pirojil had thought it would
to reduce the carriage into sufficiently small
pieces. Getting the doors off had been easy, and
cutting through the axles only took Durine a few
moments with a saw. The hard part had been
breaking the walls apart - whoever had built it had
built it to last - but after the first corner finally
yielded to Durine's ax, it was just a matter of
hitching up one of the dray horses to each wall and
sending them in opposite directions.
By noon, the carriage was no more, just pieces of
wood scattered in the woods. There was something
satisfying in the destruction. The carriage didn't
bleed and moan and shit itself; maybe that was it.
The five of them gathered in the clearing, packing
up the horses. The dray horses made fine pack
animals, and anybody who had served with the Old
I

389
Emperor was long since a past master of lashing
odd-shaped gear.
Pirojil ticked off the possibilities as they loaded,
while Lady Leria watched quietly. She hadn't said
much since last night. Not that Pirojil blamed her.
"One," he said, raising his voice as he ducked
under the belly of the gray gelding to give its
harness strap a tightening tug, "we can stick
together, try to somehow disguise ourselves, and
hope that a party of five heading toward Biemestren
won't draw every dissatisfied peasant, out-of-work
mercenary, or just plain bored soldier between here
and there. We can travel at night - "
"Which anybody would expect us to do," Erenor
said, interrupting. He didn't stop working, though.
"It's only sensible."
Pirojil went on, ignoring the wizard: " - or, two,
we can change our destination."
Kethol nodded. "Barony Adahan, and New
Pittsburgh. I like that idea."
Durine shook his head, but Kethol didn't catch it.
It was all Pirojil could do not to do the same. It
wasn't his fault - Kethol wasn't stupid, not really, but
he had blind spots - and Kethol would see that as a

390
good idea. Kethol would count on the peasants and
soldiers of Barony Adahan being loyal to their
baron, and their knowledge of Bren Adahan's
personal friendship with the Cullinanes protecting
the lot of them.
Pirojil shook his head. "Even if we make it there -
and I doubt we could do it in less than five days,
moving at night - you assume too much."
Wizards and women all had their own magical
ways of warping a man's mind, but gold, or even the
idea of gold, had a magic all its own.
Yes, Pirojil would trust Bren, Baron Adahan, at
least in this. But some peasant or soldier or armsman
fealty-bound to him?
Fealty did not move as quickly as a fast horse, and
it was not as sharp as the edge of a knife or the point
of an arrow.
Durine shook his head. "Bad idea."
"There is another possibility," Erenor said,
slapping his hands together to clear the dust from
them. He rose to his full height. He had dropped his
role as a body servant, and while Pirojil thought he
could detect a trace of uncertainty in Erenor's
manner, there had been a definite change.

391
Pirojil wasn't sure how he felt about that. Ever
since Erenor had provided his seeming-monster
distraction, he had been behaving as though he was,
well, an equal, not just a lackey pressed into service
by blackmail and force.
Well, maybe he wasn't just a lackey, not anymore.
Erenor smiled. "While there are those who would
say I'm not much of a wizard, when it comes to
seemings, I am - " he paused, presumably for
dramatic effect, as bis hand fluttered " -
demonstrably quite good."
Kethol grinned. "Good? You're magnificent," he
said, his smile picked up and echoed by Lady Leria.
The two of them seemed to be doing a lot of smiling
lately. Pirojil tried not to wonder why that bothered
him so much.
Durine shook his massive head. "But can you keep
up five seemings at the same time?"
"Hardly. But hardly necessary." Erenor snorted.
"Mun-danes," he said, the word overlaid with
condescension. "You see so much, and observe so
little of it - there is always more to magic man
magic. Lady, if you would?" He gestured her to sit
on the trunk that lay on the ground next to the

392
carriage. "Pirojil, I'll need a spare tunic of yours, and
Kethol, your sword belt, if you please."
She wasn't used to being dressed by men, and
Erenor was clearly more used to getting women out
of their clothes than to helping one into a man's
tunic, but it wasn't long before she was wearing
Pirojil's tunic over her blouse.
It hung loosely on her, but with the belt tight
around her hips rather than waist, it covered her
curves quite handily.
Still, she looked like a pretty young woman
dressed up as a man, and that -
"Oh, be still, Pirojil," Erenor said. Swift, clever
fingers twisted her hair into a sailor's queue, and a
quick rubbing of something from Erenor's wizard's
bag robbed it of its bright sheen. Some swipes with
a damp cloth, then a rubbing of something else from
the bag, and she looked like a man who needed a
shave, if you didn't look too closely, much as Kethol
did.
"Now, I'd despair of teaching our lady to walk like
a man, but put her in a saddle, astride a horse, her
feet in boots instead of slippers, and - nobody would
give her a second glance." Erenor put a finger to his
lips and considered Kethol. "Now, Mast - Kethol

393
will be easy enough. I can darken his hair quickly,
and while he's tall, he's not tall enough to be
unusual."
"And you?"
"Quite easy," he said, pulling clothes from his
bag. "I'm a merchant - a buyer of horses, perhaps? -
and the four of you are my drovers and bodyguard."
He considered Durine and Pirojil. "It's the two of
you that are the problem." He shook his head.
"Durine is a big man, granted, but he's a big hairy
man, and with a razor and some dye for his head, he
can become a big bald man. Yes, yes, I know his
scalp won't be tanned and weathered," he said,
raising a palm to forestall a protest that Pirojil hadn't
thought of, "but some stain and a few days of
sunburn, and it'll look just fine. A tad
uncomfortable, perhaps, but what of that?" He
turned to Pirojil. "It's you that I'll need the seeming
for, Pirojil. Your looks are - " he hesitated, perhaps
trying to see how far he should push his newfound
equality " - distinctive, that's what they are, and that
creates a problem that is best addressed by the Arts."
"No." Pirojil shook his head. "It won't happen."
Erenor made a sound that Pirojil hadn't heard
before; it had something of a tsk to it, combined
with a fricative of the lips. "Ah. So now you not

394
only know more about when magic is to be used
than I do, but how to use it? I would think I've more
than a little more experience than you have with
seemings, Pirojil."
"No," Pirojil said. His stomach felt as if he had
swallowed something cold and metallic; he resisted
the urge to purge himself.
"But - "
"Leave it be. We have to figure out another way."
"We should listen to him," Kethol said, each word
a cut to Pirojil's heart.
After all this time, Kethol, you clumsy, heroic
idiot, can't you keep your knifepoint out of my
wounds?
Durine looked over at Kethol and shook his head.
"There are some things we don't speak of," he said.
Kethol's head was tilted to one side. "Yes, of
course, but - but this is important. No, that's not
what I meant." He must have realized how that
sounded. "It's more important this time."
Lady Leria stood too close to Pirojil. "I don't
understand," she said. "We can't travel together, not
if you don't let him disguise you." She laid a slim
hand on his arm, and left it there for a long, warm

395
moment, and he made the mistake of inhaling. The
scent of her was overpowering. Yes, she stank of
Kethol's leather, and there were more than hints of
her own unwashed sweat, but mainly she smelled of
sunshine and warmth and comfort, and it was all
Pirojil could do not to kick her away from him and
run screaming away from her smooth youth and
beauty.
"No, Lady, I..." He stopped himself. Pirojil
opened his mouth, closed it. He could argue the
point until night fell, but the only way to shut Erenor
up would be to beat him, and there was no way he
could argue with Leria.
He took a step away from Leria and stood with his
arms folded across his chest. "Very well," he said to
Erenor, each word tasting of salt and steel, "do your
best."
The wizard shrugged. "I don't see what the - well,
let's just do it, and be done with it." He licked his
lips once, and for a moment his eyes went all vague
and distant, as though he was reading something that
was simultaneously both in front of him and far
away.
And then the words issued from his mouth. Pirojil
tried to distract himself with the thought that he had,
perhaps, just a touch of wizard in his ancestry,

396
because he could make them out enough to know
they sounded familiar, but only for a moment. Then
they were gone, burned from his ears and mind like
a drop of fresh blood on a hot skillet, leaving behind
nothing more than a sound and a scent.
Unfamiliar forces pulled at his face, like fingers
tugging at his muscles from the inside of his face,
like the time that his - like the time that somebody
had used two blunt fingers to push the mouth of the
boy whose name wasn't then Pirojil from a frown
into a smile.
That smile had lasted, and he could still feel those
gentle fingers hours later.
But these just faded away.
The Words left no trace of effect on him. It was as
though they had never been spoken. Pirojil had
expected that. No - it was more than expected, he
had known that was how it would be.
You have to live with your own curses, and when
one of those curses is your own ugliness, you have
to live with that being exposed to the world every
day.
"There are some men who can be made to seem
something that they are not," he said, rubbing thick
fingers against his bearded cheeks. "I'm not one of

397
them." He smiled the lie that it didn't bother him, a
lie he had smiled many times before. "No magic, no
artifice, can help that."
Leria laid her hand on his arm once more. "I'm
sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to - I didn't want to
..."
He reached up to - gently, gently - remove her
hand. "It's of no consequence, Lady. But you do see
that this face of mine makes it impossible for me to
travel with you now."
Durine nodded. "And I, as well. You'll have
sufficient trouble keeping the three of you from
looking like, well, the three of you - and Pirojil is
going to need somebody to accompany him back to
deal with the baroness."
Leria lifted a brow, and Kethol just looked blank,
but Pirojil wasn't surprised that Durine had worked
that out. There were two noblewomen who had
cause - or at least reason - to be sowing caltrops in
their path. This smelled more of Baroness Elanee
than it did of the dowager empress, although he
didn't doubt for a moment that Beralyn was perfectly
capable of setting the wolves on them. The life of a
minor Holtish noblewoman wasn't of any great
importance to a former Biemish baroness, and if the
lives of Pirojil, Kethol, and Durine were of any

398
value whatsoever to the dowager empress, the three
of them wouldn't be here now, smashing the
remnants of a carriage into unidentifiable flinders.
He hoped it was Elanee who had put the price on
their heads. They just might be able to survive that,
unlikely though it seemed at the moment. Beralyn
was not only beyond their reach, but beyond any
reach they could ever develop. Yes, that was unfair
and horrible, but the world was unfair and horrible,
and eventually you got used to it. Or, at least, you
learned to pretend to yourself that you did.
But Baroness Elanee, perhaps, was not beyond
their reach. And it might prove sufficiently politic
for the blame for this to be laid upon her grave, even
if the dowager empress was the one who had, in
effect, put a phantom price on their heads. Life was
unfair and horrible and often shorter than it ought to
be, and perhaps now was the time to explain that,
quite quickly, to the baroness.
"In any case," Durine said, bis voice the rumble of
an approaching thunderstorm, "it sounds better than
running around like a pair of rabbits waiting to find
their wolves around the next corner."
Pirojil smiled, and tried to ignore the way it made
Leria shudder. "Somehow, I thought you'd see it that
way."

399
Kethol tried not to think as he checked the bellyband
on Leria's brown mare for probably the twentieth
time. Thinking, it had been brought home to him,
was not one of his strengths. "Reminds me of the
Old Emperor's Last Ride," he said, levering himself
up and into his saddle. "So be careful, the two of
you."
Durine chuckled, a low bass rumble that sounded,
for once, more of amusement than irony. "We," he
said, "we survived that just fine, if you'll recall. It
was you that needed enough healing draughts to
float an ox." His massive hand clasped Kethol's just
for a moment. "So watch your own back, hero."
Pirojil lifted a finger to his massive sunken brow.
"Be well," he said. "You watch out for him, Erenor,
or you'll answer to me, and I can promise you that
you won't like the way I put the questions."
Kethol beckoned to Leria, then kicked his horse
into a canter, letting Erenor drive the unsaddled ones
ahead of him. It took her a few minutes to catch up
with him, at which point he let his horse drop back
into a walk. This was a race, yes, but it wasn't a
sprint.
She rode beside him, almost knee to knee. "Erenor
has this puzzled look on his face."

400
"Oh?"
She shook her head. "I think he sometimes prefers
not to look beneath the surface of things, don't you?"
Kethol shrugged. He didn't know what she meant,
but he didn't want to admit that out loud.
"I mean," she went on, "here Durine and Pirojil
are heading off to take on a barony by themselves,
and both of them warn him about not letting you get
hurt."
Kethol nodded. "Yes," he said, taking her
meaning. "I get the feeling he has never heard a man
say good-bye before."
Her lips pursed tightly. "I have," she said, "and
I've never much cared for it."

401
20 - Uneasy Lies the Head, Part II
he emperor of Holtun-Bieme dreamed of
rivers of blood coursing down his body,
leaving his soil dark and fouled.
Or was it his body? When had his body merged
with the rocks and trees and dirt of Bieme or
Holtun?
Armies, huge and tiny at the same time as they
could only be in a dream, fought up and down across
his chest. A troop of cavalry hid in the greenery of
the Prince's Woods, while a battalion of riflemen
crouched in the badlands near his left armpit.
Some waited in hiding, and some moved into
position, ready to attack or defend, but mostly they
cut and hacked at each other one-to-one. Their
battles raged up and down his land, doing only
minor damage to his body - a nick in the skin here, a
burned field there, an ache between his toes or some
mild injury to his streams - but mostly they bled, and
T

402
their blood soaked him to the bone, chilling him
thoroughly.
He had to remain still. He was the land, and if he
moved, if he turned over to brush aside the tiny
battling ones, he wouldn't crush just them, but the
others, hiding in their thatched huts or crouching
under siege in their tiny, delicate castles.
Perhaps if he moved slowly enough?
No.
To do anything, or to do nothing, it was all the
same. Blood coursed down him, and the cries of the
innocent fought with the clang of steel against steel,
with him knowing, every moment, that whatever he
did would make it worse, and if he did nothing that
would make it worse, too.
And, eventually, he would move. Some village set
afire on his kneecap would cause him to move
suddenly, shaking all loose, killing everyone.
Wait. There was a way.
It all stopped and went quiet. The battling armies
paused in their carnage, while the people crouching
behind castle walls or in their ragged huts stopped
shaking for just a moment and listened, waiting for
him to speak.

403
He knew how to stop it, suddenly, easily, with the
clarity that could only come in a dream. All he
would have to do was - Thomen sat up in bed with a
jerk. It was always the same. That was the way
dreams were for him. Just when he had the solution
to a problem, be it big or small, it would snap him
out of his sleep.
He threw off the light blankets that he'd chosen
against the chill night air, and got out of bed,
bending to turn up the small oil lantern he'd left
burning on the nightstand. He didn't like waking in a
totally dark room.
His nightshirt was cold and clammy against his
body. Well, sweat was better than blood, and even
real sweat was better than dreamed blood. He was
sweat-soaked all across his chest and back, where
the warring armies of his dreams had fought, and
when he felt the soft mattress, it was soaked through
in spots, too. No wonder his throat was painfully
dry.
His hand shook as he poured himself a mug of
water from the silver pitcher on his nightstand, and
only steadied after he drank it quickly, greedily, then
poured himself another and drank it more slowly.
His bladder was tight as a drum now, and while
there was a garderobe not twenty steps down the

404
hall, Thomen didn't like leaving his rooms at night.
His guards were always sleepy-eyed, and embarrassed
about that, as though Thomen was going to
report them to General Garavar for being tired in the
middle of the night.
But there was a thundermug on a stand behind a
screen at the far corner of the room, and he moved
through the darkness, the carpet soft beneath his
feet, found it, and relieved himself, carefully
directing the stream of urine against the inner side of
the mug to keep the sound down, just as he would
have if he hadn't been alone.
It would have been nice not to sleep alone so
often, but that was something he had to be careful
about. His mother had the bad habit of reshuffling
the upstairs maids if she suspected - accurately,
more often than not - that one or another warmed his
bed every now and then, and any show of favoritism
was guaranteed to cause some sort of trouble.
And not just among the house staff, either.
Who would have ever thought that being the
emperor would be so awfully lonely? he asked
himself once again.
Deven Tyrnael was probably his best friend
among the barons, but as Baron Tyrnael, his claim

405
to the throne and crown of Bieme was technically
better than Thomen's - and having Deven spend too
much time in Biemestren would be a signal to the
other barons that Thomen didn't trust him. Jason
Cullinane had abdicated the throne in Thomen' s
favor, and had the sense to stay away from the
capital except when called. And Thomen liked
Jason. There was some of his father in him.
He sighed. He was actually looking forward to
Parliament meeting, even though that was a dozen
tendays off. It wasn't just the barons; there would be
minor and major lords and ladies accompanying
them, and that would, at least, give him somebody
to talk to. And, no doubt, with the aid of General
Garavar's guards, some lovely young lady would be
allowed to sneak into the imperial bedrooms late
one night, in hopes of getting herself with the
emperor's child.
That, he had to admit, was fun. There were
benefits to being emperor, after all. Thomen
chuckled. It wasn't only a woman who could visit
the Spider, after all. Thomen didn't like to threaten -
just about the worst thing a ruler could be known for
was making any threat he didn't mean - but if
Keverel, the local Spider, ever let it out that the
emperor was seeing him to keep himself temporarily

