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Chapter XII
Trials and Tribulations

Bashti and Transweald: Autumn 15–30

I

The chant was getting closer.

“Keep the dole!” cried the poor, advancing to the slap of bare feet and of sandals, to the beat of pots and rusty pans. “You patricians, you ennobled, are we not citizens too? Don’t let us starve!” They sounded angry, defiant, and afraid.

Some merchants in the market hastily closed their stalls. Others stood defiantly before them, clutching whatever weapons lay to hand. City guards kept pace with the disorderly mob down parallel aisles, not so far interfering with it but alert to incipient trouble. A clash, after all, might bring an open, spreading conflict.

“I didn’t know that the dole was at risk,” said Jame, watching.

Snaggles, at her side, wiped his nose on his sleeve, torn between excitement at the uproar and apprehension at its cause. “That’d be because King Mordaunt says he’ll pocket its funding if the Council doesn’t raise taxes again to build that damn temple of his. But if the tax does go up, bet you fungits to fennigs he pockets that too.”

“Mordaunt seems to be getting desperate. Why?”

“You tell me,” said Mint, “and we’ll both know.”

Jame had been walking part way to the palace in company with her former cadet, whose day shift there was about to begin. She had been aware of things changing in High Bashti but what with training for the Transweald games she had yet to catch up on local events.

The mob passed, trailing wary guards.

Jame found herself outside one of the white draped betting booths and idly glanced over the miniature plaster busts on display. One caught her eye.

“That’s Pensa, Prestic’s daughter,” she said. “What is she doing here?”

Snaggles beamed at her, glad to pass on news. “You didn’t know? Her house voted her its lady with a seat on the Council. That’s a rare thing, a lady instead of a lord. But Prestic was popular, his daughter likewise.”

“Mordaunt permitted it, after she tried to kill him?”

“Can’t tell the other houses who is to lead them, can he? ’Least not without six other votes to back him, and none did. Oh, there was a trial of sorts. They gave her a pass b’cause of her grief and—ahem—righteous anger. Many patricians still blame Mordaunt for Prestic’s death, not that they have any proof. Then too, the Council is mad at the king for his tax finagling. If this attack on the dole goes through, they’ll have to support their own, the poor without patrons be damned. Ancestors know how they’ll take that.”

“I suppose,” said Jame, “that we at the campus will have to support you, going deeper into debt in the process.”

“Oh well,” he said, cheering up, “there’s always Lady Anthea. D’you think she will let us starve?”

“You, no. The rest of the city, maybe.”

Another plaster bust near the back caught her attention. “Who is that?”

Mint laughed. “Granted, it’s not a very good likeness, but if you were more familiar with mirrors . . . ”

Jame peered. “Sweet Trinity. That’s me. What am I doing here?”

Someone tugged her sleeve. She turned to confront Graykin.

“Where have you been?” she demanded. “You should be my eyes in the city, and you’ve left me blind.”

When he flinched, Jame realized that she had used a Shanir command tone on him.

“All right. Sorry. What’s going on?”

The spy glanced at Mint, who took the hint: he wanted a private conversation with her lady, and besides she was late for duty. Off she went, dragging a reluctant Snaggles with her.

“Well?” said Jame.

Graykin looked both nervous and obscurely proud of himself. He pulled her aside, away from the regathering crowd. “People are placing bets because the Shadow Guild has been making inquiries about you. That gets noticed.”

Jame blinked. When nothing had happened after her encounters with the assassins in the palace or in the Necropolis on Autumn’s Eve, she had stopped thinking of them as a personal threat. Perhaps that had been premature. “Who, for how long, and why?”

“That took some finding out.”

He looked even more sly, and apprehensive. Now she understood his expression; here his craft had come into play, but he had tweaked the tiger’s tail in the practice of it.

“Your name came up in certain Thyme Side taverns, from certain snitches known to collect information for the Guild. This would have been since Autumn’s Day. Someone wanted to know who you were, where you came from, and why you are here. Many a pretty coin of yours I spent, buying drinks, to get a name, but get it I finally did, just last night: Smeak, a junior archivist of the Guild.”

“Why such interest in me, though, from someone I’ve never heard of before?”

He glanced at her askance. “Maybe you should ask him.”

“I can?”

“There’s an obscure door in a dismal little maze, off Thyme Street, in Thyme Side, that has no hinges, that never opens. But there’s a crack in it. People whisper secrets through it to a listening ear within, usually whom they want the Guild to kill and how much they are willing to pay. Sometimes an answer comes back, shoved under the door. Ask there for the junior archivist. You have a name now. Use it.”

