Shadow Gate

13

The surviving militiamen from various villages and towns in the eastern Olo Plain had been hastily organized to patrol the roads and tracks and to guard safe havens. In these havens, folk who had fled their villages or lost their homes could gather, catch their breath, reassess their situation, and decide what to do next. That was the idea, anyway. In practice, it wasn't so easy.

After a day searching the Soha Hills, Joss and his eagle returned to the staging camp at the southwestern edge of the hills. In ancient days, a refuge had been constructed on a pair of hills joined by a narrow ridgeway path. Farmers still worked the terraced fields, but the walled fortifications had been uninhabited for as long as anyone could remember. Both hilltops had been stripped of trees and substantially leveled, although the taller hill retained a rocky protuberance on the northern edge of the steepest slope, a perfect landing and perch for the big eagles. Leaving Scar up in these rocks, he scrambled down to the open ground and walked straight into an assault of petitioners.

'Reeve! I have a complaint! This man's cart blocked the trail… When will there be an assizes? Two men got in a fight. How are we to make provision for-? What's this I hear about people burying the dead-?'

He raised both hands to show he'd not be answering questions yet. Much of the crowd moved away, but perhaps a dozen followed him across the summit. They just would not stop talking. He walked past women cooking over fires and men hoisting canvas awnings to make shelters against what remained of the old walls. Bedraggled hierophants paced out the proper dimensions for a temporary foundation temple to Sapanasu, the Lantern, while in the distance a cadre of young ordinands cleared stray rocks from a section of ruined wall so they could patrol on top of it.

He turned on the petitioners. 'Enough! Give me time to take a drink and eat something. I'll hear your petitions at the assizes.'

They backed off. He cut over to the ordinands, climbed onto the old wall, and shaded his eyes as he surveyed the countryside. The landscape rolled away westward into the Olo Plain. On the road, a dozen wagons and many people moved toward the haven. From up here, they looked so small, but you could never know how big their problems were.

The sergeant of the little group approached him diffidently. The hells! The lad was so young he had scarcely any beard along his jaw. 'Reeve. If I might-?'

'Yes, what is it? I'm Joss.'

'I'm called Gani. Out of Sund.'

'You're a long way from home.'

'I am. I was sent to the temple in Westcott to do my year's service with Kotaru. I made a pledge for the full eight years of obligation. They sent me on to the temple in Candra Crossing. We had to flee for our lives.'

He was a quiet lad, not at all belligerent, with a humble manner that Joss liked.

'How can I help you?'

Gani scratched his forehead, rubbed his chin, and looked back at his cadre, who were all watching him intently.

'Go on. I won't tear your head off, whatever you might be thinking.'

'Is it true you're the marshal at Argent Hall?'

Joss sighed, feeling the weight of responsibility settle back on his shoulders. 'I'm Marshal Alyon's successor.'

'There was another man serving as marshal before you.'

'He wasn't a real reeve. He had no eagle that anyone ever saw. Anyway, he's dead.'

'Ah. Eh. That's it, you see. There came a pair of Devouring priests, a kalos and a hierodule, with a message from the Hieros of the temple in Olossi. It's said there was a conclave of all those holy ones in charge of the temples in Olo'osson. They agreed that any of the men from the army that attacked Olossi and who are dead now are to be…' He stiffened.

'You haven't been sergeant long, have you?'

T am most senior of those left,' he admitted, but the comment gave him courage – or made him ashamed of his hesitation. 'It's like this. We've been told to dig ditches out of sight in the forest and to – to bury those dead men and cover them with dirt.' Having started, the rest poured out in a rising voice. 'But if we do that, then they can't rest. They can't pass the Spirit Gate. What if they turn into demons? Or haunt us? Their ghosts will be angry, and trapped! I know it's meant as a punishment for them, but what will happen to us who are assigned to complete such a task?'

'That's not reeve territory, lad. I can't help you.' Thank the gods! Still, it was shocking. A brutal, calculated impiety. 'Yet the army that invaded lis has done terrible things, rape and murder, desecrating temples, defiling corpses.'

The lad looked at his companions. They were silent and uncomfortable. They didn't want to talk about it in front of him.

Such talk made Joss uncomfortable, too, and he let his gaze wander. Six children worked the slope leading down to the terraces, picking petals of the baby's-delight that flowered with the first rains. The pale flowers brightened the slopes, which evidently had been recently cropped short by industrious sheep. He met the lad's gaze with a stern one of his own.

'It's an ugly thing to contemplate. But I saw the army marching Olossiward on West Track. I saw what they left behind. Maybe it's best if their spirits are crushed beneath earth. They're already corrupted. This is a pollution that must be buried before it consumes us. But that doesn't mean you have to like it. That it bothers you means your heart and spirit are clean.'

'Very well, Marshal.' The lad nodded, so tense it made Joss sad to think of what he must have seen in the last two weeks to cause him to look angry and worn down. 'We'll do as we've been bid. Perhaps you'd come at dawn, to where we've been assigned to dig the ditches. By that stand of ironwood.' He pointed toward a dozen mature ironwood trees towering above the edge of dense scrub forest that flowed away over the nearby hills. 'Just in case any folk see what we're doing and make trouble. You could let them know the temples gave the order.'

'That's fine. I'll be there at dawn.'

Below, a crowd had gathered, waiting on Joss. He assured himself that Scar was at rest, preening as dusk settled. Then he clambered down and waded into the roiling waters.

A temporary court had been set up within the compound. Who had he assigned here?

Ah. The Snake.

'I don't care if your son is younger than the other man,' Volias was saying to a particularly persistent woman whose face was flushed. 'Every witness says they were both drunk. That makes them both culpable. Why these young idiots should make themselves free with wine in times like these is more than I can understand. Haven't they anything better to do, with folks living under canvas and desperate for water and food, and babies sick with diarrhea? Well, they will have something to do now, since I've

assigned them both to dig and cover night-soil pits for the rest of the month.'

'You can't-!'

'I can. Now get the hells out of my face or I'll ask my militia escorts here to drag you away and toss you into the pits. The ones that are already full with the same crap that's coming out of your mouth. Gods! Let someone else have a turn.'

