IT TOOK RAMUS most of that day to recover. Lulah had ridden them through the rest of the night, cold, wet and tired, and Ramus had been slipping in and out of a troubled sleep for several hours. He remained aware enough to hold himself upright on the saddle, but little more. There were no nightmares. When he awoke to feel dawn's virgin light warming his skin, he could recall no dreams at all.

They passed through the border without incident, Ramus gaining information about the Pavissia Steppes and a bone charm from the big militia in charge of the border guards. When Ramus asked him what the point of a border post was when anyone could cross at a thousand places either side, the three-armed man had smiled. People cross here for the same reason you do, Voyager, he had said. Information.

He did not trust the border militia, even when they pledged not to sell horses to those following on. Murderers, mercenaries, Ramus had said, but as he spoke he knew the militia would respect such qualities.

So before they left, he threw the remaining berry bugs into the militia's stables.

Then they rode hard, pausing only so that Lulah could hunt rabbit for their evening meal. The landscape changed slightly, shrubs and bracken giving way to heathers, and the hills were lower, the valleys shallower. The Pavissia Steppes was a new place for both of them, and by the time they halted that evening Ramus was pleased with the progress they had made.

He thought of Nomi, and wondered how far she and her Serians had traveled with dead horses.

THE DUSKY LIGHT took on a purplish tinge. Lulah was stripping, gutting and preparing a rabbit for dinner, and Ramus went to a nearby stream to fill their water skins.

The sound of the stream was so familiar that he sat beside it for a while, taking comfort in its soporific tones. He did not need to see Lulah's edginess to acknowledge that they were somewhere different now, a place both more dangerous and less known than the Marrakash border territories they had ridden through the night before. Here could be marauders and aggressive wildlife, and the militia man had also mentioned marsh wisps. He had refused to elaborate, probably because they would not pay him enough, and it had taken Ramus until midday to remember where he had heard of them before: Nomi, from her travels in Ventgoria. She had maintained that they were creatures of myth, but it would be dangerous to completely disregard such stories.