Shadow Gate

48

The Qin had set up their main militia training compound outside the city of Olossi, separate from the camps in the Barrens and at Storos-on-the-water. For Joss, the journey from Argent Hall to the substantial military camp was an easy one, up on a thermal and a long, long glide down. The local militiamen standing guard at the gates waved him through. The Qin guards allowed him entry past the inner palisade to the captain's office, a raised platform built of planks and covered by a canvas roof. Its inner and outer walls were tied up in a configuration that let through light and air while concealing the innermost chamber. Rather like the man himself, Joss reflected as he navigated the brief maze.

Anji was seated at a low writing desk with paper unrolled on the slanting desk, one hand holding the missive open while he mouthed words.

As Joss entered, Anji looked up and smiled. 'Sit, my friend. Let me finish, if you will. I have received a letter from my wife.'

'Are yon reading?'

'Is that so surprising?'

'Not in one of the Lantern's hierophants. Mai can write?'

'She can tally an accounts books. As for writing, I believe she may be learning the temple script. However, it is Priya who has written this to her dictation.'

'Priya? The slave?'

'She was a priest before she was taken captive. She is an educated woman.' His gaze drifted back to the page, and he smiled absently as if he could hear Mai's voice through the words. 'Heh. That pretty girl Mai took in. It seems Chief Tuvi attempted to marry her, but she turned him down and chose one of the tailmen instead.'

'A good-looking one? The young are enamored of looks.'

Anji glanced up. 'Not only the young.'

'I'm hit!' Joss staggered, a hand clapped over his heart.

Anji laughed. 'Sit. Since you came yourself, your message must be important. Let me just…' His voice trailed off as his gaze tracked lines from top to bottom. The smile drifted back.

Joss settled himself on one of the pillows. With Mai in the distant Barrens, he thought it likely that Anji had himself chosen the elegant furnishings: masterfully painted silk wall scrolls depicting lush green stands of pipe-brush, embroidered gold silk pillows, five vases filled with yellow and white flowers. The stubby legs of the desk had been lathed by a master into smooth curves. Was Anji's weakness that he loved beauty too well, starting with his wife? Hard to say. Certainly any man might stumble in the face of beauty, and desire yet more comforts. It was possible, and yet Mai herself possessed other qualities that made her formidable. Anji slept, it seemed, on a simple pallet on the floor, and a single ebony chest sufficed to hold his possessions.

'As news comes in that men in the Barrens settlement are finding wives, the men stationed here and at other postings become anxious, although I have given permission for a few to – how do you say it – sit on the bench. Have you ever married?'

Joss shrugged uncomfortably. 'It always seemed I was too occupied with reeve's work.'

Anji rolled up the letter and set it aside. 'What news?'

Joss mentally scrambled back through thoughts of his mother and aunties inquiring in their gently persistent way about his

prospects, now that he was getting older, and older. And older. 'Eiya! Yes. A cloaked man like to a Guardian has been sighted on the Rice Walk, accompanied by about three hundred soldiers, marching northeast. They've been marching at night, when reeves can't spy them out, and camping under cover of trees during the day. A local villager alerted a pair of reeves on patrol after his village was ransacked for supplies. They scouted the road at dawn and dusk and caught a look.'

'About three hundred? The reeves didn't count exact numbers?'

'Being inexperienced and therefore cautious, they kept elevation. I've lost four reeves in the last four months, and there's no knowing whether they're dead, captured, or run off. Meanwhile, I've sent an older reeve to confirm the sighting.'

'Could this be a scouting force come out of the north and now headed back?'

'Perhaps. But I think these are stragglers he's rounded up and is leading back north.'

'Men who went to ground for five months instead of running? It's possible.' He tapped fingers on the desk, thinking. 'I'd like to get my hands on a Guardian. Can we ambush the company and take prisoners?'

'I should think it would be impossible to take a Guardian as a prisoner. If it is a Guardian. Maybe it's a demon.'

'I'm willing to try. How far ahead are they?'

Joss brushed a hand over his tightly shorn head. 'I have a difficult time with earth-bound distances. Fifty or sixty mey.'

'A strike force with remounts can travel that in two days.'

'Impossible. A message rider would take four days to cover that distance. Regular traffic, ten or more.'

'For a fixed distance, along a good road? If we changeover to remounts at Storos?' He was well started now, a wolf already begun its race after a herd of scattering red deer. 'We've got militiamen in training who need experience fighting. Such a strike would build cohesion, and give them a sense of triumph.'

'If we win.'

'Against three hundred of the same rabble who besieged Olossi? If we remain steady, and allow for the troubles that invariably beset orderly plans, it could prove a small but significant victory.' He

stood, grabbing his sword belt and riding whip. 'Especially if we capture a Guardian.'

'The ghost-girl killed three of your men.'

'She caught them by surprise. What if we can trap this one where it can't see us?'

His determination caught in Joss, tumbling his thoughts through possibilities. 'A barrier to delay them.' He grinned.

'What are you thinking?' asked Anji.

Joss told him,

Zubaidit was sharpening her knives.