He looked up, sensing the crowd that approached. Seeing Joss, his ugly scowl turned into a sneer. He waved away the next petitioner, rose, and strode over to Joss.

'You gods-rotted rutting ass! These people are impossible.'

'Such a good match, you and them.' Although he knew better, he grinned because he did so enjoy seeing Volias suffer.

'You'll drown in your milky self-love some day. And I hope I'm there to watch and not throw you a rope. Listen, can we talk with some privacy?'

The crowd refused to give them up. They pressed around, everyone talking at once. 'What about the theft from my cart? I've nothing to feed my children. We've no shelter. We were told we could return to our village, but it's not safe to go back. Is it true the outlanders are looking for women to marry? Why aren't there more reeves here? One isn't enough.'

Joss raised both hands to get their attention. 'Heya! Listen!' At length, they quieted. 'We've got business to talk over between ourselves, and then we'll open the assizes for another session this evening. There are other reeves, at other refuges. But in the end you'll have to either go back to your homes and rebuild, or go to Olossi. If you're thinking your lives will be easier in Olossi, be aware that much of the outer town was burned. The folk there have all they can do to rebuild. Go back to your own homes.'

'Why shouldn't we go to where walls and numbers will make us safe?' shouted one man.

Joss identified the speaker and noted his close-cropped hair and broad shoulders and the plain leggings and jacket commonly worn by farmers. 'You'll get safe passage in a few days. I expect the roads from here back to Olossi to be as safe as we can make them in the time we've had. I can't promise safety on the Hornward road, but patrols will continue to range as far as East Riding. You must take

responsibility for local patrols. Each village must set up a militia of able-bodied adults. There may be a few outlaws left hiding in the woodland. You'll need to capture and turn over to the Olossi militia every straggler you find. Meanwhile, the single most important thing any of you can do, ver, is to plant fields for the coming year while the season is ripe for planting.'

'Can't Olossi's militia protect us? What of those black wolves who rode through here a few days ago, chasing the invaders? The tale says that an outlander will save us!'

His questions were echoed by others, all pressing forward so eagerly that Volias actually took a step back. Joss held his ground.

'We were aided by the outlanders. Captain Anji's company served us well. But another army, a stronger one, may attack out of the north in the months to come. Don't give the responsibility to protect yourselves to someone else, lest you forget how to defend yourself when there is no one to lend you a sword or bow. You've faced that day already, and lost your homes and kin. Best we don't walk this road again.'

He nudged Volias's elbow. Before the crowd could recover, he and Volias moved back behind the table set up to mark the assizes court and into what had once been a house. The upper courses of the stone walls were gone, but the sections of wall that remained served as a barrier. He leaned against stone and scratched at a watering eye.

'Dust everywhere,' he muttered.

The Snake paced. 'You get all puffed up with your hectoring. Half the women in the audience were eyeing you, hoping for a glance from those pretty eyes.'

'Enough! What do you have to say to me?'

'There's a solo eagle hanging around, comes and goes. No reeve. She favors one wing, a recent injury.'

'Tumna?'

'Is that her name?'

'Yes. She's out of Argent Hall. Her old reeve's dead. It seems she's already chosen a new reeve.'

'How could she have done that? No one's stepped into the circle.'

'I don't know. But it happened. Hasn't the girl made herself known to you? No, maybe she isn't here yet. It'll take her days to reach here, and she has small children with her.'

'Married?' asked Volias with surprise.

'Widow. They're stepchildren. The father must have been a lot older.'

Volias leaned on the wall, propped on his elbows, and stared over the darkening hills to the northeast. Their personal feud had gone on so long that Joss rarely saw on Volias a neutral expression, but the man had borrowed one now, and it softened his features and made him appear almost likable. 'You weren't just putting her on to try to get a taste of her, her being thankful for the attention?'

'Gods! For sure that's a likely thing for a newly appointed marshal to do. And in such times as these! The hells, Volias! Is that really what you think of me?'

'Heh. Got you.' There it was: a grin. Not precisely friendly, but not quite bitter and mocking either. 'I'll keep an eye out. What do I do with her?'

'She'll have to go to Argent Hall to train. Tell you what, when she comes in, you fly her back to Argent Hall, or delegate another reeve to do so. Yet I'm not sure she'll be willing to separate from the children until we can get them settled in some other way. There's an older girl, old enough to marry. I'm hoping she might be persuaded to marry one of the Qin soldiers.'

'Whew! It's a cursed shame, us encouraging good Hundred girls to marry outlanders. You can't trust foreigners. Everyone knows that. Maybe they don't even have eggs. Maybe their members have thorns on them, like it's said in the tale about the wildings. Best if our lasses stick to their own kind.'

Joss wanted to slug him, but refrained. 'We have over two hundred unmarried men who have weapons, who know how to use them better than our militia do, and who might expect a little gratitude after saving Olossi and Argent Hall. I'd rather these outlanders marry good Hundred girls and have a reason to settle down and ally with us than go riding after someone who'll make use of them. Like the Northerners.'

'I don't like their slanty eyes. They look at us like they think we're so much smaller than they are. They remind me of you in some ways.' The sneer was back.

Joss pushed away from the stone. 'Is there anything else? I'd like to eat and drink before I sit down at the assizes for the evening.'

'Are you going to allow this order that came from the Olossi temple conclave? To bury the corpses of the dead soldiers?'

'I am.'

'The hells! You can't mean it. It's going against the laws of the gods.'

'You saw what those criminals did in the villages. We must bury such spirits.'

'And become as impious as they were.'

'Maybe so. But young men – and debt-bound slaves – will think twice about running away to the north to make their fortune robbing and raping and murdering, won't they? Anyway, it's the punishment spoken of in the Tale of Fortune, isn't it? That must be where the temple ruling comes from. That's all I have to say. Make sure Nallo – that's the new reeve's name – gets to Argent Hall. If she won't leave the children, then make sure some provision is made for them, else she won't cooperate. Otherwise, you're in charge here at this haven until everyone has dispersed. Then you can return to Clan Hall.'

