Traitors Gate

40

Over the night, the reeves slept hard, and, at dawn launched from the prow of Law Rock. All day Joss patrolled the skies above Toskala as Peddonon's two flights and the two flights flown in from Horn Hall harassed the routed garrison. They rained arrows down on desperate companies marching in ragged columns north toward High Haldia; they drove desperate men into ambuscades they had set up beforehand by lifting cadres of soldiers into position ahead of the fleeing soldiers. Their orders weren't to capture the enemy and bring them before the assizes to face judgment for their wrongdoing. Their orders were to kill.

They weren't the orders Joss had given. This wasn't justice, as the reeves were taught to serve justice. But as the reeves gathered on Law Rock late in the afternoon to seal their victory by breaking out the last of the hall's stores of cordial, even Peddonon was laughing with a grim sort of exaltation.

'Cursed hells-ridden bastards mown down like grass! Whew! Did you see that, Pil? When those militiamen caught them with their trousers down taking a-'

'Commander Joss!'

Joss left the gathering of whooping, drinking reeves and crossed Justice Square to meet a delegation from the city. They'd been winched up in the main baskets, now free to haul supplies and people up and down the rock.

'Chief Toughid.' The chief offered a forearm for the traditional Qin bash, and Joss slammed him harder than he might have otherwise but he was still the one who winced. 'Ostiary Nekkar.' He had to be introduced to the other notables. 'Is there to be a council? Might the city be better served to hold it below, where anyone who wishes can come and listen?'

The chief shook his head. 'Too many voices will drown out the necessary orders.'

Joss paced him into the council hall, the dusty benches of which betrayed it as the one building up on the rock that hadn't

housed refugees over the long months of occupation. No one wanted to sleep in the place where so many people had been murdered on that long-ago Traitors' Night. Now voices rang with triumph as eighteen notables from the city in addition to Toughid and Joss settled on the benches. A number of the firefighters, reeves, and militiamen who had stuck it out atop the rock stood to listen, quieting as the ostiary rose.

The slender man nodded wearily, a fragile smile lighting his face. 'Our thanks to Chief Toughid, and to the reeves. Yet the danger is not passed. We've driven out the garrison, but many survived to flee north while others ran south to join up with their brothers near Nessumara.'

'A substantial number survive.' Toughid's manner was brisk and unemotional. 'We don't have a full accounting of the situation in Nessumara. We should hear midday tomorrow. However, the enemy has fifteen cohorts. Even if as many as five cohorts were disrupted in the last few days, that leaves ten cohorts unaccounted for.'

'What do we do?' the council members demanded. Joss couldn't keep their names straight, making it seem as if they spoke with one voice. 'There's'not much oil of any kind left in the city.'

Toughid nodded. 'What advantage we have gained from oil of naya we cannot expect for the next phase of the campaign. In the morning I'll send a messenger-' He quite deliberately cleared his throat before starting again. 'In the morning, Commander Joss will send a messenger to the main army to inform them of Toskala's rising. The soldiers lifted in will remain here to coordinate defensive measures. We must expect cadres and companies and even full cohorts to retreat from Nessumara past Toskala. Desperate men driven by fear are dangerous and unpredictable. I'll leave my best sergeant in charge of the defense. Place your militia under his command and use your reeves wisely, and you'll be able to hold the city.'

'Where do you mean to go, Chief Toughid?' they demanded.

Joss sat on the end bench, shoulders braced against the stone wall and legs extended with feet crossed at the ankle. Not one person looked Joss's way. For all that the Qin soldier threw bones to the reeve commander, no one paid any attention to the faithful dog, not if he wasn't barking.

'For myself,' said the chief, 'I'll go on to Gold Hall. We've

made an arrangement to launch an attack on High Haldia's garrison.' He nodded at Joss. 'Is there anything you'd like to add, Commander?'

Joss raised a hand in the gesture of agreement. 'You have things well in hand, Chief Toughid. Our thanks to you and your men. However, the one consideration reeves must deal with before all others is the health of our eagles. If we push them past their strength, they'll grow sick and not easily recover. Our eagles need rest. I'll release a pair to lift you nprth to Gold Hall. We'll have to run short patrols here for as much as a week. No carting. No long flights. No raids. I'll carry the message myself to Captain Anji.'

Toughid nodded, and the ostiary rubbed his chin thoughtfully, but the cursed council members would natter on like so many whining gnats. 'We need flights to harass the enemy. How will we know what's going on if the eagles aren't flying? Those Qin soldiers keep riding and riding, never faltering-'

'If your horse' or dray beast goes lame, then you can't ride or cart, can you, eh?' Joss said irritably. 'And there's a cursed lot more horses and dray beasts than there are eagles. The reeves have been doing their part, and like all men and women can endure plenty, but the eagles are being pushed to their limits and I'm the one who has to protect them. That's all I have to say.'

After the council ended, Toughid walked aside with him, carrying a lamp while Joss spun his baton through his fingers.

'You know my goal, Commander. Since we know there may be a demon in High Haldia, I must hunt him down and kill him if I can.' Toughid's grin was as light as day. 'Sengel got one. Can't let him have all the glory, can I?'

'I'll send Peddonon with you. He can nurse his eagle another few days. He's an experienced and trustworthy reeve.'

They halted by the barrier blocking off the steps, Toughid wincing as at a bad smell. 'Hu! If you don't mind, maybe one of the other ones. Vekess, perhaps. That Peddonon I hear is one of those — like Pil — you can see why it was for the best Pil was sent off to be a reeve.'

'Why was it for the best?'

'It's not proper for men to behave that way. I'd prefer Vekess. He's steady.'

Joss shook his head. 'Chief Toughid, you've done well, and in truth we'd be in a cursed bad place without you Qin. I'll send you

with Vekess if it's your request, but I feel obliged to say that you're in the Hundred now. Not in Qin country. How a man, or woman, worships the Devouring One has nothing to do with what manner of man he is. And I'll thank you to remember it.'

The soldier nodded, his placid expression impossible to fathom. Was he offended? Understanding? Dismissive? Who in the hells could tell with these outlanders and their quick grins floating atop an implacable reserve?

'We'll have to clear this rockfall,' Toughid said. 'Difficult work but possible to manage if we work down through it a step at a time.'

Laughter and singing swelled from the city below, where torches and tapers bobbed along the avenues and canals, a festival of lights as folk danced in the street. On the balcony, reeves and firefighters were jostling, joking, drinking, roistering. In the light of their last few lamps, Peddonon had pulled a knife and was waving it in front of Pil's face. The young Qin reeve was laughing, just like the rest of them, rather drunk and leaning casually in that way reeves had with a friendly arm around Nallo and a shoulder pressed companionably against one of the young firefighters.

'Heya! All that hair just gets in your way! You don't look like a proper reeve,' the reeves were shouting as the firefighters egged Pil on.

Toughid's gaze narrowed as he watched.

Pil released his topknot, and his long black hair rippled down over his shoulders, chest, and back as women and men whistled appreciatively.

Peddonon stepped back, eyes wide and expression as startled as if he'd been slapped. Joss chuckled, having seen Peddonon through many a sudden infatuation. Pil was faster, though; he grabbed the knife out of Peddonon's hand and hacked off his beautiful hair as the others cheered and Peddonon pretended to mourn.

With a grunt, Toughid turned away. Walked away, pausing to call over his shoulder. 'Commander, are you coming? I've maps to go over, more plans to consider.'

Joss shook his head. 'Neh. I'll meet with you at dawn, Chief. For now, I've a mind to celebrate. With my reeves.'

'Joss?'

He startled awake to find Peddonon jostling him in dawn's gloom. 'Eh? What?'

Peddonon kept his voice low, as though he were trying not to wake someone else up. 'You were talking in your sleep, Joss. You were saying her name again.'

