“We have to assume that word has reached the Monastery,” she said. “If they’d known at the Monastery much before now there would have been hundreds of Monks against us in Pavisse, not just a few. But at least one would have ridden south as the others tried to keep on our trail. There’s a chance we’ve thrown them for now, but they saw me and they know where I’m from. They’ll know for sure where I’ll want to take Rafe.”

“The Monastery must be two hundred miles from Pavisse,” Kosar said. “There’s no way one of them could have made that journey yet.”

“They’re not people, Kosar. They’re obsessed. They’re powerful. And do you think we’d be traveling this slowly if we didn’t have to?”

Kosar glanced back again. Trey and Alishia had fallen behind, their horse struggling under the unconscious woman’s weight, snorting, blood misting the air around its nose.

“What are you two plotting?” Hope said, spurring her horse to catch up to them. Kosar wanted to believe that there was a hint of humor in her voice, but her face said otherwise. Her tattoos were sharp and defined, displaying her intense concentration.

“We’re plotting how to tumble you from your horse and bury you up to your neck in quicksand,” A’Meer said.

Hope stared at the Shantasi, raising her eyebrows. “You and which army?”

Kosar could not help uttering a bark of a laugh. The fact that Hope did not berate him could have been a sign that she was relaxing . . . or perhaps she disregarded him totally. “We’re debating how to cross the river,” he said. “There are several bridges and a ferry, but we’d rather not be seen.”

“Steal a boat.”

“It would need to be a big boat for all of us,” A’Meer said.

“Steal a ferry.”

“And the ferryman?”

Hope shrugged. Kosar did not like the look in her eyes.

“We’re no killers,” he said quietly. A’Meer and Hope both looked at him, perhaps both doubting their own thoughts. There was an uncomfortable pause, during which Kosar was silently pleading, Agree with me!

“That’s right,” A’Meer said. She did not sound convincing, nor convinced.

“You think the Monks will be coming upriver?”

“Almost certainly.”

They rode in silence for a while, the only sound the clump clump of horses’ hooves on the stony surface. They had been walking across dead ground for an hour now, a place where life had been sucked from the soil. There were no birds, no animals, nothing to eat or be eaten. Here and there, weathered white bones protruded from the hard soil, leathery skin draped across them in defeat. Kosar craved greenery, and he breathed a sigh of relief when they crested a small hill and saw a long, sweeping panorama of grassland and trees heading down to the distant River San.