“You haven’t?”

He showed the whites of his teeth, of his eyes. “What I dare, I dare. Not this.”

II

Three hours later, after much searching, she found the door and whispered a name to it. Within the dark interior, someone sighed. Nothing more.

III

“There is this too,” Graykin had said to her in parting. “Rumor has it that the Shadow Guild is split. Traditional assassins follow the Guild grand master, as mad as he is, although no one has seen him in years since his final set of mere tattoos. Heh. How far into any orifice can the needles reach? All that’s left of him is a whisper in the dark, gibbering. Still, his followers support King Mordaunt and are his spies. Others ally themselves with the Deathless and their Dark Prophet. ‘Death itself shall die.’ After murdering so many others, my guess is that what they fear most is their own mortality. But it’s more confused than that. The king and the prophet support each other in some things, but where do they differ? The difference between them may be the razor’s edge.”

Jame thought about that as she walked back to the Campus Kencyrath through the teaming streets. There was so much she didn’t understand. Moreover, she had just made an approach that she might yet regret. The next move was up to the Guild.

She was scheduled that afternoon to practice with the scythe-arms, although no one knew if Transweald would ask for a demonstration of such a skill. Duke Pugnanos still hadn’t defined the terms of his contests. In the past, Kencyr troops had sometimes fought a pitched battle; in other more civilized times, a rousing game of kouri. In general, though, Jame didn’t expect to be sent north for the first Knorth trial. After all, other Kencyr were more skilled than she except, perhaps, in the Senethar, the Senetha, and the Sene. Well, maybe also in the clawed Arrin-thar, but who would ask for that?

“The commander wants to see you,” said his servant Secur, intercepting her in the corridor outside Harn’s apartment, announced by the clap of his wooden foot.

“Of course,” she said, wondering if this would delay the practice. Well, they could start without her, small loss to them.

Harn Grip-hard sat at his desk, shuffling papers.

“About the games,” he said and stalled. His mouth moved silently.

“What news from the other garrisons of the Host?” Jame asked, hoping to jolt his thoughts. She still found his uncertainties baffling, although he had often hesitated about his berserker nature which, with good reason, he deeply distrusted. “How are they dealing with the lost clause to prevent slaughter?”

“So far, the issue hasn’t arisen.”

He picked up a paper knife and idly tried its point. Sharp.

“The Kings are using us gingerly,” he added, frowning at the drop of blood on his fingertip, then sucking it. “I think the ferocity of the White Hills scared them. Unleashed, we are a terrifying force, sharper blades in their hands than they ever expected. Well, they’ve played for us and won. Now what?”

Jame already knew from Mint about the Edirr and the Coman clashing, also about the Randir’s and the Caineron’s squabbles over the gold-rich Forks. These she mentioned, adding, “The Central Lands may mean to settle old scores through us, but it seems to me that our troops are acting primarily in accord with their lords’ politics back in the Riverland. That could be a problem. Do you have any idea yet what Duke Pugnanos wants us to accomplish in the Transweald, besides clearing his way to invade the deep Weald by losing?”

Harn picked up a ball of twine and started to fiddle with it.

“One thing I’ve heard,” he said, wrapping the cord around his fingers. “The Transweald nobles want to see that rathorn of yours fight.”

“Sweet Trinity. Against whom?”

“Does it matter?” He paused, glancing up at her under shaggy brows. “Prince Jurik wants to ride him, but that has to be you, doesn’t it?”

“I should hope so.”

But did she? The last time she had fought Death’s-head, at Kothifir, she had fallen off and broken her collarbone. Well, not that exactly. She had thrown herself from the rathorn’s back and knocked the Master of Knorth off his haunt mount, but his armor had been empty when the rhi-sar tooth on the shoulder of her armor had gouged into the eye hole of his mask. Then, oh, the crack of bone.

One was never quite felt the same after the first break, Harn had said.

The big randon wasn’t meeting her eyes again.

“King Mordaunt wants me to stay here,” he said, “in case of trouble. These riots worry him. Prince Jurik and his friends are going. Jurik . . .” He cleared his throat. “Jurik is to be in charge of the mission. His mother insists.”

His hands had become thoroughly entangled in twine. He rose abruptly and stomped out onto the balcony, tugging irritably to get free, only binding himself tighter.