Shai glanced toward the awning strung low between trees. Their little cadre had set up camp off the path in a narrow clearing, not much more than an arm's reach of open ground where a pair of massive old trees had fallen, taking down smaller trees. The children huddled beneath the canvas, settling down for the night after a scant meal of rice and nai paste. He saw their forms as darkness churning, but maybe that was only the fear in his heart. Weren't they all captives, in a way, of Zubaidit's insane plan to join up with the northern army posing as merchants with slaves to sell?

'You're crazy,' he said.

'Every dawn I tell those who wish to stay behind that they are free to go,' said Bai without looking up. Eihi! How the whetstone grated his nerves! 'Every day, they stay with us.'

'You can strand a man in an oasis in the middle of the desert. You can tell him he is free to walk in whatever direction he wishes. But he knows he will die of thirst before he reaches the next water hole. Anyone can choose to die instead of live as a slave. That's not the same as freedom.'

Veras, oiling harness, looked up. 'Shut up, Shai. Bai knows best.'

She smiled, stroking a blade. 'Neh, let him talk. You're grown voluble, little brother. I like that. But remember. If we succeed, then even if we die our lives are an insignificant sacrifice compared to those who will suffer if we don't fight. Maybe brave children are clear-sighted enough to know what crucial part they can play'

'Think of what a tale it will make!' said Eridit, from her seat on a log.

Shai turned away in disgust. He would have taken the children and walked away, but he had no idea how to get back to Olossi, and he had no idea how to feed them. He was just afraid to take charge. It was easier to let Zubaidit and Tohon make the decisions.

He covered his eyes with a hand. What was he, after all? Just the useless unlucky seventh son, accustomed to taking orders from his elders.

'Hsst!'

Bai leaped to her feet, a knife in either hand. Veras dropped the harness and drew his sword. Eridit took in a sharp breath.

Ladon rattled out of the trees. 'Patrol coming.'

Bai nodded coolly. 'Take positions.'

Eridit ducked under the awning, crouching at the front. Pulse galloping, Shai grabbed a spear and stood, as if guarding prisoners.

Veras and Ladon took cover along the fallen trunks, one on each side. Ladon had his bow ready; Veras propped his supply of javelins beside him. Bai tied a belt of knives around her middle, checking each sheath. Tohon remained hidden.

Bodies pushed through undergrowth. A pair of men appeared at the edge of the clearing.

'Who're you?' one demanded.

'The hells!' Bai answered. 'Who are you?'

'Just passing through. Where you headed?'

'I've no pressing need to tell you where I'm headed.' The cheap tin medallion worn around her neck caught the firelight and winked.

'Heya! You headed to Walshow, maybe?'

'Come out of the shadows and I might be willing to talk.'

'Sheh! You cursed lackwit.' This compliment, delivered by a second voice, was directed at his comrade. 'I only see two.'

'And an awning that might be concealing more, and logs for cover. When did you get to be such a fool?' The first man whistled. Branches snapped and vegetation rustled as an unknown number of confederates approached. 'We can make it a fight, or we can join forces. Up to you.'

'Depends on who you are,' Bai said. 'I might be going to Walshow, or I might not.'

'We might just escort you there.' A dozen soldiers filed out to

take up positions around the clearing's edge. Veras, flushed out, rose slowly with a javelin in hand. Men stiffened. Hands gripped weapons. Shoulders grew taut. Every man wore a tin medallion around his neck, just like the ones they'd taken from the corpses of their former captors.

'I'm willing to travel with you,' said Bai, 'but I have a few conditions.'

'Not sure you're in a position to give conditions, verea,' said their leader mockingly. He was a burly man with a scarred forehead and hair cropped against the skull.

'That's because you're thinking you know all my resources, but you don't.'

The men looked nervously around at the trees.

'Told you not to rush in like a cursed bull,' muttered the second.

'Shut up.'

'I got no quarrel with you lot,' added Bai in a reasonable tone. 'I'm taking cargo to Walshow. I don't want any trouble.'

'What manner of cargo?'

'Slaves. Children mostly. From the Olo Plain.'

'Olo? How were you down there?'

'How do you think I was down there? Marched with the cursed army, didn't I? Got our asses kicked, didn't we? Cursed bad fortune, wasn't it? Captain Mani is dead, gods rot him, and the rest with him. That left me in charge of these dregs. Here, Ladon, you pissing dog. Stand up.' The youth stood, startling one of the soldiers so badly that the man yelped and thrust with his spear, but the jab wobbled and went far wide as Ladon jumped back into a rattle of branches.

'Settle!' barked the leader. 'I heard of Captain Mani.'

'Sheh! Let me not speak ill of the dead, though I'd like to. What a tight ass he had, eh?' Some man among the company snorted, as in agreement, but Shai couldn't tell which one it was. 'We fled with the clothes on our backs, these horses, and our weapons.'

'And slaves.' He nodded toward the awning.

'We were told we'd get the pick of loot in Olossi, so we took what we could.'

'I'd like to see your catch.'

'Sure you would. Wait 'til dawn.'

'I surely would wait, if I didn't suppose you might have a cadre of soldiers hidden under that awning like to murder us in our sleep.'

