THE TRAVELERS reached the timberline on the western slope of the Ebonbane around noon of the 7th of Winter. There they paused to eat some of the provisions that Cleppetty had hastily shoved into their packs, which, up until now, had been frozen solid. The Arrin-ken's influence still shielded them from the worst of the mountains' chill.
Coming down through snow and rock, they could see the Central Lands spread out before them, still splashed here and there with autumn color. Jame thought once that she even glimpsed a flash of the great River Silver a hundred leagues away. She rode the Arrin-ken, her unshod, stockinged foot thrust into one of Marc's mittens, while the Kendar walked beside them and Jorin bounded on ahead. They came down among the pine and ironwood of the upper slopes. Scarlet birds flashed against the dark green needles, making Jorin bleat with excitement whenever Jame spotted one.
For the most part, though, she didn't notice. Her thoughts kept going back to that strange series of predawn encounters, and especially to the changer Keral. He had spoken as if he knew her, as if he had played his cruel games with her before. Then, according to him, his half-brother Tirandys had interfered by teaching her how to fight back.
Jame shook her head in wonder. It was like falling into some old, half-forgotten song. Both Keral and Tirandys were of the Master's own generation, which should have passed into history millennia ago and would have if it weren't for the Fall. At the heart of the Master's treachery had been four blood-kin Highborn. From the Knorth had come Gerridon himself and his sister-consort, Jamethiel Dream-Weaver; from the Randir, Gerridon's maternal half-brother Tirandys and Tirandys' paternal half-brother, Keral. The Knorth had also produced Glendar, who had led the remains of the Kencyr Host to Rathillien. Jame vaguely remembered that Tirandys had had a full brother—a twin, in fact—named Terribend, who had tried to oppose Gerridon but failed. No one knew what had become of him afterward.
But if Terribend was an obscure figure, Tirandys certainly was not. He had been obsessed with honor. The keystone of any Kencyr's honor is his fealty to his lord. Tirandys was torn between loyalty to the then-Lord Randir—a third or bone cousin— and Gerridon Highlord, his blood-kin half-brother. Blood told. When Gerridon fell, Tirandys felt honor-bound to follow, even though he knew it would lead to his own damnation. Many others followed his example, including Keral. The story of that bitter choice was told in an ancient lay called "Honor's Paradox." Other songs, equally old, hinted that Tirandys was also influenced by his love for his half-sister, Jamethiel Dream-Weaver.
And this was the man who, Keral had suggested, was Jame's instructor or Senethari. If so, she must have known him quite well, but now his name only set up a kind of hollow ringing inside her and a vague sense of loss.
At that moment, the Arrin-ken abruptly sat down, and Jame, caught unprepared, slid off rump first into the melting snow. It was dusk now. Below lay the mountain town of Peshtar.
Here I leave you.
"You really won't come to the Riverland with us?" Jame coughed, one hand on her sore throat. She tried again. "All these years up here alone. . . . Don't you ever get lonely, ever feel the pull to return?"
The great cat sat like a stone, staring past her into space. In the depths of winter, I hear the distant thoughts of my own people ringing like crystal in my mind. There are so few of us left, so very few. Yes, I feel the pull, but our time has not yet come. Someday, someone will call us. His massive head swung back to Jame, eyes amber pools of light in the dusk. It might even be you. My name is Immilai, the Silent One. Yours, I already know. Fare you well, my children.
He turned and melted into the shadow of the trees, taking the last of the day's warmth with him. Jame shivered, wishing that she hadn't abandoned her mountaineer's jacket, stiff with dried wyrsan blood though it had been.
"Now what?" she demanded.
"New boots," said Marc firmly, "and supper and a real bed. You'll like Peshtar, I think. It's a friendly town."
They went down the slope toward the city gate. Peshtar was surrounded by a high palisade with sturdy wooden bastions at each corner. Its walls formed a rectangle about two hundred yards wide, the sides angling sharply down the mountain. Inside, a jumble of one- and two-story buildings raised sharp roof-lines against the sunset. The gate was closed. Marc pounded on it until a small panel opened and a man peered out.
"Here, now, what do you want? It's past sundown."
"Not quite, surely. We're travelers from Tai-tastigon in search of lodgings for the night."
The man turned his head and spat. "You think I'm softheaded? No one crosses the Ebonbane at this time of year. This is the Black Band's night in town, and their full quota came in hours ago. Whose man are you?"
"My own, unfortunately. But I'm not . . ."
"A wolf-head, by god, and his fancy boy." Jame gave him a baleful glare. "Well, now, by rights I'm not supposed to let folk like you in at all, but for a small sum, say, ten golden altars . . ."
"Talk sense, man. That's the price of a good horse."
"Well, then, sleep in the snow for all I care." The panel closed with a bang.
"Friendly, huh?" said Jame, through teeth that had begun to rattle together with the cold.
"Ah well, never mind. There are other ways to convince the man." Marc unslung his war-axe. He braced himself and took a good swing at the gate. It boomed, but didn't even score.
Inside, they could hear the man laughing. "That's iron-wood, you fool," he called.