Volias was still stewing. Joss took his silence for assent and went to find something to eat. A scrap of bread, sour wine, and the leavings of watery soup were all that was available, and even that must be eaten with folk rudely trying to get his attention while a trio of young militiamen out of Olossi did their best to hold back the crowd. He set up afterward at the makeshift assizes court, and the petitioners kept coming to him and Volias for hours. A woman needed a healer for a broken hand. Every small child in one corner of the sprawling encampment had diarrhea. A dispute had broken out between two families over the contents of a wagon full of goods salvaged from their burned village. A lad and a lass wished to sit on the marriage bench, but both their clan heads forbade it, while the hopeful couple claimed that they had already received permission from clan elders who had, alas, been killed in the recent trouble.

He heard numerous accusations of petty theft, and four serious accusations of assault. Twelve children had vanished since reaching the haven, there were nine abandoned children no one would claim, and one chubby infant girl that two clans both swore on all the gods belonged to their house. He finally sent an exhausted Volias to rest but was himself up half the night, and the demands never slackened.

Nor, when he made a judgment, were the petitioners satisfied, but would want to keep arguing for a different outcome.

Finally a new watch came on, headed by a vigorous old woman who took one look at his face by the light of her lantern and, turning to the crowd, declared the assizes closed for the night. She had a hard face and a bullying manner, and he'd never been so grateful for either.

'Get you some rest, lad,' she said in her country way. 'You can't make good judgments when you're so tired, and them too tired to listen to what you do have to say. They'll not pester you if you take your rest now.'

'No, truly, they won't. If you'll lend me a light, or someone to escort me, I'll sleep by my eagle.'

She chuckled. 'Eh! You'll get no petitioners bothering you there, I'm thinking.' Then she winked at him. 'Although you're the kind might want bothering.'

He laughed for the first time in days, it seemed. 'Truly, I need to sleep.'

A burly man escorted him most of the way, humbly silent out of respect for Joss's exhaustion, or perhaps exhausted himself, for he had a stiff gait and favored one leg. Only over by the rocks, atop which Scar perched in his night drowse, did the man venture a question.

'Think you that northern army will attack a second time?'

'We have to prepare.'

'It's said the soldiers wear a talisman, this "Star of Life". I saw one for myself, a starburst sigil hammered out of cheap tin. But what do they want? Where did they come from? The tales tell of war and trouble in the days before the Guardians came to stand at the assizes. And now – well – begging your pardon and no disrespect to you reeves, but it seems that with the Guardians vanished from the Hundred, bad times have fallen again.'

They were honest questions, and deserved an honest answer.

'I know not much more than you do, ver. I've heard tell that a man named Lord Radas commands another army in the north, likely larger and better disciplined although we don't know for sure. We do know that the city of High Haldia has been overrun. What do they mean to do next? That I don't know. March on Toskala? Or

march again on Olossi? We'll fight. Don't doubt that. As for you and your people, you must return to your homes and fortify them. And plant your crops, else we'll have famine on top of all else.'

'Are the Guardians gone forever? Or is it true, as some whisper, that they'll return? I've heard it said that the Guardians never left the Hundred, but that they became cloaked in darkness and now mean to kill us all and rule those who are left behind. I heard it said that the man who commands this dark army is a Guardian.'

'That can't be.' But perhaps he said the words as much to convince himself. A number of Captain Anji's men had seen, and shot at, a man riding a winged horse. They had no reason to lie, and on the whole Joss had found the Qin soldiers to be temperamentally disinclined to exaggerate. Zubaidit had claimed to have seen winged horses, and so for that matter had the Hieros. The gods had created the Guardians to bring justice to the land, to stand in judgment at the assizes. The Guardians could not die.

And yet they had all seemingly vanished.

'Who else could raise an army?' the man asked. 'Who but a Guardian would have the authority?'

'Why would the Guardians vanish, leaving the assizes without their oversight, and then reappear at the head of an army that has committed nothing but murder and mayhem, the worst kind of injustice? Everything that goes against why the Guardians were created by the gods in the first place? Why?'

The man bent his head, as though listening to another, softer voice. He scratched his beard. 'Why does anyone lie or cheat or steal? Or do worse things, which we've all heard of and you, reeve, have surely seen plenty of in your time. When the Four Mothers shaped the world, they set all in balance. Afterward, the gods ordered the world, but it is our prayers that keep all in balance. But what if balance and order are lost? In one man, in one woman, that loss may give rise to a lie or even a murder. Yet that is only a single act. In many men, or in one with the power to sway men, the loss of order means chaos will rise. Then greed and fear will rule. That's what I fear. That the shadows have risen, that order is lost.'

'What's your name, ver?' said Joss, for he was struck by the man's sober wisdom. 'I'm called Joss, as you may have heard.'

'Hehl' He had a modest way of chuckling, and a friendly grin.

'I'm called Pash, Fire-born like you. I grow rice and nai in a village on the plain, not far from here. We were fortunate. We gave shelter to a few refugees, and thereby knew to take flight ourselves with our most precious goods. We hid in the woodland. Some men then come ten days past, those running from the battle by Olossi, but they hadn't time to burn anything for they were in such haste to flee north. They only stole a few of our stores, nothing we can't replace.'

'Wise heads prevailed. I'm glad to hear it.'

'Let me ask you another thing, for I know you had a hand in the battle by Olossi.' Pash favored him with a close gaze, as if trying to sort out if his heart was in balance, or in chaos. 'I have five daughters, ver, and not enough land to parcel out between them if each one hopes to make a living from it. There aren't enough lads with decent portions nearby to make husbands for all of them. I saw the Qin soldiers. Is it true they're looking for wives?'

'They made a bargain with the council of Olossi that if they could drive off the army, they'd be allowed to settle in this region.'

'I heard, too, that they're cursed rich. That they've a canny merchant among them, a real Rat, if you take my meaning, who flayed the coins off those fat Olossi merchants and filled the outlanders' coffers.'

'She's an Ox, not a Rat, and a very beautiful woman, but, yes, that's more or less how it happened.'

'Ah. You've an interest there?'

Joss laughed. 'Not I, ver. She's married to the captain. And she's very young.'

'Good fortune for him. So these young soldiers, any one of them are well set up? Likely to be well endowed with land and coin? Worthy of one of my good daughters?'

