At least they’d told her where the Skybolts had gone to ground; she’d ridden two days through more heavy rains to get there, so numb that she wasn’t even thinking about what she was likely to find.

The camp didn’t seem much smaller; she’d feared the worst, that half or three-fourths of the Skybolts were gone. But it was much shabbier; the tents were make do and secondhand, and the banner at the sentry post was clumsily sewn with a base of what looked like had once been someone’s cloak.

The rain slacked off as they reached the perimeter of the camp itself. Hellsbane halted automatically at the sentry post; the sentry was a youngster Kero didn’t recognize, probably a new recruit. He seemed very young to Kero.

So new he hasn’t got the shiny rubbed off him yet.

And he looked eager and a little apprehensive as he eyed her.

Probably because I look like I just dragged through the ninth hell.

She dragged out her Skybolt badge and waved it at him. “Scout Kerowyn,” she croaked, days and nights of being cold and wet having left her with a cough and a raspy throat. “Reporting back from the Menmellith Border.”

Before the boy could answer, there was a screech from beyond the first row of tents, and a black-clad wraith shot across the camp toward her, vaulting tent ropes and the tarp-covered piles of wood beside each tent.

“Kero!” Shallan screamed again, and heads popped out of some of the tents nearest the sentry post. Hellsbane was so weary she didn’t even shy; she just flicked an ear as Shallan reached them and grabbed Kero’s boot. “Kero, you’re alive!”

“Of course I’m alive,” Kero coughed, slowly getting herself out of the saddle. “I feel too rotten to be dead.”

By now more than heads were popping out of the tents and she and Shallan had acquired a small mob, all familiar faces Kero hadn’t realized she missed until now. They crowded around her, shoving the poor young sentry out of their way, all of them laughing (some with tears in their eyes), shouting, trying to get to Kero to hug her or kiss her—it was a homecoming, the kind she’d never had.

She looked around in surprise, some of her tiredness fading before their outpouring of welcome. She hadn’t known so many people felt that strongly about her, and to her embarrassment, she found herself crying, too, as she returned the embraces, the infrequent kisses, the more common back-poundings and well-meant curses. They’re family. They’re my family, more than my own blood is. This is what Tarma was trying to tell me, the way it is in a good Company; this is what makes Lerryn a good Captain.