"Indeed?" said Marc placidly. "And this is Kencyr steel." He swung again, this time leaving a dent along the grain. "Did I ever tell you, lass, how we used to lumber ironwood in the forests near my old home? "Crash! "A fair-sized tree would take a week to cut with the lot of us working in shifts. "Crash! "Then we would trim it, drill a hole in its bore, drop live coals into it until it kindled—"Crash!" . . . which usually took several months—and haul it down to one of the great Riverland keeps to set up as a fire timber in their subterranean halls. "Crash! " A prime piece of ironwood will burn for generations, and rare good warmth it gives on cold nights like these. "Crack!" The axe wedged in the board. Marc carefully worked it out, raising splinters around the gouge. The panel popped open again.
"What the hell . . . ouch!"
In trying to see the damage, the gatekeeper had incautiously stuck his nose out between the bars, and Jame had seized it.
" 'Boy,' huh? Marc, what's the usual gate-fee?"
"It used to be a silver crown."
"Right. Here's one. Now, friend, it's up to you where I put it."
Inside, the bar dropped, and the gate opened. The gatekeeper stared at the axe gouge, rubbing his nose. "Who's going to pay for that?"
"You, probably, unless you want to explain your special rates to the City Council. Come along, lass."
They entered the town.
Peshtar smelled overwhelmingly of resin and rot. Everything there seemed to be made of wood: the houses with their ornate carved façades, the steps, even the narrow streets, whose grooved boards zigzagged through the city down the steep incline of the mountain. Marc led the way between two buildings, down a precipitous staircase with moss-slick treads. The noise of the main thoroughfare rose to meet them.
"What was all that about Black Bands and wolf-heads?" Jame asked.
"During the summer, Peshtar caters to the caravan trade," Marc said over his shoulder. "In the winter, though, the brigands come in from their camps for a bit of fun, one band at a time. The City Council insists on that, and on a reasonable degree of order. The merchants and innkeepers here are very proud of their independence, although I doubt if they'd like to see it put to too severe a test."
They emerged on the main street. After the silence of the Ebonbane, the uproar made Jame flinch. The narrow way seemed packed with burly, raucous men. Inside the low-beamed taverns that lined the street, brigands drank and gambled while dancers undulated on tabletops and occasionally fell off. The noise and stench were terrible. Jorin pressed against Jame's knee, nose wrinkled, ears back. All that he heard and smelled flooded her senses, crashing in on top of her own impressions.
"This is orderly?" she shouted up at Marc over the din.
"More or less, for this part of town."
Just then, a man blundered drunkenly into the big Kendar and drew a knife, muttering something about Marc's recent ancestry. Marc knocked the blade out of the brigand's hand, picked him up by the slack of his filthy jacket, and began to shake him. Nearby ruffians started to clap as if beating time for a dance. The faster they clapped, the faster Marc shook, until he had shaken the man half out of his clothes and several teeth entirely out of his head. Then he deposited his dazed, erstwhile assailant in a convenient rainbarrel. The other brigands cheered.
"You enjoyed that, didn't you?" Jame demanded as they went on.
"Oh, moderately. At least it was one way to deal with the man without having his friends turn on us. We masterless wolf-heads have to be careful."
His voice dropped as he spoke, and Jame silently cursed the gatekeeper for having reminded her friend of his status. He had been a yondri-gon, a threshold dweller, at East Kenshold, until the old lord died and his son turned all the aging yondri out. Damn their god anyway for having made the once independent Kendar so dependent on the Highborn, and double damn the Highborn for taking such ruthless advantage of the fact. She wondered, not for the first time, how Marc would react when he learned that she herself was a pure Highborn and not the quarter-blood Shanir bastard that he assumed.
He looked down at her, a twinkle lightening his momentary depression. "That explains one term, at least. Now, as for 'fancy boy' . . ."
"That part I got."
He chuckled. "Yes. Well, right now 'odd' would be a better word for you than 'fancy.' In case you've forgotten, you're still wearing my mitten on your foot."
Throwing back her head to laugh, Jame saw a man in a second-story window staring down at her. Or at least she thought he was. A black hood concealed his face, but his head turned as she passed. His right hand rested on the window sill. The thumb was on the wrong side. Then the two Kencyr turned the corner, and the man was hidden from view.
They found a cobbler's shop on one of the stairways. The little craftsman turned out to be a Tastigon, which was fortunate, because none of his ready-made boots were anywhere near the right size. Jame put on a pair of fine black leather. Her feet felt lost in them. The cobbler stroked the boots with a tiny image of his patron deity, trying to invoke the god's power all the way from his temple in Tai-tastigon. Jame considered helping, but then remembered the kindling spell; with her luck, she would probably shrink her feet instead of the boots. The craftsman's charm finally worked, however, leaving him exhausted and Jame shod. She gladly paid him twice what he asked.
Then they found an inn several streets below the main thoroughfare and bespoke supper and a room.
Jame looked around the common room after they had been served. Of the handful of customers there, most were townsmen, stolidly eating their suppers. How different it all was from the habitual uproar of Res aB'tyrr. Jame sighed and reached for the bustard wing that she had saved for last. It was gone. From under the table came the sound of Jorin cracking bones.