406
infertile instead of treating a chronic shoulder ache,
he would live to regret it.
There would be an heir - his mother was right; he
ought to marry - but that would happen when he
decided on it, and not before. He had lost his father
and his older brother; he wanted the empire to be
more stable before he left any son of his open to
being orphaned so easily.
He stripped off his nightshirt, toweled off his
chest and underarms, tossed it toward a far corner of
the room, then shrugged into the soft robe he had
left draped across the foot of his bed.
Well, he could go alert the guard to get a maid to
change his blankets and sheets, but the new night
maid, while not particularly attractive, was
particularly good at seeing to his needs without
fawning over him all the time, and it took less time
for him to strip the bed and flip over the down
mattress, carefully checking the flintlock pistol that
he kept within reach.
It was unlikely, of course, if some assassin or
invader reached the donjon at all, much less got up
to the third floor and Thomen's rooms, that he would
still be asleep, or that one shot from a pistol would
make much of a difference, but Pirondael, the
former occupant of these rooms, had, after all, used

407
a hidden weapon to kill Thomen's father in just such
a circumstance.
The ancient chest at the foot of the bed provided a
change of pillows, sheet, and a fresh nightshirt, and
after another drink from the water pitcher and
another quick use of the thundermug, he slipped
back into bed.
Maybe he would have quiet dreams, for once.
That would be nice.
He pillowed his head on his hands, and closed his
eyes. The flickering of the lantern bothered him
now, so he blew it out, turned over, and fell asleep.
This time, thankfully, he didn't dream. Not
exactly. But his sleep was a cold, icy thing that
seemed to go on forever ...
... ended by the touch of a sword tip to his chest.
His eyes snapped open to see two dark shapes
looming over him. He started to reach for his hidden
pistol, but stopped himself: it was now sticking out
of Walter Slovotsky's belt, and it was Bren, Baron
Adahan, who was putting his sword away.
"Good evening, Your Majesty," Bren said, striking
a match and lighting the bedside lantern. The light

408
hurt Thomen's eyes, but it didn't seem that
complaining about that was the thing to do.
The thing to do was probably to shout for the
guards, but that would only turn an awkward and
annoying situation into a dangerous one. You could
always start a battle or a fight, but turning it off so
that it stayed off was another matter entirely. Walter
Slovotsky was an annoyance at times, a help at
others, but he and Bren Adahan were hardly here in
the middle of the night to assassinate Thomen, and if
Walter Slovotsky insisted on some grand gesture
rather than simply waiting for an audience in the
morning, well, Thomen would oblige him, and only
wish that he had arrived earlier, when his dreams
had been all red and sharp-edged.
"We've come about a couple of jobs," Walter
Slovotsky said. "I think you need a pair of special
representatives for difficult political problems. Care
to review my qualifications?"
It was all Thomen could do not to laugh. Moving
slowly - there was no need to get anybody excited –
he poured himself another mug of water. Maybe it
was just as well they hadn't woken him early; this
time his hand didn't shake. "I had thought I'd offered
you such a position not too long ago." That matter
over in Keranahan did need investigating, after all,

409
even though it sounded minor - but you could never
tell when some minor problem could flare up into
something worse, and Thomen had wanted Walter
Slovotsky to look into it. Well, no: Mother had
wanted Walter Slovotsky to look into it, and
Thomen hadn't seen any reason to overrule her.
Instead, as he could have, should have, predicted,
Slovotsky had ducked out in the middle of the night,
stealing Thomen's candelabra either just for practice
or to show that he could get past the guards.
Slovotsky shook his head. "No. I'm not talking
about running around playing catch every time your
mother finds something who likes to throw spears.
We may have other projects in the fire every now
and then."
"Seems likely. When things quiet down in
Pandathaway, I intend to kill whoever it is that sent
assassins after Kirah and her daughters," Bren said,
without heat, in the quiet way that a death sentence
is passed.
Thomen would have asked about that, but it could
wait: if any of Walter Slovotsky's family had been
harmed, he and Bren Adahan would not be standing
here casually chatting in the middle of the night, and
it wouldn't do for the emperor to advertise his
ignorance.

410
Bren Adahan raised a palm and nodded,
confirming Thomen's thoughts.
"Make that 'we intend' - but save the details for
later," Walter Slovotsky said. "We'll work for you,
not your mother; and that means we report to you,
and not to your mother."
"Whenever we want to," Bren put in. "Even in the
middle of the night."
Thomen tried not to laugh. "You seem to have
arranged that part of it already."
Theatrically - Slovotsky did everything
theatrically – he rubbed at the small of his back, as
though it was hurting him. Thomen was skeptical.
Not that he would have minded if Slovotsky was
hurting. There was something about the arrogance of
Walter Slovotsky's smile that made Thomen - even
though he really liked Slovotsky - often want to hit
him with a stick until he stopped smiling.
"I'm starting to get too old to be jumping in and
out of windows," Slovotsky said. "Next time I get to
walk in, through the door. Anytime, night or day.
That's for a starter."
"And?"

411
"And him." Slovotsky indicated the baron. "He
sits in for you when you're taking some time off."
"The Biemish barons will love that," Thomen said
sarcastically. Bieme had been on its way to not only
defeat but destruction during the war, and feelings
still ran hot and deep. Thomen shared some of those
feelings, but an emperor's feelings weren't allowed
to matter.
Walter Slovotsky shrugged. "I've been thinking
about that, and I've got a few ideas about how to
make them like it better."
"You do?" Slovotsky was always full of ideas. But
some of them might even work. Still, Thomen would
love to hear how a Holtish baron as his deputy
would work.
*Oh, I think the idea can be sold to them,*
sounded in his head.
Ellegon!
*I'd say 'At your service, Emperor,' but the fact is
that I spend more time than I'd like at your service as
it is.* There was a serious, almost accusing
undertone to the dragon's mental voice, but Thomen
didn't let it bother him. Thomen didn't really
understand why most people were so frightened of
the dragon.

412
*Well, there is the fact that I can bite people in
half or flame them to a crisp. Some folks are just
nervous about such things.*
"I do," Slovotsky went on, as though he hadn't
heard the dragon.
*Which he hadn't. He asked me to find a perch
nearby in case you decided not to take having your
sleep interrupted well. Finish with him, and we'll
talk.*
"In any case," Slovotsky went on, "you do take
some time off - all work and no play makes Thomen
a dull emperor. You need to spend more time with
your butt in a saddle and less with it in a throne.
Bren will keep the throne warm for you."
"And you?"
"I'll run important errands for you, with Bren
when he's available, but with whatever support I
think necessary: a few bodyguards, a troop from the
House Guard, or a baronial army. And a nice title -
imperial proctor, maybe. Something that suggests
it'd be real unhandy if anything were to happen to
me."
"I take it there's more."

413
"Sure. Our families live in the castle here, under
your protection, when we aren't based out of Little
Pittsburgh and Castle Adahan. They come and they
go as they please, with imperial troops for their
security, too." He turned to Bren. "What next?"
"Next, we need to arrange a divorce," Bren said.
"And a marriage, as well. Or is it two marriages?"
He looked over at Slovotsky.
"I haven't exactly asked her yet," Slovotsky said.
"I sort of figured I'd have to dispose of one wife
before I take on another one, eh?"
Bren laughed.
And, after a moment, so did Thomen. "Imperial
proctor, eh? Well, true enough, I could find some
work for you."
"Some work of noble note, eh?"
That was a strange way to put it. "Rather." What
am I going to say, I'll give you pointless jobs with
useless risks?
*He's going to be insufferable if he gets away
with this, you know. Sneaking into your rooms in
the middle of the night and then walking out the
front door like nothing's wrong?*

414
It was worse than that. Thomen would have to get
the door for the two of them and calm the guard, or
the alarm would be raised.
Which probably wouldn't have bothered Walter
Slovotsky a whole lot, but Walter Slovotsky
probably didn't care if anybody got a good night's
sleep. He probably slept easily, softly, happily every
night, and most times with some new female
companion.
*And would you trade places with him?*
It was all Thomen could do not to snort. No, he
thought. Being emperor is my responsibility. You
can't just give away a responsibility.
*I know.*
Thomen smiled. "One thing, though?"
"Yes?"
"I don't care where it is," he said firmly, as though
the whole deal depended on Slovotsky's agreement,
"or what happened to it, but I want my candelabra
back. Soon."
Slovotsky pursed his lips. "Done."
Thomen walked to the door, and opened it slowly,
carefully.

415
Outside, the guard across the hall leaped to
attention. He had been leaning against the wall,
which was the sort of thing that General Garavar
objected to but never bothered Thomen.
"Your - "
"Shh." Thomen held up a hand, then beckoned to
Walter Slovotsky and Bren Adahan. "Would you
call for your replacement, and make sure these two
don't get themselves killed by some overeager
guard?"
"But - "
"Please." It took him a moment to realize that he
wasn't going to remember the guard's name, and that
was embarrassing. "I'm not sure you've been
introduced," Thomen said, gesturing at Bren Adahan
and ignoring Walter Slovotsky's knowing smile.
*He only is good at women's names, so he's got
no reason to smirk.*
The baron drew himself up straight. "Bren, Baron
Adahan," he said, "greets you."
The burly soldier was fighting to keep his
composure. Even a trooper assigned to the house
didn't expect to be treated as a human being by
nobility, and what was supposed to have been a

416
quiet shift in the middle of the night outside the
emperor's quarters had just turned strange. Soldiers
didn't like strange. "Palton, son of Palton," the guard
said. "I am at your service, Lord Baron."
Walter Slovotsky stuck out a hand, as though
offering to seal a bargain. Palton took it. "Walter
Slovotsky, son of Stash and Emma. I'm the new
imperial proctor," he said. "And it's my job and
privilege to get in to see his imperial muchness
whenever I want to, so you don't need to concern
yourself with how the baron and I slipped by you."
Home soldiers weren't necessarily the brightest of
men; loyalty and skill were a higher priority. It
clearly hadn't occurred to Palton that he had failed,
somehow.
Thomen nodded, and reached for the thin bell
rope, the one that rang down in the servants'
quarters. If he was going to summon some guards, it
was best to have one of the servitors do it, because
ringing the guard bell would get a troop of heavily
armed soldiers up here spoiling for a fight that
nobody wanted. There would be time enough in the
morning to issue the proper orders. And deal with
Mother. That would be the difficult part, but -
enough for one night.
The emperor returned to his rooms.

417
Outside, Ellegon perched on the far wall of the
inner keep. In the flickering light of the blazing
torches that lined the walls, a few of the younger
soldiers stood and stared, although the senior ones
had seen a dragon before, and knew the value of a
good night's sleep.
"Enjoying scaring the young ones?" Thomen
asked. His voice was quiet, barely above a whisper,
but the dragon wasn't listening to his voice.
They wouldn't be the only ones scared.* The
dragon's broad wings curled and uncurled. Things
got a little... scary at Castle Cullinane while I was
gone. A team of assassins made a try for the
family.*
Thomen nodded. That explained a lot about
tonight, and about his visitors. Trust Walter
Slovotsky to do himself a favor while explaining to
Thomen that he was doing the emperor and the
empire one.
They all handled it well enough, but.. .*
"But it made you nervous." The dragon had a
strong affection for the Cullinane family.
*Next time you're chained in a sewer for a few
centuries, you let me know how you feel about the
family of the man that freed you.*

418
Point taken.
The dragon stretched his long neck, and sent a
gout of flame skyward. *I have some business in
Home to deal with, but after that, I think I'll want to
spend some time around here for a while. If that's
okay.*
Thomen grinned. "You should probably take that
up with Baron Adahan. As I understand it, he's
going to be holding my throne down for me while I
go hunting." Thomen couldn't remember the last
time he'd taken a bow and a quiver and gone in
search of rabbit, much less of deer. When he had
been an imperial judge, he had made time for
hunting and riding, and even when he had been
regent he still had managed to get away
occasionally.
The dragon snorted flame. *You'll be a good long
while setting that up, Emperor. By Parliament,
maybe. If you're lucky.*
That was true enough. But it would be nice to get
away every now and then. Kiar and Nyphien were
making threatening noises, and the preference of
many of the barons to simply blame them for some
of the border incidents and launch at least a punitive
attack if not simply to try to conquer the rest of the
Middle Lands -

419
*You could count on my lack of support for that,*
Ellegon said.
Thomen pounded a fist on the stone wall. "I don't
want any wars. I've seen enough of them for one
lifetime, and I thought after the Holtun-Bieme war,
things would stay quiet."
*Yes, you did. Because you were a child. There
are always fires to be pissed on, and some of them
have to be pissed on from the very top.* The dragon
lifted its rear leg as though to demonstrate, but
desisted at Thomen's grimace. The emperor had
been downwind from that once, and it had been just
about the worst smell he'd ever had.
*Ingratitude, thy name is human. After all I've
done for you.*
And the dragon had indeed done a lot, particularly
in keeping the Biemish barons in line.
*Well, the threat that anybody who acted up
would have a few tons of fire-breathing dragon
landing on top of them tends to make folks think
twice.*
Well, yes, there was that, and it was accident that
the imperial seal was that of a dragon rampant,
breathing fire -

420
*I blush.*
- but it would be easy to overestimate that.
Ellegon had been of inestimable help back during
the war, but the war had gone on nonetheless.
*Yes, it had. And it could happen again,* the
dragon said, stretching out its wings as it leaped
skyward with a flurry of wings that sent dust flying
from the parade ground even up to the emperor's
window. *But do your best, O Emperor, and let's
hope that best is good enough.*
Thomen Furnael, emperor of Holtun-Bieme,
wiped the dust from his eyes, drank a last mug of
water, and returned to his bed.
This time, his sleep was all warm and dreamless.

421
21 - Miron
his newfound equality was one thing, but the
thin, mocking smile that never quite left
Erenor's lips made Kethol want to grab the
front of the wizard's tunic and slap his face into the
next barony.
"Kethol?" Leria caught up with him once more,
easily matching her horse's speed to his. Truth to
tell, she was a better rider than he was - which was
understandable: years of recreational riding probably
gave you better control over not only the horse but
of your own muscles than the kind of riding you got
while soldiering, which consisted more often than
not of just sitting on the back of a slowly plodding
horse.
The notion that soldiers were somehow great
horsemen was something peasants were more easily
persuaded of than anybody else was.
T

422
"Yes, Lady - I mean yes, Lerian." He couldn't
quite meet her eyes. He wasn't sure why. Or maybe
it was that he was sure why, and didn't dare even
explain to himself why an ordinary pair of strangely
warm blue eyes could make it difficult for him to
think clearly.
"When we reach Horsten?"
"Yes?"
"Do you think we can look for one of the baron's
men? I mean, Horsten is, I mean it now is, part of
Barony Adahan, and we should - "
"Should." That was a word that always decided it
for Kethol. Since when did should have anything to
do with anything? No, he would go with what Pirojil
and Durine had said, and if that was overly cautious,
perhaps Kethol could be overly cautious for once.
Erenor dropped back to join them. "I hope you'll
notice," he said, punctuating a sniff with a wave of
his hand, "the tendency of horses to wander off on
their own when not properly attended."
Actually, Kethol had noticed no such thing. The
horses - the dray horses in particular - tended to
follow each other, particularly when the big brown
gelding that Leria was riding was in the lead. He'd
known a drover, years ago, who always believed in

423
riding a stallion, knowing that the mares and
geldings would follow. Of course, the drover had
died one day when he wasn't paying quite enough
attention and his stallion had gotten a sniff of
something and suddenly lunged into full gallop. If
he had been alert enough to spring out of the saddle,
he would have come away with no worse than a few
scrapes and maybe a broken bone or two, but he
hadn't. And he hadn't been alert enough to cling for
dear life, which might have worked. Instead, he had
half fallen, dragged along rocky ground by one
imprisoned ankle long after he was dead.
Pirojil had a point about how sometimes it was
better to not do something at all than only half do it.
But that probably wasn't what this was all about
anyway, so he didn't say that.
"Then gather them together," Kethol said, "and
bring up the rear."
When they rounded the bend of the road ahead,
Leria was the first to notice the flag fluttering from
the pole on the far hilltop. "Look," she said, one slim
finger pointing in an elegant way that Kethol wanted
to correct but didn't quite know how, "somebody is
trying to get our attention."