“Don’t ask,” he said, his back turned. “Just . . . don’t ask.”

Jame left, speechless. She was going to Transweald after all, she realized. Under the prince’s feckless command.

IV

“His highness to go too?” said Graykin when Jame told him later that day. “That surprises me. He’ll be missing the Wolver Hunt on Wolf’s Day, which is a big occasion for the Princess cult.”

“Explain that.”

“The cult blames Prince Bastolov for her death, he who became the first wolver. So they hunt his effigy through the city and bring it to her preserved body, in flames. Queen Vestula will undoubtedly play the reborn princess, handing out vengeance—unless she tweaks the myth and presents the king, Bastolov’s father, as the true villain. She and Mordaunt aren’t on the best of terms these days, after all.”

“And Jurik?”

“The word is that he sees himself as the prince destined to wake the princess from her sleep of death. His mother has told him so. Does he believe it? Who knows?”

“But what can he do about it if he’s in the Transweald?”

“That,” said Graykin, “is a good question.”

V

That evening, Jame found a scrap of parchment on her bed. It seemed at first to be blank. Thinking that it might be written upon with invisible ink, she tried various agents without success. Then it occupied to her that this might be mere dye, and so it was; letters floated like holes on the white paper when held against the dark background of her blanket.

Tonight, they read. Come to the door.

By then, it was late. Rue snored softly on her pallet at the foot of Jame’s bed, tired of watching earlier futile experiments. Should Jame wake her? No. She would only raise objections. Sometimes one was the Knorth lordan and a randon officer. Sometimes one was the Talisman.

She went through the midnight streets, which still seethed with the unrest of the day. Many of the poor were out, but most houses and businesses were closed.

Finally, she arrived at the obscure door of the Shadow Guild.

“I’m here,” she breathed into its crack.

“Ha,” said a voice at her elbow.

She turned, but saw no one.

“Ha-ha-ha . . . ”

A hood dropped over her head. Its draw-string closed around her throat. Unseen hands grabbed her, jostled her back and forth.

Don’t struggle, she told herself, choking down the impulse, tripping over uneven cobblestones. If they wanted to kill you, they would have already.

Oh, but what a mistake she had made in telling no one where she was going. If this turned out badly, Rue would never forgive her.

She was being herded somewhere. In Tai-tastigon, she would have known every turn even blindfolded. Here, from the many sharp turns she suspected that she was being hustled farther into the miniature maze, under the shadow of towering warehouses. Another door opened. Hands thrust her inside. She stumbled, then scrabbled off the hood, gasping: the fabric had been thick and the draw-string tight.

A narrow hallway lay before her, lit with candles, lined with niches in which were piled parchment scrolls. Black beetles scurried among them, busily sowing ruin. Moreover, many apertures were so full that the bottom, oldest layer had crumbed into flakes under the weight of those above.

Jame edged out one of these latter and gingerly unrolled it. Like the scroll in her quarters, its surface at first appeared to be blank. As she tilted it against a candle’s light, however, words appeared to shine through it although her finger tips could find no holes. That was how mere ink worked: while the substance remained, the image disappeared.

“Clever, clever,” she murmured.

Well, it would be. This, presumably, was the Shadow Guild’s archive.

. . . scratch, scratch, scratch . . .

The sound, muffled and as faint as a mouse’s claw, came from down the hall. Jame followed it to another door, this one opening into a low-ceilinged room whose dimensions at first were hard to guess. Facing her was another wall of shelves groaning under their load of documents. Around the end of that was another over-loaded case, then another and another, laid out in a labyrinth.

. . . scratch, scratch . . .

Candlelight flickered on the round mouth of rolls.

. . . scratch . . .

Jame turned a corner. In an alcove, overtopped with leaning shelves, was a small desk. At it sat a thin, young man, quill poised, bent over a parchment on which he was making the copy of a fragmented scroll. His hair was so blonde that it shone nearly white, with yellow touches from the candle light. Jame noted that his left sleeve hung empty. He only had one arm. He sighed and looked up. What a haggard face. What distraught eyes.

A shadow bent over him and whispered. Who or what cast it?

“Heh, heh, heh,” it said, snickering.

“It is you after all.” The clerk sounded thoroughly defeated. “What do you want?”

Jame blinked. This was hardly the greeting that she had expected.

“Some answers, to begin with,” she said. “You’re Archivist Smeak, aren’t you? Why have you been asking questions about me?”