'Marit.'

His frown swamped Joss with friendly disapproval. 'Twenty years dead, and you've never let her go.

'What if I told you she was a Guardian now?'

'I'd wonder how much you drank last night.'

Peddonon stepped back from the humble pallet unrolled on the mats of the sleeping chamber. One door was slid halfway open, and through the gap Joss saw a thin pallet stretched in front of the doors of the outer chamber. A naked man, his back to them, seemed to be asleep, sprawled on the pallet.

Peddonon grinned. He wore a kilt, hastily wrapped around his hips, but it was' obvious by his sleepy eyes and mussed hair that he'd just woken up.

Joss mouthed, without voicing the words, 'Is that Pil?'

Peddonon's grin widened.

'And yet I'm the one with the reputation,' murmured Joss, groping for and finding his leathers. His mouth tasted sour and his stomach was curdling from too much cordial.

'Anyhow,' Peddonon went on, 'wouldn't that be a worse thing than her being dead? That she'd become a demon?'

'The Guardians aren't lilus, or demons, or any bad thing! Some may have become corrupted-'

'If some have, then how can we trust any of them? Ask yourself: Why do we need Guardians at all? With a militia to keep order, reeves to patrol the roads coordinated with guard stations on the ground, and reorganized assizes to oversee justice in the towns, we can do it ourselves. Cursed if I want cloaks creeping into my mind and heart like folk say they can do. When I was with the army yesterday I talked to some of the Qin soldiers, and they said-'

'They say whatever Anji tells them to say.'

'Aui!' Peddonon retreated as if Joss's breath had driven him back. 'Sheh! He might be an outlander, but where would we be if he hadn't agreed to put his life and his troops on the line for the Hundred, eh? Would else could have marched against Lord Radas and his army? We have hope, at last, for peace.'

'The hells! I meant no criticism. It was just a statement. The Qin soldiers are loyal. Everyone knows that.'

Movement stirred in the outer chamber as the young Qin reeve woke up. Maybe he had only been pretending to sleep. Peddonon slid shut the door to give Pil privacy, then grabbed up a cup from a tray sitting on the low table.

'You're sour this morning, Joss. Do you need cordial? Maybe a little rice wine?'

'At dawn?' Joss splashed water into the basin and scrubbed his face with a scrap of linen. We have hope at last. Was that uneasy worm curdling in his gut jealousy? Anger? Relief that he would not have to make decisions he wasn't entirely sure he was competent to make?

'Anyway,' said Peddonon. 'Pil cut off his topknot last night. Eventually the Qin will all become Hundred folk, like us.

'Peddo,' he said to the water as it rippled to a standstill to form a dark mirror; his cursed handsome face stared back at him. How long had he let his vanity and charm carry him through life, soaked down with one cup of rice wine after the next? 'I'm a good reeve, I think. I'm doing my best to be a good commander.' He looked up.

Peddonon folded his arms. 'What's this about?'

Joss wiped his face and pulled on his trousers. 'The reeve halls are taking orders from Anji now. As if we're part of his militia. I see a danger in that.'

'I see more danger in this cursed enemy that's rampaged across half the land! Are they defeated yet? Fifteen cohorts they've raised.'

'Don't you see the danger in a man who breaks the boundaries, kills a Guardian, and then binds her cloak instead of releasing it to the gods?'

'Lord Radas broke the boundaries before we ever did! He had your lover's eagle killed, didn't he? We're only protecting ourselves. The hells, Joss! Can't we have this conversation when we have space to breathe? We're still at war!' He grabbed the linen towel out of Joss's hands and washed his face, swabbing down his chest and arms.

Joss fished his vest off the floor, taking a couple of calming breaths. 'We are still at war. So I need to piss, and eat a bit of bland nai porridge, if there is any, before Scar and I head out.' He grabbed his harness, his reeve's baton, his short sword, quiver,

and empty provisions pouch. 'You're staying here in charge of the rock. Your flights need rest. Vekess will convey the chief to Gold Hall'

They headed out to meet the day.

But late in the afternoon, after hunting along the wrong roads and down empty paths, Joss thought about Pil's topknot as he quartered Istria in search of Anji's army. The emptied countryside west of the River Istri was ragged with fields going to seed or never planted, harbingers of bare storehouses in the months to come. Hamlets and villages rose everywhere, and were everywhere abandoned. Where had the villagers fled to? Once he skimmed over woodland in whose depths he spotted canvas strung between trees, visible only because late in the dry season the foliage grew sparse. Later, he swooped low over a company of soldiers escorting a train of some forty wagons laden with sacks of rice or nai. They pointed at him as half their number readied bows, eager to have at him if he dropped into range. They were ready for a reeve attack. He swung wide to turn, heading west and north.

So was Anji's strategy to use the reeves already ineffective? Wouldn't it have been better for the reeves to stand aloof from the conflict so they might better administer justice? And yet, if Lord Radas's army won, what justice could anyone hope for? The mey flowed past below, offering no reply.

He caught sight of a trio of eagles spiraling up very high, and another trio west of them, gliding low as if following prey on the ground. Soon after, he caught sight of a cohort of mounted soldiers riding down a path leveled on a berm that cut through fields. He identified the horsemen as Qin, no doubt the group that had come up from Sirniaka recently. They'd made exceptional time, and as he turned again and pulled out in front of them he found, at last, the rearguard of Anji's army.

Horns blew and drums beat as the rearguard caught sight of the Qin cohort coming up behind. Joss and Scar skimmed low over an impressive mob of unsaddled horses, the army riding in disciplined ranks in staggered companies. Most of the young local militia men had grown out their hair to pull b^ck in topknots. So who was becoming whom, eh? Pil was one Qin soldier. Here were hundreds of young Hundred men trying their best to look like their Qin sergeants and captains.

He set down in a clearing a short walk from the road. In this

isolation he examined Scar's feathers, his bloom, his beak, his talons. The old bird was getting a bit sharp-set, so Joss checked his harness and when he found no raw skin or wearing, he released him to hunt, watching to see if there was any hitch in the motion of his wings as they beat upward to find the wind. The raptor looked well enough; he was tough and in his own way as even-tempered a raptor as Joss had ever met. A hunt and a rest would settle him.

As Joss was wrapping up his own harness in its sling, a cadre of horseman thundered into the clearing, a young Qin sergeant in the lead, his face vaguely familiar.

'Commander Joss?' He dismounted and trotted over. 'I'm Sergeant Jagi. I've a horse, if you'd like to ride with us back to Commander Anji's headquarters.'

'Jagi? Aren't you the one who married that girl Avisha?'

A brilliant smile flashed. A cursed man couldn't look any happier. 'She ate my rice, that's right.' Then he laughed and blushed, as if he'd just that moment understood there was another meaning to the phrase. 'We're expecting a third-'

'A third child? But you can't have had two already, in less than a year, surely.'

'We've the two older children, her young brother and sister. And a new one coming. We live out at Dast Welling. She's using her seed money to set up a business. She's very clever. Making healing drinks and such things to rub into sore wounds and — ah-' His knowledge of the finer points of Hundred lore failed him as he rushed headlong into his praise of his new wife. 'She's very happy. Plenty to eat and a good house.'

'The blessings of the gods on you, truly.' Joss had to smile, because it was impossible not to respond to Jagi's joy. 'I'll accept the mount, with thanks.'

An adequate gelding was led forward.

After they'd ridden for a ways through the trees, Jagi said, 'You've ridden before.'

'Before I became a reeve, I rode messages as an apprentice to Ilu, the Herald.' Before Scar. Before Marit. It was difficult to bring that youth into his mind. 'It feels like a different lifetime. In another land.'

