It was feka-tea; double-strength and unsweetened, it was bitter as death and a powerful stimulant. Some of the scouts used it on long patrols; Lyr must have found someone with a supply—assuming she didn’t have any herself—and made up a sun-brew while they all slept. A black kettle left in the sun to steep made tea as strong as anything boiled, and Lyr was too canny to risk a fire. They’d probably all need this tea before the night was over; too little sleep had killed plenty of times, as someone nodded out and fell behind the rest on a trek like this one.

When the kettle finished its round, Lyr took it from the last to drink and beckoned them all close to her; they stood shoulder to shoulder in a huddle, like children before a game. “We’re in Karse now, in the buffer zone,” she said quietly. “There’ll be no fires while we’re here, nothing to bring us to the attention of anyone—a Karsite patrol wduldn’t have a fire either; they make cold camps always unless they’re in a siege. We’re going a little farther east, riding this trail until just after sunset. Then we’ll be turning north, through the night, then west as soon as we hit anything that looks like a road. Once we start going west, we’ll be traveling entirely by night. The Karsites do that, sometimes, and it’ll be harder for‘someone to tell that we aren’t a patrol of theirs if we meet ’em after dark. If that happens, is there anybody who speaks Karsite better than me?”

The brown girl spoke up. “Me mum’s Karsite,” she offered.

“Can you give me a bit of a speech about going west to harass the heathen, with all the Sunlord crap attached?”

The girl spouted off a bit of liquid gabble; difficult to believe that a people as intransigent and violent as the Karsites had such a beautiful language. Kero didn’t understand it, but Lyr evidently. did; she nodded in satisfaction. “Better than me by a good furlong; right, if we run into a patrol, you’re the leader. Think you can reckon what to tell ‘em without me coachin’ you?”

“Aye,” the girl asserted sturdily, blushing a bit. “Mum useta tell us what them officers was like—bit like the Rethwellan reg‘lars, only stuffed full of that religious dung and stricter about orders and rules. So long as I keep insisten’ it’s orders we’re followin’, and praise Vkandis often enough, should be ail right. The half of ‘em can’t read nor write, so havin’ verbal orders isn’t going to make ’em think twice.”

Lyr looked satisfied, and patted the girl on the shoulder. “Right, then. let’s mount up and make some time.”

They turned to their horses—and that was when Hellsbane flung up her head and screamed a warning.