Joss grinned. 'As worthy as any man could be, ver.'

'Heh! You have me there, for I don't think much of most men when it comes to my good daughters. But tell me true, reeve. If it were your own daughter, would you be willing to marry her to one of these outlanders?'

'I suppose they're no different than other men in most ways. They held to their side of the bargain. They mean to settle here, and make their way. I'd seal no bargain until the lass had looked them over, but it's worth a look.'

'My thanks, then.' He shifted his staff and, with a slight grunt as he bent one knee, seated himself on a stone wall. Scar's shadow loomed above them, at the summit of the rocky promontory. 'I'll settle here to keep petitioners away, ver, if you've no objection and if your eagle won't tear my head off.'

'My thanks.'

He picked his way up through the ruins. Dressed stones gave way to true rocks where the ground was too rugged to tame into architecture. At the crest, he paused to catch his breath. Behind lay the busy encampment, lit with watch fires, itself inhaling and exhaling with so many frail lives huddled in what fragile haven they could find. Before him, the hillside plunged down a steep slope impossible to climb. Because of the clouds, it was too dark to see anything. He felt out an open-sided overhang in the rock that offered a little protection from the night rains. Above, Scar had roosted for the night. After wrapping himself in a blanket, Joss lay down and closed his eyes.

The dream unwinds itself in a veil of mist, rising into the heavens as if the rocks exhale the breath of life, which has in it the essence of all those spirits killed in the recent attacks. The dream is familiar, well remembered. He is walking through a dead countryside of skeletal trees and scorched earth. He is himself dead, yet unable to pass beyond the Spirit Gate. The mist boils as though churned by a vast intelligence. For years, at this point in the dream, he would see her figure in the unattainable distance, walking along a slope of grass or climbing a rocky escarpment, always in a place he cannot and must not reach because he has a duty to those on earth whom he has sworn to serve.

But this night he finds himself sitting up, still sheltered beneath the wide overhang. Scar drowses. The rains haven't yet come. Mist billows in the air, and she emerges from it. A death-white cloak spills from her shoulders, enveloping her. She rides out of the air as if the air is a path. She can ride on the air because the horse has wings. Its hooves ring on rock as it halts a short distance from him and furls those impossible wings, tips hiding the length of her legs.

'Joss,' she says.

'Mark!' To hear her voice is agony, because he still misses her

although twenty years separate them. 'You're dead,' he adds, apologetically, because it is after all a dream.

'Yes.' Her smile is sad. 'Don't carry this burden. Don't mourn me, Joss. Let it go.'

'Is that you telling me, or me telling myself? Why do you haunt me?'

'I bring you a warning. At dawn, they'll try to kill you. The guards you've agreed to meet by the ironwood trees are not guards but outlaws who have infiltrated this haven to murder you. Beware!'

'They're just lads!'

'Look into your heart, Joss, and you'll see their story doesn't hold water.'

'Everyone is talking about how the temples have ordered it done. As it says in the Tale of Fortune: "Their spirits were buried."'

'That's not what I mean. You're a reeve. Investigate!'

'Yes, and you're a reeve, too.' The only woman he had truly loved, his first and only lasting passion. She was the only woman he had truly betrayed, and in the worst way: he'd never meant to abandon her to her cruel fate. 'So why do I see you in the form of a Guardian, with a death-white cloak and a winged horse? What are the gods trying to tell me?'

'I don't know what the gods are trying to tell you, Joss.'

'I wish you were here to tell me where that cursed woman Zubaidit and her brother are got to. Taken some side trail into the Soha Hills, but Scar and I haven't found them.'

She looked away abruptly, breaking eye contact. 'There's a black tide trickling north and east through the Soha Hills, the remnants of the army.'

'Is it true a Guardian commands this "Star of Life"?'

'Lord Radas commands them.'

'Lord Radas of Iliyat?' He remembered the lord's strange behavior, years ago, on the Ili Cutoff. Then he shook his head. 'Maybe so. That doesn't make him a Guardian.'

'How can any of us know what a Guardian is? They walk abroad, hiding themselves in plain sight. I see with my third eye and I understand with my second heart that they are corrupted, so I dare not approach them. They will destroy me if they find me.'

'Because you are a Guardian, or because they are? You speak in riddles.'

She looked back toward him without truly meeting his gaze. 'I'm alone, Joss. You're the only one I know I can trust.'

He tried to make sense of her words. 'A man appeared before the Hieros in the Merciless One's temple by Olossi. He demanded she turn over to him a slave, a "ghost girl", they called her. He was dressed like an envoy of Ilu, but he claimed to be a Guardian, and the Hieros believed him. He had with him two winged horses, and when he spoke, she said, "Every heart listened." As it says in the tale.'

He knew Marit as well as he knew any woman, though that knowledge was twenty years' gone. For months, each least variation in her expression had been; his most intense study. That cast of face – mouth slack, gaze drawn inward as thoughts raced – and the tension in her shoulders marked surprise and shock as a clever, powerful mind reassessed what it thought it knew.

'A man dressed in the manner of an envoy of Ilu, claiming to be a Guardian? On the trail of an outlander? Seen at the Devourer's temple in Olossi?'

He nodded, but she was already turning her horse, moving for the edge of the promontory. She looked back over a shoulder. 'I saw a woman and a man, traveling together, with three horses, camped in the ruins beneath a Guardian altar right where the Soha Cutoff begins its descent into Sohayil.'

'Mark!'

The horse opened its wings and sprang into the sky. A gust raked through the overhang, and he woke to find rain spraying over his blanket and boots.

'The hells!' He scrambled out from under the overhang, right into the teeth of the wind. Rain spat into his face, and he wiped his eyes as he stared into the darkness, but there was nothing there. By the time he crawled back into the shelter, found a brand, lit it, and searched the ledge, the rain had wiped every track away. He knew he would have found nothing anyway, no mark of a horse's hoof. It had only been a dream.

The rain passed, the last drops splattering on stone. Scar chirped, rousing, and Joss saw distant objects in the east, evoked by the lightening that presaged dawn. He shook his head like a dog shedding

water, and shook out his cloak, then rolled it up. In the dim light he picked his way carefully down the slope. There, sitting on the stone where he'd left him, was the farmer, Pash.