424
Kethol would have noticed the flag in just another
moment or two. Off in the distance he could barely
see a blocky figure - a man, although he could only
tell that by the way sunlight gleamed on his bald
head. The flag was not the red of distress or the
white of surrender, but blue, and while Kethol
couldn't make out the symbol on it, he was sure that
when they got closer it would be the imperial
dragon, which, technically, made this a call to
parley, but which in practice made it a call to trade.
What else would a farmer want to parley about?
Erenor rode back up, his horse not quite at the
canter, but verging on it. He raised a palm to
forestall - what?
"Ta havath," he said. "Ta havath, Kethol. There's
no problem here."
Well, yes, there was a problem here, and Kethol
was talking to it. "What are you talking about?"
"The flag. Technically, I know, it's a call to parley.
But if you were a landowner, and you saw three ...
men riding down the road driving what would
appear to be trade horses, you'd probably want to
make a call to parley, too. If only - "
"If only to see if there was some advantage to be
taken," Kethol said. "After all, somebody who has

425
horses, and is looking to sell them, probably wants
money. And if he wants money very badly, it may
be that there is to be some horseflesh bought for too
little coin."
Kethol kept the words level and even, or at least
tried to. Regardless of how Pirojil and Durine
sometimes treated him, he was not a gibbering,
capering, drooling idiot, not always looking to find a
problem that could only be solved with a blade or a
bullet. He had even been known to, from time to
time, solve a problem with an insight or two, hard
though that was to believe.
'Too little? Well, we couldn't have that," Erenor
said. 'Too little, and he'd wonder why we sold so
cheaply, and perhaps if there was a reward on our
heads for stolen horses."
Leria's grin would have irritated him if her eyes
weren't smiling, too. "Perhaps, Erenor, wisest of
employers," she said, "hostler among hostlers, it
would be sensible of you to simply go and parley
with him?"
Erenor's mouth twisted into a thoughtful frown.
"No," he said after a moment. 'That makes us seem
too eager - that makes me seem too eager." He
dismissed Kethol with a flip of his hand. "Go and
see what he wants, if you please."

426
It made sense. And it made sense not to stand
here, wasting daylight, leaving the people up the hill
wondering why it was taking so long for these horse
traders to begin horse trading, and it made sense not
to stand here arguing with his putative employer, but
it still felt as if Erenor had, once again, managed to
put something over on somebody, and Kethol didn't
much like that feeling.
He tugged on the reins and gave a firm twitch of
his heels. Master Sanders - he insisted that he had
earned the title during his years as a blacksmith,
before he had sold his smithy in a Tyrnaelian village
to buy farmland in Neranahan and hire some
displaced peasants to work it for him - ran knowing
hands up and down the dray horse's withers, then
fastened blunt fingers tightly around its lead rope
before giving it a solid thwack on the side that
would have stunned a strong man but barely caused
the horse to twitch.
He was a big man, built like a brick, bis skin
permanently burned and reddened from the sun to
such an extent that his bald head looked as if it had
been scorched clean.
He had dismissed his eldest son - a younger, not
quite as bald version of himself - and two of the
farmworkers, sending them off to do some job on

427
the other side of the long wattle-and-daub house.
Two men, sweating in the sun, were busying
themselves rethatching the roof, but they were well
out of earshot; it seemed that Master Sanders liked
to do his trading without an audience. Kethol tried to
decide whether that was because he was afraid that
others would think he'd been taken advantage of or
because he was afraid that another's expression
would give some advantage away, and decided that
it could easily be both, or neither.
"Not a bad animal, Trader, not a bad animal at
all," Master Sanders said, giving the lead rope a
quick twist around the hitching pole. He stepped
back into the shade of the stable, beckoning Erenor
and Kethol to follow. "Seven, eight years old, eh?"
The stable had originally been a well house, which
Sanders had expanded into a smithy and a stable,
although Kethol couldn't tell in which order. Not a
bad idea - it kept a source of water close to both
animals and forge.
"Five," Erenor said. "Five years old. No more."
"Naturally," Sanders said. "Five very long years,
eh?" His fingers traced their way through the wear
marks on its hide. "Spent more time pulling a
carriage or a wagon than a plow, but I've never
found a horse I couldn't teach to walk a straight line,

428
though a time or two there's been some question as
to whether its stubbornness or my hand would break
first." He rubbed the back of his hand against his
sweaty brow. "If that gray mare and the big brown
gelding are the same sort of five-year-olds, I think
we can do some business, if you don't want to hold
out for the three silver marks you'd get in New
Pittsburgh."
"It would be at least five in New Pittsburgh,"
Erenor said. "But I'd thought we'd try Adahan itself
first, and see if there's any interest there - I've been
told the Baron Adahan himself has a fine eye for
horses, and I'd thought we'd be able to get a good
price from his factor."
Sanders chuckled. "I heard that the baron has a
fine eye for many things, horses and friends' wives
among them, but I've never heard that he has a great
interest in dray stock or hard-worked gelding plow
horses. Of course, if he's found a way to breed
geldings, then we'll all be in his debt."
Master Sanders laughed too loudly at his own
joke. He was the sort who would.
Erenor laughed along, although Kethol didn't.
Sanders and Erenor got down to some serious
haggling, while Kethol looked out over the fields.

429
Leria - no, Lerian, he reminded himself - had
dismounted, and had the horses grazing on a grassy
plot down near the fence, gently switching at the
little roan, her alternate mount, who tended to stray
if not watched carefully. There was just a touch of
sway in her hips as she moved, but Kethol was
looking for that.
Off in the distance, a quartet of shirtless, sunbrowned
men worked their way down the green
rows, stooping with every step to pick weeds.
Sanders had the right idea - if you were going to be a
farmer, best to own the land and have others work it
for you. Smithing, carpentry, butchering, and all the
other work involved in running a farm were bad
enough, but could there be anything worse than
spending your days stooped over in the hot sun, far
from the coolness of the green woods?
Well, yes, there could be many worse things. But
not many of them were part of the day-to-day life of
a farmer.
"The day gets no shorter," Sanders said, "and
there's no better place to make camp between here
and Horsten. I'll put the three of you and your
animals up for the night - my guesting room for you;
a warm stable to sleep in for your men; hay, oats,
and fresh water for the animals; beer and stew for

430
the humans - for the sake of the deal, if you'll not
hold out for such a ridiculous price."
That would have been a good deal for three roadweary
drovers, but it was a danger for the three of
them. Leria's disguise would hold up from a
distance, but close-up would be another matter.
Erenor apparently agreed; he shook his head.
"Well, a ridiculous price it may be; I've been thought
ridiculous before," he said. "I think we can get better
than five for the mottled mare and the brown,
although I'll settle for five for this gelding. We'd best
be moving on, then."
"Is there some reason to hurry?" Sanders asked.
"Young Baron Adahan is on his deathbed, is he?
And he wishes to buy some nonbreeding stock
before he closes his eyes for the last time?"
Erenor smiled. "Of course not."
"Then why such unseemly haste, when there's
food, rest, and a fair price here?"
"Food and rest, perhaps, but as to the price... We'd
be happy to accept your generosity, provided you'll
come to a full four marks for the gelding. Five for
each of the others. Shall I have Lerian bring them up
for your inspection?"

431
Sanders rubbed a thick hand against bis chin. "No,
no, I'll go the four marks, but I'll not buy these sort
of five-year-olds for five. Four for this big one; a
bargain it is, then." Sanders held out his hand, and
after a moment, Erenor slapped his palm in
agreement
Kethol could easily have been wrong, but he
figured that Sanders felt he was short only one
horse, and wouldn't have bought the others unless
the price was low, but not suspiciously low.
Probably some overaged, swaybacked plow horse
had finally keeled over and died, and Sanders was
eager to replace it, preferably by dealing with
somebody who wouldn't know his situation and
might set a low price on one horse for the sake of
trying to get several sold.
Erenor and Sanders sealed the bargain with a
quick drink from a brown clay bottle that Sanders
took down from a shelf over near the forge. Sanders
took a second sip, then passed the bottle to Kethol. It
was a soured wine, but fruity for all that, and it
washed the taste of road dust from Kethol's mouth.
"Now, bring up this Lerian of yours - a fine name
for a simple drover, eh? - and let us drink with him,"
Sanders said to Kethol. "I've never had a man

432
sleeping under my roof I haven't drunk with, and I'm
too old to change and too stubborn to try."
Kethol opened his mouth to say something - he
wasn't sure quite what - when Erenor spoke up.
"I'll go and get him," he said, handing his reins
over to Sanders. "Kethol, unsaddle and water our
saddle horses - they've had a long enough day as it
is."
Sanders accepted the reins with a nod, and led the
horse into the dark of the stable. Kethol followed.
There didn't seem to be anything better to do. Maybe
Leria's disguise would hold up, or maybe ...
No, maybe it Wouldn't need to.
Erenor returned in a few moments with a big,
brawny man astride a little roan, leading the rest of
the horses.
"Good day to you, Master Sanders," the brawny
man said in a deep basso rumble that had the pitch
of Durine's voice but the rhythm of Leria's speech.
"My name is Lerian. I'm told you have a bottle of
wine waiting for me."
Erenor smiled genially at Kethol, no trace of a
boast on his face. "I should have warned Master

433
Sanders about Lerian's capacity, but, after all, he
insisted."
Kethol grinned back. This just might work.
The night spread out all inky in front of him, lit only
by black gashes in the not-quite-black clouds that let
some stars sparkle through, and by the distant pulse
of a trio of Faerie lights that, for whatever reason,
had taken up a position at the turnoff down the road,
as though they had been assigned to light the way of
somebody, something.
There was something about the night that appealed
to Kethol. It was like a dark blanket that could cover
and warm you, and once you learned its ways, it was
a friend.
Not a particularly good friend, mind, but life was
like that. You didn't get many good friends.
He leaned against the doorframe, easily two
manheights above the packed dirt below. There were
lots of things he liked about sleeping in a stable's
hayloft, and this wasn't the first time in his life he
had found this sort of shelter. The wind was
refreshing, and the animals below stood guard for
you, as long as you had enough presence of mind to
tell a warning whicker from an ordinary snort in

434
your sleep, and Kethol figured he could probably do
that dead.
Yes, there was the occasional rat scurrying about -
but if you hung your bags from a rafter, a spare
blanket folded properly about them, they would
usually leave your food alone, and if one or two
happened to be careless enough to get near you, a
sudden swipe of your sword would leave a body
rotting as a warning to the others.
Not necessarily a warning they would heed, but
you couldn't have everything. If your friends didn't
listen to your warnings, then how could you expect
rats to?
Erenor had been put up in the house - which was
nice; the wizard's arrogance was getting on Kethol's
nerves, and his having been right and useful of late
somehow made that worse, not better.
The trouble was that that left Kethol alone with
Leria, who had taken his advice and wrapped herself
in a thick blanket, then burrowed her way into a pile
of hay.
It was hard to sleep. It had been too long since
he'd had a whore, and that only went so far. Not that
he had any right to complain about his present
conditions. Kethol wondered what Durine and

435
Pirojil were doing now, and decided that they were
unlikely to be sleeping in a nice warm stable, their
bellies warmed with fresh stew and their heads
slightly abuzz with sour beer.
They were also unlikely to be headed anywhere
warm and safe, like Biemestren.
It was clear what he would have to do, although
how to do it was the problem. Kethol had never been
much for talking people into doing things. Not even
his brothers in arms. He did what he had to, when he
had to, and hoped that they would back him up.
But how he could persuade the dowager empress
of anything? The only reason he could even get that
close to the imperial family was because he was
ordered to report to her - and would she possibly
agree to set up an audience with the emperor? He
might as well ask to see the matriarch of the Healing
Hand.
But Lady Doria would listen to him, and she had
some influence.
There was something going on in Neranahan,
something that needed investigating, and she would
see that. If she could persuade, say, Walter
Slovotsky, he could persuade Ellegon, and they
could take a squad into the hills north of the baronial

436
estate and find out just what it was that the baroness
was hiding there.
A light touch was called for; that much was clear.
Kethol didn't know much about politics, but he
knew that you couldn't just ride an army of
horsemen onto a baron's estate without some good
reason, not without making all the other barons -
Holtish and Biemish alike - nervous.
A light touch wasn't Kethol's specialty, and even
asking for one was not. It should have been Piro
who would bring Leria to court. Pirojil was probably
the ugliest man Kethol had ever known, but his
mind was clear and sharp, and he didn't let his
tongue or his reflexes overrule his good sense.
As Kethol had in Riverforks.
But what should he have done? Let those three
toughs rape that girl, and just stand there and listen?
The Old Emperor wouldn't have. The Old
Emperor would have killed the lot of them for
daring to lay their hands on an unwilling woman.
Shit. He could almost hear Pirojil say it: You
aren't the Old Emperor.

437
Truth to tell, the Old Emperor wasn't the
invulnerable, all-powerful Old Emperor of legend -
his last heroics got him killed, after all.
But everybody dies sometime, Pirojil, he thought.
It's a question of what you're doing when it happens,
more than anything else.
He heard her move behind him.
"You should be sleeping," she said, her voice low.
"I probably should." He didn't turn. She was
wearing a loose cotton tunic as a sleeping dress, and
he knew he would gawk and stare if he let his eyes
fall on her.
"If you think we need to set a watch," she said,
"it's probably my turn."
He shook his head. "No." He gave a practice
thump of his heel on the floor, rewarded by a
shuffling of hooves and quiet neighing below.
"We've good enough watchers on duty."
It was hard enough talking to her without looking
at her.
There was something in her eyes, something in her
smile, something in the way she held herself that
made it hard to breathe. It wasn't that the only
women Kethol was ever around were smelly whores,

438
because they weren't; he had spent much time
guarding Andrea Cullinane and her daughter, as well
as Kirah, wife of Walter Slovotsky, and their
daughter, Jane.
The Cullinane and Slovotsky women were
attractive - very attractive - but, well, he was their
man. That made them, if not any more untouchable
in law - it would already be worth his life to so much
as lay an unwanted finger on any noblewoman -
more akin to family, maybe.
Or maybe it made him a trusted pet and them his
owner.
If so, he was comfortable with that.
Leria made him uncomfortable. Even after days on
the road, under the dirt and sweat she somehow felt
and smelled - even though he wasn't close enough to
touch or smell her - of soap and flowers, of
cleanliness and warmth on a cold night, of the
friendly green coolness of the woods on a hot day.
And he could no more reach out and touch that
than he could reach out and touch the Faerie lights.
She wasn't a girl; she was a lady, and whether he
was a woodsman or a soldier, she was far above
him, out of reach. If he touched her, would it all

439
burst like a soap bubble? Or, more likely, would she
scream and claw at his face?
The pain wouldn't be important - pain? what was
pain? - but the betrayal would be.
And which betrayal would that be?
And of whom?
He more felt than saw her move next to him. "It's
a pretty night," she said.
He swallowed heavily, nodded. "Yes, Lady, that it
is."
Steely fingers gripped his shoulder, and pulled.
She didn't have the strength to move him, but it was
all he could do to simply let himself turn, to not
break her grip with a sweep of one arm while the
other sought the hilt of his dagger. "What is it with
you?" she asked. "Is it that I'm Euar'den? I'm used to
that"
"Eh?" He turned to face her. If he hadn't known
that her eyes were blue, the warm blue of the
morning sky, he wouldn't have been able to tell. But
even in the dim light of the stars and the Faerie
lights, her eyes seemed to bum into his.

440
"Is that why you treat me like I'm some ... some
thing?" she asked. "Or is it that you so resent being
sent out to rescue me, the way the others do?"
Kethol didn't have the slightest idea what she was
getting at, but he sensed that admitting that would
only infuriate her more, although why she was angry
in the first place he just didn't know. "I... we don't
resent you at all. It's not a soldier's job to resent,
anyway. We just go where we're told and do what
we're told."
"So it's just another job to you," she said. If her
voice had been any more flat and level, it would
have sounded inhuman. "And such an unimportant
one, at that, rescuing a spoiled noble girl from an
unwanted marriage. How very trivial a task for
somebody who accompanied the Old Emperor on
his Last Ride."
"Lady," he said, "I - we - don't mind trivial, easy
little tasks. Of course, when half the barony is out
looking for us, wanting a carriageful of gold that we
don't even have, it's not easy."
For a moment, he didn't know how it would go.
But then her hand dropped from his shoulder, and
she laughed, quietly, a distant sound of silver bells.
"I guess it isn't all that easy, at that," she said. "Is
that why the three of you resent me so?"

441
Kethol wished Pirojil was here. Piro was good at
explaining things. "No," he finally said. "Oh, I think
Durine probably gets angry every time you shudder
when you look at Piro; you'd think we'd be used to
that by now as we are to his face. And Durine has
always wanted something big and dramatic to die
for, maybe. Me, I'm a simple sort. I go where I'm
told, and I do what I'm told to do, and I worry a lot
more about how than why." Not that he was all that
good at figuring out how. But maybe he was good
enough.
"And that's all you want," she more said than
asked. "Just to go where you're told and do what
you're told to do? That's all?"
Now it was his turn to chuckle. But the sound
rattled in his throat like dry bones. "I guess it all
depends on who's doing the telling. The Old
Emperor once told us to ride along with him, and
even though the ride was likely to be in only one
direction, a lot of us went smiling. The dowager
empress told us to go straighten out just a small
problem in a small barony, and I don't think any of
us is going to be smiling about it."
"But it's not me," she said. "You don't blame me
for all this."

442
It hadn't occurred to him to blame her, or that she
could possibly care whether or not any of the three
of them blamed her. They were just soldiers, after
all, and she was a lady. And a lady no more cared
for the opinions of soldiers than soldiers cared for
the opinions of their horses. Of course, it mattered a
great deal whether or not the horse, or the soldier,
responded to orders, kept a steady pace, or was
liable to lie down and die instead of slogging on, but
the feelings, the opinions?
"Of course not." For that matter - and despite the
fact that he would have loved to get her wrinkled
neck between his hands - he really didn't blame the
dowager empress. She owed no loyalty to three
Cullinane family retainers, three men who would
happily slit open an imperial belly to warm the
chilled feet of the least of the Cullinanes.
Maybe he should have said this all to Leria. But it
would be impertinent to explain to her something
she knew very well: that he was a different sort of
person than she was, and that he didn't really expect
her to even acknowledge him as a person, even
though her smile warmed him deeper and better than
a mug of hot, mulled wine.
He was just a soldier, after all.