He dropped his quill and put a hand briefly over his eyes.

“I recognized you at the palace,” he said. “I had to know why you were here, didn’t I?”

“You did?” she asked, her wits scrambling. Could this be the Shadow assassin she had met talking with King Mordaunt, the one she had shoved into an ornamental pool? He too had been missing an arm, as a tear in his mere-dyed tunic had revealed. Now that she saw his face, it was also vaguely familiar, but from where and when, if he had recognized her on what she would have said was their first meeting?

He half rose, thumped his fist on the desk, and shouted, “Why do you torment me? Again, what do you want?”

Only one thing came to mind. “Well, now that you mention it, I want the contract for the massacre of my kinswomen, the Knorth ladies, thirty years ago.”

He looked as if she had punched him in the gut. “You . . . what? Oh, go away, damn you. Let me think. Let me think.”

She went—out of the room, the hall, the door, to find herself on a dingy side street in a minor maze.

What was that all about? she wondered.

VI

The next morning Jurik arrived, swaggering, to take over “his” troops. Everywhere he went, a dozen of his cronies went with him as, it seemed, they meant to do on the expedition itself. Chief among them and most assiduous in attendance was his smiling half-brother Cervil. Jame didn’t like any of them. It seemed to her that Jurik was more in the way than in charge, but his followers continued to egg him on with fawning praise.

Over the course of the day, the number of people involved in the journey grew. Each of Jurik’s friends had two servants; he himself had five. Then there were representatives of the other houses and their host of attendants, “come to see the fun,” as Mint had put it earlier, at Jurik’s invitation, as his special guests. That didn’t even count the contestants themselves—seventeen Danior and Knorth, including Damson, each with a Kendar to act as servant and second, including Rue. The other three challengers were Bashtiri—Jurik and two of his friends. The total result was well over one hundred riders and three times as many horses including pack animals and remounts. It was, in short, a small army, even at this late hour still debating its course of action.

Given authority by Jurik, Cervil wanted to change the line of march.

He met with Harn in the commander’s quarters on the evening of the 16th. Unbidden, Jame joined them. She didn’t like the way Harn dithered whenever the prince was involved, and here Jurik presumably spoke indirectly.

“But why go by the River Road at all?” Cervil asked with a beguiling smile. “That’s some five hundred miles to the Transweald capital of Wealdhold. Cross-country it’s more like a hundred leagues.” He spread his hands. “Where is the argument?”

Harn grunted. “I know that road. And that terrain. And the storms of autumn.”

“How long will it take to get to Wealdhold?” Jame asked.

“By the River Road,” said Harn, “travelling at a good pace, fourteen days.”

“And we have to be there by the 31st, preferably earlier to receive our orders and to coordinate with the Brandan.”

Cervil clapped his hands. “You see? To get there in time, we would have to start tomorrow, and my prince is not yet ready. At thirty miles a day, by the short cut, we can be there in ten.”

“Over rough roads, through uncertain terrain, amidst autumnal storms,” murmured Jame, as if to herself.

Cervil presented her with a glistening smile. “My prince would like to see more of the country that he will inherit, oh, any day now.”

Jame gave a dry cough. “That last will no doubt come as a surprise to his lord father.”

Harn looked profoundly uneasy. “His mother did say that his wishes were paramount.”

Jame could see him caving. “All right,” she said, to forestall the inevitable. “Assuming Jurik can keep up the pace.”

VII

The next day was a scramble. More travelers arrived at the Campus Kencyrath, bringing more luggage, tents, and horses. Presumably they also brought their own supplies since the Kencyr had only packed with themselves in mind, not expecting such a host of camp followers or the luxuries that they seemed to find indispensable.

This, thought Jame, did not bode well for an expeditious expedition.

The lot of them departed on the 18th of Autumn, led through the twisting streets by everyone in Mordaunt’s court who wasn’t going along. Even the king’s brigands showed up, the largest of them, familiar from the god farce, bedecked in even more gaudy finery than usual, waving his massive arms to lead a bouncing chant:

Umph pah-pah, umph pah, umph pah-pah-pah!

As for the local crowd, some booed and spat until the city guard rousted them. Jame wondered, passing their raised fists, if Jurik was as popular as he thought he was as the self-styled champion of the poor. With Jurik, she had learned, declaring something meant that it was true. It never seemed to occur to him that work might also be involved.