And so it did, riding out of the open woodland to see the aftermath of a skirmish. The enemy cadre escorting wagons had been caught and killed to a man. Their archers hadn't protected them

against a powerful ground attack. Now a sergeant was directing the accounting of the captured wagons and a trove of bows and arrows. Jagi's cadre rode past the corpses dragged off the path, young men hooting derisive comments about the equally young men whose bodies had been dumped. There was one corpse with a crooked nose, mouth caked with drying blood, and another with coarse black hair unraveled into a fan around his head. Joss had been young like that, once. Who was to say he might not have been talked into riding with the Star pi Life army, not knowing better? Feeling angry, rebellious, hopeless, or just dragged along by friends?

'Commander?' asked Jagi.

'Do you suppose they were all killed fighting?' Joss asked.

'We've orders to kill every enemy soldier.'

'What if they surrender?'

Jagi shrugged. 'We can't guard prisoners. And we can't leave them behind our lines, can we?'

War was so simple, wasn't it? Much simpler than justice.

They reached an abandoned village on whose unsown fields the army was settling in for the night. In this hot dry weather, most men were simply resting with heads on a bedroll or stretched out on a thin blanket as a ground cloth, but an awning had been raised in the center of the camp.

Jagi took the horse and gestured toward the awning. 'Commander Anji is there.'

'My thanks, Sergeant.'

The guards recognized him and made way. A pair of reeves were standing, giving a report, while Anji bent over a camp table with Chief Deze, Chief Esigu, and a hierophant with a shaven head whom Joss didn't recognize. With his whip, Anji was pointing to various places on the map as the reeves made their accounting. He looked up as Joss walked in under the pleasant shade.

'Commander Joss. We saw your eagle overhead a while ago. Sergeant Jagi found you.'

'He did, indeed. You've made exceptional time. I saw a cohort of Qin soldiers reach your rearguard.'

Anji was neatly clothed, his black tabard straight, no hair out of place, his topknot bound with gold ribbon. 'Yes. What news?'

'We're in control of Toskala.'

The reeves gasped.

Anji nodded, as if it were the news he had been expecting all

along. 'Good. I'll get the details after I finish with these two.' He picked up a rolled scrap of paper lying next to the maps and pulled it open to reveal the writing sacred to the Lantern: it was a message of some kind. 'You'll be interested to know, Joss, that these two reeves killed messengers riding north from Skerru toward Toskala. Lord Radas sent a messenger north to Toskala ordering the garrison there to fall back to Nessumara to build up their forces. Naturally, he does not yet know that Toskala has fallen and its garrison is routed. Nor will he, if we keep intercepting his messengers.' He handed the paper to the hierophant. 'He mentions sending word to this place called Wedrewe, demanding reinforcements for a renewed assault on Nessumara. He's stubborn, I'll give him that. What interests me most is that the message is addressed to a Lord Bevard. He asks him if he knows the whereabouts of Lord Yordenas, and tells Bevard to fly personally to Nessumara to aid Radas in the next phase of the campaign.'

Anji spoke openly of such grave matters, and yet it wasn't clear to Joss if the hierophant and the reeves understood the deeper meaning beneath the exchange.

He replied in kind, saying nothing and everything with a few innocuous words. 'It must be the same Bevard Marit mentioned to me. If this Bevard is still in High Haldia, Chief Toughid may find him, for he's gone hunting with Gold Hall's reeves.'

Anji nodded, then addressed the Copper Hall reeves. 'Is there anything else?'

'That's all, Commander,' said one. 'Chief Sengel wants to know whether to specifically pursue the single cohort that retreated intact to Saltow.'

Anji tapped the map with his whip, touching his own position first before pulling the tip to the thick line marking the River Istri. 'We've a day's long march to Nessumara if we force march. It will surely take two days or more for this enemy cohort to reach Skerru from Saltow. As long as we know they are coming, we can adjust to meet them. For now, do nothing but observe. Our first concern is Radas's army in Skerru, which remains substantially intact since the burning of the forest cover drove them back but did not break them. One cohort has retreated from the west bank to join the others at Skerru. Jodoni will write a message detailing my plans. Go, get food and drink and rest. You'll fly out at dawn.'

'Yes, Commander Anji.' They gave Joss, the two chiefs, and the hierophant a polite nod, and took themselves off.

Joss surveyed the map, noting where fresh lines had been inked in. 'You're filling in your maps as you march. Didn't we already send you copies of maps from Clan Hall?'

Anji examined the unrolled map with a thoughtful gaze. 'You did, and my thanks as ever.' He pushed a knife off one corner and peeled the upper map back to reveal more unrolled maps layered below. 'But if you compare, you'll see the Clan Hall maps haven't been updated in years. By combining current observation and the older versions, I have accurate maps.' He raised a hand, and an aide came forward to roll up the maps. 'Let me call for food and drink. While we eat, give me your report. Will you fly out at dawn?'

'That's another thing we need to discuss.' Joss took the stool offered and sat next to Anji at the table as trays were brought from nearby fires where rice and meat were being cooked. 'Eagles are cursed rare creatures. If we overwork them, we will kill them. And we can't just purchase more from the lendings.'

'If we go too easy, we might lose this war, which leaves us in an equally difficult situation, does it not? We must find a balance.'

'I've released Scar to hunt. I don't expect him to return for at least a full day.'

'Ah.' Anji accepted a pair of cups, into which he poured rice wine, offering one to Joss before he raised his own. 'Then you'll be traveling with the army for a day or two.'

'So I will.'

Anji's smile had a flash of warmth that surprised Joss. 'I expect to you reeves things look different down here on earth. You'll ride beside me, Joss.' His grin grew sharper, both jest and challenge. 'If you can keep up.'

The army rose before dawn and moved out in stages. The vanguard, and the reeve messengers, departed at first light; the second stage included Anji's command unit and plenty of spare horses.

'Did you buy every horse in Olo'osson?' Joss asked.

'Olo'osson supplied us with what we needed, just as villages and towns along the West Track supplied us with food and drink so we weren't slowed down by a baggage train.'

They rode at a ground-eating pace, not so very fast but never slacking, and changed off horses twice.

'It's cursed odd to see so many men all in one place,' Joss remarked as they rode along the curve of one of the many low hills sprouting in this part of Istria, where the land rose into a long ridgeline. Their route overlooked yet more untended fields stepped up the hillsides in terraces. No harvest had been brought in this year across much of Istria. Farmsteads and villages sat empty, no sign of life, everyone in hiding or fled. 'Did no women volunteer to serve in the army?'

'War is men's business.' Anji gestured to the Qin soldiers and the ranks of local men riding under their command. 'Women have other work.'

'Everyone suffers under war,' said Joss, 'so I should think it was women's business as well.'

Anji shrugged. 'It is better if women do not fight.'

They rode with his usual aides and chiefs. Sometime in the night a new man had appeared, a Qin captain about Anji's age who was wearing very dusty clothes with unwashed hands and face. He'd been introduced to Joss as Targit, captain of the new Qin cohort. He seemed to continually be making jokes in the Qin language, at which the other Qin laughed heartily, but had spoken not one word in the trade language the Qin officers all knew which was so very like the language of the Hundred.

He looked up now with a sturdy laugh. 'Hu! Women guard their tents and herds with a riding whip. Better they not have a sword, too.'

Anji squinted at the sky, marking the flight of their reeve scouts, as the others laughed.

Joss pinned down his irritation and tried to speak in a cool voice. 'I've been a reeve for over twenty years. Plenty of reeves are women. Maybe some of those above scouting for you are women. Should they not carry swords?'

'Maybe women should not be reeves,' said Chief Deze. 'A strange thing, do you not think?'

'How is it strange? The eagles jess reeves according to the gods' will. We don't make that choice for them, and I'm cursed sure that's a good thing, for then a marshal might raise his own son to be marshal whether the lad was a good commander.'

