“Everyone remain calm,” Kolby ordered. “I cannot allow anyone to harm this lady. If you make any attempt, I may be forced to kill you.” Kolby had a wonderfully composed, matter-of-fact way of speaking. If he were a ship on a stormy sea, the crew and passengers could eat meals while balancing wine glasses on their knees. Normally, this was a virtue. At that moment, not so much.

“Don’t listen to him,” Farilane said. “I’m a loudmouth. My voice is high and irritating. Just hearing me speak—one of you must want to make me shut up, right?”

“What are you doing?” Kolby asked.

Farilane ignored him and advanced on another man with a sword. “Hey! You look like a hothead. You gonna just let us embarrass your chief bear-man like that? Come on, wouldn’t you like to slit my throat?”

“My lady,” Kolby said firmly.

“At least break my nose. How hard is that? It’s right here and ever so breakable.”

The man she spoke to shifted his eyes between her and Kolby. “If I try, he’ll kill me.”

She turned, making a show of pretending to search for Kolby, even going so far as to hold a hand above her eyes to shield from the non-obtrusive sun. “He’s waaay over there!”

“But he’s a Teshlor.”

Farilane folded her arms and frowned. “And you’re a coward. All of you are nothing but little girlish milksops.”

“Are you trying to get someone killed?” Kolby asked.

Farilane clapped her arms against her sides. “Obviously!” She looked at the group of ugly hairy men and sighed. “And doing a piss-poor job of it.”

“Why?”

“Because I know you won’t hurt anyone unless they try to hurt me.”

“You want them dead because they stole our horses?”

Farilane rolled her eyes. “Of course not.”

“Then why?”

Movement up the hill caught everyone’s attention as the gates of Blythium Castell opened. A small column of armored legionnaires issued out of the fortress, accompanied by an ominous drumbeat. They were led by a prymus on horseback, his red-plumed helmet appearing as a flame on his head.

“Thank the gods,” Kolby said. “They can handle this.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Farilane warned.

In two neat lines, a half-dozen imperial soldiers entered the village along with a drummer and a standard-bearer who held the Fourth Legion flag high: a sculpted boar on a pole. Reaching Farilane and her companions, the prymus halted his squadron and peered down. “What is at issue here?” he asked in a superior tone that often accompanied those on horseback when speaking to those who were not.

“Horse thieving,” Kolby explained. “These men lay claim to four horses stolen from us last night.”

“They be my horses,” Gibson declared.

The prymus didn’t bother to look at the bear clan. Instead, he studied Kolby. “That’s the uniform of a Teshlor Knight.”

“It is,” Kolby replied.