Aui! They were two wolves facing off.

Bai bared her teeth. 'Listen, ver, I'm happy to give you a look, but a look is all. I'm not one of those gods-rotted temples where anyone can go in as long as they show a little respect. I'm aiming to collect coin for leasing the older ones and to sell the younger.' She spat. 'You give me trouble, you've got a fight. And believe me, you'll go down first. You and your brother, there.'

The leader glanced at his second, but the other man looked unsure as the fire played light over his face. Some people, Shai realized, simply were in charge and, being so confident, cowed others. Captain Anji was that kind of person. So was Zubaidit.

'Give me a cut of the action?' ventured the leader.

Zubaidit heaved her shoulders in a big sigh. 'And then won't every cursed lout be wanting a cut, eh? Still. Keep your end of the bargain, and I'll consider your offer.'

Even knowing what to expect, having heard Bai explain how she intended to con her way into camp, Shai shook with an anger he could not express. Yet when the children were called out, they kept heads bent obediently and shuffled into a tight huddle, youngest in the center. Yudit was trembling, arms crossed in front of her scrawny body, but she said nothing, did not bolt, did not cry. Vali clutched her arm.

One of the men checked inside the awning. Others stared at Eridit.

'She going for sale, too?' asked the leader finally, indicating her with an elbow.

'Neh. She was Captain Mani's bed warmer, although I don't see what she saw in him. I promised to see her safely back to the army.'

The man leered. 'Looking for a real man to take you on, eh? I'll consider it, but you'd have to show me what you have to offer.'

Eridit looked about to say something rude, but she scanned him in a measuring way. 'I'm looking for a man who will treat me decent. One with a bit of coin to keep me clothed and fed. Say what you will about Captain Mani, but he treated me decent and so I treated him decent. That's worth plenty.'

Simple words, and yet with her tone and posture she did get those

men to looking at each other as though sizing up their competition. Set their backs up. Sow a scattering of dissension. Good tactics. Bai signaled, and Eridit herded the children back under the awning.

'We'll move out at dawn,' Bai said.

They settled into an uneasy truce, one man from each company set to the watch. Shai was dismissed, but although he settled down against the awning, he was twisted too tight to sleep. He fretted all night, wondering where Tohon was concealed, but neither saw sight nor heard sound of the Qin scout, not even when night's shroud lifted to reveal an overcast dawn.

They walked the next day on forest tracks, pushing east through heavily overgrown countryside. At their approach, birds ceased singing. The children ate nai paste in the morning, and afterward trudged with faces set, little soldiers who had lost all hope of returning home and, in doing so, gained new strength. Shai moved up and down the line as they marched, keeping an eye out for exhaustion, quietly making sure none of the soldiers bothered them.

In the afternoon they stumbled across an abandoned farmstead, blowing through like locusts, stripping any least thing that might be edible. Dena and Eska proved adept at crawling along the narrow eaves of the storehouse to collect bundles of drying herbs. It was strange to see how sharing food altered the behavior of the soldiers, some joshing the children good-naturedly as they might younger siblings. The landscape began to open with harvested woodland, large clearings suitable for pasturage, a pair of charcoal pits, and strips of old field gone fallow. Twice again they moved through emptied farmsteads, and gleaned what they could.

Where had the farmers gone? No one made any guesses.

But in both farmsteads Shai collected an arrow fletched in the Qin style discarded in the dust beneath one of the storehouses. Tohon had been here before them.

As they traveled on, the shadows grew long. A murmur nagged at Shai's ears.

'Best we look for a camping site,' said Bai.

The leader shook his head. 'Neh. We're near enough. Keep moving.'

'Near enough to what?'

The ground gave way to an incline thick with flowering brush,

humming with bees and flitting birds. Shai's gaze skipped over these wonders to the vista beyond as the children clustered around him, murmuring in amazement, shocked out of their daze. It took him a while to realize that the wide strip of blue-green land that split the earth was not land but a river twice as wide as the River Olo. The spilling murmur was its voice.

He looked down. A second river flowed past, neither as wide nor as deep, but much closer, cutting a swath through cultivated land.

'Look.' Bai nudged him.

Where the rivers met, a city rose, ringed by walls. Within the inner wall, canals quartered the inner city. A huge outcropping thrust into the confluence of the two rivers, tiny buildings visible like children's toys set atop the broad rock.

But this astounding city was not what Bai was pointing at. The soldiers had already started down the track, which zigged and zagged through the flowering growth.

Between the rivers the land, of course, narrowed in the manner of a funnel. Tidy ranks of orchards and cultivated fields covered this tongue of land as far north as he could see. Above, a pair of eagles circled. Below, a vast army marched, rank upon rank descending on the city to the beat of drums. The drums stuttered a new rhythm, and in stages the ranks staggered to a halt, their line stretched from bank to bank. Merciful God! There were so many!

'We can't take the children into that,' he whispered.

'It's exactly what we must do.' With her body lit by the westering sun, Bai looked eager.