'Greetings of the day,' Joss said.

'Morning is coming on,' agreed Pash, who seemed remarkably alert for a man who had, presumably, stayed awake all night. 'Whether it will bode good, or ill, I can't say. You're up early.'

'Where did you say you came from?'

'A little hamlet, you wouldn't have heard of it. We call it Green Water for the particular color of a pool there, a holy place dedicated to the Witherer. It's a day's walk from Candra Crossing.'

'Know you anyone here in the haven that's out of Candra Crossing? In particular I am looking for any person who might have served, or be serving, in the temple of Kotaru there.'

He chuckled. 'Why, indeed, the old battle-axe who took command of us is a captain in the Thunderer's order. You met her. Whew! She hasn't the strength of arm I'm sure she had once, but she has that manner about her that is as good as a blow to the head, if you take my meaning.'

'I'd like to see her right away.'

She was awake, with the night watch, getting ready to turn their duties over to the day watch. She introduced herself as Lehit. It was true she was old enough that her youthful strength was gone, no great threat when it came to arm-wrestling, but none of the militiamen doubted her authority: A look is as good as a hammer, as the saying went.

At his question, she shook her head. 'No youth named Gani apprenticed at the Thunderer's temple in Candra Crossing since I've served there, and that's been forty years. Best we send a party down to the ironwood grove with you. Or better yet, if you'll give me a few breaths to sort things out, set an ambush. If they see us all coming, they're like to flee. I'd like to capture them.'

So it happened that, somewhat after dawn, he walked alone along a track through muddy fields toward the grove of ironwood. The tops of these green pillars swayed in the dawn breeze. A lone iigure stood beside the massive trunk of the closest tree, waving at him to draw him closer. Just out of what he judged to be bowshot, Joss bent as if to shake a stone from his boot.

Shouts rose from the trees. Joss straightened. The figure had vanished, but a moment later Gani burst from behind the tree and sprinted toward Joss with sword drawn.

The hells! Joss drew his sword. In recent days, he'd felt that weight too often in his hand, for as the old reeves who had trained him had always said, 'If you have to draw your sword, you've already lost control of the situation.'

Halfway to him, Gani staggered, stumbled, and fell facedown in the dirt with a pair of arrows sticking out of his back. He thrashed a moment, got his head up, and began crawling toward Joss with a grimace of determination on his beardless face. He was still holding his sword. A pair of militiamen jogged out of the trees, bows in hand. As Joss stared, they ran to the lad, tossed down their bows, and stuck him through with their spears as if they were finishing off a wild pig.

Joss trotted over to them, but it was too late. Gani lay with body slack and blood leaking from his mouth. 'I thought we were going to capture them.'

The two militiamen – one a heavyset young woman and the other an older man – had fury etched in their expressions. Both spat on the corpse before turning to Joss.

'You'll see,' said the woman. She tested her right leg, then groped at her right knee.

'How bad?' asked her companion.

'Eh. It'll bruise, but nothing was cut. Now I understand why the holy ones ordered their spirits buried. Fah!' She spat again, wiped her mouth, and kicked the corpse.

'Here, now!' Joss hadn't yet sheathed his sword.

'We'll lay offerings at the Thunderer's altar so his blood doesn't corrupt us,' added the woman. 'Come on.' She limped back toward the trees. Joss and the other man followed.

The settlers in this region had left the rank of ancient ironwood alone, but the woodland behind it showed all the signs of being second-growth, trees and shrubs sprouting where once a mature stand of forest had stood. His companions hacked a way through. He pushed past bushes whose crests waved above his head. His feet squelched on debris soaked by the rains.

A tiny campsite had been cut out of the middle of a particularly

labyrinthine architecture of interlaced tranceberry bushes. It was wider than he expected, although still in shadow from the foliage all around it, and covered with a carpet of recently downed branches and the mulch of last year's leaf litter. In this small clearing, eleven ordinands lay dead and two militiamen were wounded. Lehit had her back to him; she was hectoring some poor soul. She saw him, and limped over.

'What happened?' he asked. 'I thought you wanted to capture them.'

Shock showed in the way she stared at him, as if she could not comprehend words. She shook her head, but was only trying to get strands of hair out of her eyes. She brushed them away with the back of a bloody hand. 'Once we suspected they were here, it was easy to track them. We crept in on three sides, and attacked just as we said. They wouldn't surrender. Once they saw they'd lost and that they couldn't escape, they fought to make us kill them, or killed themselves rather than be taken prisoner.'

'A frightening sense of purpose. That lad crawled at me with two arrows stuck in his back. He meant to kill me.'

'Yet none of that is the worst you'll see.' She gestured, and he walked with her over to a sliver of an opening in the pipe-brush.

They had dug a pit into the ground, deep enough that a tall man standing upright could barely touch the rim with outstretched arms. The walls of the pit were slimy with moist soil, worms, and bugs, and the stink of excrement and urine was strong in the depths. Into this pit they had flung children. One was a headless corpse, still dressed in the ragged remains of an everyday short tunic now smeared with dirt and spattered with blood. The rest were alive, staring up fearfully. He counted twelve.

'Are these the missing children?' he asked Lehit, feeling sick. 'Do any of you recognize them? Here, let's get them out of here.'

They were too afraid to reach up their hands to be pulled free. They didn't know the guardsmen, and it quickly became apparent some had been raped. Coming out of the pit might bring a new round of horrors. One boy began to cry and, after a moment in which they watched the stunned and horrified guardsmen for their reaction and saw that nothing was to happen to the crying boy, the rest began to weep as well.

With an effort, Joss found his voice. 'Lehit, send a couple of your guards and ask members of the families who are missing children to come out here.'

Two were sent. Lehit stayed, scratching her chin, while the heavy-set woman jumped into the pit. The children shrank away from her, but she crouched and began talking in a singsong voice, telling the tale of the Swift Horse, a familiar and soothing bedtime story that every child knew by heart. She didn't look at them or try to engage them; she just talked.

Joss moved back from the edge of the pit. In the clearing, the guardsmen were dragging the bodies to one side, while the older man and Pash knelt beside the wounded pair, stanching and binding.