443
She took a tentative step closer to him, and he
could feel her warm breath against his neck. "And
my being Euar'den doesn't mean anything to you?"
His hands started to reach for her, and then they
dropped. "Lady Leria, the wars among the old clans
and septs just don't mean much of a muchness to a
simple soldier from another country."
"I'm not some untouchable prize, then?"
"No. Or yes." But not because of her ancestry. He
was just a soldier, and she was a lady, but he was
made of flesh and bone, not of steel and stone, and
he reached out and took her in his arms.
Her mouth was warm and soft on his for a long
moment, until she pushed back from him, her hands
clenched into fists, a quiet "no," issuing from
between her lips.
He raised his palms in a gesture of surrender. "My
apologies, Lady," he said. "I..."
She looked at him, wide-eyed, and fled back into
the darkness.
Kethol didn't know what it was that he was
supposed to do. Was he supposed to go after her?
Didn't she understand that his kind just didn't do
that? He could still feel the warmth of her lips on

444
his, the taste of her tongue in his mouth, the
nearness of her body pressed up against his - but she
had said no, and she was a lady, and he had no right
to so much as lay a finger on the hem of her
garment.
When there was nothing to say, Kethol thought,
perhaps it was best to say nothing.
He lay down, his back to her, and pretended to fall
asleep. The golden light of predawn beat down on
Kethol's eyelids; he stretched and yawned silently.
He had slept, finally; the pretense had turned real.
It was an old woodsman's trick, to position
yourself with a clear horizon to the east. You could
sleep better that way, knowing that the morning sun
was your ally, that even before sunrise, anybody or
anything moving to the east of you might cast a
shadow across your face.
It wasn't perfect, of course. Somebody could still
sneak up silently behind you and slit your throat
before you ever woke up. But even a woodsman or a
soldier had to sleep sometime, and if the night was
your friend, the sun could be one, too, if not as loyal
and valuable.
Or maybe it wasn't the sun. A distant clopping of
horses' hooves came to his ears on the morning

445
breeze. At least three; maybe as many as five. Given
enough time, he could sort it out by hearing; but he
crept slowly, carefully, toward the opening, keeping
himself in shadow.
It was Miron and his four men. Somehow they had
tracked them down here.
Running would be hopeless. Even if they could
saddle their horses and make their way out the other
side of the stable, there was no way the two of them
could evade pursuit for long. It was possible,
perhaps, that Kethol could draw them away and let
Leria and Erenor escape while Miron hunted him
down. And he might be able to make that last a good
long while, if he could get past them to the woods.
But, no, that was hopeless. Erenor wasn't here; he
was in the main house, guest of Sanders, and the sort
of quick coordination that was needed just wasn't
possible, not here and now.
There was another possibility.
Kethol's hands were already reaching for his bow;
he strung it quickly, automatically, then took a
handful of arrows and stuck them, point first, into
the wood beside the door. Putting an arrow through
each of the riders before any of them noticed was
beyond any one archer's abilities, but perhaps if he

446
nailed Miron and one or two others, the remaining
men would flee and find themselves more afraid of
what Baroness Elanee would do to them for having
failed than they would be eager to hunt down Leria.
After all, if anybody knew better than to believe the
story about the large gold dowry being guarded by
just three men, it would be Miron, who was
probably the source of it.
He would have to take them all down now, get
Leria and Erenor, and make their escape into Barony
Adahan before anybody could raise a cry. And a cry
would be raised. Rumors about a carriage overladen
with a dowry in gold had already drawn some
attention, but that attention, while widespread, was
private, not official.
A hostler and a couple of drovers could hardly
murder a lord, a baron-to-be, and expect that the
local folks would simply bury them in an unmarked
grave. Imperial law was firm on matters such as the
murder of nobility, and it was enforced by imperial
troops when village wardens and armsmen and
baronial soldiers weren't up to the task. Pirojil and
Durine had the imperial warrant, and its only
purpose was to threaten a Keranahan subject; it
didn't give Kethol license to go about killing a
baron-to-be and his soldiers right and left.

447
But he was best off forgetting about all that.
Concentrate on the here and now, because the here
and now was bad enough.
His fingers trembled ever so slightly as he nocked
his first arrow. It wasn't going to work. The Old
Emperor might have been able to take on five at
once and drop them all, but Kethol doubted that.
Kethol certainly couldn't. But that wouldn't excuse
him from trying.
Miron gestured to the stocky man who rode beside
him, who immediately dismounted and headed up
the path toward the house.
If it was going to be done at all, now was the time,
before they were any further spread out.
Kethol took a half-step back as he nocked the first
arrow and drew the string back to his cheek. Miron
first, then -
"A good morning to you," a deep voice boomed
out, "Lord and minion alike."
Kethol let his point drop, and relaxed his arm. Six,
now, with Sanders joining them? And what about
the others? That ruined even the slim possibility of
fighting his way out.
Too many witnesses ...

448
Well, he had known this day would come, sooner
or later. It was time to do his best to take them off
Leria's trail while they ran him to ground.
He walked back into the hayloft, toward where
Leria lay, wrapped in light white blankets like a
shroud on a corpse. One hand fastened over her
mouth, while the other clutched her shoulder to
shake her awake.
Her eyes snapped open, but surprisingly she didn't
try to scream around his hand. He let it drop.
"Miron and his companions are here," he said, his
voice a hoarse whisper. "They're talking to Sanders
right now. They're going to be asking about
travelers, and Sanders isn't going to want to make
any trouble for them. The question is what you want
to do."
Her hair was all mussed and laden with straw, and
there was an entirely unladylike trickle of drool at
the side of her full mouth. "What do you mean?"
It was ridiculous that a soldier should be lecturing
a lady about politics. "If Miron rescues you from me
and brings you home safely, he's a hero, and I'm a
dead man. And he's a clever one; he might go for it.
Erenor and I have been holding you captive,
planning to ransom you, perhaps, which is where all

449
this story about gold came from. He kills the two of
us, and returns home triumphantly, to your gratitude."
She would have to marry Miron, probably;
but he was a handsome enough, clever enough man,
and hopefully he would treat her gently.
And with worms eating his flesh, Kethol wouldn't
miss her warm mouth on his, wouldn't find the
nearness of her body both -
No.
Hopefully Durine and Pirojil would hear about it
in time to abandon their plans, whatever they were -
Kethol hadn't wanted to know any more than he had
to know.
"No," she said. "I'll turn myself over to him. And
tell him that you're gone, the lot of you."
Miron would never believe that. Kethol didn't
have to say that; his expression said it for him.
"No, but he'll pretend to," she said urgently.
"Miron's clever. He'll understand what the ...
arrangement is," she said. She stood and turned
away from him, and as she reached up to the rafters
where she had hung her mannish tunic and leggings,
she dropped the shift she'd slept in to her ankles.

450
Kethol had never seen a woman naked in the
daylight, not ever. It wasn't the same as with a
whore in a dimly lit room, urging him to finish so
that she could get on to the next one. It wasn't even
the same as a peasant's daughter or two that he had
managed to have over the years.
It was all he could do to turn away, blushing, as he
heard her dress quickly, knowing that she had
distracted him from what was his duty, his
responsibility, and that she'd done it neatly, in a way
he couldn't defend himself from.
There wasn't time for arguing or discussion. And
perhaps that was the best chance she had. Miron and
his men could do a better job of protecting her than
Kethol could, and if the price of that was Leria
herself, well, it was up to her, not him.
There was another possibility. He could let them
take her, and then follow them. One against five was
horrible odds, yes, but perhaps he could take them
by surprise.
And perhaps he could piss on a forest fire and put
it out.
No. When they came up the ladder to the hayloft,
he would kill as many as he could before they killed
him. He had been told by the Cullinane regent to

451
bring her to Biemestren safely, and since he could
not do that, he would die trying.
With, at least, the remembrance of the warmth of
her mouth ... A long iron pole ran through loose
brackets on the overhead beams. It was a common
enough arrangement for a hayloft - a rope would be
threaded through the loop at the end of the pole, tied
to bales of hay below, and used to pull the bales up
to the loft. It didn't protect it from the rats. Rats
could find their way through anything. They could
tunnel up through walls, climb columns, and
probably walk upside-down on the ceilings, or even
climb up spiderwebs, for all Kethol knew.
But it did keep the hay off the ground and out of
the damp, and made delivering it to the various stalls
below just a matter of dropping it down through any
of the several openings in the ceiling.
It was a common enough arrangement, and Kethol
remembered seeing children playing on something
like it once, one rainy afternoon: they had extended
the pole out as far as it would go, then they would
swing out on the rope, trying to make their way to
the crooked limb of an old oak that was barely
within reach, with a running start.
Then and there, there had been an unoccupied
pigsty in between, and the boys who missed could

452
count on falling into the soft, wet, smelly ground,
and Kethol wasn't sure whether the risk or the
actuality of it was the fun.
Here, there was no old oak, and no sty - but there
was a rope, and it would be possible to wrap a piece
of leather around the rope to protect his hands for
the moment, then slide down it and come up behind
them.
It wasn't as good a plan as the three of them could
have come up with, but it was the best Kethol could
do on such short notice, and it should get him at
least two of them, maybe three: skewer the first one
up the ladder, then kick him away, letting him fall
and distract the others. Then slide down the rope,
and come up behind them.
His brace of pistols were wrapped in oiled skins in
his saddlebags. If there had been more time he
would have reprimed the pans and made sure the
touchhole was clear, but there wasn't, so all he could
do was uncover the frizzens and bring them safely to
the half-cock. Kethol was a lousy pistol shot - a
pistol had no life to it, not a like a bow - but at the
range where you could smell the onions on your
enemy's breath, you didn't have to be a good shot,
and the noise just might buy him some time to ... to
give a good accounting of himself before they

453
brought him down. He probably wouldn't kill more
than two, perhaps as many as three, but it was
possible that none of them would walk away
uninjured.
How many had the Old Emperor taken with him?
A dozen, perhaps? More. Well, Kethol was not the
Old Emperor, but he would do the best he could.
Durine, though, Durine had done something
clever - yes, that was it. Kethol took his sealed flask
of healing draughts from its steel container, and
tucked it in the corner of his mouth. It would be
important to hold off using it as long as possible, but
if he clenched it between his teeth as he fought, a
blow to the head hard enough to knock him down
should shatter it and give him a few more moments
of fighting.
That was worth doing.
Leria was standing silent, dressed now, her eyes
wide, her hands open, fingers spread, shaking her
head. No, she mouthed silently. Please.
It was, Kethol decided, every bit as easy to go out
to die with a smile on your lips as not. Durine's and
Pirojil's sarcastic comments about heroism aside, it
just didn't make any difference, and if you didn't
mind trembling a bit at the edges - and Kethol

454
always trembled when he was waiting for it to all
hit; that was why he liked to launch himself into the
thick of things first, without warning -
For me, she mouthed.
She didn't understand. Shit, maybe he didn't
understand, but while he couldn't stop them from
taking her away, he simply couldn't let them do it
while he lived.
Some things in life were complicated, but Kethol
had been a simple woodsman and a simple soldier
all bis life - he liked things that way.
He was waiting for sounds of footsteps on the
floor below when he heard the scream.
It had been a pleasant evening of talk and drink with
Eregen the supposed hostler, followed by a quick
pronging of Horvel's woman - Sanders took
advantage of his privileges with as much gusto as he
took up his responsibilities - and a good night's
sleep.
And, as he sat on his front porch and ate his
morning bread and stew - it was better for having
simmered all night - and drank another mugful of
fresh well water while he watched the sunrise, he
was a happy man. From off behind the house came
the sounds of the field-workers starting their day -

455
they always made a point to rattle their tools loudly
enough that he could hear them - and that meant that
his sons were up and supervising, which meant that
Sanders could spend the day in the smithy, catching
up on some nail making and rewelding that scythe
that had somehow or other gotten snapped in two,
and perhaps getting a good start on the hardware for
the harness that the new gelding would need. He
would probably have to do more work than he cared
to in return for Beneder's making the harness, but by
doing the ironwork himself he would avoid having
to deal with that idiot dwarf blacksmith who thought
that humans didn't know iron and steel.
And besides, that would give him a chance to go
into town.
Travelers were frequent, but nonetheless welcome
for that. Conversation was a pleasure, and when the
only people you could talk to were people who were
beholden to you, that robbed it of some of the
pleasure. Maybe it was time he thought about a new
wife, a young one, perhaps with a sharp tongue in
her mouth. Some of the neighbors had daughters
who were ready for husbands, and Sanders just
might have himself a decent bride-price handy,
shortly.

456
And, in a few days, there would be a good reward,
he was sure. Eregen - or whatever his name was;
Sanders didn't know, and didn't much care - was
clearly on the run from something, and while
Sanders didn't care to try to see if his people could
take on Eregen's impressive looking swordsmen - he
had been around steel long enough to know what
somebody who could handle a sword looked like,
and this Kethol person looked like somebody who
could handle a sword - first thing after waking this
morning, he had dispatched Kendrel's son to the
village with a message that Sanders would like to
see the warden as soon as convenient.
There was no rush. Of course, these three and
their horses would be on their way by then, but
surely whatever they were fleeing would involve
some sort of reward. If they had been on the right
side of the empire, they could have, would have,
asked for the local warden themselves.
He was enjoying his own cleverness as much as
the red and orange streaks of the sunrise when he
heard the clop-ping of the horses, and five riders
came into view.
His brow furrowed as he got to his feet. It was too
soon for the warden to show up - Kendrel's son
couldn't have even reached the village by now,

457
much less woken that sluggish warden - and these
didn't have the look of arms-men anyway. Four of
them were clearly soldiers, although the lack of
colors in their livery surprised him. Just whom were
they soldiering for?
Presumably it was for the fifth, a youngish man in
his twenties, his neatly trimmed beard and brightly
filigreed and remarkably clean tunic proclaiming
him to be some sort of nobility, although Sanders
didn't recognize him. Not local; Lord Florent's folk
ran to heavy brows and a permanent scowl - even
the women - and this one had a strong but somewhat
delicate face, and a smile rather than a scowl. They
had clearly camped somewhere nearby last night, as
the lordling's clothes were barely touched with road
dust, and his hair was still damp, presumably from a
morning washing.
Sanders ducked his head politely as they brought
their horses to a prancing stop. "A good morning to
you, Lord and minion alike," he said. "I am Sanders,
a common farmer. Can I offer your horses water and
yourselves refreshment?" There was no harm in
courtesy. Nobles would take what they wanted, and
pay if they wanted, and what was a poor farmer to
do? Petition the emperor?

458
The lordling smiled. 'That would certainly do
quite well," he said. "Although I'd be more
interested in some information. We're ... seeking
some friends. Have any strangers passed by
recently?"
Well, there was such a thing as coincidence, but
Sanders didn't believe in it. "Not only passed by,
Lord, Lord - "
"Miron," the lordling said, as though he expected
the name to mean something to Sanders. Well, it
probably would, if Sanders was native to Neranahan
and had much contact with nobility, but he wasn't,
and he had as little as he could. He preferred people
deferring to him, rather than the other way around.
"Not only passed by, if these are the men you're
looking for, one of them snores in my house right
now, while the other two are sleeping in the stable."
"Men?" one of the soldiers asked. "Just three
men?"
Oh. That was it. These three were chasing after
that silly rumor of a dowager with a dowry heading
for Biemestren. Sanders tried to keep the
disappointment off his face. His guests would still
have some sort of price on their heads, somewhere,
but he wasn't going to hear the clink of the gold
from Lord Miron's purse.

459
"And they're right here, you say?"
"Yes, yes, yes, Lord." Sanders spread his hands.
"Just a dealer in horses, with a fairly odd collection
of mares and geldings to sell."
"Big geldings? Dray horses?"
Sanders brightened. "Then these are the people
you're looking for, perhaps?" He turned toward the
stable. "They are in - "
At first, he didn't recognize the sound of steel on
leather. Strange that a blacksmith, of all people,
didn't immediately recognize the sound of a sword
being drawn quickly by somebody who knew how to
quickly bring it into play.
"There's no need, Lord Miron," Sanders said,
turning toward the lordling. "They - "
The slashing tip of the sword caught him on the
throat, and then Miron drew the dark tip back for a
final stroke.
Sanders barely had time to get out a single scream
before the final darkness claimed him. Kethol felt
strangely limp as he watched from the darkness of
the stable while Miron finished killing Sanders, then
quickly remounted and spun his horse about.

