Nearly leafless forest gave way to a road of hard-packed dirt, and they took it south toward Amador. Stretches of woods alternated with coppiced trees and fallow stone-fenced fields, with thatch-roofed stone houses and barns standing well back from the road. A good many people crowded the way, raising dust that made Morgase tie a silk kerchief across her face, though they scrambled aside onto the verge at the first glimpse of such a large party of armed and armored men. Some even darted into the trees or leaped fences and scurried across the fields. The Whitecloaks ignored them, and no farmers appeared to shake a fist or shout at the trespassers. Several of the farms had an abandoned look, with no chickens or animals in sight.

Among the people on the road there was an ox-cart here, a man with a few sheep there, somewhere else a young woman herding a flock of geese. Plainly they were all local people. Some had a bundle shouldered or a fat scrip, but most were empty-handed, walking as if with no idea where they were going. The numbers of the latter sort had increased every time Morgase had been allowed to leave Amador, no matter in which direction.

Adjusting the kerchief over her nose, Morgase eyed Norowhin sideways. He was about Tallanvor’s age and height, but there the resemblance ended. Red-faced under his burnished conical helmet and peeling from the sun, he had never been handsome. A lanky build and a thrusting nose made her think of a pickaxe. Every time she left the Fortress of the Light, he led her “escort,” and every time she tried to engage him in conversation. Whitecloak or not, every inch she could shift him from being her jailor was a victory. “Are these people refugees from the Prophet, Norowhin?” They could not all be; as many were heading north as south.

“No,” he said curtly, without even glancing at her. His eyes scanned the roadsides as if he expected a rescue to appear for her any moment.

That, unfortunately, was the sort of response she had had so far, but she persevered. “Who are they, men? Not Taraboners, surely. You do a very good job of moving them on.” She had seen a party of Taraboners, fifty or so men, women and children, dirty and half falling with weariness, being herded west like cattle by mounted Whitecloaks. Only the bitter knowledge that she could do absolutely nothing had enabled her to hold her tongue. “Amadicia is a rich land. Even this drought cannot have driven so many from their farms in just a few months.”

Norowhin’s face worked. “No,” he said finally. “They are refugees from the false Dragon.”

“But how? He is hundreds of leagues from Amadicia.”

Again a struggle was plain on the man’s sunburned face, either for words or against speaking. “They believe he is the true Dragon Reborn,” he said at last, sounding disgusted. “They say he has broken all bonds, according to the Prophecies. Men forsake their lords, apprentices desert their masters. Husbands abandon their families, and wives their husbands. It is a plague carried on the wind, a wind that blows from the false Dragon.”