Their escort stopped at the main gate, cheered them through it, and shut it in their wake. They passed eastward through the fertile valley, between crops ripe for the harvest, down to the gate in the outer wall where their road joined Thyme Street, and from there into the Necropolis.

Bashti was considerably farther south than the Riverland, where leaves would already have fallen and the cold of an evening bit. Here in the Central Lands, foliage was just beginning to turn, red, gold, and orange against the darker evergreens. In the gardens of death, squirrels chittered from tree to tree while foxes slunk in the undergrowth. It was beautiful, thought Jame, looking back from stately tombs into the tangle of wilderness beyond.

Within the latter, she sensed the presence of Death’s-head. The rathorn was deep in those green shadows, but he caught from her thoughts the prospect of combat. That was enough to draw him. The pack horses following the main party shied with his approach on their heels, although he kept back far enough not to otherwise be noted.

Ahead, someone in Jurik’s party began to sing:


“Oh, we ride forth to glory and fame.

Hurrah, hurrah!

Our cause to win, our might to prove.

Hurrah, again hurrah!”


Wine skins were passed. Laughter rang out.

Here was the Tigganis mausoleum, which was being rebuilt. With Pensa as its new lady, the house could presumably reassert itself to this degree, if not potentially to more. Did that devoted daughter still bring her dead father flowers? What was he now, in her life? For that matter, where was he, and in what shape?

The shadows seemed to rustle, and a chill touched the day like an eclipse of a sun hidden by clouds:

I’m hungry, I’m hungry . . .

At length, they passed the graveyard. The cliffs drew back. The land opened into steep hills. Here at a fork in Thyme Street was a way opening northward. They turned left onto it.

The first five days passed blithely, with more singing, more drinking. Jame began to wonder if Harn had made too much of the route’s trials. They were even making good time on a road well-maintained in Suwaeton’s time and not much degraded since. She did note, however, that each night Jurik caroused later and slept longer. Her people were ready to travel an hour or more before his were.

Then on the 23rd they came to the river that divided Bashti from the Transweald. The bridge here was broken in the middle by the autumn floods and not yet repaired. Swimming all of the horses across took the better part of a day. In the process, several of them were lost along with their burdens. Beyond, the road twisted and turned on irregular cobbles, between steep hills. It began to rain.

The next four days were miserable.

It seemed to Jame that they were now merely dithering along, slowed by the weather, the rough road, and Jurik’s contingent ahead of them. That was agony. If before they had made good time, now they traveled at half that.

On, she thought, plodding at the tail of Jurik’s cronies, fighting the impulse to crowd up against their flanks and physically push them forward. Oh, to summon Death’s-head to rouse these sluggards. On. The Kencyrath was better than this.

Then on the morn of the 28th they stopped moving altogether. Somewhere above the clouds it must be well past dawn. Jame went forward to ask.

“It’s too wet,” said Cervil, with an apologetic shrug. “My prince decrees that we wait for better weather.”

“We only have four days to reach Wealdhold,” she said, trying to curb her frustration. Water dripped off her hood, bedraggling her braids. Behind her the prince’s horses snuffled in discontent along the picket line, unattended. “Our honor depends on us arriving in time.”

“Ah, you Kencyr and your honor. Surely the Brandan and Duke Pugnanos will wait for us. They can hardly start in our absence, after all.”

“They can declare us forfeit,” said Jame tartly. “Then the games don’t matter. Your king and your prince lose. The Weald is forfeit too, assuming that the duke can take it, which I doubt.”

“If so, what does it matter?” said Cervil, spreading his wet gloved hands, smiling. “Patience, patience.”

Be damned, thought Jame, splashing back to her people where the Kencyr were breaking up camp.

“Map!” she called to Rue, who spread out Harn’s parting gift under the shelter of their tent. “How far would you say to Wealdhold?”

Damson emerged from the drizzle, shaking droplets off her sleeves. She measured distances with her stumpy fingers. “We passed this hamlet yesterday, yes? There was a fortress above it. Then maybe a hundred miles more. Three or four days if we hustle, given the terrain, given the weather. Nothing if we don’t.”

Jame considered this, but briefly.

“All right,” she said. “We hustle. Pass the word. Only take what you need. Food, yes, but leave the tents behind and hope that it stops raining.”

Damson nodded and left. The camp began to buzz with new purpose. Even the rain was endurable, as long as they were moving. Soon afterward, the Kencyr contingent mounted and rode. Only when they were underway did Jame consider that she had just taken command at least of the Kencyr contingent, and no one had stopped her.