Vali held Yudit's hand, his gaze cold, hers exhausted like a hurt dog who knows it must keep limping. The other children watched Shai. Ladon and Veras walked up behind with the leader and his second, and Ladon shaded his eyes and gave a grunt of surprise, while Veras flung his head back like a startled horse catching sight of unfamiliar movement in dangerous country.

'Heya!' The second cheered, then laughed. 'The main army beat us to Toskala, eh? I'll be glad of a dram of cordial tomorrow.'

'Eh,' agreed the leader. 'If we can get it, which I doubt. We haven't much coin between us for cordial.' He looked at Bai, whose gaze had not left the army settling into its new camp. 'I'm counting on our arrangement, verea.'

'Eiya! Both whores and slaves need cleaning and fattening. As it is, they're too scrawny to be of interest to any but the worst sort, if you take my meaning, and that sort hasn't more than a vey or two to rub together. I can't earn my fortune that way, eh?'

His gaze slid to Eridit's behind, and back to Bai. 'Neh. Neh. I don't have many connections, I admit, but there's opportunity for those following the camp. It's true a better class of offerings will attract more coin.'

Bai's answering smile made Shai shudder and the other man grin as at a gift. 'Listen to your greed, ver. I know the temples say otherwise, yet they enrich themselves with our offerings, eh? I've a brother still in debt slavery, and mean to free him. So let's go. Before the army moves on.'

He laughed. 'Moves on? Lord Radas's army has reached its target.'

The siege of Toskala had commenced.

The flight of reeves swung wide around the road until it reached the upper reaches of the River Olossi, here not wide but swollen to a green churning roar with the flood rains. They glided southwest, strung in a line at varying elevations along a valley's edge. Each eagle bore a reeve and a soldier.

Anji, harnessed in front of Joss, said, 'Look there. A ford.'

A rockslide broken off from a treeless ridgeline had filled part of the river, boulders and debris sunk halfway across and thereby making the shallows hard to defend. This time of year, the remaining deep channel boiled with white water. A booming sound pounded at intervals like a smith hammering on an anvil.

'Where's the next crossing?' shouted Anji.

'The Westcott ferry.'

They covered about eight mey, passing hamlets and farmsteads set back from the river although mostly the land here was forest cover sprinkled with clearings, moister than the Barrens but not as lush as the countryside in the east.

They sighted a substantial village and the Rice Walk, which on the Westcott side of the river became known as the Lesser Walk. Folk in the fields spotted them. A figure ran into the village, and in

its wake the rest fled toward the palisade. By the time Scar touched down in the nearest fallow field, sixty or more people stood at the gate with adzes, hoes, rakes, axes, spears, and staffs balanced in their hands.

Anji unhooked, and then Joss, but the reeve approached alone along a raised walkway between fields.

'Greetings of the day,' he called. He addressed the eldest person, a stoop-shouldered man with the weathered face of one who has spent years working under the sun. 'I am Joss, marshal of Argent Hall, come on urgent business. I hope you'll give me your respectful attention.'

The old man walked forward accompanied by a middle-aged woman in a good quality silk taloos and a younger man carrying a spear. Joss heard his flanking eagles land.

'If you've come for one of us, we'll not allow your depredations,' said the old man. 'Not unless you present proof beyond doubt of guilt.'

Maybe shock showed on Joss's face, because folk pointed at him. 'Have reeves come here and demanded you give up individuals into their custody?'

'Last year it did happen. Said they hailed from Horn Hall. They took five young people. Into custody, so they said.'

'Horn Hall!'

'Know you of Horn Hall?'

'The hells! Last year I had reason to visit Horn Hall, and found it abandoned.' He wanted to slap himself until he woke up. Another mystery, and one he had no time to solve.

'Folk can say anything they want,' agreed the elder. 'There are plenty of rogues abroad these days. I'm called Menard. What's your business with us, and why have you brought so many eagles?' He gestured skyward.

'Rogues are my business,' said Joss, wishing he had a drink. 'I don't know if you've had the news, but at the end of the Fox year an army out of the north attacked Olossi.'

'Might have heard a rumor of it. Might have had some trouble ourselves recently. Might have. I'm not saying we did.'

'A coalition of reeves, Olossi militia, and outlanders come to make their fortune in the Hundred banded together to defeat this

army. Most of the defeated survivors fled north over months ago, but some hid out on the Olo Plain. This group have finally made their move to get home.'

'What's that to do with us?'

'They're marching up the Rice Walk. They'll hit this ferry and want to cross. They're being led by a man who pretends to be a Guardian.'

The elder whispered for a bit to his fellows, then turned back. 'The Guardians are long vanished from the Hundred. Everyone knows that.'

'Maybe so, but I'm not the only one who has seen abroad creatures who in all parts resemble Guardians except that they rule not in favor of justice but against it.'

'Sounds like demons to me. What's it to us?'

'You don't dispute my tale. Or ask to hear more particulars?'

'I don't.'

'Then you've heard rumors, or have seen what I speak of. As for Westcott, the companies that now march up Rice Walk will not show your town any mercy, once they cross the river.'

