“No?” Ushahin made his way to the stallion’s side. Its once rough hide was glossy with tending, a deep sanguine hue. He felt it shudder beneath his touch, but it stood without flinching and let him mount, slewing around one wary eye. It was much easier to pull himself astride with one strong right arm. “How is it, then? Are you, like our dear general, ensorcelled by the Lady of the Ellylon’s beauty?”

Speros kneed his horse around to face Ushahin, his jaw set, a flush creeping up his cheeks. “You do me an injustice,” he said through gritted teeth, “and a greater one to the Lord General.”

Ushahin gazed at him without answering, reaching out to sift through the Midlander’s thoughts. Ignoring Speros’ jolt of horror at the invasion, he tasted the deep and abiding awe with which the young man had first beheld the Lady of the Ellylon, weighing it judiciously against his fierce loyalty to Tanaros, born of their travail in the desert and his own inner demons. “So,” he said softly. “It is loyalty that wins. Or need I search further? Shall I tell you your deepest fears, your darkest nightmares?”

“Don’t.” Speros choked out the word. The blood had drained from his face, and his wide-stretched brown eyes were stark against his pallor. “Please don’t, my lord! It hurts.”

Ushahin sighed and released him. “Then speak truth to me, Speros of Haimhault. What troubles you?”

Speros shuddered, tucking his chin into the collar of his cloak; heavy sheepskin like Ushahin’s own. “You betrayed him,” he said in a low voice. “Lord Satoris.”

“No.” Ushahin shook his head, gazing past the Midlander toward the plains. “I defied him, which is a different matter altogether.” He looked back at Speros. So young, and so mortal! Why was it that he seemed so much more vulnerable than his own madlings? He had come here unwelcome, had braved far worse than his madlings, who were admitted unharmed. And yet. There was something touching about it; his fear, his loyalty. “Do you know what is coming, child?”

“War.” Speros lifted his chin defiantly, the color returning to his face. “I’m not a child, Lord Dreamspinner.”

“War,” Ushahin echoed. “War, such as the world has not seen since the Fourth Age of the Sundered World.” He pointed to the east. “Do you know what I have seen today, Midlander? Dwarfs, on the march. An entire company, following a column of Vedasian knights.”

Speros laughed. “Dwarfs, my lord?”

“You laugh,” Ushahin murmured. “Yrinna’s Children have broken their Peace, and you laugh. You should not laugh, Midlander. They are strong and stubborn, as sturdy as the roots of an ancient tree. Once, long ago, before the world was Sundered, they made war upon the Ellylon.”

“They are very … short,” Speros said cautiously. “Or so it is said.”