Marc had been staring into space with an absent frown. "I've been thinking about Lord Cat," he said in answer to Jame's questioning look. "He said that there was trouble brewing in the Riverland. It would be best to find out what, if we can. I've a mind to make some inquiries."
"Now?"
He smiled. "No, firebrand, in the morning. Maybe you can go at a dead run from now until the coming of the Tyr-ridan, but this old man is tired." He rose and stretched, all his joints creaking. "I'm for bed."
Their room was at the back of the inn. Asleep that night on a goosedown pallet, Jame dreamed that she was trying to explain her bloodlines to Marc. He listened, his expression unreadable.
"So you think your father was the exiled Ganth of Knorth, not just one of his retainers. And your mother?"
"I don't know. One day our father brought her back out of the Haunted Lands. After Tori and I were born, she simply walked away, back into the hills. No one at the keep ever saw her again."
"And you think that Torisen Black Lord, a man at least ten years older than you, is your lost twin brother Tori?"
"Yes. Time apparently moves more slowly in Perimal Darkling than in Rathillien . . . Marc, Father taught my brother to hate the Shanir. Tori didn't raise a hand to help me when Ganth drove me out of the keep, and now I feel myself being drawn back to my brother. Marc, I'm frightened. What will happen to me in the Riverland, among my own people? What will I do if "you drive me out too? I can't help it if I'm a Highborn, Marc. Promise me it won't matter, please."
"Yes, my lady." He was drawing back, expressionless. She tried to reach out to him, but her rich, heavy garments anchored her to the ground. "Wo, my lady. Of course, my lady . . ."
Jame woke to the Kendar's gentle snore. Jorin stirred in her arms, then nestled his head under her chin and, with a sigh, slept again. Below in the street, a man passed by, drunkenly singing a love song. His voice seemed to go on and on, growing ever fainter and more off-key.
On the edge again of sleep, Jame thought that someone sat beside her bed, just out of sight.
"What is love, Jamie? What is honor?"
She tried to turn toward that quiet, sad voice, but her head wouldn't move. "Who are you?"
"Someone best forgotten."
With a sudden effort, she broke the bonds of sleep and turned, but, of course, no one was there. Jorin protested her abrupt movement. She lay back and stroked his golden fur until his sleepy purr faded into a faint snore. Damnit, she knew that dream voice just as she had known Keral's. While the changer's accents had stirred a sense of loathing, however, this voice suggested a feeling of precarious security. Someone best forgotten?
No. Someone who had comforted her once and now sounded in need of comfort himself. Someone who had called her "Jamie."
She stirred uneasily, stopping herself before she woke Jorin again. Her encounter in the Ebonbane with Keral had apparently cracked the wall that sealed off her lost years. A few good memories might seep through, but how many more there must be that were best left in darkness.
She lay awake a long time, thinking, and then slipped unaware back into a light, dreamless sleep that lasted until dawn.
In the morning on the eighth of Winter, Marc set out before breakfast to ask his questions. Jame went with him, hoping that the crisp mountain air would clear her mind. She remembered the previous night's second dream, but little of the first, except that her mother had been in it. That was strange in itself. She hardly ever thought about her mother, perhaps because there was so little to remember. Her clearest memories were of the stories her mother had told her, although Jame must have heard them at a very early age. Old songs, bits of history, descriptions, especially one of a vast, picture-lined hall with a big fireplace and rich fur rugs spread on the cold, dark hearthstones. . . . Jame remembered that hall as if she had actually seen it. Odd, the things that stick in a child's memory.
Then she noticed that they had turned westward toward the quiet lower end of town.
"Who down here would know anything about the Riverland?" she asked as they clambered down yet another alley stair. "Anyway, it's just occurred to me that even if whatever it was the Arrin-ken foresaw has already happened, surely the news wouldn't reach Peshtar this quickly."
"By ordinary means, no; but the last time I was in town, some thirty years ago, a remarkable old woman lived here. Ah. There's her lodge now."
Before them across the street was a building so low that it seemed half sunken into the ground. The door posts and lintel were carved in high relief with intricate, serpentine forms. On the walls in either direction were painted a series of ovals with circles in them, rather like a multitude of crude faces with gaping mouths.
"Thirty years is a long time. Suppose she's dead?"
"Women like Mother Ragga are like oak roots: the older, the tougher." He knocked on the door. It opened a crack. Bright, feral eyes peered out at them from about the height of the Kendar's waist. "May we see the Earth Wife?" he asked. "I've brought her a present."
The door flew open. A ragged, skinny girl stood frozen in the doorway for a second before bolting sideways out of sight. Behind her, the darkness moved.
"Present!" croaked a hoarse, eager voice. An incredibly dirty hand thrust out of the shadows, age-swollen fingers crooked. "Gimme!"
Marc detached a small leather sack from his belt. It was snatched from his grasp, and the lump of darkness retreated with it at a fast waddle. Ducking under the lintel, Marc followed with Jame and Jorin at his heels.
