Without the stars to mark the passing of time, the night dragged on as if forever, but at length the air lightened and a bird chirped. The sound made her jump. A bird! She rose, unsteady on weary legs, and listened hard and peered into the surrounding foliage, but she did not see it or hear that call again.

5

THE outpost had a name, Freeburg, and a population of some four-score wary persons housed in an impressive walled holding consisting of five thatched longhouses, a dozen or so smaller buildings and, remarkably, the blunt spire of a tiny chapel. One lonely cottager lived outside the walls, just where the path emerged from the forest, but it wasn't clear if this spry old fellow had chosen his exile or lived close by the protecting palisade on sufferance. He watched their company march past without saying a word and turned back to clearing his garden. Six bee hives lay within his fence.

The gates lay open. Folk worked in the fields and women washed clothes in the sparkling river. Meat dried under fenced-in shelters, ready to be brought in and cured. The ring of a blacksmith's hammer surprised them; smiths, like gold, were usually found in more exalted settlements.

Folk paused to watch them. A dozen young men stood along the palisade rampart armed with bows.

"They're not trusting," murmured Liath to Thiadbold, but he only nodded thoughtfully and led the Lions right into what might be a trap, crossing over the ditch and through the open gate. The Lions halted inside the gate, in an open area with enough space for arms practice, or a market, or foot races. Soon they were surrounded. The council of elders met them.

"We heard news of you along the road," said their spokesman, a genial man with silver hair, silver beard, and a twisted smile from a palsy afflicting the left side of his face. He looked otherwise hale. "I'm called Master Helmand."

"I'm called Captain Thiadbold. We're on the regnant's business— my Lions and these three Eagles—on our way to St. Valeria's. If we might bide one night within your walls, we'd be grateful. We were attacked by bandits last night. One of our men got hurt, but we drove them off."

"Where was that?" asked Master Helmand as the folk around him whispered and nodded.

"There's a stone circle. That's where we camped last night."

"Old ghosts walk there. No one goes willingly to that place."

It was clear to Liath that the man thought them fools for having camped on haunted ground, but the confession seemed to peel off a layer of suspicion from his scrutiny. After all, how badly can fools threaten an armed village?

"You know the convent?" she asked him. "We had hoped to ask for a guide to show us the way."

"Oh, yes. They come twice a year to trade with us and sing a mass and read the prayers for the dead."