460
In moments, the five of them were off down the
road at a fast canter. It was all Kethol could do not
to shake, and then he did find himself trembling, his
teeth clattering together as though from a chill, his
knees first shaking, then buckling as his stomach
rebelled, and he fell to all fours, retching.
Leria was at his side, shaming him with her
concern. "Kethol? What can I do? "
He shook his head, in part to clear it, in part to
motion her away. He couldn't explain it himself. It
had been years since seeing a death had affected him
like this. You got used to it after a while; that was
the sad truth.
But this was different. It wasn't just soldiering. He
had keyed himself up to take on five men to protect
Leria, knowing that he couldn't, leaving behind
nothing to do with all that pent-up fury and violence,
and his body was taking it out on him with this
shameful weakness.
He spat sour vomit into the hay, and his trembling
fingers accepted the water bag from her. He rinsed
his mouth with the warm, tannic water. It usually
tasted bad, but it was better than his own vomit.
It was a few moments before he could sit, and
more before he could talk.

461
The riding off made sense - this was Neranahan,
not Keranahan, and even Holtish nobility from
another barony were not welcome to slaughter
peasants as they pleased.
But why had Miron killed Sanders? Could it be
that Sanders had refused to tell Miron whether or not
he'd seen them? Kethol had hardly gotten to know
Sanders well - Erenor might have a better
understanding of the man - but he hardly seemed to
be the sort suicidal enough to dismiss a noble's
question with the wave of a hand or a coarse remark.
Leria ducked back into the shadows, and pulled on
her man's tunic, quickly tying her own rucksack shut
while she gestured at Kethol to do the same.
The scream had drawn people from the house and
fields, and Erenor from the house. His hair was
mussed, and his tunic unlaced, but he walked up to
where the body lay and quickly took charge, sending
one man running off down the path behind the
house, a stocky woman scurrying back into the
house.
He glanced up at where Kethol stood in the open
doorway of the hayloft. "Kelleren," he said, "quickly
saddle the horses. Master Sanders has been
murdered by bandits, and we've got to go tell the

462
village warden or the local lord. Quickly, now,
before the murderers escape!"
By the time Kethol gathered his gear together, the
peasant woman that Erenor had sent to the house
returned with a soiled sheet; she and he managed to
cover the body just as Sanders's oldest son, Vecten,
rounded the side of the house, panting from the long
run.
Erenor seized him by the shoulders before he
could speak. "Your father was a brave and good
man," he said. "I don't know why the bandits killed
him, or what they're after, but quickly, quickly, you
must gather all your people together here, at the
house, where you can protect them. They rode off
quickly, but they took no gold, no horses, nothing
with them. They could be back at any moment for
whatever it is that they came for."
The questionable logic of that might not have
worked under normal circumstances, but Leria and
Kethol forced the issue as they brought their mounts
from the stable.
"Quickly, Kelleren," Erenor said, "gather our
horses together, and we'll make for the safety of the
village. We can report this murder to the town
warden, and the lord - the local lord - can have a
troop of good men on the murderers' tracks before

463
nightfall." As they cantered down the path toward
the main road, Erenor muttered, "What just
happened here?"
"It was Miron," Kethol said. "Miron killed
Sanders, and then ran off."
Erenor looked as puzzled as Kethol felt. "Why?"
"I don't know." Kethol shook his head. "I don't
even have an idea."
Erenor nodded knowingly. "Well, I should have
figured that out."
Under normal circumstances, that would have
gotten Kethol angry enough to say or do something,
but he still was trembling around the edges.
Leria got the horses moving down the road, and
then dropped back to let Kethol and Erenor catch up
with her. "So what do we tell the village warden?"
she asked.
Kethol didn't understand why Erenor laughed. It
was a reasonable question.
"Nothing," Erenor said. "Because we don't stop in
the village. What we do is we get to Adahan as
quickly as we can, and let them run after or before
us all the way to Biemestren, if that's their pleasure."

464
Kethol frowned. Erenor had changed, from an
unwilling prisoner compelled to come along, to an
inadequate but convincing servant, to an equal. And
now, somehow, in some way that Kethol couldn't
quite put a finger on, Erenor had taken over. No, he
couldn't get Kethol to abandon Leria or anything of
the sort, but it had become natural for Kethol to
follow his lead even when Erenor took charge only
implicitly.
He wondered why that didn't bother him.
"What is in Barony Adahan, then?" Leria asked.
"You were so set against it before - aren't you
worried about treasure hunters after my supposed
dowry?"
Erenor shook his head. For once, his easy smile
was absent. "No. Or maybe yes, I am, but I'm more
worried about what went on back there. I don't
believe that Sanders was disrespectful to a noble,
and I don't believe that Miron would have ridden off
to escape pursuit from the local warden, or from a
local lord that he could, at the very least, pay some
sort of blood-price to." He looked over at Kethol.
"You were a woodsman once. Did you ever try to
herd your prey into a trap?"

465
Well, yes, he had beaten through the brush on
more than one occasion, trying to spook a deer for a
waiting hunter's shot.
But that didn't make any sense. If Miron had
known they were there, he and his men could have
taken the three of them right then and there. Why let
them go?
Erenor shook his head in response to the unasked
question. "I don't know. You play at bones, don't
you?"
"Yes." And he played it well, at that.
"If your opponent left you an easy pinbone, just
waiting to be pulled, and kept urging you toward it,
would you take it?"
Kethol shrugged. "I'd at least look at the stack
carefully."
Erenor nodded. "Well, the easy pinbone they're
leaving us - the direction they're driving us - is
Biemestren, by way of Barony Cullinane. What
happens when we get there? Is there some charge
laid against you to embarrass your baron? Are there
bandits waiting in Barony Cullinane to, say, leave
our lady raped and dead on Cullinane territory? Or
perhaps a detachment of Keranahan soldiers who
couldn't quite save her from you?" He threw up his

466
hands. "No, none of that sounds likely, but we're
being driven one way, and I don't for a moment
think that's being done for our own benefit. I think
we go another way. I think we head for Adahan
itself, and trust the baron's men, as the best choice
we have."
Two days. It would take two days, moving
quickly, to make it to Adahan. "But it's only one
more day to New Pittsburgh," Kethol said.
"You think that a steel plant is going to solve all
of our problems?" Erenor shook his head.
Kethol let his smile show. "No. Not the steel plant.
The telegraph."
Erenor touched his finger to his brow. "My
apologies, Master Kethol," he said. "I thought you
were just another idiot swordsman. You do have two
thoughts to rub together, after all."
"I thank you, Master Erenor," Kethol said.
And if you're so clever, how come you didn't think
of it first?
But he didn't say that. From the curious
expression on Leria's face, and the way her smile
met his gaze, he knew she'd asked herself exactly
the same question.

467
22 - Pirojil and Durine
urine stopped suddenly. Pirojil froze. You
wouldn't think a big man like that could
move so quietly. Of course, it was entirely
possible that whatever noise Durine was really
making was drowned out by the thumping of
Pirojil's own heart. You'd think that after all these
years Pirojil would be used to this, that creeping up
on a house would be something he could take in
stride, something that wouldn't put a steely, salty
taste in his mouth, something that wouldn't make
him long for a garde-robe or even an outhouse where
he could void his bowels.
Durine cocked his head to one side, then moved it
fractionally, mechanically, like some bowman
sweeping across a field of fire.
"Three," he said, his voice a low whisper that
Pirojil more felt than heard. "At least. One's a baby."
D

468
Of course it was "at least." Even Durine couldn't
hear the heartbeat of a silently sleeping man.
"Understood," Pirojil said. Their line of retreat had
already been planned. There was a small thicket just
down the road, with a time-and weather-hardened
dirt path running alongside it. The brambles would
cut and bite, but if you took a running start and
launched yourself into the air, you could miss most
of them, and the thorns themselves would
discourage investigation, although probably not pursuit.
There were two alternatives, in case that way
was blocked.
The important point was to get in and get them
down quickly, before they could raise an alarm. The
nearest house was down past the road, at the other
end of the communal plot, but it wasn't completely
out of earshot, and a scream could carry on the cold
night air.
They were almost there, almost in place to deal
with the baroness.
The baronial residence was just over the hill and
through the woods. All the peasants here were
directly fealty-bound, working and living on
baronial farmland in return for a portion of the crop.

469
It should be possible to work their way into the
baronial Residence and get to the baroness without
being spotted. But just after sundown wasn't the
right time for that, and they needed some real rest.
After too many days in the woods, making their
way back, they were hardly ready to take on a
stealthy entry into the Residence. They were hardly
ready to take on half their weight in local soldiers. It
wasn't just that Pirojil and Durine both reeked like a
pair of boars - but too many days of hiding out and
trying to sleep during the day, only moving at night,
had taken their toll. Every movement hurt, and while
hunger had long since faded into a weak, desperate
remnant of what it had been, just the idea of a warm
bowl of stew was half worth killing for.
So Pirojil quietly drew his sword with one hand,
snatched up his dagger with the other, and walked
down the path to the single door of the thatched hut
gently opening - smoothly, but not too fast - the
door and stepping inside.
In the light of the open hearth, a young woman
with an old face was reaching into a cradle to
replace a sleeping child. Four other shapes lay
huddled, sleeping, in a preposterously small bed,
raised off the dirt floor by four stubby legs.

470
Pirojil was on her in two quick strides, his hand
across her mouth.
"Quiet," he said, his voice a harsh whisper, "and
nobody has to be killed."
The others were stirring, but Durine's harsh voice
and looming form quieted them down. Peasants
knew what they were to do if bandits invaded their
home: cooperate, put up with the rapine, the
robbery, and the beating, give over all you had, and
you'd probably be allowed to live.
The logical thing to do was to act like bandits, to
give these peasants no reason to think them anything
else ...
Pirojil had done some things in his life that he
regretted, some of them bloody, but he had never
raped a woman - and he was not about to start by
doing it in front of her children, or molest a young
girl in front of her parents and brothers.
"We need food, and we need rest," he said quietly.
"We need to stay here for a couple of days, eating
and sleeping." They would sleep in shifts, of course,
with the family well secured. "Then we'll be on our
way, and leave behind this."
He held up a single gold coin.

471
The baby started crying.
Moving slowly, nodding, the young woman with
the old face lifted it up out of the cradle, and, at
Pirojil's nod of permission, brought it to her breast.
"We'll be no trouble to you," she said. "We'll be no
trouble at all."

472
23 - The Baroness and the Proctor
overnor Treseen is here, Baroness," the
servant girl said quietly, her head lowered.
Elanee, fresh and naked from her bath,
looked up in irritation, then put a neutral expression
on her face. "I'm delighted, of course," she lied.
"Please see to his refreshment, and make him
comfortable. I'll be down shortly."
What was it with this man and her bath? She could
hardly dip her little foot into some heated water
when Treseen, unsummoned, would be at her
doorstep with some new problem or complaint. Did
he have a spy waiting outside the residence,
galloping for town the moment the large copper
kettle that heated her bathwater was fired up?
Outside her window, the sky was dark and cloudy;
a storm was coming. Despite that, her riding clothes
had been set out; it had been too many days since
she had made the trip out to the cave, and letting that
G

473
go too long was a bad idea. It might find itself more
attached to its guards than to her, and that wouldn't
be good at all.
Well, she would have to go riding this afternoon,
come what may, but first she would have to dispose
of Treseen. She smiled to herself. No, not that way.
But it was tempting at times.
She shook her head as she padded across the floor
to her closet. Treseen was pacing back and forth in
the great hall when Elanee joined him.
Details were important. She had dressed casually,
in a long skirt and blouse, but not too informally.
Details were, as she had tried to teach Miron,
everything.
"Good day to you, Governor," she said. "And
what horrific event brings you out here, all
perturbed?"
"There've been a whole series of messages from
Biemestren," he said, pulling a handful of papers
from his pouch. "And there's something very wrong
going on there."
She waved him to a seat as she accepted the
papers and sat herself down to read, ignoring him
for the moment.

474
Treseen, thorough to a fault, had apparently
brought every scrap of message that had come over
the telegraph and by messenger over the past few
tendays. Most of it was trivial - notes of taxes
received and due; news of some banditry here and
some orc attack there; some reports of rumblings
along the borders of Nyphien and Kiar that were
probably just cross-border banditry but could be a
subtle test; a quick listing of promotions in the
Home Guard, as though that was of interest to the
entire empire - but she finally got to the message
from the chamberlain that the emperor had
appointed Walter Slovotsky as something to be
called an imperial proctor.
Now, that was interesting. And quite promising,
actually, given the situation.
"He's a proctor, you say," she said, relishing the
word. "There were prince's proctors in the old
Euar'den days, you know, Governor."
Originally they had been merely high-ranking
messengers of the Euar'den princes, but when the
blood of the Euar'dens thinned, all too many of them
became the real rulers behind the throne.
Had the blood of the Furnaels thinned so within a
generation that the emperor needed another hand at
his plow? Unlikely.

475
"I'm afraid I don't see what you are so" - she didn't
want to say "worried," even though he clearly was -
"concerned about, Governor?"
"Walter Slovotsky was the one whom the dowager
empress wanted to send to look into the... matter of
Lady Leria. Now, suddenly, he's an imperial proctor,
and you don't see the problem?"
Her lips tightened. She didn't care for his tone.
"No, Governor, I do not see the problem. We handed
over the lady to those three smelly soldiers, as the
Cullinane regent and the dowager empress herself
requested, and they're off to the capital."
It wasn't like Leria knew anything important;
Elanee had kept it completely isolated.
It was just a matter of timing, and Elanee's timing
was exquisite.
Treseen leafed through the sheets. "It's not in
here," he said. "But it's all over the barony - there's
talk of some lady being conducted to Biemestren
with a huge dowry."
She spread her hands. "The land that the lady will
inherit is rather large, isn't it? And if I recall
correctly," which of course she did, "a company of
dwarves has taken up residence in the Ulter Hills -
with your permission, Governor?"

476
"Yes, yes, yes," he said. "But - "
"And where dwarves dig, wealth often follows,
doesn't it? So she may well come to the marriage
bed with a fine dowry, indeed."
Right now, of course, the governor was collecting
the taxes on Leria's inheritance. Elanee was quite
sure that a piece of gold, here and there, had
managed to stick to Treseen's nail-bitten fingers.
But what of that? The emperor wasn't going to
name an imperial proctor to go punish some slightly
greedy governor for a light bit of graft.
She could hardly say that to him, though.
And, besides, this all boded very well.
Imperial proctor, eh? Either those three awful
soldiers would not have arrived back at the capital,
or they would have arrived with too many questions
unanswered. The only thing that had to be avoided
was Miron interfering with their getting there, and
her son was smart enough to be able to chase them
without quite catching them, contrary though that
went to his instincts in other areas.
So three soldiers and an empty-headed girl would
arrive in Biemestren, telling tales of strange goingson,
of being chased by rumors, of attempts to

477
prevent them from reaching the capital that they had,
heroically no doubt, just managed to thwart.
Perhaps the emperor would be sending his newly
made imperial proctor to investigate the strange
things happening in Keranahan.
He would have to send somebody.
Would the emperor send a detachment of the
House Guard thundering down the road across the
baronies, accompanying his newly named imperial
proctor, just to investigate something a bit amiss?
Perhaps.
And what would a bunch of soldiers find? Nothing
overt. No sign of a barony about to rise in revolt.
Yes, Elanee's own House Guard was larger than
common, but not large enough to endanger anybody
or anything - just large enough to help protect her
people from bandits.
But no, the emperor would not send a troop of
soldiers tromping down roads and spreading worry
and panic.
He would send the dragon, Ellegon. Which was
just what Elanee wanted. With or without this
imperial proctor, she wanted the dragon here.

478
She had always had this ability to charm, and it
had not only made her a good horsewoman, able to
ride the most recalcitrant steed, but it had brought
her a baron as a husband, a governor as a devoted
retainer, and the loyalty of it. No, she was sure that
she couldn't control the mind of the dragon Ellegon
for long. But she didn't need to control it for long.
She really didn't need to control it at all. She just
needed to charm it for a few moments. Just as a distraction,
while her men put dragonbaned bolts into
its scaly hide and left it dead on the ground.
It was like gardening, really. You nurtured your
plants - whether they were bushes of roses or
clumps of leafy dragonbane - by giving them just
enough light, just enough water, just enough manure
to encourage them to grow. And then you trimmed
here and cut there.
Until you were ready to harvest.
She spent a few more minutes charming, then
dismissing the governor. It wouldn't do at all to
seem to be in too much of a rush.
Her riding clothes were still laid out.
Normally, she would have chided the maid for
that, but this time it was just as well. Elanee didn't
see the need to strain her wrist in beating the girl,

479
or her tongue in lashing her, either. The storm had
been threatening to break all afternoon; it finally
carried out its threat when Elanee and her guards
were within sight of the cave and the corral in front
of it.
Above, lightning flashed and thunder roared,
sending one of the guards' horses into such a panic
that it threw its rider and galloped off.
Elanee's own mount, of course, remained steady
between her thighs, and she guided it down the
twisting road toward where the cave opened on the
hillside, her guards trailing after her.
She left her horse outside - her men would
unsaddle it and bring her leather inside - and shook
her head briskly to clear the water from her eyes.
Her teeth chattered with cold, but -
*I can warm you,* sounded in her mind.
She smiled. Yes, it could warm her, in more ways
than one.
*But I'm hungry.*
Be still, she thought, firmly but lovingly. I've
come to feed you, of course. Yes, there were still
several decrepit old animals out in the paddock,
waiting their turn to become food, but perhaps it

480
would appreciate a fresher animal. Like the one that
had bolted underneath one of her guards.
/'// always take care of you, she thought, every
fiber of her being radiating sincerity. It made it no
easier that she was sincere this time, but it made it
no more difficult, either. / won't let those mean
creatures hurt you.
Light flared down the tunnel, and a wave of
pleasant heat washed over her.
The telegraph stopped its chattering as Walter
Slovotsky reached the top of the stone steps.
Which was just as well, as far as Slovotsky was
concerned. He knew Morse, he could follow Morse,
but it was a distracting sound. He couldn't keep up a
conversation and follow it, but he couldn't totally
ignore it, either.
Moderation sometimes sucked.
The engineer on duty was a woman Slovotsky
didn't recognize. Dumpy-looking, but he gave her
the benefit of his smile anyway. There was, after all,
no need to deprive her of that.
She returned it with interest. "Greetings, Imperial
Proctor," she said, sliding a folded piece of paper to
him. "And a good morning to you."