'You wish us to hold the ferry and defend the shore. This we can do easily enough. We've pulled the ferry to our side. We control its movements from the winch. Anyway, the river is swift this time of year. They'll not cross without our permission. They'll have two day's rugged march north to Hammering Ford, which is no easy crossing. There's neither ford or ferry south of here until Storos-on-the-water. That's a long way.'

'I'm glad to hear you have your territory so well scanned, Menard. So tell me. What defense have you against demons?'

'Why, the same as you reeves. Or are you here to tell me you have a plan in mind and wish our help?'

Joss grinned. 'That's exactly what I'm here to tell you. We haven't long, for we're not that far ahead. We've plans to make and snares to set. As for your people, those who have heart and strength to fight are welcome to join us. All others should flee to refuge.'

'I low many march in this army?' asked Menard grimly.

'Three hundred or so.'

They dropped back to confer with the villagers, but the conference

was a short one. Soon the trio returned. 'What do you want us to do?'

Joss beckoned, and Anji walked up, surveying the assembly as they stared and muttered. 'This is Captain Anji, commander of the Olossi militia by request and consent of the Olossi council.'

'He's an outlander.'

'So he is. Olossi would be a ruin today if not for him.'

By their expressions, they weren't convinced.

'If you'll hear me out,' said Anji, facing their skepticism without any sign of discomfort, 'I'll tell you that I consider myself a Hundred man now. I have an estate in the Barrens. I have a pregnant wife.'

'A cursed beautiful one,' said Joss in the tone of a jealous man, which got a laugh.

'Go on,' said Menard, who with the others had relaxed a bit at the mention of a child. If a man had children, and land, then he had something to defend.

Anji indicated Joss. 'The marshal here will be sending four reeves, in pairs, to fly north and south to patrol the river and give us warning should the enemy decide to attempt a river crossing elsewhere. I'll need you to detail twenty or thirty men, if you have them, who can march at speed to any point of contact, should it be necessary.'

'What about the village?' asked the woman.

'We've brought a cadre of trained militiamen from Olossi to aid with the defense here. Ver, I'll need three of your largest and sturdiest fishing nets and your heaviest stone weights. We will require all of the arrows, javelins, slings and stones you have in case they try to force their way across the river. Move the livestock out of the village and conceal it. We'll need, in addition, brave souls to remain in the village, working as if nothing is amiss, to lure in the demon. They'll be armed, ready to fight if we're forced to engage.'

They listened eagerly. They'd been expecting this, Joss saw. They'd had trouble, and scant hope of defeating new trouble should it come. Because in times like these, trouble would come. Scar spread his wings, to catch the sun, and the villagers took a nervous step back.

Grinning, Anji examined the crowd, nodding at folk to acknowledge them. Young men, especially, moved toward him, despite the

big eagle. 'Know your vulnerabilities and defend them. Think how, if you were your enemy, they might overcome you. Prepare for the unexpected. As for the demon, I intend to confront him myself.'

'Bold words,' said Joss after the villagers had hurried away to make ready and the militia men carried by eagles from Olossi had received their instructions. 'Chief Tuvi could not face the one that entered your house.'

'Mai faced the creature. How am I to do less? It must be done, to understand what we battle. These Guardians of yours, upholders of justice, are nothing but tales. This is not a Guardian.'

'Maybe not. Maybe it is. Either way, I agree we must confront it.'

'You mean to stay here?'

'I do. The rest of the flight will move out of sight to the northeast.'

A pair of older woman walked out from the village and, politely but without smiling, offered them cordial. He knocked back two cups, feeling the buzz of a headache recede. Anji thanked them, and the women walked over to offer drink to the pair of reeves who, waiting on Joss's orders, had volunteered for the hardest task of the day.

'I note,' said Joss once he was sure the women were out of earshot, 'that you didn't tell them about the strike force that's riding up from behind.'

'What none know, no traitor can reveal.'

'You think there's a traitor in this village?'

'Three hundred men hid out on the Olo Plain for almost five months, and only now make their break north? I choose not to take the chance.'

By early afternoon the eagles were flown, the village emptied, militia concealed, and volunteers loitering in places visible on the far shore where the road ended at river's edge. Menard had stayed, but every other elder, all the children, and most of the women had left. The sun swung over the arc of the sky. As the afternoon grew late, its rays glinted off the water as if to blind the town to the coming threat. Forested slopes covered much of the land on the far side, although trees had been cut back on either side of the road by

folk gathering fuel or supplying logs to villages downstream. It was a peaceful enough scene. Yet Joss, standing beside Anji in the town's watchtower with a good view, felt uneasy, as at the approach of an ill wind.

'Did you tell Mai you meant to face a Guardian?'

Anji ignored the question and indicated the covered platform that housed the ferry winch and operators. The ferry itself, a sturdy raft with railings, bumped against the dock. 'Do you see it?'

At first Joss thought it was a trick of light scattering off the river. The hells! A winged horse flapped over the river, circled Westcott once, and descended, landing in the open ground between ferry and gate beside the Ladytree and traveler's trough where any soul might water. Wings folded, the horse stepped to the trough and dipped its nose toward the water.

Aui! It was such a stunningly beautiful creature that at first he noticed nothing except the elegance of its head and neck and the glorious pale wing feathers.