'A man raised from childhood in the expectation of command will learn the proper lessons in his youth,' said Anji. 'Those lessons will make him a better commander than one who comes late to it, merely because of a chance act. How much more effective

would reeves be if lads were raised around the eagles, knowing they would in time become reeves?'

'Had the gods wished it to be so, they would have made it so. But it is not what they wished. In the empire, I've heard the priests regulate behavior according to the rule of the southern god.'

'Beltak, called Lord of Lords and King of Kings. But I ask you, Joss, do the priests follow the god's wishes, or their own? A priest might say anything, and how are we to know otherwise, if they alone can walk in the inner temple?'

'Priests can become corrupted, just as any man can. But surely a god must, in time, restore justice.'

Anji laughed. 'Do you believe so? Then you have more faith in the gods than I do.'

'Do you not have faith in the gods?'

'Ought I to?'

'What do you believe in?'

Anji gestured to the army before and behind him, their ranks impressive for their discipline and number. Joss could not see, much less count, them all. 'I believe in staying alive.'

Drums beat down the line. Anji rose in his stirrups and shaded his eyes to look ahead. Men came alert, postures shifting as strung bows were fitted with arrows, swords were drawn, and spears readied. At a word from Anji, Captain Targit cantered off toward the rear. In the distance, Joss heard the clash of arms amidst variegated pitches of shouting and harsh screams, a clamor whose music might have been mistaken for the climax of a festival play if not for its brutal edge. He touched the hilt of his own short sword. Could he even ride a horse well enough to plunge into a battle? Give him a crowd of unruly malcontents to quell, or a stubborn village dispute to shout down, or a pair of angry combatants to whack into submission with his reeve's baton, and he knew exactly what to do.

But now they were moving and he was swept along. He was going to keep up because he was cursed if he was going to fall behind and be seen to be — the hells! — less of a man. Hundred reeves were as good as any man or woman. Joss had always believed that. He had lived it for half his life. So he clung to the saddle and let his mount — what in the hells was the gods-rotted animal's name? — follow along with the rest as they pounded along the road.

Eagles flagged directions above, and cadres broke off to fol-

low tracks that led them away out of sight, converging on the unseen battle from several directions. Yet by the time they reached the battleground, the skirmish was over and the vanguard had already moved on. Men were stabbing each body to make sure it was dead, stripping good weapons or armor off the corpses and tossing them into a heap to be picked up later. Again, many bows and quivers stacked up; the enemy had been ready for a reeve attack.

Anji surveyed the field. An eagle plummeted, and a horn called warning as horses were pulled back to make an open space for the raptor to land. To Joss's surprise, Kesta approached.

'Joss!' She looked at his horse. 'What in the hells?'

'Scar's hunting. I thought to find you at Horn Hall supervising the reeves. Like I told you. Best we not overwork the eagles-'

'Yeah, yeah.' She waved a dismissive hand before addressing Anji. 'Commander Anji, there's two more enemy companies ahead, but you can send a cohort around by a cart track and hit them from behind same time as you engage them from the front. After that, there are a few scattered cadres trying to form up along the ridge, but you've a clear shot at the bridge.'

'The rope bridge at Halting Reach?' Joss demanded. 'Wasn't that dismantled?'

'Reeves flew the main ropes into place this morning. Now they're building it out at haste.'

'Ah.' Joss nodded at Anji. 'You're going to reinforce Nessumara.'

'No,' said Anji.

A second reeve glided low, flagging to let Kesta know that she'd best move out because this one wanted to land and bring a message.

Anji said, 'That's all, Reeve Kesta. You've got your orders.'

She rapped Joss on the arm with her baton. 'Heya, Joss, don't get into trouble. Are you sure you know what you're doing?'

Someone in Anji's cadre chuckled, and Joss stiffened as Kesta, eyeing him, stepped back. 'I'll be going, then,' she finished awkwardly. 'I'll land at dusk to Copper Hall.'

She launched, and the second reeve landed with a report from Chief Sengel.

They pushed on as the afternoon deepened. The air shimmered with heat. Men rode without speaking, gazes bent toward the road ahead. The hills steepened. Once again, Joss heard fighting, and again they poured over a slope into the teeth of a battle.

Long before Joss got anywhere near the front, the weight of their force pressed the enemy back and back to the rim of a high ridge-line that cut away into a ravine. Between high walls, the powerful Istri River streamed south. The enemy broke, and those who fled toward the ridge were forced to the cliffs until they had no recourse but to throw themselves forward onto the swords of Anji's soldiers or backward off the cliff and into wrathful current of the Istri. Men tumbled into the waters and were dragged down..

Where the road met the rim, heavy ropes spanned the gap in complicated curves. Men out on the span were building out the bridge with planks and reinforcing anchor ropes. As skirmishing groups took off to pursue stragglers from the company they'd just defeated, the rest rubbed down and watered their horses, took a drink, or a piss, or a rest. It was night before Nessumara's defenders secured the last portion of the bridge and and winched it tight. Men and women crossed, hanging lanterns from hooks, and after them the chief engineer led across four dray beasts weighted with sacks of bricks to test the span. Fortunately, there was no wind.

After a consultation with Anji and his chiefs, the engineer sent her assistants back across with the beasts while she remained behind to direct the crossing. When the dray beasts had gotten two thirds across, the vanguard moved out in staggered cadres. Then it was the turn of Anji's command unit. They walked, while grooms led horses. Joss had crossed this span years ago, and the height didn't bother him although the sway did, the sense that the world did not hold firm beneath your feet.

Wasn't that a measure of these times? Weren't they all suspended above a chasm? The river rushed beneath so loud, its roar echoing and magnified, that no one, not even Anji, spoke one word on the long crossing.

Chief Sengel waited on the other side to greet Anji with a bash of forearms and personally escort him to a warehouse where food and drink waited. Joss got caught in the jostle and gave up trying to keep up with the command unit. Instead, he walked across Nessumara, crossing two bridges over dark canals until he reached the island where Copper Hall lay in slumbering quiet. The gates lay open, and a tired guard — an elderly man — recognizing his reeve leathers, waved him through.

Everyone was asleep except for fawkners busy in the lofts and debt slaves repairing harness and sharpening swords, but they brusquely sent him on his way. They had no time for any man, even one who called himself commander of the reeve halls. His legs were stiffening and his rear in agony before he tracked down Kesta, who had fallen asleep on a thin pallet in the third barracks he checked.

'The hells! Can't I get some rest? I've got to fly out at dawn, Joss.'

'Is Arkest up to it?'

'She's close to her limit, it's true. But-'

'How can there be a but?'

'How can there not? There's room for you. Just take off your cursed boots and maybe wash your feet first.'

There was a bench and table at one end of the barracks, but the lamp usually burning there had run dry. In darkness he washed face and hands and feet, and lay down beside Kesta, her familiar warmth as comforting as a sister's. They were both fire-born and thus forbidden; in truth, it was pleasant just to know you could be comrades. She flung an arm over his torso, and in her light embrace he fell hard and at once into sleep.

He dreamed.

Mark stands at the shore of the Salt Sea, a remote place he'd been only once. Her death's cloak billows in a wind he cannot feel. Beside her stands a slender man of mature years wearing the blue cloak of an envoy of Ilu; Joss has seen this man before, dying in Dast Korumbos, but he looks every bit alive now. Isn't there something uncanny, even wrong, in a man who can die and yet live on after? Who would ever choose to die, if given a chance to keep living?

Marit is speaking. 'I searched for weeks around the valley where I met that young shepherd, the very place you yourself saw her. I even found the village the lad came from, but they told me — I saw in their minds — that they have not seen Earth for months. Not that they ever saw her much. It might not mean anything.'

'I do not like it.' The envoy glances over his shoulder.