481
"For me?" He had a name, after all, and the mark
on the paper was some symbol he didn't recognize.
"Well, no," she said. "It's for Captain Derinald,
but the general said that anything coming in for him
should go to you first."
Which was fair enough, given that Walter had sent
Derinald and a troop of cavalry to convey his family
to Biemestren. He would have preferred to go
himself, but there was a confrontation in the offing
with Beralyn, and he figured that he really ought to
be around for it rather than let Thomen take the heat.
Besides, maybe he could make peace with the old
biddy.
Right.
Fat fucking chance.
"Well." He smiled. "That sounds fine. Besides, it's
not up to the general. I'm the imperial proctor.
Anything the emperor doesn't say doesn't go to me, I
can have."
She took a moment to parse that, then shrugged.
"Your choice, sir." She leaned against the counter.
"If you want copies of everything that comes
through here, I've no objection. But you're going to
have to get me a team of scribes to copy it all, as I

482
can barely keep up with the traffic as it is." She
jerked a thumb at her desk. "I don't mind that the
empire flows on a river of paper, but it feels like the
whole river dumps out right here."
As if on cue, the telegraph sitting on her desk
started up chattering again, and she turned to answer
it. "But you'd probably better look at this one soon.
It's from one of the Cullinane men. Kethol."
Cullinane? There was no telegraph station at
Castle Cullinane. Eventually, of course, all the
baronial capitals would be wired, and the larger
towns and villages, as well. But miles and miles and
miles of telegraph wire took maintenance, and right
now most of the lines ran along the major roads into
occupied Holtun, where the occupation troops could
at least note where the lines went down.
He opened the paper and read quickly. New
Pittsburgh, eh? How had Kethol and the others
gotten themselves over there? And why?
Oh, really.
Very strange, indeed.
Hmmm ... maybe there was a way to use this to
advantage, and even win a few points with that
soured old Beralyn. She received him in the throne
room, alone. He wasn't sure if that was a good sign

483
or not. Well, it was a better sign than her meeting
him with a bunch of soldiers pointing swords,
bows, flintlock rifles, and pistols at him would have
been, but he wasn't sure how much.
The years had taken an unattractive old woman
and made her downright ugly. She reminded him
vaguely of a cross between Elsa Lanchester and
Winston Churchill. There was something about the
droop of her frown that accentuated the bagginess
under her eyes and chin. Her hands, knobbyknuckled
with age, lay folded in her lap.
"Good afternoon, my Lord Imperial Proctor," she
said, the sarcasm only in a vague undertone. "You
have asked to see me."
"Yes, I did," he said.
"You're seeing me."
"I'd like to make a peace between us."
"Of course," she said, her voice caustic in its
casualness. "Nothing could be easier, Proctor."
"You'll need to see this." He took a step toward
her, Kethol's message held out in his hand.
She waved it away. "I've never learned this Englits
of yours," she said. "To read or to understand. Why
don't you read it for me, if you think it's important."

484
She hadn't taken much of a look at it if she hadn't
noticed that it was written in Erendra, and not in
English, but maybe that was her strange way of
offering an olive branch?
Probably not.
"Well," he said, "it seems that there is, or was,
something strange going on in Keranahan.
Somebody expended a lot of effort either to make it
impossible for Kethol, Pirojil, and Durine to bring
this Lady Leria here, or to make it seem like it was
supposed to be impossible."
Wheels within wheels, and it was only because
Kethol and the others were as good as they were that
they had survived. It was fairly crafty of her to make
this a Cullinane problem. He had no doubt that
Beralyn was responsible for putting the hounds on
their tail, and it was entirely possible that an
imperial proctor, with a bit of digging, could find
out how she had done that.
So he wouldn't. But there was no need to tell her
that. Thomen was her son, but sending men out to
get killed merely to embarrass somebody, well, that
was a bit much. She was already jealous of the way
Walter and the Cullinanes had the emperor's ear -
with some work, this could relegate her to the status

485
of a crazy old woman whose son would tolerate her,
but that was all.
Maybe. Did she want him to find out? Or did she
just want to close the books on this?
"So you admit I was right?" She nodded. "It
sounds to me like there's something, something
seriously wrong, going on in Keranahan, and the girl
was just part of it." She dismissed her original
claim, that this was all about Leria, with a
convenient wave of her hand.
What it sounded like to Walter was that Beralyn
had reasons to make herself look good at Cullinane
expense, while Baroness Elanee had every reason to
want to force a young noblewoman into a marriage
that would enrich her own family.
But he shrugged. I'll let you be right, old lady, if
you'll let me just be wrong.
He'd want to get over there, anyway. Durine and
Pirojil were liable to make a whole lot of trouble,
and when this just turned out to be some political
maneuvering by two noblewomen with more
ambition than sense, that could make things sticky.
As in the stickiness of newly shed blood.
How best to find them? They would be making
every effort to avoid leaving tracks.

486
*I think that can be managed.* Flame roared
outside. *Castle Keranahan, here we come, eh?*
Walter Slovotsky smiled. The last time he had
ridden on the dragon's back was to sneak into Castle
Biemestren, with Ellegon standing by to haul them
out if things got sticky; the time before that, it was in
fear that he would arrive at Castle Cullinane to find
his family dead.
This time, they'd drop in unannounced at
Keranahan.
Probably best to pick up Kethol in New
Pittsburgh. And, besides, maybe this Lady Leria was
easy on the eyes.
But in a day or two, they could drop out of the
bright blue Keranahan sky unannounced and
unexpected, which should shock the locals, and it
sounded like a little shock would be good for this
Baroness Elanee. He could make a few vaguely
threatening comments, suitable for an imperial
proctor to get a Holtish baroness to remember her
position - and with Ellegon flying overhead, the
point would be made quite easily - then they could
drop in and suggest to the governor that even simple
soldiers on imperial duty were to receive help, not
hindrance, and let Ellegon give a light show at night
that would draw the attention of Pirojil and Durine.

487
And then home.
Neat, sweet, and complete.
After what I've been through lately, this kind of
sounds like fun.
"You admit that I was right? That this was
something you should have gone to look at in the
first place?"
No. Not at all, he thought. "Absolutely, Beralyn,"
he said.
"Very well, then." She seemed satisfied, and the
temperature in the room didn't seem quite so cold.
"And you intend to have words with her?"
"Better than words," he said. "I think you need a
noble attendant for your own companionship,
Beralyn." A year or so visiting in the capital ought to
give Beralyn somebody to watch, and with Beralyn
watching Elanee, and Elanee looking for some
advantage, both of them would be too busy to make
trouble for anybody else.
This is going to be easy, he thought. For a change.
So what am I missing?
*Oh, you humans. You have to make everything
difficult for yourselves.*
Not me.

488
Walter Slovotsky smiled.
/ like it when it's easy.

489
24 - New Pittsburgh
ait, the message had said. So Kethol
waited where he had been told to. That
was the way it was when you were a
soldier. Durine and Pirojil were out there, in danger,
ready to take on a barony all by themselves and get
killed in the process, but...
Wait, the message had said. He had been told to
wait, so he waited.
Despite her appearance, Leria's arrival had been
greeted by the majordomo of Bren Adahan's New
Pittsburgh home with ill-concealed, almost indecent
glee. By local standards, it was a smallish house -
there were many minor lords and even more highranking
engineers with much larger homes - but it
was nicely situated near the top of a hill to the west
of the steel plants, and it was only rarely that the
smoke blew up the hill.
W

490
"The truth is, Lady," old Narta said as she guided
them up the narrow staircase to the second floor,
"that the baron spends little enough time here, and
it's hard to keep a house as a going concern when
there's nobody to take care of, even with such a
small staff."
Erenor gave Kethol a knowing glance, and Kethol
just shook his head. He'd never get used to nobility.
The house had a staff of at least twelve, and not one
of them without gray hair. Adahan apparently used
this as a place to pension off some of his old
retainers, at least until they became too old and
feeble to work, and who spent most of their time
taking care of themselves.
But they never knew when the baron or one of his
guesting nobles would be in residence, so the larder
was presumably well stocked, and of a certainty the
tantalizing smell of fresh-baked bread filled the air.
The room Leria was shown to was bright and clean,
the stone walls freshly whitewashed, with a maid's
room off it. A maid who must have been even older
than Narta was emerging from that maid's room,
bearing pillows and sheets and blankets for the large
bed near the far wall.

491
"A bath's being heated for the lady right now,"
Narta said, "and we've a dress or two in storage that
I can fit to you, so you'll be presentable."
"Presentable?" Leria raised an eyebrow.
"Lord Davin and Lady Deneria have invited you
to join them for dinner this evening." Narta's grin
revealed several missing teeth, although the
remaining teeth were less yellowed than Kethol
expected. "It's not often there's nobility from
Keranahan guesting here. I'm sure some of the
young lordlings and ladies will be gathered to meet
you and hear all about your ... adventures. Things
have been quiet here of late, since those awful things
stopping streaming out of Faerie."
Kethol opened the shutters of the nearest window
and ran a quick eye and hand over the bars, which
seemed secure enough.
Narta gave a derisive sniff. "Yes, there's crime
enough in the city, but I think you'll find that even
thieves know to give the baron's home a wide
berth."
Kethol didn't say anything as he closed the
shutters, although it wasn't thieves he was worried
about. Erenor was sure that Miron was off
somewhere, trying to herd them in another direction,

492
but Erenor was always sure about everything. It was
one of the wizard's annoying habits. Even though he
was right, most often.
In any case, the room should be safe enough.
But this dinner...
Narta raised a hand to forestall his objection.
"We've already had our orders. She'll be escorted to
and from dinner by a company of the baron's troops,
and they'll be taking up station outside the house."
She sniffed again. Kethol was beginning to dislike
that sniff. "Not that there'll be any trouble here."
Narta ushered Erenor and Kethol outside, and
closed the door. "Now, if you'll leave the lady to her
bath, I'll show you to your quarters." She grinned.
"You'll find your beds comfortable, your food warm,
and your beer cold. And," she added with a sniff,
"you can use the bath in our quarters to wash
yourselves, and I'll find something more ... something
for you to wear, as well."
Kethol didn't argue. It would be good to be clean.
And there was no reason to deny Leria the company
of her kind this evening. If she wouldn't be safe
while guarded by baronial troops, Kethol could
hardly make a difference.

493
It was well after midnight when Kethol met the
officer of the guard at the door. In the lantern light
he looked too young to be a captain, but he not only
wore officer's livery embroidered with the Adahan
pattern, he also wore a sword rather than the pikes
his men carried.
Pikes would become a thing of the past
eventually. Right now, only some troops of the
Home Guard carried rifles, but eventually that
would change. A change for the better? Probably.
You could teach a recruit how to use a crossbow
faster than a longbow, and you could train him in
the use of a rifle faster than a crossbow.
But Kethol could still put a score of arrows into a
man while he was trying to reload a rifle. He would
be a useless relic someday, if he survived, but he
still had some value now. Yes, there was something
to be said for pistols, but for close-up work, Kethol
would have bet the young officer would still reach
for the sword at his waist even if he'd had a brace of
pistols there, as well.
"You're Captain Kethol?" the too-young officer
said, coming to attention.
Kethol looked down at himself. Captain? Well,
freshly washed, beard trimmed, wearing a fresh pair
of black linen trousers and a blousy white shirt

494
fastened at the neck with a silver clasp, he might
have looked more like an officer than an ordinary
soldier, at that.
He didn't correct the Holt. As far as Kethol was
concerned, a regular soldier in the service of Barony
Cullinane outranked any officer in Barony Adahan,
despite what protocol said. "I'm Kethol."
"We'll be on station, sir," the officer said. "I don't
think you'll have any trouble tonight."
"I wouldn't think so," Kethol said, nodding sagely,
the way an officer was supposed to. "A fine-looking
troop of men you have there," he added. That was an
officer sort of thing to say.
It apparently was also the right thing to say; the
officer snapped to, then turned about and gestured,
and Leria was helped down out of the coach by a
waiting soldier, and quickly ran up the path.
Her hair had been done up in some sort of
complicated knot that left her neck bare, and the
creamy linen dress Narta had found for her clung
tightly, emphasizing the swell at hip and breast, as
though it had been made for her.
Very different from the dirty-faced woman in
Kethol's spare tunic who had ridden into New
Pittsburgh this morning.

495
She waited for him at the top of the stairs. "Well,
Kethol, don't you want to hear about it?"
He couldn't say no, although there was nothing he
wanted to hear about. That was her world, not his,
and she was going back to it.
Well, that was probably all for the best.
"Of course," he said.
Erenor had smiled knowingly and had taken a clay
bottle of wine to bed with him earlier, but Kethol
slept across her doorway, his head pillowed on a
folded blanket. She was probably safe here now, and
anybody stealthy enough to get past the guards
outside would surely be able to murder him in his
sleep.
But he slept across her doorway anyway.
It felt right.
She came to him in his dreams. The door opened
inward slowly, silently, and she stood there, all
naked and lovely under a filmy nightdress. He rose
without a word, and she took his hand and led him
inside, her nightdress falling away in the red light of
the overhead lamp. He started to speak, but she put a
finger to his lips and shook her head.

496
He woke in the early morning light, the door to her
room still closed. For a moment, he wondered if it
had all been a dream, and it probably was, but -
And then Walter Slovotsky was knocking and
bellowing at the door downstairs, and all dreams
were driven away.

497
25 - Geraden
he dragon banked sharply, high above
Dereneyl, flame gushing forth from its wide
jaws like blood from an artery. It stank of
sulfur, and it was all Kethol could do not to vomit.
Again.
Below, Kethol was sure, people were staring up at
the skies, reminded once again of Ellegon's power.
*Hey, if you can scare them, you usually don't
have to kill them.*
Erenor, on the other hand, was strapped in next to
Walter Slovotsky at the foremost position, just
behind where the dragon's long neck joined to its
huge body. And he was having the time of his life,
enjoying every minute of soaring above the common
ruck, craning his neck to spot this village and that
settlement, probably reflecting over having swindled
a peasant here and defrauded a merchant there, or
deceived a noble here and there and there.
T

498
Kethol didn't like it, but the altitude did have its
advantages. Up here, the air was cleaner, and it
didn't stink up here so badly. Normally. He wiped
his mouth on the back of his sleeve. The wind
rushing past his face drew tears from his eyes, pulled
them into his ears.
It was almost over. The imperial proctor had
ordered out a troop of Home Guards to escort Leria
from New Pittsburgh to Biemestren; she would be
safe in Baron Adahan's house until they arrived, and
safe on the road to the capital.
And then? That was up to the dowager empress,
most likely. Parliament was meeting soon, and there
would be plenty of young lords and lordlings eager
to make her acquaintance. If the dowager empress
didn't marry her off to a scion of a neighboring noble
family to consolidate her lands, perhaps she would
find Leria a second son to marry, one to give her
children and manage her lands.
Without any further problems from Elanee.
They would settle that here.
The dowager empress wanted her as an attendant
and companion in Biemestren, and attend her she
would. Let the two of them scheme against each
other in the capital, under the imperial proctor's

499
watchful eye. It was one thing to wish to increase the
baronial lands by encouraging a marriage between
Leria and Miron; it was another thing to try to force
the girl into it, and yet another to interfere with
soldiers on imperial business.
And all the trouble she had put Kethol and Durine
and Pirojil and Erenor to? She had tried to get them
killed, that was all.
Well, that didn't matter. Just some imperial
politics that Walter Slovotsky could dismiss with a
wave of his hand.
*And what would you have him do? Put the
baroness to death for something he couldn't prove?
You don't hold an empire together by wantonly
slaughtering off nobility. Makes the other nobles
nervous, in the wrong way.*
That was probably so, but the politics of it didn't
matter to Kethol.
It was wrong for Elanee to have tried to force
Leria into a marriage to Miron, and it was worse that
she'd tried to have them all killed - while keeping
her own hands clean - when they tried to take her to
Biemestren.
*Yes, that's all true. She's a horrible person, not
suitable to govern a barony, and she's raised her son

500
the same way. Why do you think Keranahan is still
under imperial control?*
So what would be her punishment? A year in
Biemestren, waiting on Beralyn. Was that just?
*Well, now, that might turn out to be punishment
enough. But if not, well, so be it. You don't think
politically, that's the problem.*
It wasn't Kethol's job to think politically. It was
Kethol's job to go where he was told and do what he
was told, and that usually meant to fight somebody.
He understood how to do that...
*And how to stash away every piece of gold you
can for your old age. Which is fair enough.* The
dragon's wings slowed, and it leaned forward into a
long glide. What had taken days and days on foot
and horseback was just a matter of moments of
flight.
Ellegon came in fast into the clearing, braking to a
bumpy landing with a frantic pinioning of huge,
leathery wings.
Kethol clawed at the straps that held him in place
on the dragon's back, but was the third down: Walter
Slovotsky, through greater familiarity, and Erenor,
through greater dexterity, had managed to get out of
their harnesses, retrieve their gear, and slide down

501
the dragon's side to the waist-high grass before
Kethol was fully unhooked.
*A little faster, if you please.*
Kethol didn't blame the dragon for being nervous.
Ever since strange things had started to flow out of
Faerie, the cultivation of dragonbane had become
more common in the Eren regions, and three pale
spots on the dragon's scaly hide spoke of the damage
that the extract of that leafy plant could do to
magical creatures.
But in a matter of moments, Kethol was beside the
other two, and the dragon leaped into the air, wings
beating hard as it climbed in a tight circle into the
blue sky.
Walter Slovotsky grinned as a long trail of flame
flared, high above the trees. "Always good to
remind people who's who and what's what, eh?" He
shouldered his rucksack and led the way.
The guards were apparently keeping more of a
watchful eye this time than the last time Kethol had
been here; before they were more than a dozen steps
over the crest of the hill, a mounted detachment of
six spearmen were cantering their way from the
barracks.