'Bad enough to kidnap children,' said Lehit in a low voice. 'But we all hear such stories, when a family becomes desperate without young ones to carry on the line. But to brutalize them in such a manner, and them not even having celebrated their Youth's Crown to be of age! While meanwhile, the Devourer gives freely to any person willing to walk through Her gate. How could any decent person choose this over what the gods have ordained?'

The familiar throb of a headache was beginning to build. Joss rubbed his eyes. 'They'd not been here long. It doesn't smell bad enough.'

Lehit leaned close. She'd had a bit of rice wine; its sour brack perfumed the air briefly. 'How did you know this camp was here? That these youths were part of the enemy's army? We're so overwhelmed with all the folk up in the haven that we'd never have known. I sent out a few patrols to search for the missing children, but… how did you guess?'

He thought of his dream. 'A reeve asks questions when things don't look right.'

'That other reeve didn't ask. Seems to me you've better sight than most.'

He shrugged.

Pash walked over, wiping his hands on a bit of torn cloth. 'Best we carry the wounded and the young ones back to the haven quickly, for a miasma dwells in this place that would corrupt the healthiest man.' He glanced toward the pit.

The woman's voice drifted up, the tale unfolding in a soothing patter of words. The other guardsmen waited in silence.

'How did you know, Reeve?' Pash asked Joss. 'We'd have never found them if you hadn't guessed. Them so young to be so foul. Sheh! It's beyond my understanding.'

Joss remembered words spoken twenty years ago. He still heard

Marit's voice as though she was speaking into his ear. ' "Make them

ashamed of themselves and they will not betray you,"' he said,

"because they will know they have stepped outside the boundaries

and made themselves outcast by their deeds.'"

'As the captain's wife said in the Tale of Fortune,' mused Pash, shaking his head. 'True enough words. Thank the gods I kept my good daughters close beside me.'

'No wonder the temples want their spirits buried,' said Lehit. 'Such corruption must be crushed beneath earth and never allowed to rise. We'll bury them in the very pit they dug. Then we'll lay offerings on the Thunderer's altar so their blood doesn't corrupt us.'

In the pit, the young guardsman's voice flowed on. She'd gotten to one of the funny episodes, the encounter of the horse's ass of a merchant and the horse's ass itself, complete with a steaming pile of horse manure always calculated to amuse a child of a certain age, and sure enough there came a tiny childish chuckle, a sound so unexpected that Joss thought he might have dreamed it. Branches snapped, and a pair of young men loped into the clearing with their bare arms scratched up and their faces sweaty.

'We checked all around, Captain, but we saw no evidence that anyone got away.'

Lehit nodded. 'Good work. No doubt once they'd murdered the reeve, they meant to run. Yet with the children, as well? It makes no sense. They'd be a burden to them. And that poor child – the hells! what do you suppose happened to its head? Why did they want to murder the marshal of Argent Hall?'

'Because we killed the one who came before me, who we have reason to believe was set in place by those commanding the northern army.'

'Will you be going back to Argent Hall, then? The hall might be the safest place for you, now you know they're stalking you.'

Argent Hall awaited, and he had plenty to do there. 'Not yet. There's one last task I must accomplish out here. One last person to track down.'

Scar was well rested and eager to go. Where the hills shouldered into the plain there were plenty of thermals. They rose, and glided far above the Soha Hills. This range was rugged although not high. Many a narrow valley and densely wooded vale offered shelter to fleeing men. Twice he saw cadres of Qin soldiers on the road, easy to mark because of their distinctive dress and manner of riding and also because one reeve was assigned to each cadre to scout for ambuscade or refugees in the lands along the Soha Cutoff.

Just after midday, they hit the shifting currents that marked the abrupt end of the hills where the land fell away steeply into the wide basin of Sohayil. In the distance, seen as green smudges, he saw hills to the north and east. These slopes were cut by the gaps of West Riding and East Riding, although in truth those gaps lay more to the north and south.

He banked low, spiraling down. Maybe his dreams spoke true, granted him by the gods. Maybe that really had been Marit talking to him, however impossible that might seem. Or maybe it was just a good hunch, filtered through his sleeping mind. For there they were, the pair of them with their three horses, plodding down the switchback trail from the height of the Soha Hills into the deep basin below. They were easy to spot, right out in the open on the bare slope, and they had nowhere to hide here in the afternoon with the rain holding off and no one else on the road. He recognized her the moment he saw her, for no matter how small she might appear there was something in her shape and posture he could never mistake for another. The fugitives paused to look up as he circled overhead, and although he was riding the thermals and quite high above them, he was sure she knew what reeve had tracked her down.

He sent Scar to earth at the base of the trail. The tall grass was greening under the onslaught of early rains. He unhooked from the harness, dropped to the earth, and strode forward to the road. Not too long after, they trudged into sight. It was obvious even from a distance that they were arguing, and soon enough he heard their conversation.

'Bai, we can't just give up-'

'What do you intend to do? Turn around and toil up that damned steep road? It's better to face what's chasing you than to keep running.'

She was close enough that he could raise his voice and hope to be heard. 'Good advice, verea. For here I am.'

Her gait shifted subtly, enough to make him catch in his breath as she sauntered in full swing toward him. She looked him up and down in a measuring way that made his ears burn. 'Yet I must be wondering why you have come after us and, apparently, alone but for your fine eagle there.'

He grinned. 'Reason enough.'

'So I imagine, by the look of you.'

'Bai!'

Joss spared a glance for the brother, then looked again, surprised that he recognized the young man. The intricate architecture of causation and consequence unfolded before him: he'd met this young man for the first time in the village of Dast Korumbos, when they were both standing over the body of an envoy of Ilu who had been mortally wounded by the ospreys – the bandits – who had invaded the village.

For a moment he was speechless; he'd known, but it hadn't really occurred to him that so many of the players in this tale were linked so neatly. Then they halted in front of him, the horses blowing and stamping, eager for water and yet nervous of the eagle, the woman amused and the man irritated and anxious. Two holy ginny lizards stared at him. Their gaze was unnervingly disapproving, so he shifted his attention.

'Keshad, isn't it?' he asked.

