“No wonder the temples want their spirits buried,” said Lehit. “Such corruption must be crushed beneath earth and never allowed to rise. We’ll bury them in the very pit they dug. Then we’ll lay offerings on the Thunderer’s altar so their blood doesn’t corrupt us.”

In the pit, the young guardsman’s voice flowed on. She’d gotten to one of the funny episodes, the encounter of the horse’s ass of a merchant and the horse’s ass itself, complete with a steaming pile of horse manure always calculated to amuse a child of a certain age, and sure enough there came a tiny childish chuckle, a sound so unexpected that Joss thought he might have dreamed it. Branches snapped, and a pair of young men loped into the clearing with their bare arms scratched up and their faces sweaty.

“We checked all around, Captain, but we saw no evidence that anyone got away.”

Lehit nodded. “Good work. No doubt once they’d murdered the reeve, they meant to run. Yet with the children, as well? It makes no sense. They’d be a burden to them. And that poor child—the hells! what do you suppose happened to its head? Why did they want to murder the marshal of Argent Hall?”

“Because we killed the one who came before me, who we have reason to believe was set in place by those commanding the northern army.”

“Will you be going back to Argent Hall, then? The hall might be the safest place for you, now you know they’re stalking you.”

Argent Hall awaited, and he had plenty to do there. “Not yet. There’s one last task I must accomplish out here. One last person to track down.”

SCAR WAS WELL rested and eager to go. Where the hills shouldered into the plain there were plenty of thermals. They rose, and glided far above the Soha Hills. This range was rugged although not high. Many a narrow valley and densely wooded vale offered shelter to fleeing men. Twice he saw cadres of Qin soldiers on the road, easy to mark because of their distinctive dress and manner of riding and also because one reeve was assigned to each cadre to scout for ambuscade or refugees in the lands along the Soha Cutoff.

Just after midday, they hit the shifting currents that marked the abrupt end of the hills where the land fell away steeply into the wide basin of Sohayil. In the distance, seen as green smudges, he saw hills to the north and east. These slopes were cut by the gaps of West Riding and East Riding, although in truth those gaps lay more to the north and south.

He banked low, spiraling down. Maybe his dreams spoke true, granted him by the gods. Maybe that really had been Marit talking to him, however impossible that might seem. Or maybe it was just a good hunch, filtered through his sleeping mind. For there they were, the pair of them with their three horses, plodding down the switchback trail from the height of the Soha Hills into the deep basin below. They were easy to spot, right out in the open on the bare slope, and they had nowhere to hide here in the afternoon with the rain holding off and no one else on the road. He recognized her the moment he saw her, for no matter how small she might appear there was something in her shape and posture he could never mistake for another. The fugitives paused to look up as he circled overhead, and although he was riding the thermals and quite high above them, he was sure she knew what reeve had tracked her down.