A young woman is walking toward them, the wind pulling mist off her shoulders. With her pallid white face and pale grass hair and demon-blue eyes, she looks inhuman. What can it mean that the gods have cloaked an outlander, who cannot know what justice means in the Hundred? Have the gods abandoned them? Do

they just not care? Or is there a deeper whisper here, a hint he cannot tease out?

Is his faith in the gods meaningless?

'Joss!'

He startled awake, sitting up so hard he slammed into Kesta.

'Aui!' She rubbed her chin, and he slapped a hand to his throbbing forehead. 'You were muttering in your sleep. Why is it always Mark?'

'He killed her.'

'We know the story-'

'He killed the cloak of Earth, the one she's looking for. But if Marit thinks she's an ally, then he killed a Guardian who is not our enemy.'

'What in the hells are you babbling about?'

He scrambled up, wincing as his muscles screamed. 'Where is Anji?'

'They marched out already. They took a short rest, food and drink, and kept going. Since you've not got Scar, I can give you a lift if you want to catch up to them. Best you eat before you go. No telling when you'll have a chance to eat again. Whew! I suppose we both stink. You look like the hells, I'll tell you.'

He laughed. 'That good, eh? They say the hells are filled with attractive women. We'll have to fight over them, you and me, eh?'

She slapped him on the chest as she stepped away. 'There's a few who don't bend your way, thank the gods. Say, what news of Nallo?'

'What, that termagant? You've an interest there?'

'You might not see it, but she's cursed attractive. I like a woman who can rip off a man's head when he's being a gods-rotted idiot.'

'She's given me the edge of her tongue, anyway, but not in the way I like it. I tell you, she scares me.'

'Like I said, I like that woman.' She grasped his wrist and tugged as he grabbed his gear and stumbled after. 'You need some cordial to wake up, Joss?'

'At dawn?'

'It's what you always used to take.'

'The hells I did!'

'Tell yourself what you must. Here.' The barracks muster was abuzz with chatter, reeves and hirelings and fawkners drinking and eating in haste. A few women glanced twice, but nothing

more than that. He ate and drank — the cordial did settle his stomach — and afterward relieved himself and washed in a trough half full of unpleasantly murky water, but the water was cool and the day was already sticky and hot. Kesta headed for the loft.

Joss stopped her. 'Shouldn't we check in with the marshal?'

She shrugged. 'There is no marshal. Chief Sengel gives the orders. Reeve Iyako acts as administrator. She's steady, and too old to fight. But we don't need clearance from her. I'll deliver you to the command unit and take my flight's orders from there.' She waved to familiar faces waiting in the shade of a parade ground, next to lofts, and while she went in to talk to the fawkners, Joss greeted six reeves from Horn Hall, each one in a state of enflamed excitement at the prospect of impending action. Their talk poured like the river's current, a flood of noise that meant nothing to him. Any way you looked at it, it seemed that Horn Hall, Clan Hall, Copper Hall, and Gold Hall were treating Anji as their commander.

'Joss!'

Arkest waddled out into the empty parade ground, already harnessed. The raptor's feathers hadn't the bloom one liked to see in an eagle, but she wasn't obviously ailing.

'Best you rest her after today,' he said as he paused beyond talon range to brandish his baton in the signal taught to eagles to recognize other reeves.

Kesta flashed him a look as good as a cut. 'I'm not a fool, Joss. Hook in.'

Up!

Arkest had a hitch in her flight that would have troubled him if he didn't know the bird was compensating for an injury taken in battle a year ago. She wasn't the fastest, but she was a smart bird and very experienced. They swung wide to the east so he could see the eastern approaches over the dried out wetlands where Chief Sengel's trap had lured in almost two thousand men, many to their deaths. The surface of the shallow channels had a rainbow gleam, slicked with the remains of oil. The foliage along the banks was charred, brightened by spots of untouched growth. Folk were dragging corpses off scorched ground and onto barges piled high with dead.

'They're hauling them down to the ocean and dumping them in!' shouted Kesta.

'The hells!' Yet what else could they do?

They sailed on along the empty stone earthwork of the eastern causeway until they came to Saltow. The town with its staging warehouses and many roads and paths lay as empty as if it had been abandoned, but folk peeped from behind shuttered windows. Here and there an adult scuttled down a back alley as if bearing contraband on a deadly mission. The enemy camp had been substantial; abandoned tents fluttered, several having collapsed into heaps. Dogs had dragged the corpse of a woman out beyond a tent's entrance while vultures watched warily, edging in.

It was easy to find the enemy, because reeves were tracking them, hanging lazily on the wind as the soldiers trudged on the main road in the heat below. Curiously, there were two distinct groups. One. was hastening ahead in a disorganized hurry, flying the banners of three different cohorts, although there weren't enough soldiers to fill out two cohorts. They marched with no supply wagons, only wounded being bounced around in carts.

A stage behind the lead group marched a second cohort, this one in disciplined ranks under a single banner marked with six staves. They had supply wagons, extra dray beasts, horses, and sheep carefully herded in the center, and only four wagons with canvas shades that, presumably, sheltered their injured. One of the wagons was surrounded by the bristling spears of a cadre of guards, as folk might circle treasure or a valuable prisoner. Their captain, in his lime-whitened horsetails, shaded his eyes to watch them pass overhead. A sergeant marched to either side, both women by their shape although their faces were really too small to make out features.

'Kesta! The hells!'

'Quit jerking around, Joss. You'll pull poor Arkest-'

'That's Zubaidit! Wearing sergeant's colors and-'

'How can you possibly tell from this height?'

'I'd know that body anywhere!'

Kesta laughed. 'You just might! If it's her, then she's turned traitor.'

'Circle back!'

'No time, Joss. I've got to dump your weight. Arkest's tiring.'

They swung west over the narrowing delta. Here in the northern reaches grew the forested swamp. A constant rain of leaves built up a thick underlayer beneath the trees, which got very dry when the rains died. A dirty haze hung over the swamp as they flew onward,

wisps of smoke drifting upward. Now and then flares of red flashed where the canopy parted, fires smoldering.

'What happened?'

'Chief Sengel set fire to the forest along the causeway. The smoke drove back the cohorts attacking under cover of the forest canopy. It was the only way to hold them back until Commander Anji got here.'

'But it's still burning.'

The rising smoke made them cough. Animals teemed in the waters or on safe islands. Elsewhere, weakened trees had collapsed to open up the understory to the glare of the harsh sun. The stagnant backwaters were streaked with blackened branches and the bloating corpses of krokes and men.

'There!' Kesta pointed with her baton.

It was past midday, really hot now, and cursed if the army hadn't covered ten mey already, halfway to solid ground at Skerru. How could they maintain such a pace? For now, they had halted, strung out along the causeway over more than a mey, companies separated by gaps, men asleep under the shade of blankets, many dousing the horses and themselves with water hauled up from the swamp. The order of march had shifted. Now, Captain Targit's Qin cohort rode as the vanguard with a cadre of local scouts as escort. A cohort of local Hundred men led by Qin sergeants came behind them. After them came several companies of skirmishers and archers, and then the companies that had been in the vanguard followed by another cohort of mostly local Hundred-men. Anji's command unit now marched two units from the rear.

'Whoop!' shouted Kesta as they plunged.

They came to ground on the causeway in front of the command unit. Six guardsmen trotted out to set a barrier, and with polite smiles escorted Joss and Kesta into the shade of an awning strung up over the entire causeway with immense lengths of silk rope. Anji was in council, his chiefs seated on camp chairs while captains and sergeants stood behind them.

'Commander Joss!' Anji beckoned, smiling. 'Cordial? Wine? There's kama juice. Mai's favorite.' He frowned, the expression brief and disconcerting, then chuckled as the reeves walked in under the blessed shade. 'I will say, Joss, I've seen you look better.'