'So it is. We're clear of our debts. We're free to go.'

'As it happens, you aren't.'

The young man had an expressive, passionate face, although his features were marred by a sense of perpetual impatience and anger. 'That bastard Feden-'

'Master Feden is dead. His heirs, indeed all the Greater Houses of Olossi, are in disgrace. You're safe on that count.'

'What does the Hieros want?' asked Zubaidit.

She was a truly magnificent young woman, handsome without

shallow prettiness, built with the strength of a woman who knows how to labor, forthright, bold, unbelievably attractive. Her black hair was pulled back from her face, but a few thick strands fell over her shoulders. Her sleeveless vest was short enough to show a bit of belly; her kilted wrap left most of her long, muscular legs showing. The hike had made her sweaty; her brown skin glistened. Whew.

'What are you thinking?' she asked with a laugh.

'Just thirsty all of a sudden.'

'I can see you're the kind who drinks a lot.'

'Eiya! I'm hit.'

'Maybe. You clean up well, I'll say that.'

'Bail' protested the irritable brother.

Joss chuckled. 'Did I ever thank you for rescuing me?'

'Likely not. In my experience, men so rarely do. They get what they need, and they leave.'

'How can I thank you, then?'

'Not in the way you're hoping.'

'How can you possibly know what I'm hoping? Verea, I fear it's your own thoughts have taken charge of your lips. Not that I'm complaining.'

'Enough of this!' cried the brother. 'Make your claim, or let us go on.'

'Yes,' she agreed, smirking in that maddening way that made Joss hotter than the day warranted. The larger ginny opened its mouth, showing teeth. 'What claim are you making?'

The flirtation played between them lost its power to amuse. Whatever his expression showed, she caught his change of mood at once. The smaller ginny hissed.

'What?' she demanded.

He raised both hands, showing empty palms, the old gesture for 'it's out of my hands'. 'I've been sent by order of the temple of Ushara in Olossi, by order of the Hieros with the backing of the Olossi temple conclave, to return both of you to Olossi. For breach of contract. For theft.'

She looked thoughtful.

Her brother was not so patient. 'I delivered property to the temple, which the Hieros accepted as compensation for Zubaidit's debt. The accounts book was marked and sealed. I have it here in

my possession.' He patted the strap of the pack he had slung over one shoulder.

'New information has come into the light. That's why I'm here.'

'What I offered, the Hieros accepted,' said the brother. 'The payment was ample compensation for Bai's debt to the temple.'

Bai turned to look inquiringly at Joss, as if to say, 'How will you answer that?'

He shrugged. 'What you offered in payment for your sister's debt was not yours.'

'Of course it was mine! If I find a precious stone on the river-bank, it's mine. That is the law, that any item which has no other claimant can be taken and owned by the one who finds it.'

'There was another claimant.'

'How can there have been another claimant? I found the girl abandoned and dying in the desert so far south of here that I wasn't even in the empire, much less the Hundred! Am I to understand that now any person who likes can just claim whatever he wants? I claim your eagle, then. Or your sword. Or the temple itself! I'll claim Master Feden's storehouse, if I've as much right to do so as another person who dances in after me to claim what / found and I transported and I fed and cared for and I sold to pay off my sister's debtV

'Kesh,' said Zubaidit in a soft tone. 'Let him speak.'

'A man, mature but not yet elderly, came to the temple some nights after you made the exchange,' said Joss. 'According to the testimony of the Hieros, and corroborated by every hierodule and kalos I interviewed thereafter, he was dressed in the manner of an envoy of Ilu but claimed to be a Guardian.'

Kesh snorted. 'Guardians! There's a man who knows how to dance a fraud. The Guardians are gone. Vanished. Dead.'

'Kesh! Let him finish.' The teasing manner she'd had before had fled utterly. This was not a woman you wanted to cross.

'The man went on to say he was sorry if the treasure came into her hands in any manner which led her to believe she could own it.'

Kesh was really angry now, puffed up as certain animals fluff up fur or feathers to try to intimidate the beast that has cornered them, 'I admit the girl's coloring was odd, her skin as pale as a ghost's and her eyes demon blue and her hair an unnatural gold-white color. But

when has it ever been said that no one can own a slave? Except among the Silvers, I grant you. Heh! Did he claim that she was a Silver? None of us have ever seen the faces of their women, although the men don't look anything like that.'

'The man claimed that the girl, like him, was a Guardian.'

'How can anyone have believed that?'

'The Hieros believed it. She let him take the girl.'

'To sell for a tidy profit elsewhere! I didn't know that woman was a fool.'

'She's no fool,' said Zubaidit.

Joss glanced at Scar, who watched the interaction with his usual uncanny alertness, ready for trouble. At the foot of the hills, the basin still sloped away, and from this vantage one could see the vista rolling into a heat haze. Clouds covered the sun, and the recent rains had softened the air and made it bearable, but it was still hot. A man still sweated, thinking of how much he did not understand about the world. 'He came attended by two winged horses.'

'Winged horses!' blurted out the brother. 'What kind of child's nonsense is this?'

'So my eyes were not cheating me after all. I saw a winged horse in the camp of the army.'

'So you told me,' Joss said. 'I didn't believe you at the time.'

'No, you didn't. What happened at Olossi?'

'Captain Anji and his troop, two flights of reeves from Clan Hall, and the newly elected council master of Olossi using the local militia combined forces to drive the northerners away.'

She nodded. 'There are two of us, and only one of you,' she continued amiably enough, but Joss's instinct for danger crawled like a prickling on his skin. Like a fine steel sword, she was a honed weapon. 'Even with the eagle, you can't force us to go with you. You can't carry us both.'

He braced with the haft of his reeve's staff fixed on the ground, ready to move with a mere tightening of his grip. 'I can track you until the Qin soldiers who are hunting down the remnants of the army catch up to us.'

Ah.' She nodded with a faint smile. 'I concede this match.'

The brother fumed, and the glance he loosed at his sister betrayed other emotions struggling beneath the surface.

Joss said, to her, 'You truly saw a winged horse at the army's encampment?'

'Yes, on West Track, a few days before the army reached Olossi. Even so, I find it difficult to believe I saw what I did. Do you think this supposed "envoy" who approached the Hieros could be in league with the dark spirits that attacked Olossi?'