Then he blinked again, startling as though doused with water, and realized Anji was gone. The folk in fields had dropped to their knees.

Menard walked out from the gate alone, below Joss. 'Greetings of the dusk, ver.' His voice carried clearly in the silence, although he kept his head bowed.

The man riding the winged horse looked like exactly the sort of man you would find selling fans or eels in the marketplace or dipping cordial for customers at an inn. He wore a dark green cloak appropriate for the rainy seasons. 'Greetings, Uncle. Now hurry yourself. Have your ferry released. I've men to cross over from the other side. We'll need food and drink and shelter for the night.'

'Of course, ver. We'll be happy to accommodate. Before I send my lads to the winch, best we discuss how many travel with you and how much coin we'll need to lay on a feast. If you'll come with me to our council hall, modest I admit but I think we may be justly proud of our cordial, we can discuss-'

'Look at me!'

Surprised, the old man looked up. He stumbled, a hand pressed to one cheek as though he'd been struck. 'Neh, neh! It wasn't only me that started the fight. I was drunk and he was jealous. My clan

paid the fine – more coin than that vermin was ever worth – and the assizes court approved the finding and the reckoning.'

'You always hated him. Your clan was respected, and his despised. So easily you atone for stealing his life, which can never be repaid. And yet still you think about it, every day it eats at your heart…'

From the safety of the watchtower, Joss clutched the railing as the old man buckled, knees folding, and sank to the ground.

'How can coin absolve blood?' the cloaked man pressed on. 'I know all who have transgressed, and what they hide. There is not one I have faced, not even children, who does not seek to conceal wrongdoing, greed, petty and grand cruelties, the way he pinches and prods others just for the sake of-'

The shadows had lengthened, hiding that which plummeted out of the sky. Joss gasped, although he had not forgotten. Two eagles pulled up sharply, wings opening. Talons released weighted nets, and one fell directly atop the cloaked man, while the second tangled across the head and forequarters of the winged horse. It dipped its head and shook it off, backing toward its rider.

Two arrows thumped into the man's torso. In their wake, with two more arrows flying wide, Anji ran out with sword drawn.

Joss shouted. 'Don't approach him! Captain! Stay back!'

The man let the arrows be as blood leaked through the cloth of his long jacket. He swung to face Anji, who pulled up short, face a study in concentration as the two stared at each other.

'You are veiled,' said the man. 'Just as the other outlander was. Are you Guardians?'

Anji lunged, sword cutting toward him.

The winged horse had come within range. It kicked, and its hoof caught Anji in the hip and sent him sprawling. Four Qin soldiers ran forward, but the cloaked man met them with a gaze that staggered them. They dropped back. He flung off the netting, mounted, and flew.

Joss cursed. He whistled for Scar, dropped down the ladder, and ran out the gate. Anji got to his feet, wincing as he tested his weight.

He looked at Joss. 'What sorcery does he wield, to fell that old man without touching him, and confound my good soldiers likewise, with merely a look?'

Sengel and Toughid came up, rubbing their heads and muttering.

'What did you see?' asked Joss. 'He never looked my way.'

'I saw a creature who can remain standing with two Qin arrows buried deep in his chest. That is not a man.'

'He's a demon,' said Menard hoarsely from the ground. 'He tried to eat out my heart.'

Anji shaded his eyes against the setting sun. 'Likely he is a demon. Meanwhile, he's escaped. Toughid, call in the militia. Pull in the strongest village men as well. The enemy will reach here soon.' He winced again, took limping steps.

'Anything broken?' Joss asked. 'That looked hard.'

'I've taken worse. I must have been at the limit of the mare's range. Bad enough, as you qan see.' He looked up as Scar swooped low and came to rest by the river's shore. 'Do you mean to fly?'

'Neh. I'll see this through.'

Anji nodded. 'Good. They'll try to cross at night. Here's my plan.'

The sun yielded to night. Campfires sprang up on the far shore as the enemy reached the limit of the road. In teams of three, villagers and militiamen dispersed along the bank. Every flopping fish earned a start. If a branch floated past, a village man threw a stone. Across the river, axes chopped and falling trees splintered.

But night passed, and no one attacked.

In the morning, the remaining eagles and reeves took flight, all but Scar and Joss. Staying above arrow range, they scouted up and downstream while meanwhile a reeve flew south along the road to seek out the strike force.

The chopping continued. A reeve landed to report that the enemy was constructing a dozen rafts, logs lashed together with rope. The building site lay upstream.

'What do you think?' the villagers asked Anji.

'They'll come at night.'

'We'll be overwhelmed!' cried Menard.

The sergeant in command of the twenty Olossi militia men who had been dropped in by the eagles stepped forward. 'Can't we delay them, Captain? Destroy their rafts? Hold the shore?'

'What good will that do?' demanded Menard. 'They'll just float downstream and put to shore elsewhere.'

'Patience,' said Anji with an unexpected smile. After a night off his feet, he was still stiff, but his gait was steady. He surveyed his troops: the Olossi militiamen, four Qin guardsmen, and forty or so locals. 'We have to keep them pinned on the other bank. How deep is the river?'