Inside, several steps led down to the dirt floor of a large, low-beamed room. The air was thick with dust and the smoke of three ill-tended fireplaces. As her eyes adjusted to the murky light, Jame saw that the room's sparse furnishings were all pushed up against the walls. Perhaps the irregularities of the floor explained that. There were long earthen ridges running across it, hollows where water had collected, and even untidy piles of rocks.
Mother Ragga had stepped out into this confusion of earth and rock, clutching Marc's present. Seen by firelight, she looked rather like an abandoned jackdaw's nest, all layered scraps of clothing held together with gewgaws, twigs, and what looked like dried mud. She also had the filthiest ears Jame had ever seen. For a moment, the Earth Wife stood there, irresolutely plucking at her lower lip. Then with a crow of triumph she scuttled to the northeast corner where she opened the sack, dumped its contents (which turned out to be dirt) on the ground, flopped down, and put her ear to it.
"Hoofbeats," she said after a moment's scowling concentration. "Fast. One leg lame, Ha! Someone's gone tail over spout. My, what language!"
"That's probably young Lord Harth, trying to ride Nathwyr again," said Marc bleakly. "Nath was old Narth's mount, a full-blooded Whinno-hir. We older yondri tried to tell the boy that no Whinno-hir can be ridden without its full consent, but he wouldn't listen. We insisted, and he ordered us to leave."
Jame was startled. "You lost your place at East Kenshold because of a horse?"
"Because of a Whinno-hir, one of the breed who have been with the Kencyrath almost from the beginning. Because of a friend."
"Sorry," said Jame, chastened. She thought of those six aging Kendar driven out, beginning what for five of them had been a death march to Tai-tastigon, and all because of one arrogant Highborn, one of her own race. "But how did Mother Ragga know?"
"Ha!" The Earth Wife glared at Jame around the patchwork bulk of her own broad behind. She scrambled to her feet, dusting off her hands. "Stepmother to you, girl, if even that. This isn't your world. But you, Kendar, you're a good boy. Now what?"
"The Riverland?"
"Done!"
She waddled back across the room, stepping over one earthen ridge, then another before flopping down again.
"Why, that's a map!"
"Yes, of course," said Marc, "with the appropriate earth from each part of Rathillien. That's why she was so delighted to get a sample of genuine East Kenshold loam."
He turned back to watch the old woman as she worked her way inches at a time up the trough that represented the Riverland. Jorin began to dig in a corner, but Jame quickly called him to heel.
"Wait until we get outside," she said.
Just then, someone kicked her in the leg. She spun around to find the ragged girl behind her, holding up an intricate cat's cradle. Without thinking, Jame raised her own gloved hands and the string web was deftly transferred to them. The girl shifted a loop here, another there, and suddenly Jame couldn't breathe.
Binding magic! she thought, choking down panic. She had heard of such things, but had never had to cope with them before, much less while rapidly suffocating. The girl had stepped back and was smirking at her. Why, the dirty, little brat . . .
Jame had a sudden, vivid image of herself, hands still trapped but nails out, lunging at the girl's throat.
"No!" she gasped, recoiling.
When she looked down at her hands, almost expecting to see blood on them, she found that she had in fact untangled the string without thinking.
The girl was staring at her, thunderstruck. She thrust out her grubby hands, and Jame transferred the cradle back to them. Again, the girl wound up the charm and this time struggled with it herself. Jame watched without really seeing. What had possessed her even to dream of using her nails so freely, so wantonly?
Torrigion, Argentiel, Regonereth—the three faces of our God. That-Which-Creates and That-Which-Preserves are terrible enough, but ah, Jamie, those Shanir with claws have an affinity to That-Which-Destroys, the most terrifying of all our god's aspects. Use yours as little as possible.
That voice again, in memory this time, and ringing with authority. Yes, Senethari, I hear you, she thought automatically, then did a sort of mental stumble. Senethari? Was it Tirandys she had begun to remember?
The girl's face was starting to turn blue. Jame hastily untangled the string for her and then did it again more slowly so that the other could see how it was done.
"Present," she said, with a rather shaky smile.
"Hooves," said the Earth Wife, settling back on her hams with a grunt. She pointed to the extremes of the Riverland, then brought her plump hands together near the lower end of the valley. "Many hooves, many more feet, coming south, coming north, coming here."
"Gothregor," breathed Marc. "Lord Cat was right: The Host is gathering. But why? What could be important enough. . . . Ragga, where is the Southern Host?"
The old woman scurried on all fours down the furrow that represented the Silver and plopped down again to the left of its base. Here she listened one place, then another. "Moving south from Kothifir."
"South? But the only thing in that direction—"
"Is the Horde." On hands and knees, she scuttled a few more feet, then again put her ear to the ground, only to jerk back a moment later with a sharp hiss. "Yes. Moving northeast."
"Oh my God," said Marc. "It's happened at last."
"What has?" demanded Jame. "The Horde—isn't that that mass of people down in the Southern Waste who've been chasing their own tails for the past few hundred years?"