Most of the expedition had camped on hillsides overlooking the road with ditches dug around canvas walls to deflect the water that cascaded down beside them. The road itself ran like a shallow river. Bashtiri looked out as the Kencyr horses splashed past below them. Prince Jurik’s encampment sported the biggest tent, temporary home to his numerous followers. He came to the front flap as the riders approached. Cervil emerged and appeared to speak to his half-brother. When he received no answer, he turned and plunged down the slope, his jacket pulled over his head against the deluge.

“Where are you going?” he demanded of Jame, grabbing her horse’s bridle.

“To Wealdhold.”

“But—but you can’t! My prince leads this expedition and he forbids it.”

Damson rode up beside Jame.

“He hasn’t led us anywhere,” she said, scowling, “except to near disaster.”

“But—but—but you need him and two of his friends in order to compete.”

“We can replace them with three of our own backups,” said Jame. “If Jurik reaches Wealdhold in time, he can still play his part.”

Jurik was coming down the hillside in what appeared to be his sleeping attire, without anything over or under it.

Cervil looked terrified. “Please,” he begged. “Don’t anger him.” With that, he backed away, wringing his hands.

“Go back to your campsite,” Jurik growled. His face was screwed up with fury. Rain plastered straggly locks to his skull and dripped from his furrowed brow. One could see, more clearly than ever, that he was going prematurely bald.

Jame’s first thought was that he was drunk, then that he was massively hungover, but something beyond that made the hair on the back of her neck bristle and rise.

“We have to go,” she said, wary now, attempting to sound reasonable. “We are under contract to do your father’s will. Surely you want that too.”

He grabbed her arm and yanked her out of the saddle. She was too surprised to do more than make sure that she fell cleanly, feet free of the stirrups, which was fortunate because her horse bolted. Splash she went into the flood. He loomed over her.

“Go back to your campsite,” he said again, and reached for her.

She let him pick her up, then stuck at the nerve center in his arm. He bellowed, letting go, and swung at her. She channeled his force aside with water-flowing Senethar, which seemed appropriate under the circumstances. He stumbled on the uneven cobblestones, fell and rose. They faced each other, both dripping wet. There was madness in his eyes. Jame wondered what was in hers.

“My command,” he panted. “Damn you, obey!”

She was on the edge of losing her temper too. This was ridiculous. “Not to you, spoiled boy. Not ever.”

Damson had caught her horse. Jame was aware of her former cadet behind her.

Jurik gasped and fell. Struggling to rise, he fell again, face down in the flood.

Jame realized what was happening. “Let him go,” she said to Damson. “Dammit, woman, don’t kill him.”

“He would have killed you,” said Damson, holding her horse as she remounted.

As they rode on, Jurik’s people surged down the slope to pick him up. His legs didn’t seem to work properly.

“What was that all about?” Damson asked Jame as they left the rest of the party behind. “Was he drunk?”

“I thought so at first,” said Jame, shivering. Only now did she feel the full impact of his emotions, and of her own. “But no. That was a genuine berserker flare.”

VIII

The next three days were unpleasant, although the rain did stop. On the 28th, Damson called an early halt because Jame was still sopping wet and turning blue with the cold. They at least had a dry night and enough dry wood for a rousing fire.

Jurik didn’t catch up with them on subsequent days, which was a relief. Jame wondered if he was still recovering from Damson, who had apparently cut the legs out from under him. How long did the Shanir’s influence last? Most people stumbled to their deaths quickly thereafter—the cadets Vont and Killy came to mind. Maybe he would have the sense to stay still until the curse passed off but, oh, he would be furious.

She thought about that, and also about the fact that he was a berserker. Other people beside her own could manifest unmanageable rage, though. Also, Damson had demonstrated that she could affect non-Kencyr when she had broken the leg of a driver fool enough to grab her in the Southern Wastes. Still, it all gave Jame pause furiously to think.

Other less kempt roads joined theirs, and more travelers, all bound northward toward Wealdhold. Many appeared to be small farmers, whole families of them in mule drawn, two wheeled carts. The children cheered and waved as the Kencyr troop passed. The adults looked curious but wary. Several carts tried to keep up on their heels, to benefit from an impromptu armed escort, but soon fell behind. Other travelers, more well-to-do, kept pace on horses. Judging by the general chatter, all were going to the games.


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