'Shallow to the height of a man for more than a stone's throw from shore on this side. The current cuts closer to the far shore, and has for years. That's why the ferry leads on this side. You can see there's a ramp of paving stones somewhat eroded on the other side. It gets steep fast.'

'The current will pull them downstream.'

'Downstream the bank on our side gets steep, as the current shifts. If I were them, I'd put the rafts into the water upstream and aim for the shoals here.'

Anji stared across the water. A great deal of movement was going on, upstream. 'They seem to have the same idea. Yet I wonder. I read a tale once in the archives of the palace library… a hidden barricade under water that slowed the advance of a fleet.'

'May the Great Lady come to our aid, Captain. If you have any ideas at all, let us know them.'

Eyes still narrowed, Anji glanced at Joss. 'Marshal?'

'We've some oil of naya, but with forest cover, wet ground, and mobile troops, it's unlikely to meet with the same success as at Olossi.'

But Anji, Joss saw, had already ridden on in his own mind. He'd concocted a new plan, and like the others, Joss found himself wondering, waiting, and hoping.

'The oil of naya will find its use. But we don't want to scatter them. We want to kill them. Here's what we'll do.'

For the rest of the day, eagles ran sweeps over the enemy but raised no alert. Again, the sun surrendered the sky to the brilliant stars. With night, the winch turned and the ferry moved out into the channel, piled high with wooden furniture and bales of old hay, drenched with a bit of oil and a lot of lard. From the bank, Joss listened for and thought he heard the faint plops of villagers rolling off the hack, each trio hauling a bundle of spears and poles. As the raft neared the deep channel, it burst into flame so bright that Joss

blinked back tears. The winch cranked a few more times. Shouts rose from the far shore as arrows whistled across the water, many consumed by the fire. The raft blazed, rocked by the streaming current, a bright distraction as the swimmers did their best to drive poles into the shallows. They finished their work as the flames began to die. One by one, they emerged on shore. When the count was made, one had gone missing, but no one knew if he'd drowned, lost heart and fled downstream, or swum across to warn the enemy.

For a while longer the raft glowed and the enemy did not react.

Then their rafts hit the water. The splash and slop of poles in the water and occasional words of encouragement or barked obscenities bounced off the surface to carry farther, perhaps, than intended. Beside Joss, a youth crouched on the shore, carefully piling stones and moistening the straps of his sling by sucking on the leather.

As the rafts entered the channel and picked up speed, arrows arced out from the rafts, most dropping harmlessly in the water while a few peppered the shore. Anji's troops, even the raw village recruits, held position behind their own crude shields of planks or sturdy wicker.

The rafts angled toward shore. A thunk sounded from the lead raft as its bottom caught on one of the submerged poles. The four Qin soldiers lit pitch-stained arrows and loosed them at the first raft, then at a second and third that, scraping on poles, swirled in the current. Fire spurted. Panicked men shouted. Rafts rocked, and bodies tumbled into the river.

'On your left,' Joss shouted to mark a swimmer paddling desperately into the shallows. Arrows followed him until his stroke ceased and his corpse floated away, borne on the current.

One group of six men made the shallows and, banding together, used a pair of wicker shields and their spears to push onto shore. Ten Olossi militiamen closed in a disciplined group to confront them, trying to drive them back. Menard had crafted a long pole with a thickly knotted rope fastening a club to one end, and driven bits of jagged metal into the club. Coming up on the flank of the militia, he hefted the flail and, grunting, swung it. The club crashed down twice on enemy shields, which shuddered but did not splinter. Again the old man raised the flail, but this time as he stretched, an arrow caught him in the belly and a javelin's bite drove him back.

He fell, tried to raise himself, and collapsed. With a scream of rage, one of the village lads hoisted the flail and waded forward, club swinging so wildly that the Olossi militia men cried out both in warning and in laughter as the lad broke apart the enemy.

'Heya!' the youth next to Joss leaped back, abandoning his neat pile of stones.

Joss spun to face a man splashing up out of the shallows. Joss stabbed with his short sword, wrenched it free, and waded in as a second man lunged at him. He knocked aside a spear thrust and cut him down, and leaped back to realize he had just killed two men.

This was butcher's work. Reeves were never meant to chop and hack like ordinands.

'Marshal! Your back!'

Spinning, he faced one of the enemy, who had axe raised; the man slumped, toppling forward and bringing Joss down with him. He squirmed out as the man twitched, to find Sengel grinning at him as he offered a hand up.

'Hu! That was close!'

Six rafts had been released into the waters, and the stragglers, their arrows spent and their comrades dead, dove into the water to swim back to the far shore. A single raft floated downstream, spinning away in the night as arrows vanished harmlessly into the river behind it.

Above the eastern woodland, the Basket Moon rose.

Anji trotted out to Joss, streaks and splashes of blood revealing he'd done his share of fighting. 'Thirty of the enemy accounted for, and more lost in the river, I expect. We lost one man in the river, another three in the fighting on shore, and have five wounded. But we've delayed them.'