"In a way. I think it all began when one desert tribe drove another from its water hole. The displaced people moved into their neighbors' territory and uprooted them in turn. And so it went, one tribe dislodging another, until eventually scores of thousands of square miles had been set in motion. That was nearly three centuries ago, and it hasn't stopped since. Now there are some three million people down there caught up in it, circling, circling . . ."
"Here," said the Earth Wife, stabbing a finger at the map. "And there." She spat on the ground beyond its edge.
"Yes, that's the most worrying part of it. As their numbers have grown, the circle has expanded until part of it lies across the Barrier in Perimal Darkling. There are rumors that the Wasters have mixed their blood with what crawls there in the shadows until many of them are barely human themselves. Certainly, they've come to live on whomever they can catch. Their drink is the blood of men and beasts and their way is obscured by a perpetual cloud of powdered human bones. It's very windy down there, you see. The part of the Wastes that they circle has become a continual maelstrom. I've even heard stories that they throw the most deformed of their babies into it and that whatever lives in the heart of the storm feeds on them. When I was with the Southern Host, we used to wonder what would happen if the Horde ever stopped circling. Now it looks as if we're going to find out."
"And you think the Riverland Host will march south to help?"
"If the Highlord can mobilize it in time. The other Highborn may resist. One way or another, we've picked quite a time for a homecoming. Home—" He hesitated, then drew a second leather pouch out of his shirt. "One final listening, Ragga. Please."
The Earth Wife gave him a shrewd, not unsympathetic look. "Same as last time, eh? Of course." She took the sack and trotted back to the top of the Riverland, where she placed it on the ground unopened and put her ear to it.
"Quiet," she said. "Very quiet. Leaves blowing, thorns rattling, dry grass singing . . ."
"The cloud-of-thorn berries would be ripe now," said Marc as though to himself. "So would the chestnuts. We used to roast them on cold autumn nights and Willow would usually burn her fingers."
Scowling with sudden concentration, the Earth Wife pressed one ear harder against the sack and stuck her finger in the other. "Small bare feet, running, running . . ." she said. Marc stiffened. "Other footsteps, booted, heavier, and someone else running, pursued. Fire, hoofbeats, howls. Fading now . . . gone."
"The earth has a long memory," said Marc heavily. "That must have been nearly eighty years ago, the night the keep fell."
"No, not years. The earth warms, cools, warms . . . two days ago."
"And now? The running child?"
Ragga listened for a moment, then sat back on her heels, shaking her head. "Gone."
"Willow," said Marc, looking stunned. "My little sister. I recovered the rest of my family for the pyre, but not her. I searched the ruins for her body more times than I can remember, that red winter when I hunted the Merikit and they hunted me. In the end, I thought she must either have escaped or been carried off, alive or dead, by the hillmen or a wild animal. And all this time she's been there, up until two days ago."
"Some child was there, anyway, but how can you be so sure it was your sister? It could have been anyone."
"Not quite," said Mother Ragga, peering up at them through her stringy gray hair. "This one had footsteps and a shadow, but no weight. This one was dead." She returned the leather sack to Marc. "Here, Kendar. No other earth on this world will ever be so nearly yours."
Turning to go, Jame nearly collided with the ragged girl, who thrust something into her hand.
"Present," she said, with a gap-toothed grin, and bolted back into the shadows.
Out in the morning light of the street, Jame saw that her gift was a clay medallion with a crude, eyeless face printed on it. It made her gloved hand tingle in a not altogether pleasant way.
They walked back up through the town with Marc deep in somber thought and Jame not liking to intrude. Jorin found a tub of earth and dead petunias in which he was happily industrious while Jame mounted guard. Back at the inn, the Kendar roused himself and ordered breakfast. Then he asked to see the medallion.
"Careful," Jame said sharply, but he had already picked it up.
"Why?"
"Somehow, I had the feeling that it might not be safe to touch bare-handed. Don't you feel anything?"
"Some warmth and maybe a slight vibration, but nothing else."
"Well, Mother Ragga liked you. Maybe this thing does, too. But what is it?"
"An imu, I think. I've run into them all over the more primitive parts of Rathillien. Many people carry them as charms."
Rather gingerly, Jame took back the medallion. "There's certainly some kind of power bound up in this thing, and in Mother Ragga's earth magic too. Now, where have I come across something like it before? Ah. In the Temple District of Tai-tastigon among the Old Pantheon gods, I think. This seems different, though, as if the only force invoked is that of the earth itself."
"The power of the earth," said Marc thoughtfully. "We had a priest at Kithorn who used to talk about that. He claimed that there are thick and thin areas in Rathillien. The thin spots are like the Haunted Lands, with Perimal Darkling just under the surface; thick areas are more like the hills above Kithorn and down by the Cataracts where Rathillien is most itself and least susceptible to any encroachment. The thickest spot of all is supposed to be the Anarchies, in the western foothills of the Ebonbane. We'll be skirting it on our way to the Riverland."
"Marc, will we get there before the Host marches?"
"Possibly, if the Highlord is delayed that long. It could be disastrous if he is, though. I don't know where the Horde is bound or what it thinks it's up to—assuming it thinks at all—but the longer we put off meeting it, the worse things will be."
"Maybe the Southern Host can deal with it without help."