'So they tell me,' said Joss, unaccountably stung, but Kesta

laughed. She was drawn aside by Sengel while Anji offered Joss his own chair and took one relinquished by Deze.

'We lost you in Nessumara and couldn't wait,' said Anji as they drank. 'Do you mean to ride with us?'

'If you'll have me.'

After Joss reported on what he and Kesta had seen that day, they talked for a while of inconsequential things. Anji asked about the swamp, the islands, the delta, and finally the old question about how Copper Hall had come to have two halls, one on the Haya shore and one in Nessumara, without becoming two separate named halls. He sounded like any merrily curious visitor come to a new town, happy to enjoy the fresh sights and local color. Others dozed, while a new shift of guards came on duty. Finally, Anji unrolled a blanket, lay down with his head resting on his rolled-up armor coat, and fell asleep so quickly that Joss was pretty sure it was between one breath and the next.

The heat weighed on him. Kesta had left. He slumped, dozing off, and startled awake just before he tipped off the chair. He'd meant to get Anji's assurance, yet again, that he would not attack the other cloaks. Yet the ghost girl had killed three of Anji's soldiers. Why wouldn't Anji want to kill her, too? If she rode with Mark, did that mean Marit could not be trusted?

But Anji slept, and he dared not wake him. A soldier offered him a blanket for the dusty ground, and he lay down but could not sleep.

Why did an army led by a Qin commander and Qin officers trouble him so? They were only a few hundred men. Even with the addition of a cohort of some five hundred new Qin soldiers, they amounted to less than a thousand. Lord Radas's horde was far larger and had done far more damage. The Qin had never harmed anyone except the enemy.

Except the Guardians.

Let it go. Now was not the time.

He slept, and did not dream, and was awakened by men rising. He drank and ate with the others, quickly and on his feet. Biting down a grimace, he swallowed the pain of mounting a good-natured gelding brought for him to ride. How efficiently the Qin had trained the grooms and tailmen who attended them! The forward companies had already started marching, so reeves reported; scouts rode up with their own reports.

'Where is Tohon?' Joss asked, riding beside Anji as the command unit set out.

'I sent him some days ago with a scouting force of reeves to find Wedrewe.'

They rode through the last of the afternoon and into the swift dusk, twilight falling fast and hard. Soon night cloaked them. Local men trotted in shifts with lamps held high; wagons rolled in the gaps with lanterns swinging from their tailgates, beacons to guide their way.

They rode all cursed night except for one rest stop to changeover horses, and very late in the night, or so early that the first birds had begun to herald dawn with tentative songs, scouts rode in from the front with the expectant posture of men with stupendous news.

'The vanguard will be in visual range by dawn, Commander. We've killed eight pickets although some escaped.'

'Is there any change in their fortifications?' Anji asked.

'Neh.' These were local men, who knew the swamps and channels. 'They've got shields set ten deep massed where the causeway opens onto the mainland. It's enough to press back any attack from the causeway, and it leaves them free to push forward at a moment's notice. They've figured out we're coming.'

Anji said, to Joss, 'They've dug some minor fortifications at the rear of their encampment. They're expecting skirmishing groups to come at them from behind. I expect they know that Nessumara doesn't have as many troops as they do, so the Nessumara militia could never risk a frontal assault down a confined corridor.'

'Isn't it better to let the reeves lift troops over their heads and hit them from behind?'

Anji shrugged. 'That's what they're expecting. That's why they have the fortifications at their rear. If you want to see, go forward with the scouts.'

'My thanks. I'd like to go, if your scouts will have me.'

Of course they would, if Anji said they must.

They were easygoing local men. Their way of talking fell smoothly on the ears of a man raised on the Haya shore, who had spent some time around Nessumara in his youth, although he'd never walked deep into the delta. Krokes and snakes did not appeal, and the smell of decaying vegetation overlaid with smoke and ash made his lungs hurt.

The scouts numbered sixteen; all walked with a stoop but so

quickly that he struggled to keep up. He was sent off with a pair of older men. Forgi was short and stout and as graceful as a cat; Ussoken was about Joss's height, thin, and had such a dry wit that maybe it scorched the land more than fire. They both had spears with which they poked the ground, testing for hot spots. This far north, they informed him, they did not expect to find fire, because they had fired the forest about three mey south, luring the enemy in far enough that he had no choice but to retreat fast and furiously. But you never knew how far it might have spread, so it was best to be cautious.

'Krokes and snakes, too, I suppose,' joked Joss. 'Best to be cautious.'

They chuckled. Krokes and snakes fled fire; they'd have departed for cooler waters. Still, they tested their ground and eyed eddying waters, just in case; he followed in their wake, careful to step exactly where they had also set their feet. They waited for him to catch up, then forged forward again. Forgi might warble like a bird; Ussoken might point, and Forgi would confirm with a nod, but whatever they acknowledged remained invisible to Joss. Once he glimpsed a ripple in a dark channel of water, but since the scouts ignored it, he assumed it was not dangerous.

Soon, they fell silent, and he asked no more questions. Every seed and dry leaf he brushed against adhered to his skin; although they came across no open swaths of fire, soot ran in streaks on his bare arms and powdered his leathers. A tiny five-pointed leaf fledged with hairlike spines stuck to his hands, and when he tried to wipe it away it left an inflamed patch of red. Forgi and Ussoken showed no sign of discomfort, although they too were smeared with ash.

Sloughs of water turned to isolated pools. Pine trees rose on dry islets. They were coming to the mainland. Abruptly, Joss realized he'd lost sight of Ussoken. A birdcall trilled within the trees. Forgi gestured for Joss to stand still. A muddy pool densely grown with reeds opened to one side, leaves from drooping branches skimming the surface of the water. Forgi moved sideways and, with a wicked big knife in hand, adjusted his body until it seemed he was part of the forest, almost fading before Joss's eyes.

The heavy foliage drowned distant sounds. They might have been alone in all the wide world.

Forgi let out a screech as he sprang toward the muddy shore

of the pool. A figure Joss had not perceived rose out of the reeds, lifting a bow, but before the arrow could be launched Ussoken reared up behind the man. He grabbed the enemy scout's hair and yanked his head back, slit his throat so deep the head folded backward as the body convulsed. Ussoken shoved the body away and got out of the pool as it thrashed, a sure signal to wandering krokes. They moved on quickly, passing another freshly slain body, killed in a similar fashion. Flies swarmed on the open gash, their hum deafening. Eihi!

Yet Joss had seen worse things as a reeve. He knew what violence folk were capable of.

The ground began to rise and the foliage thinned, but now there were more thorns and entire thickets of those nasty five-pointed leaves. On the wind shuddered a drumbeat, a repetitive rhythm: five quick taps, three slow, five quick taps, two slow and a pause. Joss was glad to get the swamp out from under his feet but the scouts grew anxious, dropping to their bellies to crawl up a slope. Joss bellied up after them, arms red and scratched, although his leathers protected the rest of him.

'Whsst!' Forgi dragged Joss under cover of branches swollen with a profusion of yellow bells. The ground gave way, and Joss rolled onto his back, staring up through leaves and flowers. Sunlight flashed overhead, but wasn't it still morning?

Aui! A cloak circled over the camp as if he'd just come from scouting. His cloak glittered with the strength of the sun's fierce golden blaze. Forgi tapped his arm, but Joss kept staring, trying to follow the Guardian's path. How had this Guardian crossed into the shadows? What choice had he made? Must it happen in time to every Guardian?

Yet the Lady of Beasts had only said that one among the Guardians would betray her comrades. If Marit's story was true, Atiratu's prophecy had already come to pass, and an outlander would save them.

The drums beat, accelerating their punch, as Anji marched his army closer to battle. An answering clamor of drums rose like a challenge.

A man coughed. 'Hsst! There he is!'