'Dark spirits, indeed,' said the brother with unexpected heat. 'I've seen what they're capable of. But now I'm wondering about that envoy. I met an envoy coming out of the south, but he was killed by ospreys in Dast Korumbos.'

'Ah.' Joss nodded. 'You remember.'

'I'm scarcely likely to forget that day, Or that we've met before, ver. The envoy was a man of mature years, not yet elderly, now that I think of it. And he was looking for something. I think he suspected I had the ghost with the demon eyes. Yet he died, so it can't have been him who spoke to the Hieros, can it?'

'It's difficult to see how it could have. Although the descriptions match. It does seem we're talking about the same man.'

'Anyway, I cannot see that envoy – such an amiable man! – as being in league with those corrupt soldiers.' But, as if struck by a new thought, Keshad sighed sharply.

'What is it?' Bai asked.

'I did meet a different man, with a shadowed manner, and an odd accent. He said nothing of being a Guardian, but I was sure – then I thought I had dreamed it-'

Zubaidit grabbed his arm. 'Sure of what, Kesh? You never told me this!'

'That hurts!' He pulled his arm out of her grasp. 'I was sure he was riding a winged horse. He seemed to leap down right out of the sky, but it was night, and then I thought afterward I had mistaken it. Wouldn't anyone think so?'

'Where did you see this?' she demanded.

Reluctantly, the brother spun a halting tale. He'd been marching with the army, forced to do so because he and his sister had been overtaken by the strike force on its march toward Olossi and it was the only way he could save his own life. By his unfeigned disgust as he related the tale, Joss believed that he'd had no part of the army before or after that encounter. While at their night's bivouac, a man

on a winged horse had arrived in the encampment. Keshad had been sent in to speak with him. 'He wanted to make sure I wasn't there to betray his company. He gave me such a look, I thought my insides would be torn out. I said I cared nothing for him and his, and it was true anyway, and thankfully he believed me and sent me away. That was the last I heard or saw of him.'

'The hells!' said Zubaidit, laughing again. 'Say something, reeve. For I think that's shocked you as much as it's shocked me.'

Joss eased an itch that had sprung up on the underside of one wrist. 'The Hieros also said that the envoy of Ilu told her that there has not been peace in the Hundred for these last many years.' He remembered the clipped, forceful way in which she had repeated the words. 'That the war for the soul of the Guardians had already begun.'

Zubaidit dropped the reins and crossed to stand directly in front of Joss. She stared into his face, as if daring him to look into her heart – or at least, to not drop his gaze down to the swell of her breasts under her tight vest. It was a struggle, but he managed it.

She took hold of one of his wrists. Her fingers were strong, her skin cooler than his own. 'Every child who's listened closely to the tales knows the Guardians can't be killed. That's part of what gives them their power. What if more than one Guardian has survived? Or if some are aligned against the others?'

Maybe he swayed, because her grip on his wrist tightened as if to stop him from falling. Mark was dead, but walking again in his dreams, claiming to be a Guardian. Was he crazy?

She released him and walked to the horses.

'We'll go back with you,' she said, over her shoulder.

'Bail'

'Kesh!' Her rejoinder was almost mocking. Her brother winced. There was a passionate quality in the young man's heart that seemed about to burst out over the merchant's chilly facade. 'Keshad, what's at stake here is greater than our freedom. We'll go back and face the Hieros. Then we'll seek out the truth about the winged horses people have seen, and the truth about people claiming to be Guardians.'

'Why do we have to do it?' he whined.

'Because you cheated the temple.' Between one breath and the next, Joss's headache returned. 'That's a crime.'

'I can't have known a mute girl I found at the edge of the desert in foreign lands was-'

'Kesh! We have to do it because it's the right thing to do. Because it has to be done. Because we have an obligation to the gods, and to the Hundred. Now shut up.' She turned to Joss, all business now. 'Is the road safe?'

'It should be cleared by now. The Qin are efficient and effective.'

She cocked her head to one side. 'So they are. Let's hope that wolf doesn't bite back.'

She took the reins of her horse and, without a backward glance, began the long climb up the switchback. After a glance at Scar and a roll of dark eyes that girls might find pretty, the brother grabbed the reins of the other two horses and followed.

Joss watched them go. They had a hard trudge ahead, and he was already exhausted. Scar chirped an inquiry. Like their reeves, the best eagles learned to judge to a nicety danger and mood in any situation, and they were very smart birds, but they were birds all the same.

And yet what did he really know about the origin of the Hundred's eagles? No more than he knew about the Guardians. He'd encountered strange things in his life: he had seen the eyes of a wilding at the edge of the deep forest where they hunted and lived; he had spoken to one of the rare delvings who walked out of the caverns of Arro into the sunlight; he had traded information with the nomadic lendings in the grasslands through a series of hand signs and stones; he had even heard the rippling voice of a fireling in its brief passage through the sky. He'd dealt with every manner of human greed and generosity, cruelty and kindness, anger and calm acceptance. He'd memorized the law, because it was carved in stone. He'd dedicated his life to serving justice.

Now he wondered: was it all for nothing?

If it was true the Guardians still walked in the land, and if it was true they warred among themselves, then what could justice possibly mean? How could any ordinary person hope to live a decent life if those the gods had raised to establish and maintain justice in the land had fallen into the shadows?

A shadow fell over him from behind. Scar's big head lowered

until the eagle was able to look him in the eye. Joss stroked the curve of the beak offered him.

'We're not beaten yet. Not as long as you and I have anything to say about it. Now go on.' He tugged on the leather cord hanging around his neck and pulled his reeve's bone whistle out from under his vest. Raising it to his lips, he blew the set to signal to Scar that the eagle was free to hunt.

The raptor huffed, raking the ground with its talons. Joss walked out of range, and the eagle thrust, beat, and flew, then found a thermal along the steep slope and rose swiftly into the sky. Joss scanned the road. Sister and brother hadn't gotten far. Zubaidit paused to watch the eagle's ascent, then bent her gaze down to where he stood at the base of the trail. With a grin, Joss slung his pack over his back and walked after them.