"Outnumbered two hundred to one?" He laughed, a bit ruefully. "We're good fighters, the best in Rathillien, but not that good. At best, the Southern Host can only hope to delay the Horde, unless King Krothen demands a pitched battle. He could. After all, despite its Highborn officers, the Host is his elite guard, made up of yondri from nearly every house in the Kencyrath."
"Whose pay goes to enrich some lord snug at home in the Riverland," said Jame bitterly. It made her furious to think that a displaced Kendar like Marc could spend most of his life as a yondri, only to be cast off by his sometime lord when he grew too old for active service. "How can the Highlord permit such a thing?"
"He isn't omnipotent," Marc said mildly. "It's a pity, of course, that anyone has to be a yondri, but it's been a long time since there have been enough lords to give all the Kendar real homes. Then too, not all lords are all that rich. The Riverland may be nearly two hundred and fifty miles long, but it's only about ten miles wide, and very little of that is fit to grow crops or even graze cattle. We have to buy most of our food, and sometimes the yondri pay for it with their blood. Perhaps that isn't fair, but it's the way things are."
Jorin had stretched out on the bench beside Jame with his chin on her knee. Suddenly he raised his head and began to growl. Now what? Out in the street, the patter of swift, stealthy feet. . . . The handful of patrons in the hall exchanged quick glances, then rose and hurriedly left—all but two. There at a table in the far shadows by the kitchen door sat the hooded man whom Jame had seen watching her the previous night from a second-story window. Beside him lounged a big man in brigand garb with a strip of black cloth knotted over his eyes. Jame put her hand on Marc's arm. Following her eyes, he tensed.
"Bortis."
The innkeeper emerged from the kitchen, staggering under the weight of a tray piled with brie tart, shortbread, and an enormous humble pie. He plumped down his burden before the two Kencyr.
"There, masters! Now, can I get you anything else?"
"Yes. My war-axe."
The innkeeper stared for a moment, then began to chuckle.
"Ah, the wit of an empty stomach. You know perfectly well, sir, that this is a restricted area. No unsheathed weapons here, if you please."
"Don't tell me," said Marc, getting slowly to his feet. "Tell them."
Thirteen big men, all armed with the distinctive curved knife of the brigand, had entered by the street door. They ranged themselves in an arc across the room facing the two Kencyr, blocking the windows and door. Bortis and the hooded man rose.
"By the Dog," the innkeeper said, staring. "Black Band himself and his pet necromancer." He made a dive for the kitchen, only to run head-on into several more brigands who had entered by the back way. They let him pass. A moment later, the rear door slammed.
"Well, now, Talisman, isn't this nice," said Bortis, grinning. Once he had been handsome in a coarse way. Now he was only coarse, with a bulging stomach, greasy hair, and an unwashed smell that reached Jame across the room through Jorin's senses. "I was just getting the lads ready for a visit to Tai-tastigon come spring to see you again, and here you turn up on my doorstep. Now, I call that accommodating."
"Hello, Bortis. If you'd visited the Res aB'tyrr a few days ago, you would have been in time for Taniscent's funeral."
"So the old girl finally keeled over. Good. That's one less senile slut to soil the world's sheets."
"That 'slut' loved you, and died of old age at twenty-four because you gave her an overdose of Dragon's Blood."
"My, my, you do keep score, don't you? Well, so do I. You owe me for a pair of eyes, Talisman. I'm here to collect."
"I wouldn't advise it," said Marc quietly.
The brigand cocked his bandaged head at the sound of a new voice. His grin deepened. "So now we find out how many men a Kendar is really worth. Not to fret, though, Talisman. There'll still be enough of us to make things interesting for you, and more in the hills afterward. All right," he said to his men, his voice suddenly hoarse with a gloating eagerness. "Take them."
Marc pushed Jame back against the wall behind him. "Stay out of this as long as you can," he said over his shoulder. "This isn't your kind of fight."
Jame eyed the advancing mob. "Is it yours?"
The biggest of the brigands rushed forward with a roar. There was a sharp crack, and he staggered back, hands to his face, blood streaming between his fingers from a shattered jaw. Marc stood there gently rubbing his knuckles.
"Next," he said.
They all rushed him at once. He shrugged off one attacker, floored another, and then went down under a welter of bodies.
Jame circled the heaving mass in an agony of helplessness. Marc had been right: This wasn't her sort of combat at all. Her friend might be killed if she didn't help, but what could she do? Dance. Yes, that was it, but not as she had at the Res aB'tyrr. Paralyze these bastards. Strip away their souls, shred by shred . . .
A hand closed on her arm and wrenched it up behind her back. Pain shattered her thoughts.
"Well, well," Bortis' voice wheezed in her ear. His breath stank. "So you couldn't stay away from me even this long." He twisted her arm harder, making her gasp with pain. "Patience, pretty eyes. Watch for both of us."
The mass split open, and Marc struggled halfway to his feet, dragging men up with him. A brigand rose, clutching a short-handled mace. He brought it down hard on the Kendar's head. Marc collapsed. Two brigands caught him by the arms and held him up. A third jerked his head back by the graying hair and put a knife against his throat. Its edge drew blood.
