He set bandits against Valdemar, then hired the Tedrels to do his work for him, Alberich thought somberly. And now, thanks to the drain that the Tedrels put on his resources, the Sunsguard must be even more depleted. He hasn’t got the means to attack us.

No, the Sunsguard would be mopping up what was left, with the priests assisting, then they would all descend on the Tedrel base camp with an eye to getting back what had been drained from them.

“Believe me, there is no way the plunder in that camp can be exhausted, even by us and the Tedrels that were left,” Laika told them both. “There’ll be enough there to satisfy priestly greed even after our wagons come back. It isn’t only the Karsite treasury they’ve been draining; they’ve got the accumulation of some twenty or thirty years’ worth of loot from other campaigns they’ve fought, and they’ve been saving it all, waiting for the day when they’d have their own land again.” She scratched her head, thinking, and added, “I’ll give the bastards this much; they had discipline. Almost a quarter-century of honest pay, extortion, and booty, and they didn’t spend a clipped copper coin more than they had to. Every fighter had his own store of loot, but beyond that, every true Tedrel war duke had a treasury tent, waiting for the day when he could finance the building of his own fortified keep in the heart of his own principality.”

Alberich was greatly pleased to hear that. If the wagons sent onward came back so well loaded, then perhaps the children’s little hoards could be kept solely for their use when they were older.

If the ride out had been a mixed pleasure, the ride back was an unalloyed—if bittersweet—one. With all worry about encountering Sunsguard gone, under a glorious full moon and a sky full of stars, and buoyed on the energy of the successful rescue, there was nothing in the way of opening themselves up to pure aesthetic enjoyment of a tranquil ride through peaceful countryside. The teamsters, once the situation was explained to them, relaxed and sat easily on the seats of their wagons. Even the babies only whimpered a little, now and then. Timeless and dreamlike, they moved on across ground that seemed enchanted and drunk with peace. It was as if the One God was granting them all a reprieve from their grief, the sorrow that would confront them when they crossed back into Valdemar, giving their hearts a rest so that they could all bear it better when at last it came.