502
"Saddled and ready to ride at a moment's notice,
eh?" Walter Slovotsky said. "Thoroughly
endeavoring not to be surprised."
Erenor's brow furrowed. "Eh?"
Slovotsky waved it away. "Never mind." He
glanced up pointedly. High above, Ellegon was
circling.
Ellegon? Kethol thought. But there was no answer
in his mind. He had never tried to mindspeak with
the dragon from this far away, although he knew that
some could. On the other hand, the dragon was
there, and the lancers knew it was there, and what
wasn't going to happen was that the three of them
would be quietly murdered and buried in unmarked
graves.
"You worry too much," Walter Slovotsky said as
the leader of the lancers signaled for a halt a short
bowshot away. "Greetings," he said, raising a palm.
"My name is Walter Slovotsky; you may have heard
it. I'm here as the imperial proctor, to see the
Baroness Elanee."
The leader of the detachment was the same one
who had greeted Kethol before; he was an ugly man
with a weak chin and large ears. "My name is

503
Thirien. I suppose you have a warrant from the
emperor."
Kethol stifled a chuckle. This one couldn't read;
what good would a warrant do him?
Slovotsky jerked a thumb skyward. "Yes, and I
have a dragon flying overhead. Figure it out, clever
one. I'm from Biemestren, with a soldier you've seen
before, and I rode over on Ellegon. Do I get to see
the baroness now?"
Thirien shook his head. "You can wait for her.
She's out for her afternoon ride."
"You saw her leave?"
"Yes, sir, I did," he said, as though daring to be
called a liar.
"All by herself, eh?'
"No." The soldier shrugged. "She has a
detachment of guards with her. As is appropriate,
sir."
"Then they shouldn't be terribly hard to follow.
We'll take all of your horses, except yours. You can
guide us. Dismount. Now, please." Elanee had
saddled and left for her ride quickly, but unhurriedly,
when Ellegon's name flashed over
Dereneyl, hoping that she would be followed but not

504
relying on it. There were easier ways this could be
done, but it was best to do it quickly, and have it
over with. There would be time to sit down and
write the emperor a long letter about the new
arrangements there would have to be, and much
better to gloat after it was all done.
It was just a matter of time, really. She would wait
for them at the cave, and they would come after her.
If Thirien had persuaded them to wait for her - not
that she had much faith in Thirien's powers of
persuasion - they would eventually tire of that and
come looking.
And, if not, it would be over all the sooner.
She led the goat into the cave.
*Just a goat?*
Now, now, she thought, / know you're hungry.
You're always hungry. But you don't want a full
stomach now. The bad people are coming to hurt us.
And you have to be ready.
*I'm ready, Elanee.* The mental voice was sure,
the way a child's always was.
Well, Elanee wasn't a child, and she was ready.
At the last bend in the tunnel, the goat sniffed the
air, and pulled back, hard, on the rope, but Elanee

505
patted it on the head and smiled down at it, beaming
a wave of love and reassurance, and it looked up at
her with warm brown eyes and stopped pulling,
trotting obediently around the bend, its hooves
clickety-clickety-clicking on stone.
The chamber was as large as her own great hall,
and that's probably what the dwarves had used it for,
although it was hard to say; the Euar'den had driven
them out ages ago, and even dwarven warrens
required some maintenance. Over the centuries, the
outer wall had cracked, and a narrow, ragged band
of light leaked in from the outside.
And lying in the middle of the chamber was it.
The dragon sniffed. *I have a name, you know.*
Of course you do, my darling Geraden.
It was a huge beast, easily five times the size of a
dray horse, its scales dark brown, edged in green.
Wings curled and uncurled in impatience as it eyed
the goat.
But it didn't make a move to rise from where it
lay, its legs tucked underneath its body, as though it
was trying to conceal the way the left foreleg ended
in a stump.

506
Elanee had let her attention lag, and the goat
panicked, its hooves skittering comically on the
smooth stone as it tried to gain purchase for a quick
break to daylight, freedom, and survival.
But Geraden was too quick for it. Its saurian head
snaked out and caught the goat around the shoulders,
bones crunching between strong jaws as it lifted the
twitching animal high in the air, then swallowed it
quickly, in two bites. A yellow snake of entrails
hung from the side of Geraden's jaw; the dragon
tried to chew at it, but couldn't quite get it
Elanee walked up and pulled the bloody scrap of
intestine from its teeth, ignoring the stench of its
breath. She didn't mind getting her hands dirty -
cleaning off dirt was, after all, a secondary function
of the bath - but she hated bad smells.
*Like the smell of that bad man who shot me with
that burning arrow?*
Yes, she thought. Like the smell of that one. She
patted at its stump. Yes, he was a very bad man.
They all were. Men, that is. Look into their souls
and you'll see that, Geraden.
The dragon looked at her with wet, loving eyes the
size of dinner plates. *But you won't let them hurt
me again.*

507
Of course not. That's why I've hidden you here so
long, letting you rest and gain your strength.
Verinel had been a terrific archer, and his
dragonbaned arrow had brought Geraden tumbling
out of the sky. No matter that Geraden, blown out
from Faerie like a soap bubble taking form and
substance, had been in full stoop, ready to snatch a
rider and horse, even if one of the riders was a
baroness on her afternoon ride -
*I'm sorry. I didn't know you then.*
/ know, my darling.
She stroked at the stump. On the ground, Geraden
would limp, but the few times she had dared let him
fly - only at night, and only on stormy nights at that,
where a burst of flame might be mistaken for
lightning - he had been fine in the air, swift and sure,
not lumbering through the sky like that horrible
Ellegon, that beast that kept the Cullinanes and
Furnaels and their stinking minions in power.
*I won't let him hurt you, Elanee. I promise.*
He's coming for me, you know, she thought, letting
some of the real fear she felt show through. He hates
me because of you. He wants to be the only dragon
in the Eren regions, and let the bad men ride high

508
above the clouds, swooping down when they want to
hurt me.
Geraden's mental voice was sure. *I can stop
him,* the dragon said. *And then I'll be the only
one.*
Perhaps or perhaps not. Many strange things had
leaked out before the breach between Faerie and
reality had been sealed. The orcs, for one. And there
were tales of serpents in the Cirric, and of creatures
living high on mountain peaks, away from man.
Men and magical creatures didn't get along. Men
didn't get along with anybody, be it other men or
women.
But for now, he would be the only one.
And the emperor would have to meet her terms,
unless he wanted his empire to fall apart in bloody
chunks. Maybe the irreplaceable loss of Ellegon
alone wouldn't start the avalanche that would tear
the empire apart - but would Thomen want to risk it?
He would meet her terms. They all would. The
Cullinanes and Furnaels had seized power with
bloody hands, and they could hardly protest sharing
it with Elanee's cleaner ones, now, could they?
She was not a young woman anymore, but she
could still bear children, even if she might need a

509
little help from the Spider or an Eareven witch to
conceive and bring to term. It would be a bit... much
to ask Thomen Furnael to adopt Miron as his heir,
but she could bear him another son.
And Miron could still marry Leria, and
consolidate their lands.
It would be nice to give him something to play
with.
*I can hear horses,* Geraden said.
Shh. Hide your thoughts, she thought sternly. Be
still as a rock. No, better, be the rock. Don't let any
of them hear you until it's too late.
An old oaken chest lay under the crack in the
outer wall, and next to it an even stack of long
wooden poles. She opened the chest, and removed
the stone crock that lay within it, setting it down
very carefully on the floor before she pried open the
waxed lid with her fingernails, too eager to reach for
the knife that lay on the floor next to the spears.
Eagerly, hungrily, she took up a spear and coated
the head of it with the tarry sludge. Boiling down
the dragonbane had been easy, although Geraden
had had a moment of panic when the wind outside
the cave had changed, bringing the scent to his
nostrils, poor dear. But she had reassured him.

510
The dragonbane wasn't for him, after all.
The trick had been to get the extract thick and
gooey enough, and she had finally resorted to
pouring most of a jugful of honey into the vat,
cooking it down until what was left was a thick,
sweet, deadly tar.
It wouldn't do to have the wind whip droplets of it
back into Geraden's face. She coated the spear
thickly, a full arm length back from the point, and
then wrapped the head of the spear in a sheet of
leather, binding it tightly with three thongs, like a
cook preparing a roast. The force of the point being
driven into Ellegon's hide would tear the wrapping
loose and smear the poison along a channel as deep
as Ger-aden could gouge.
And Geraden would gouge deeply indeed.
It's time, she thought.
Obediently, Geraden rose, limping over on his
three good legs to gingerly take the spear in his
mouth.
*Don't worry, Elanee. I won't let them hurt you,*
the dragon said as it limped its way down the
passage toward daylight.

511
Of course you won't. I am relying on you, my
dearest darling.

512
26 - Death of a Dragon
e should have made it one of Slovotsky's
Laws years before: "It always takes a lot of
time to make things go right, but they can
go all to hell in a heartbeat."
Walter Slovotsky kicked his heels against the
beefy side of his borrowed horse, following Thirien
up the steep trail to where the forest broke on
daylight.
Below, a dark-mouthed tunnel opened at the base
of the far hill, near where a half-dozen men sat
around a rough corral filled with horses. Either it
had been too long since Walter had spent time
around dwarves - he liked the Moderate People, as
long as they didn't insist that he share their
moderation - or that was awfully large for a dwarven
tunnel.
Still, it was possible. And if not an entry to
dwarven warrens, then what was it? Kethol had
H

513
relayed Durine's description, and Walter's first guess
was a mine, although not a modern one. One just
didn't make mine shafts larger than necessary. A
larger tunnel called for more bracing, and was more
likely to collapse than a smaller one. You did want
to make it large enough so that you could pull a
large cart out through it - no matter what you were
mining, you'd find it necessary to haul away a large
quantity of rocks - but enlarging it beyond necessity
quickly ran into the law of diminishing returns, and -
A dragon limped its way out into the sunlight, a
spear clenched in its mouth.
Holy mother of shit.
Thirien grabbed his dagger from his belt and
lunged for Kethol, while Erenor just sat
openmouthed at the sight of the dragon.
Slovotsky already had a throwing knife in his
hand, and while his throw went wide and caught
Thirien's horse in the withers instead of Thirien
himself, that sent the horse bucking, tossing Thirien
into Kethol, knocking both of them to the ground.
Ellegon?
The dragon didn't answer; he was either too high
or distracted.

514
As who wouldn't be?
There was still talk of the occasional dragon still
surviving in elven lands and the Waste, and there
was, of course, The Dragon, once again sleeping at
the Gate Between Worlds, but dragons were mostly
gone from the Eren regions, the Middle Lands in
particular. That was one of the reasons that Ellegon
was so valuable an ally: it wasn't just that he was
powerful, but that he was unique.
But another dragon, here, its dinner-plate-sized
eyes blinking in the sunlight?
Things seemed to move slowly, the way they
often did when it all hit the fan.
You could spend as much time as you wanted
figuring things out, the whole fucking universe
could be laid out in front of you, clear as a bell, ripe
for the plucking, but you were just as trapped in the
slow time as everybody else was, and you could no
more escape from it than they could.
They had been had.
The whole thing wasn't some minor play for
additional lands for the baroness's son to inherit, and
it wasn't some typical backstreet noble politics, even
though that could end up with a knife through
somebody's throat as easily as not. Walter was

515
barely egotistical enough to think that he was part of
the prey that the baroness wanted, but no, he wasn't
the target of all this.
It was Ellegon.
Ellegon would land to greet the other dragon - no,
he wouldn't. Ellegon had been caught once, and he
wouldn't simply fly into a trap. He would wait for
the other dragon to rise in flight -
- which meant that that spear in its mouth was
coated with dragonbane, and for whatever reason, it
was going to kill Ellegon.
It was clear, it was obvious, and if he could have
moved quickly enough, he could have done - what?
Ellegon, get out of here, he thought, as hard as he
could, trying to shout with his mind. That, at least,
made sense - no matter what the game was, it had to
be right to get the most valuable piece off the board.
Now.
But there was no answer from the dragon,
wheeling itself high across the sky.
His mind was racing, fast, out of control, but he
was stuck in this slow time like everybody else was,
where Erenor sat stupid on his horse and Kethol and
Thirien rolled around the ground, each with his hand

516
on the other's knife arm, as though they were trying
to mirror each other.
That was when the rockslide started.
It had taken Pirojil and Durine most of the afternoon
to work their way around to the crest of the hill over
the cave mouth. It would have been nice to have
Kethol around - he had a way of finding a path
through woods where there really wasn't one.
But they didn't have Kethol, and they didn't have
any paths to follow, and by noon they were well
scratched up, as well as tired and sore.
It could have been worse. A couple of days of rest
and food had made the two of them half-human
again. Not well, not rested, not comfortable nor
relaxed, but functional, and that would have to do.
They wouldn't have to watch their back trail
closely, although they would; Vester and his family
would hardly be carrying tales, not after having put
them up for all that time.
Not that it would make a difference soon. The
baroness had tried to have not just them killed - that
was bad enough - but Leria, as well.
And that was simply not acceptable.

517
Pirojil shook his head. This had started out as just
an annoyance, just an uncomplicated conveying of a
silly little chit from one city to another, just another
job. When had it become personal? And why? He
knew what Durine would have said: It became
personal when she tried to have us killed, the big
man would say.
But maybe not. People had tried to have them
killed before. That was the way it worked for
soldiers.
You tried to do it to them first, to do it better, to
do it right, but...
But there was no need to get angry about it.
Pirojil shrugged. It didn't matter why he was
angry, or even that he was angry. What mattered
was that the place to take on the baroness was out
here, at her mine or whatever it was. The deadfall
would take out her guards, or at least some of them,
leaving Pirojil and Durine to then slide down the
side of the hill to go after the baroness herself, to
settle with her.
This was the place; this was the time. Not that it
would take much time. Pirojil didn't need much
time. He wouldn't explain to her that you didn't send
people chasing after somebody that he and Kethol

518
and Durine and Erenor were guarding. He wouldn't
explain to her that when you played a game of bones
with humans as the pinbones, you had to worry
about one of your pieces resenting it. He wouldn't
tell her that his life wasn't worth much, but it wasn't
hers to take, not while he was serving the Old
Emperor's memory, or the Old Emperor's legacy.
No.
If the stones didn't get her, and Pirojil did get to
her, it would be just a quick slash to slow her down,
and then one thrust to finish her off.
If he lived through that, he could give speeches
over the dead body later. The Old Emperor had been
fond of that, although Pirojil had never quite found
it to his taste. Usually, by the time Pirojil was done
killing, he was more in need of a hot bath than a few
hot words.
Maybe he would make an exception this time.
Her guard was outside, sitting around the
inevitable cook-fire, and there was one extra saddled
horse in addition to the knacker-ready old beasts in
the corral, and the saddle on that horse was all pretty
and filigreed.
She was there.