"Now, chief?"
"Now," said Bortis hungrily.
Suddenly he gave a yelp of pain. Jame twisted out of his grasp as he went down with Jorin's teeth sunk in his leg. The brigands were staring at them, caught off guard. When Jame darted at them, two of the hulking men actually flinched away as if from some small creature with bared teeth and sharp claws. Jame somersaulted over one of them, using his broad shoulders as a springboard. Her foot caught the man with the knife in the face. He dropped. The others were too tightly packed to defend themselves properly. She stepped on shoulders and heads, lashing out at everyone within reach. They surged back. Marc's would-be killer was groping in a dazed way for his knife. As his hand closed on it, Jame landed on his back. Her long fingers slid around his muscular neck. He fell forward, gurgling. She crouched over the Kendar's body, claws fully extended and dripping.
"Next."
There was a moment's startled silence, and then a commotion began near the door. More men were crowding into the room. If these were more brigands . . . but no. Here came the innkeeper, triumphantly leading the city guard. As a fine battle took shape around them, Jame bent anxiously over her friend. Blood was pooling under his head from a torn scalp, but his skull seemed intact and his breathing was regular. Ancestors be praised for a good, hard head.
She was dragging him out from under the combatants' feet when someone grabbed her. Jame twisted around in her attacker's grasp and a pair of strong hands closed on her throat. The hooded man bent over her. She grabbed his little fingers, remembering in time that he had two left hands, and jerked them back to break his hold. They shifted disconcertingly in her grasp. He laughed down at her. Gasping, she struck up at him, and his hood fell back. Instead of breaking his nose, her blow had only shoved it up between his eyes. Even now it was settling back more or less in place. He grinned. His mouth angled across his face, splitting it open like a rotten fruit. He was another changer.
"Well met, Jamethiel. Like our bearish friend, I thought I would have to use the Black Band to get you out of Tai-tastigon, but here you are."
Jame clawed desperately at his hands. When her nails broke the skin, his blood seared her. He tightened his grip.
"Naughty, naughty. Be grateful when someone does you a favor, or would you rather be a guest in Bortis's camp? At least this way you can die knowing that your death will lead to the eventual downfall of the Master himself. Good-bye, Jamethiel."
Through the roar of blood in her ears, Jame heard a crash behind her as the table that she and Marc had been sitting at overturned. The humble pie landed beside her, miraculously right side up. Simultaneously, a small object shot past her, hitting her assailant in the face. It was the clay medallion. The changer let go of her throat and clawed at it as it sank into his flesh with a muffled hiss. Wailing, he staggered toward the door, crashing into furniture and men. Brigands and guards alike scrambled out of his way. On the threshold, he got his nails hooked under the clay disc and tore it away with a wet, ripping sound. He lurched out into the street, hands over his mutilated face. The imu medallion lay on the doorstep, the changer's blood slowly eating away the stone under it.
Jame sat up gasping, one hand on her bruised throat. Sore again, damnit. This was getting monotonous. Jorin slipped up to her out of the corner, chirping anxiously. He wasn't really used to people, much less to tavern brawls, and this one looked as if it could still turn into a massacre. The guards were clearly getting the worst of it. Despite the advantage of numbers, they were up against tougher men and dirtier fighters. Marc groaned. Jame helped him to sit up, anxiously noting his glazed eyes and dazed expression. They might still have to fight or run at any moment.
Their movement had been noted. "They're getting away!" a brigand shouted across the room to Bortis.
"Stop them, damn you!" bellowed the robber chief. "A hundred gold altars to the man who brings me their heads!"
Four brigands advanced on them. Jame felt Marc tense. He came off the floor with a howl, sending three attackers flying. The fourth he grabbed and jammed up the chimney. The rest backed away from his wild eyes and bristling hair. He tore apart a bench with his nails and teeth and charged at them, brandishing a six-foot plank. Foam and blood flecked his gray beard. One brigand jumped out a window, and then another. Suddenly there was a struggling knot of them at the doors, all fighting to get out. Two of Bortis's lieutenants grabbed him and hauled him with them, kicking and swearing. On the threshold, he fought free and spun around.
"I'll be back, do you hear? I'll rally every brigand in the five bands and come ba—umph!"
The humble pie hit him squarely in the face. His men dragged him out as the Kendar charged them again, howling like a wolf. All four disappeared down the street. A few minutes later, Marc came back, wiping his beard and laughing. He found an unspilt tankard of ale on the mantelpiece, drained it, and looked around.
"Hello, where is everybody?"
One of the innkeeper's slippers landed on the floor in front of him. Looking up, he saw the innkeeper himself and half the guard clinging to the rafters, staring down at him. The rest peered warily out of the kitchen and Jame and Jorin from around the edge of the overturned table.
"Oh, come out," he said, grinning at them. "I won't eat you."
"Is that a promise?"