A spear jostled the branches. The hells! While he'd been lying here dreaming, a cadre of enemy scouts had rolled up and over the crest. Forgi was gone.

Joss spun sideways under the thicket and sprang up on the far

side. Thorns ripped at him as he forced a way through brambles, leading with his baton. An arrow thwacked into stout vines. Others passed over his head as he bolted for the swamp.

'Got him!' A figure bowled into him, throwing them both to the ground.

Joss rolled up first, planting the length of the baton along the side of the man's head. He scrambled back as he shoved his baton into its leash and drew his short sword. The cursed enemy had gotten between him and the tangle of the swamp forest. He backed up the slope toward the crest. They were driving him into their encampment.

'Capture the reeve alive!' a man called, although Joss could not see him. 'Lord Radas wants all reeves brought to him.'

That gave him one advantage, then. He leaped to the left, stabbing, and the soldier he probed at stumbled aside, caught himself on his spear, and lunged. Joss skipped back, to stand backed up to the thorny bramble. A man was cutting through the vines. Upslope, men advanced. Aui! Eight — neh — nine men. A burly man wearing a sergeant's badge stepped into view.

'No use fighting us. That'll only get you killed. Come along with us, and you'll not be harmed.'

Joss laughed. 'Can you truly say so and expect me to believe it? Lord Radas's army has been killing reeves for twenty years, as I have reason to know. Even if you take me to him alive, so he can interrogate me, how can you expect me to believe he'll allow me to live afterward?'

The sergeant shrugged. 'Agree to serve him, and he might let you live.'

'We could use some cursed reeve scouts,' shouted the man who'd knocked him over, wiping blood from his nose. 'It's like we're cursed blind!'

'Enough!' The sergeant cut off a murmur of agreement with his roar. He raised his sword. 'Surrender. Or we'll kill you now. It's really that easy a choice.'

'It's never that easy a choice, ver. I've been a reeve for a long time. Folk may say things are simple, but they rarely are. Let me assure you of that. Better you let me go, or better yet, follow me into the swamp and save your own lives before this battle finds you all dead.'

'This battle?'

They laughed heartily.

The sergeant nodded magnanimously at him. He was a reasonable man, his nod suggested, and reasonable men listened to each other. 'You lot from Nessumara are on your last legs. The lord commander says so. You may have won a respite with your fires, but you've got thin forces on the ground. We've scouts who've told us you've got a cohort riding up the causeway, but when your militia hits our shields, they'll be crushed. And we've got two cohorts marching up from Saltow to join us, and another come in yesterday from over the river. It'll be all over for you lot in another day. We'll rule the north. So decide if you want to be among the winners or the losers. Tell you what, friend. I'll meet you in a fair fight, no weapons. I toss you, you come quietly. You toss me, you come quietly.'

The men laughed.

Joss had a hells lot of experience as a reeve dragging out a tense confrontation until help arrived. You never knew when an extra mouthful of time might mean the difference between success and failure.

'I'll gladly spar with a big man like you, someone up to my weight. But I have to warn you, if I win, I'll have to arrest you all.'

They were laughing, relaxing, because he seemed relaxed. Because he knew how to joke; he had the power of a glib tongue and a charming smile that worked equally well on men as on women. He unbuckled his gear, set his knife down next to his baton, and waited, hands at his sides, as the sergeant handed his weapons to a soldier. The big man approached, hands raised, bobbing a little, ready to take a punch.

Joss danced back, pretending to throw a punch or two, keeping his distance as the soldiers jeered and called him names. Dared him to close in. But he waited. And waited. For the flicker of the eyes, the moment when the other man's attention wavered. He ducked in and shifted sideways, got the man's beefy arm around and then up behind him, fingers back until the pain drove the big man to his knees with a shriek of surprised pain. He jammed his knee into his back and shoved him forward into the ground as the soldiers hesitated. They knew the law of fighting. There were a lot of awful things a man might do, but to violate that law seemed extreme. The sergeant slapped a hand on the dirt twice.

Joss had him. Now what in the hells was he going to do, with eight men brandishing spears and swords ready to stick him from all sides?

A vast shadow of wings rippled over the ground.

Joss laughed.

'And you lot can all go to the hells!' He flung himself sideways toward his discarded gear.

Scar struck. His talons pierced one man, and he knocked another aside with his cruel beak, then shook the first man free and onto the head of a third man. Joss freed his sword, whipped around, and lunged for the sergeant. The man thrust up his spear to catch the blow. Joss cut inside the sergeant's reach and stuck him through the abdomen, jerked his sword out, and spun to knock aside an attack from behind. Scar came down hard on a man who had panicked and started running. An archer fumbled with his bow as wounded men screamed.

The hells. Joss shifted his sword into his other hand, drew his knife, and in one smooth motion threw it; the blade flashed, then buried itself hilt-deep into the archer's belly. Scar fluffed his feathers and with uncanny speed pounced on the last soldier, who had been backing toward the safety of the thorns.

No time to ponder the vagaries of life. Joss sheathed his sword and clipped on his harness with the speed reeves trained for. Scar had turned his attention to the men who were thrashing, flexing his talons in the flesh of one and then another until they ceased crying out. The archer fell down and lay still, eyes open with terror, trying to play dead.

Joss brought his bone whistle to his lips and blew. 'Scar,' he said.

The bloody eagle swung his huge head to regard him. The raptor could rip his head off without effort, and yet Joss could never fear him. He trusted this bird. With his life.

Men shouted; they'd been spotted. Drums raced away over the trees. Joss hooked in to Scar's harness and tugged on the jess.

Up!

Arrows arced harmlessly as the land dropped away. The swamp passed under his feet. What a cursed mercy it was not to have to slog through that again. A reeve became used to flight. He jessed, and Scar swung wide and winged back over the enemy encampment.

A massive spur of ancient rock — Kroke's Ridge — split the river into two major channels, which then splintered into the vast web of the delta. The western channel, flowing against a western ridge, received the brunt of the current. The eastern channel, over the

years, had been engineered into a net of channels, here bridged by two stone bridges and a series of ferries.

In the eastern lee of the ridge, on high ground bordered by the ridge on one side and the eastern channel — which would soon split into the hundred channels of the delta — stood the town of Skerru. Below the town lay the open staging ground, built up over generations, where the causeway emerged from the swamplands. It was a wide area where boats, barges, wagons brought over on the ferry, and pack-animal traffic could pay the delta toll and get permission to enter the causeway and move their goods down to Nessumara. It was easy to get across the river to Skerru, but Skerru controlled access to Nessumara just as Saltow, in the east, was gatekeeper of the eastern causeway. Rich clans lived here, and here on the open ground Lord Radas had settled his encampment, fortified by ditches and berms. Two cohorts were spread along the fortifications to defend against soldiers dropped behind the lines. After all, that's what Anji had done before.

Because the causeway was the only entrance to Nessumara, Radas had concentrated his best infantrymen there. An entire cohort braced in ranks, shields wrapped with dampened canvas against fire and oil. They were ready to hold, or to march; a second cohort backed them up. No Hundred militia could hope to penetrate this sturdy wall.

Qin cavalry, more than five hundred strong in even ranks, pounded down the causeway to the accompaniment of drums. Cantering, they transitioned in breathtaking unison into a gallop, an earth-thundering full-out run. Black wolves might bear down so upon their helpless prey. No soldier in the Hundred had ever faced anything like this.

They hit like a blacksmith's hammer.

The shields didn't hold, or waver, or even collapse. They simply disintegrated, like a fence of sticks stuck upright in the sand when a storm surge pours over them. A man stood upright in an eddy as horsemen cleared his fallen foes; untouched, he simply stood as one stunned, and then raised his sword too late as a passing rider cut him down.

