"Padma Vorpatril will head the list. The hunt will be up for him, all right. He and Aral are the last descendants of Prince Xav, now, if anybody's fool enough to start up that damned succession-debate again. Or if anything does happen to Gregor." He bit down on this last line as if he might hold back fate with his teeth.

"Lady Vorpatril and the baby, too?"

"Perhaps not Alys Vorpatril. The boy, definitely."

Not exactly a separable matter, just at the moment.

The wind had died down at last. Cordelia could hear the horses' teeth tearing up plants, a steady munch-munch-munch.

"Won't the horses show up on thermal sensors? And us, too, despite dumping our power cells. I don't see how they can miss us for long." Were troops up there right now, eyes in the clouds?

"Oh, all the people and beasts in these hills will show up on their thermal sensors, once they start aiming them in the right direction."

"All? I hadn't seen any."

"We've passed about twenty little homesteads, so far tonight. All the people, and their cows, and their goats, and their red deer, and their horses, and their children. We're straws in a haystack. Still, it will be well for us to split up soon. If we can make it to the trail at the base of Amie Pass before mid-morning, I have an idea or two."

By the time Bothari shoved her back atop Rose, the deep blackness was greying. Pre-dawn light seeped into the woods as they began to move again. Tree branches were charcoal stokes in the dripping mist. She clung to her saddle in silent misery, towed along by Bothari. Gregor actually still slept, for the first twenty minutes of the ride, openmouthed and limp and pale in Piotr's grip.

The growing light revealed the night's ravages. Bothari and Esterhazy were both muddy and scuffed, beard-peppered, their brown-and-silver uniforms rumpled. Bothari, having given up his jacket to Gregor, went in shirtsleeves. The open round collar of his shirt made him look like a condemned criminal being led to the beheading-block. Piotr's general's dress greens had survived fairly well, but his stubbled red-eyed face above it was like a derelict's. Cordelia felt herself a hopeless tangle, with her wet tendrils of hair, mishmash of old clothing and house slippers.

It could be worse. I could still be pregnant. At least if I die, I die singly now. Was little Miles safer than she right now? Anonymous in his replicator on some shelf in Vaagen and Henri's restricted laboratory? She could pray so, even if she couldn't believe so. You Barrayaran bastards had better leave my boy alone.