He was concerned about the few friends hed left down south. Had any survived? Had they salvaged the Annals, those precious histories that were the time link cementing the Company? What had become of Murgen and the standard and his Widowmaker armor? Legend said the standard had been with the Company since the day it had marched from Khatovar.

What were those damned crows up to? Moments ago there had been a thousand of them. Now he couldnt see a dozen. Those all glided at high altitude, drifting back and forth over something up the valley.

Had Khatovar become a hopeless dream? Had the last page of the Annals been written just four hundred miles from home?

Sudden memory from the first hours of their journey away from Dejagore. Just an image, of a man floating, writhing upon a lance. Moonshadow? Yes. And Moonshadow had been skewered upon that lance during the fighting. Skewered on the lance that supported the standard. It wasnt lost! That heirloom more important than

the Annals themselves was down there in the temple somewhere. He hadnt seen it. She must have hidden it.

He glanced at a sky where cumulus marched across a turquoise field. The crows were closer, those few still aloft. He jerked, startled. One was headed his way like a winged missile.

It flapped, fluttered, very nearly suicided, making a landing on a rock pinnacle inches from his left hand. The bird said, Dont move! in a perfectly intelligible voice.

He didnt move, though instantly he had a dozen questions. It took no genius to understand that something significant was happening. The birds didnt speak to him otherwise. In fact, they had only once before, bringing the warning that had allowed him to move in time to whip the Shadowmasters at Ghoja ford.

The crow hunkered down and became part of the rock. Croaker eased down a little himself, so hed present no obviously human form against the skyline, then froze. Moments later he spied movement in the shallow valley before him.

It darted from cover to cover. Then there was more movement, and more. His heart hammered as he remembered the shadows the minions of the Shadowmasters had brought north.

These were no shadows. They were small brown men, but not of the race of the small brown men who had managed the shadows. Those had been cousins of the Taglians. Something familiar about these. But they were so far away.

It didnt occur to them to look up where he was seated. Or if they did they couldnt see him. They moved on down the valley.