519
Their flintlock pistols had long since been
removed from their oiled skins, and Pirojil was busy
repriming the last of them.
No, a pistol wasn't as good as a sword, not for
killing, but just the sound of the gunshots would
likely panic the horses and send them running. And
if you could even disable an enemy with a pistol
shot to the sword arm or either leg, that would make
him easy meat for the sword, when you got around
to him.
Durine carefully fitted another stone into place
behind the rotting log they were using as a deadfall.
Kick out the stones they'd jammed in front of the
log, and it would all happen quicker than a man
could die.
There was an argument to not waiting for the
baroness to come out, to drop the deadfall now and
then go in after her. But Pirojil wanted at least the
chance of doing it quickly and neatly, and Durine
seemed to read his mind and nodded, his fingers
spread in a "let's wait" motion.
And then things all started to happen quickly.
Too quickly.
A quartet of horsemen emerged from the forest
over the far hill just as Ellegon's dark shape

520
appeared over the horizon above them, flame issuing
from the dragon's mouth to mark the spot in case
Pirojil missed it.
Which he didn't.
And if he wasn't - no, he was right. He could
recognize Kethol's red hair and his overly stiff way
of riding a horse from here, and with Ellegon
overhead, that probably meant that he had Walter
Slovotsky - yes, it was him.
Durine grinned.
They weren't going to have to deal with the
baroness themselves, and while six on five wasn't
the best odds he'd ever heard of, they had Ellegon
overhead, and while the dragon would be careful to
stay out of range of any dragonbaned arrows, he was
still -
A smaller, browner dragon limped out of the cave,
a spear in its mouth. Work with somebody long
enough, and you end up sharing a mind. Pirojil
didn't have to see Durine moving out of the corner
of his eye to know that the big man would be going
for the left side of the deadfall, trusting that Pirojil
would go for the right. He scrabbled across the
ground, ignoring the way that rocks chewed at his
hands, until his boots reached the rock.

521
He kicked hard at it with his heel, once, twice,
three times, but it didn't move. They had piled too
many rocks behind the rotting log, perhaps, or
maybe he was more tired than he thought, but the
important thing was that the cursed rock wasn't
going to move, and that dragon down there was
going to move.
Could it be harmless, or friendly? He didn't waste
a heartbeat on that notion. Ellegon hadn't been lured
here to meet a new friend, and the baroness was not
only more dangerous than Pirojil had imagined, she
was more dangerous than anyone could have
imagined.
He kicked hard, harder, then braced himself, back
flat on the rocky slope, fingers grabbing for
purchase, and pushed.
And failed.
But Durine had more luck, or more strength, and
his side of the log began to move, at first barely, but
then more and more quickly, until the whole rotting
mass of wood slipped away downslope, rocks and
rubble tumbling after it.
Chunks of wood fell away as the log rolled and
bounced down the slope, but the mass was almost
intact as it struck the dragon a glancing blow on the

522
shoulder, and a good third of the rocks hit it in a
steady rain that knocked it to the ground.
But the dragon rose and shook itself all over, like
a dog drying itself, and craned its neck up toward
where Pirojil stood, his hands bloody and empty.
That's right, he thought. Come to me. Durine was
fumbling with the straps of their rucksack. If he
could get to the vial of dragonbane and get it on a
knife edge, maybe, maybe, maybe ...
Maybe they could die, roasted in dragonfire,
before the dragon went on to kill Ellegon and their
friends.
But wait. That spear in its mouth - the only thing
that made sense was that that was coated with
dragonbane, too, and if it used its flame it would
burn the weapon it intended to use on Ellegon.
*I won't let you hurt her. Or me.*
Another man perhaps could have reassured it with
his mind, or perhaps would at least have tried. But
Pirojil wasn't another man, and Durine had coated
his sword with the dark oily fluid from the flask and
tossed the flask toward Pirojil before he ran, halfstumbling,
down the slope toward where the dragon
waited below.

523
Pirojil, trying to do everything at once, stumbled
and fell as he went down the slope after Durine, the
flask of dragonbane extract bouncing out of his
bloody hands. It came to rest on a clump of grass,
and he had just retrieved it and started to coat his
own blade when Durine reached the bottom and
charged the dragon.
He moved quickly for such a big man; if he could
only get his sword -
The dragon moved even faster, snakelike, its
wings pinioning the air as it backed away, ready to
launch itself into the air after Ellegon.
"Fly away," Durine bellowed, daring the dragon
with his words as he threatened it with his sword.
"Do it: fly away and I'll be rolling her head around
the ground like a child's ball when you return. Fly
away, and I'll have her guts for garters when you
come back. Fly away, and I'll be toasting her heart
over a fire and slicing off tasty tidbits."
*No. I won't let you hurt her. I won't.* The wind
from its wings whipped dust into the air, and sent
Durine tumbling back on the hard, rocky ground, his
sword flying from his hand.
Pirojil had never seen Durine drop his sword
before, ever.

524
He was never sure whether Durine was already
dead when the dragon lunged forward and its good
forepaw crushed the big man to a bloody pulp, as
easily as Pirojil could have crushed a raw egg. It was
all clear to Walter, but clarity wasn't the prize here.
Survival was the only reward, life was the only
medallion, and as the dragon shrugged off the
rockslide and then mashed Durine against the hard
stone, Durine had lost the prize just as surely as the
two of the baroness's guards who had been buried in
the rubble.
It was only a matter of moments until the dragon
was airborne, and then it would be Ellegon's turn to
win or lose the only prize available. But this smaller
dragon moved so fast - could it fly faster than
Ellegon? With enough of a head start, Ellegon, still
wheeling high in the sky, surely could get away, but
did he have enough of a head start?
Thirien had kicked Kethol away, and was on his
feet, running away. But he wasn't important now.
Ellegon. Go, Walter Slovotsky thought. Run
away. Fly, as fast and as high as you can.
*It wouldn't do any good,* came back. *It's a
crazy one, and it's younger and faster than me. On
the ground, yes, I could outrun it But not in the air. I

525
can't outfly it, and I can't outfight it. I will try to
draw it away from the rest of you - *
It was then that Walter Slovotsky heard Erenor
muttering words that could only be heard and not
remembered: harsh, almost inhumanly guttural
sounds that vanished on the ear, like a fat snowflake
hissing and dying on a hot frying pan.
While Kethol grabbed at his bow, Erenor stood
his ground, alone, his tunic stripped off, leaving his
powerfully muscled chest bare, his arms spread
wide, obscene syllables spewing from his mouth in
a vomitous torrent.
Walter had thought of Erenor as more comical
than anything else, but the wizard seemed to grow in
dignity as the syllables grew in speed and volume.
And then, in an eye-blink, Erenor was replaced by
a dragon.
Yes, Walter Slovotsky's mind told him that it was
only a seeming, but Slovotsky had seen seemings
before, and this one was different.
Better.
The false dragon stood easily half again Ellegon's
size, huge and brown, each of its tens of thousands
of rippling scales finely detailed, and Walter would

526
have sworn that he could smell the sulfurous reek of
its breath as it raised itself up on its tree-trunk hind
legs and roared at the other dragon, a roar that was
deafening in Walter's mind, not his ears, but
nonetheless powerful for that.
It was all that Walter could do to keep control of
his sphincter.
Its teeth were jagged yellow swords; its paws
thundered against the ground as its wings spread
wide, covering half the sky.
The smaller dragon leaped into the air, its wings
beating so hard they blurred like a hummingbird's,
almost vanishing from visibility as the dragon took
flight and launched itself up the slope toward
Erenor's seeming, only to be knocked from the air by
a small sliver of an arrow launched from Kethol's
bow.
It screamed, a horrible, high-pitched sound that
rang in Walter's ears and his mind.
And it screamed again, and yet again as two other
shafts sprouted from its hide, and it fell to the
ground with a thump that almost shook Walter from
his feet.
He had to cover his ears. But there was no way he
could close his mind to the way the dragon's screams

527
echoed in his mind, and the silent sobbing brought
tears to his eyes that could not be washed away.
*Please,* it said.
And then its massive form shuddered into
motionless-ness, and its screams faded into a black
silence.
What had it been asking for? Slovotsky shook his
head. He would never know.
Kethol's face could have been carved from stone
as he lowered his bow.
But a scream from a different direction spun him
around, as it did Walter Slovotsky. There is a reason
that wizards like to stay out of battles. It isn't
cowardice, although certainly wizards can be
cowards. A Wizard, Walter liked to explain to
young soldiers, is like the man on the battlefield
with a flamethrower - knowing full well that they
would ask him what a flamethrower is.
It isn't that the flamethrower can kill you any more
dead than a bullet or a sword or a bolt or an arrow -
dead is dead, after all - but the thing about the
flamethrower is that it draws attention to itself.
Everybody on the other side immediately gets very
interested in the future of the person operating the
flamethrower.

528
Or the wizard operating the spell.
Now, Erenor wasn't much of a wizard. Walter had
known some powerful ones in his time, and Erenor's
tricks and slights and seemings were well done,
certainly, but really trivial. After all, it wasn't as
though he could have turned himself into a dragon,
or called lightning bolts down from the sky, or
caused the earth beneath their feet to turn to lava.
It had just been a seeming. Nothing more than
that.
Yes, it had turned the tide of battle, it had lured
the young dragon into range, leaving Ellegon safely
sweeping through the skies above.
But it had just been a seeming.
Still, Erenor was a wizard on a battlefield, and
perhaps Thirien didn't know or care that he wasn't
much of a wizard, as the huge seeming of a dragon
vanished, to leave Thirien standing behind the
wizard, Erenor's hair in his hands, the not-much-ofa-
wizard's throat quite literally slashed from ear to
ear, dark red blood pouring out in a slow fountain.
*Healing draughts in your saddlebags,* a familiar
voice sounded in Walter's head.

529
Ellegon came in fast and low, just a few feet above
the ground, wings spread wide as it swept across the
face of the hill, riding in ground effect until one
clawed foot snatched Thirien up and away, the
dragon's leathery wings now beating hard against the
air, taking its prey up and into the sky, leaving little
more than a scream behind.
"Move it, old man," Kethol shouted as he buried
his hands in the wizard's blood.
I'm getting too fucking old for this, Slovotsky
thought as he ran for his saddlebags. Everybody else
seemed to have at least a half-step on him.
*If you'll spend all your energy on running instead
of feeling sorry for yourself, you might be able to
get Erenor healed up before he bleeds out. Under the
circumstances, that might be a nice thing.*
Walter Slovotsky ran.

530
27 - Burials
irojil surveyed the battlefield. In the end, they
were all the same: bodies stinking in the sun.
One of the beat-up old horses had been
clawed by the small dragon, its hip slashed to white
bone and yellow fat. It limped back and forth as it
tried to escape the corral, a slow stream of dark
blood pulsing rhythmically down its leg. Pirojil
shrugged, and he pulled out his flintlock - the stupid
thing might as well be of some use - cocked it, and
tracked carefully before he shot the horse through
the head.
It whinnied once, then died.
Ellegon loomed over him. *Remind me again why
I like humans,* the dragon said.
Maybe it was talking to Pirojil. Or maybe not.
"There's a spade over there," Kethol said. "We can
dig a grave for Durine."
P

531
"I'll start," Erenor said. If you didn't notice the
tremor in his voice or the matching one in his
fingers, you would have thought that he was his
usual self.
Burying Durine was the right thing to think about.
It was practical. It was good to think about practical
things right now. And not about the woman
cowering in that cave, hoping that they would forget
about her.
Or, more likely, covering another spear in
dragonbane, to make another try at Ellegon. Not that
it would do her any good now, not without a fast
young dragon to deliver it.
Ellegon pawed at the ground. *I'll dig his grave, if
you'd like,* the dragon said.
Pirojil's jaw clenched so hard he thought his teeth
might break. "We bury our own, dragon."
Erenor nodded; after a moment, so did Kethol.
*I thought you might.*
For a moment, Pirojil thought about their cached
savings that were strapped to Durine, under the rags
and the blood, and how they would need to recover
it. He thought that he should be ashamed of himself

532
for thinking such practical thoughts at a moment like
this, then he gave a mental shrug.
Gold in the ground never did anybody any good.
The ground was the place for dead bodies and
growing plants.
And these other bodies?
Pirojil spat. Let them rot in the sun. Let their stink
draw the vultures and crows to peck at their eyes.
Pirojil had left enough men lying in the sun to be
eaten by carrion birds before.
But he and Kethol would bury Durine themselves.
No: it would be Pirojil, Kethol - and Erenor. The
wizard was, for good or ill, one of them now. You
bleed enough together and the blood and mind get
mixed up as they get mixed together. Pirojil didn't
have to like the wizard to recognize that Erenor had
made himself Pirojil's companion in arms the
moment he raised bis arms and drew the attention of
an attacking dragon to protect Pirojil and those Pirojil
was sworn to protect.
Erenor. Pirojil didn't like having Erenor be one of
them, but as usual it didn't much matter what Pirojil
did or didn't like.

533
Erenor. As though Kethol's mindless heroics
weren't enough of a problem, Pirojil was now
saddled with Erenor. Erenor was no substitute for
Durine, for huge, reliable, stolid Durine. Durine,
who bore adversity without complaint, who in a
fight was better protection for your back than a stone
wall. Durine, who had tried so hard and so
unsuccessfully not to like Erenor, so that he wouldn't
be bothered when Erenor died.
Well, perhaps Durine wouldn't have seen it as a
failure. After all, Durine wasn't bothered, because
Durine was the one who was dead.
Pirojil smiled for just a moment, declining Walter
Slovotsky's inclined-eyebrow request for an
explanation with a shake of the head.
It wasn't that Walter Slovotsky wouldn't
understand. It was that he would understand, he
would understand all too easily, and all too well, but
Pirojil didn't want him to. You were allowed to keep
some things private, even if all you were was an
ordinary soldier, and Pirojil was the most ordinary of
soldiers.
Hmmm... what to do about the body of the small
dragon? It looked peaceful lying there, stretched out
on the ground. Of all the dead, it was the only one
that hadn't voided itself in the dying, and while the

534
air was filled with the shit-stink of death, none of it
was from the dragon.
Well, that wasn't Pirojil's problem.
*You are not the only one who can take care of
his own,* Ellegon said.
The massive head eyed the cave opening.
What would be the right punishment? Pirojil
thought. As though there could be a proper
punishment for what Elanee had done. For what they
all had done.
Humans lived a short span of years; dwarves and
elves more; but absent being killed - and dragons
were notoriously hard to kill - dragons lived, well,
they lived a long time...
*The word you are looking for is "forever."*
Ellegon's words were coated in cold steel. *She - she
and you - she and you and I robbed it of forever.*
The long saurian head ducked briefly, and a river
of flame shot out into the cave mouth, quickly
drowning out the screams inside.
Yes, the dragon could have made it hurt worse. It
could have turned Elanee over to Pirojil, Kethol, and
Erenor, and they would have obeyed its instructions,
whether they involved a quick thrust of a sword or

535
threading her, anus to mouth, on a stick in front of a
fire.
But, in the end, would she have been any deader?
*Make sure she's dead,* Ellegon said as it
lumbered toward the body of the fallen dragon, then
stood astride it. *I'll count on you for that.*
Pirojil snorted. As though anyone could have
survived that fire.
*I am not asking your opinion,* the dragon's mind
said, its mental voice inhumanly even. *I am telling
you to make certain that she is dead.*
Pirojil nodded. Understood.
The dragon had no desire to foul itself by touching
the corpse, and Pirojil couldn't quite blame Ellegon
for that. Pirojil could finish the baroness off, if it
came to that; there was a death warrant in his pouch,
signed by the emperor. Perhaps that was why
Ellegon had chosen him.
*No. I chose you because you are here.*
It wasn't a warrant that had made Durine and the
dragon and Elanee dead, but stone and steel and
flame.
*As it always has been, eh?* Ellegon's claws and
legs clamped tightly on the dead dragon's torso, dead

536
eyes the size of dinner plates not complaining at all
about the snapping and cracking as wing members
gave way under the pressure of Ellegon's grip.
And then Ellegon's wings started to beat, hard, and
harder, until Pirojil couldn't keep his eyes open and
had to close and cover them with his hands to keep
the dust out.
As the wind and dust began to ease, he opened his
eyes to see Ellegon climbing slowly into the sky,
clutching the dead dragon beneath its massive bulk.
Pirojil thought about trying to say something to
Ellegon before the dragon got out of range, but
instead he just shrugged, and turned away.

537
28 - Uneasy Lies the Head, Part III
he emperor's dreams were light and gentle
this night. He was out riding - as he had
indeed been that very afternoon - and with
this Lady Leria from Keranahan that there had been
so much fuss over - as he had indeed been that very
afternoon.
Of course, in the dream, he wasn't saddlesore the
way he had been at the end of the real ride.
There was nothing at all wrong with that. Dreams
were allowed to improve on life, after all. He would
be sore enough in the morning, of a certainty - but
that would be from his real ride of the afternoon, and
not from his one.
Dreams were free.
"Do you get to do this often?" she asked, as she
had that afternoon.
T

538
"No, not very often at all," he said, as he had said.
"Until lately."
"Oh?" In a dream or in real life, it was polite to
follow such an opening, particularly if the person
leaving you the opening was the emperor. "And why
might that be?"
"I think things have finally quieted down," the
emperor said.
After all, if you couldn't lie to yourself or to a
pretty young woman while you were dreaming, well,
then, when could you?
Lady Leria smiled.