Joss wiped his brow. 'I need a drink,' he said, looking at the bodies littering the shore. Villagers were already cutting their throats to make sure they were dead, stripping anything of value, and then dragging the bodies into the river.

'Now we wait for the strike force?' Joss asked.

Anji nodded. 'Now we wait.'

Joss whistled Scar in at dawn. The enemy camp was in turmoil, men arming, rafts abandoned. It looked as if they were readying to march

upstream to Hammering Ford. He got high enough to scan several mey down the road, and he did suck in air, then, as Scar chirped interrogatively, feeling the shocked tightening of Joss's shoulders.

'The hells!'

He hadn't thought the strike force could really ride that far, that fast, but cursed if they hadn't managed it: about three hundred riders, a mix of Qin and local men who'd been training with them. Joss signaled with his flags.

Eagles closed in, thirty strong. Below, the strike force approached at a ground-devouring pace, pounding up the road with their remounts left behind for the final dash. Before the enemy could break north into the forest, the eagles flew low and dropped oil of naya in their path, driving them back toward the road. In confusion, they fled. The unluckiest caught a scrap of the unquenchable fire on their bodies. Those who ran screaming into the water still burned.

In the direction of the road, the clash of arms rang with ugly vigor, the shouts and screams of a battle engaged. But Joss's attention was caught by a throng clamoring after the cloaked man, who was riding away into the forest. He was abandoning his own troops. Reaching open space, the horse opened its wings and flew.

'There, Scar!' But the eagle did not fix his keen eyes on the other beast. Even Joss found himself losing track of the horse's flight, as if it literally possessed less substance in the air than on the ground, fading like mist under sun.

He wasn't going to lose the cursed Guardian after all this!

He yanked ruthlessly on the jesses, and at first Scar swept a full circle and only reluctantly pulled in the direction Joss directed him. There! A wink of light stung the reeve's eye. He followed sparks until he flew over a narrow ridge overlooking the booming ford. He tugged on the jesses and, sluggishly, Scar obeyed, gliding down until they skimmed low over the rock and, with a final tug on the jesses, landed at one end.

He'd seen Guardian altars as a young man, when he had defied the holiest law and, after the first transgression on Ammadit's Tit, gone looking for other altars, trying to understand why the Guardians were lost. Why Mark had died.

Now he had followed a man who by any measure could be identified as a Guardian. Yet he saw neither horse nor man on the ridge,

only a shimmering of light above a glimmering pattern etched into the rock. Was that a shadow of horse pacing to the center of the labyrinth? Did a ghostly figure walk the maze, no more substantial than fog rising off the ground at dawn?

He unhooked and ventured forward, then looked back over the shoulder. Scar had fallen into a stupor, head tucked under a wing. The reckless anger that had scarred his youth slammed back in all of its bitter fury. He'd killed two men today, stuck them like pigs. A battle had been fought, and many had died, and even if he wasn't sure the enemy soldiers didn't entirely deserve death after the misery they had no doubt inflicted on others far more innocent, he still could not wipe the taste from his tongue. He did not like the world as it had become. But that didn't mean he could ignore it.

To the hells with the laws! What did it matter, when his dreams in the form of Mark whispered that Guardians walked again in the world to seek justice, and meanwhile those who met Guardians in the living world called them demons?

The path shone faintly. He set one foot down, followed with the second, and walked into the maze on the trail of a thing he could not explain. At each turn he looked onto a new vista, a distant landscape: smooth ocean waves; a ruined tower sited above a tumble of rocks which, before it flashed out of view, he recognized as Everfall Beacon; a tangled forest that was surely the Wild; the flat gleam of the Olo'o Sea just turning out of the shadows into the dawn's light.

The visions made him dizzy. Voices whispered urgently.

'… I escaped from Indiyabu… she has corrupted them, thus are we lost… surely not, for if we keep our strength and our heart within us, we can still fight back… it is not possible for me to struggle any longer, take the mirror and give it to the one who returns in my place.'

Don't turn your back, Marshal Alard had been used to say, but Joss could not bring himself to see if ghosts crowded behind him, murmuring in his ear.

He stumbled into a depression in the center of the labyrinth. A woman waited, plump, dark, attractive, smiling but with sorrow awake in her eyes, her hands talking in the secret language of the Guardians. He walked through her before he realized she wasn't there. The rock sloped sharply into a bowl-like hollow. Light

flashed, blinding him. An unknown force spun him halfway around.

Aui! He clawed at rock as the ground gave way beneath his feet.

He clung to one side of the ridge, a finger's clutch away from falling to his death into the trees below. He'd been tossed out. He'd broken the boundaries once again.

But cursed if he'd let it go this time. Grunting and straining, he climbed to the top. By the time he flopped down on level ground, his hands were bleeding and the knees of his leathers were badly scraped. He lay there for a while, the wind blowing over him, and panted until his head stopped whirling and his muscles ceased quivering.

At last, he regained the strength to raise his head. Not a stone's throw away, Scar slumbered. As for the rest, the altar lay exactly as he had left it, glittering but empty. Forbidden ground, it had cast him away.

The Guardian had vanished.