It took awhile to retrieve everyone and even longer for them all to recover. The innkeeper helped with plenty of free ale. Soon a festive mood set in, compounded as much of relief and exultation as of alcohol. They had actually beaten the Black Band, or at least part of it. Never in the history of Peshtar had there been so great a victory for the rule of order. They celebrated by sending down to the cellar for more ale and by putting matches to the feet of the brigand still jammed up the chimney. Meanwhile, Jame bandaged Marc's head.
"That's exactly where I got hit the last time Bortis and I tangled," she said, examining the wound. "The man is at least consistent." She daubed at the torn skin with a wine-soaked cloth. Marc yelped. "Serves you right. You nearly scared the boots off me, pulling a stunt like that."
"The splinters are a nuisance, but on the whole I'd rather break furniture than heads. Too bad I didn't remember that before my own got broken. I did tell you that I used to feign berserker fits in battle, didn't I?"
"Oh yes," said Jame, winding a strip of cloth around his head, "but that was hardly adequate warning. I did get a bit suspicious, though, when you threw that pie. Bortis should wear tripe more often. It suits him. There." She secured the end of the bandage, a troubled frown clouding her face. "I wish I knew what's going on, though. It's natural enough that Bortis should come after me, but why the changers? That's two of them in a week, the first for the Master, the second against, if that's possible. Then too, why in all the names of God should my death mean Gerridon's ultimate ruin? It's like a puzzle with half the pieces missing."
Just then, the innkeeper came bustling up with an ewer of wine. "What, my masters, not drinking? Here, the best in the house!" He refilled their cups to overflowing. "Drink to the rout of the Black Band and of Bortis, the worst bully on the western slopes!"
"Doesn't it worry you that he's promised to return?"
"If he does, we'll lick 'em again," said the innkeeper with relish. "But, just among the three of us, why should he? After all, in the final reckoning it was just a tavern quarrel, spectacular, I grant you, but nothing all that serious."
Marc looked up at Jame. "You'd better tell him."
Jame nodded. "I'm afraid it was and still is serious enough," she said to the innkeeper. "You see, I'm the one who cost him his eyes."
The little man stared at her. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. "Excuse me." He put the ewer down on the table with a thump and scuttled over to the carousing guards. They listened to his urgent whisper, laughing at first, but not for long.
"I take it the party is over," Jame said to Marc.
The captain of the guard stalked over to the table. "What's all this nonsense?" he demanded, giving Jame a scornful look. "As if a famine's filly like this was worth any man's eyes."
Jame glared at him. Not having seen her fight, he apparently assumed that Bortis had been blinded fighting over her— which, she suddenly realized, was partly true.
"Gently, gently," said Marc in Kens, chuckling. "At least he knows you're a girl. That's an improvement over last night. How many men can Bortis actually rally?" he asked the captain.
"Not the five bands, perhaps, but certainly the rest of his own, and there are four times as many of them as we let into Peshtar yesterday. That means we could be under siege by some four hundred brigands by nightfall. You had better be gone by then."
"So much for the celebrated rule of order," said Jame.
The captain turned dusky with anger, but his men shuffled their feet, embarrassed. He was a mercenary brought in from the Central Lands, but they were townsmen, and they had their pride.
"Now, lass, don't taunt them," said Marc softly. "There's a delicate balance here between rule and chaos. We don't want to be besieged anyway."
"No, of course not. But if they want to keep their civic pride at our expense, let them pay for it. We can't leave until we're refitted," she said to the townsmen. "Most of our clothes were burned in the mountains, and if we're going to be on the run, we won't have time to hunt for food. We'll need supplies for at least two weeks."
"No problem there," said one of the guards eagerly, disregarding his captain's sour look. "We'll collect what you need. I'm sure the Council will even be glad to foot the bill."
"And we need a pack pony."
There was a moment's disconcerted silence.
"Yes, of course," said the little innkeeper, glaring at the others. "I'll pay for that myself, if necessary. It's the least we can do. Thank you, my dear. Now, make out your list and these chaps will attend to it while I fix you both another breakfast. And will someone please get that man out of my chimney?"
By the time the Kencyr had eaten, their supplies were ready and packed on a shaggy little beast with shrewd eyes. Someone had even found Jame a new pair of gloves. As she put them on, she remembered the brigand whose throat she had slashed and was uneasy for a moment. Of course, it was wrong to use her claws so freely . . . but the man had deserved it, and that was that.
At the gate, Marc fished something out of his pocket. "I almost forgot to give you this," he said. "It was still lying on the doorstep."
She took the medallion gingerly. The clay face was softened by a mask of molded leather, which Jame suddenly realized must be skin from the changer's face. Only the mouth remained uncovered, with a trace of dried blood on the lips. Its power seemed muted, or perhaps just temporarily sated.
"I'm beginning to wonder just what sort of a present this was meant to be," she said. "Amazing that that stampede of brigands didn't smash it to a powder, but then, like the Book, perhaps it can take care of itself." She slipped it into her pocket. "Ready?"
Marc hesitated. "There's one more thing. Mind you, I think we can outrun this wolf pack, but if Bortis should catch up with us, he had better not take you alive. Agreed?"
Jame swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. "Agreed." They went out Peshtar's western gate and started down the caravan road. The Central Lands spread out before them, shining in the morning light.