They drove through the shields, a breaking wave. Through this narrow passage a second cohort galloped four abreast like a strong current cutting through weak soil. Ahead, the Qin cohort split like the delta channels into smaller cadres to make room for the soldiers coming up behind. They swung wide to hit the

enemy's two forward cohorts from the flanks. Steel flashed. A horse went down, its rider tumbling to earth and yet somehow coming out on his feet, slashing as he rose. Shields pulled together, trying to hold. Out in the encampment, horns blew frantically, signaling a retreat, as the cadres who had been deployed for an attack from behind used ditches and berms to create barriers between them and the incoming horsemen. Out of the north, not yet visible to the people on the ground, flights of eagles were coming in, weighted with passengers to drop for a rear attack.

Joss tugged on the jesses, and Scar found an updraft skirling off Kroke's Ridge. He rose higher and higher yet, until the land seemed like child's vat of clay and all the people moving below toys whose lives and deaths fell away into insignificance compared with the sun's fierce eye and the sky's immense indifference. Clots of smoke still rose out of the delta. The fires set by the defenders had given Anji time to reach Nessumara, but how easily th'e measure might have turned back upon the defenders or burned all the way into the hundred isles of Nessumara!

And Joss thought: Could I have ordered the forest set ablaze? Could I have set men on fire with oil of naya, knowing in what agony they would burn? Could I stand aside and order that all captured prisoners must be executed immediately, lest they slow down the progress of the army? Could I kill a Guardian? Or let another man do so, knowing the act would kill him?

He could not shake the feeling that he — that everyone — stood at the edge of a precipice. Aui! Did he envy Anji? For his skill at command? For his evident intelligence and powerful ability to focus? For his beautiful, devoted wife? For the handsome child Joss would never have?

And yet why not? He wasn't too old to father a child. It wasn't too late to build a different life. He didn't have to be commander of the reeve halls; it wasn't as if the reeves seemed eager to accept him in that position. A simple reeve might hope to have a cottage to come home to with a spouse and children. Wasn't that what he had hoped for?

For it always came back to Marit, didn't it? To the ordinary life the likes he had dreamed of twenty years ago, when he had asked Marit if she would consider making a child together with him. Was that what he mourned more than anything? The life so many

other humble people took for granted that had been ripped from him by a band of criminals up on the Liya Pass? And how was he therefore any different from uncounted Hundred folk whose lives had been destroyed and lands laid waste by Lord Radas's cruel army?

Out of the east, just beyond the eastern channels, horns cried and banners waved. The reserves from Saltow had reached Skerru. Lord Radas had reinforcements. Zubaidit, marching with the enemy, didn't know they were about to smash into Anji's army.

One way or the other, she'd be killed. He sure as the hells was not going to fly away to report to the hall while leaving another woman behind to die as he'd left Mark.

He jessed Scar hard, and they sailed over the eastern crossings, over the heads of the first Saltow contingent. The six staves cohort had gained ground and was now perhaps half a mey behind, closing the gap. He swooped recklessly low as, above, reeves flagged him desperately in warning. Below, the horse-tailed captain marked his approach, nudging Zubaidit.

Was the gods-rotted woman insane} A traitor? She said something to the captain, and cursed if a reeve flag didn't go up, signaling him to land: Help needed! Every reeve was obliged to answer the call. It was their duty.

Down.

They thumped hard, and Joss unhooked, dropped, and blew Scar's retreat. Scar launched without hesitation, leaving Joss to stand in front of an oncoming enemy cohort with his baton in hand, like a reeve facing down a riot single-handedly. There were worse ways to die. And Scar would be free to take a new reeve.

Yet the cohort halted in a display of discipline almost as impressive as Anji's Qin horsemen. Three people jogged out from the vanguard to meet him: the captain, accompanied by two women in sergeant's badges. The woman standing to the captain's right was past the first bloom of youth, tall for a woman and thick with a laborer's strength. Her eyes widened as she took in Joss; she shook her head with the twisted half frown of a woman who wants to laugh but isn't sure she ought to. She carried a stubby spear in her left hand and a short sword sheathed at her side. A long leather pouch was slung over her back.

The captain stopped a stone's toss away, rubbing his chin with

the back of a hand as he examined Joss with a crooked half smile, as a man might not quite smile when he realizes he's lost a bet.

Bai sauntered forward, grinning that cursed grin that made Joss flush. 'Reeve Joss. Come to my rescue.'

'I'll expect a reward,' said Joss, with a smile that stopped her in her tracks.

The other sergeant snorted.

The captain said, on a sharp sigh, 'I see you two know each other.'

'Not in that way, if not for lack of trying,' said Zubaidit. 'Don't be jealous.'

'How can I be jealous for what I've never possessed? Reeve Joss, I'm called Arras, captain of Sixth Cohort. This is Sergeant Giyara. So tell me, reeve, why would you come down from your safe haven in the sky to parley with the captain of an army whose men you know are eager to kill reeves?'

These were cufsed interesting currents, truly.

Joss turned his smile on Sergeant Giyara, who smirked in the way of a woman who was immune to his charm but enjoyed watching the effort. 'The first time Zubaidit and I met, she tried to kill me. So I suppose I feel I still have the advantage. Tell me, Captain, are you marching into battle?'

'We're marching to meet up with Lord Radas, as ordered. What battle?'

Joss indicated the hazy sky. 'That's dust, churned up by fire and battle. Captain Anji has broken Lord Radas's army.'

'So you might claim. If I join up with the other Saltow contingent, we can flank the enemy and drive him back.'

'You might, although I doubt it. Toskala is fallen to an uprising. Reeves from Gold Hall ought to be falling on the garrison in High Haldia today. Your side has lost, even if the limbs still function. You can retreat with your men and lose the war another day, or you can surrender.'

'I can kill you at this moment,' said the captain, not in an angry way, just pointing it out as a comment between friends.

'You haven't killed me. And I think you won't. I've given you fair warning, because Zubaidit marches beside you. Let me take her and go.'

'She's our hostage,' said the captain.

'Cursed spy,' said Giyara without much heat, eyeing Zubaidit

sidelong. Without looking at the other sergeant, Bai smiled provocatively, and Joss's ears flamed. Had she had sex with the other woman? Was that her game? The hells!

'For a man of your experience,' said Bai in a voice whose purr made him think she'd seen into his mind as easily as might a cloak, 'you're as innocent as the sky is blue in the dry season, Reeve Joss. I need to tell you that my brave comrade Shai killed the woman who wore the cloak of Night. He rests in one of those invalid wagons, badly hurt. I have to stay with him. Tohon would never forgive me if I let him die.'

Joss's heart went cold; his limbs seemed paralyzed; his mouth went dry.

'Did you release her cloak to the gods, as is fitting?' he croaked.

'I gave it to Captain Arras.'

The captain didn't even glance at Sergeant Giyara, who stood loyally beside him with a pouch slung across her back. An innocent burden, to the naked eye.

'I beg you,' Joss said to Bai, 'release it.'

Captain Arras shook his head. 'You comprehend my dilemma, Reeve Joss. I'm torn between my old commander and the prospect of a new one. A traitor has earned a short life, don't you think? I need a cursed valuable treasure to bargain with, and while the life of that young outlander we're hauling along in the wagons seems useful, I don't think it's enough.'

Joss glanced at Bai and lifted his chin. A quickly drawn sword, and a pair of lunges, would take care of the captain and sergeant; they could release the cloak. Then he realized she wasn't armed. Arras laughed. 'I like you, reeve. You think the way I do. She agreed to walk unarmed. I've a Guardian's cloak and a veiled outlander to bargain with.' Horns blatted in the distance, a call to arms. 'Now, if you'll excuse us, we've got a battle to fight. Best you move aside, and let us march.'

They were almost seven hundred men. He was one reeve, not quite ready to die pointlessly. He stood aside, and let them march.