Joss said, to her, “You truly saw a winged horse at the army’s encampment?”

“Yes, on West Track, a few days before the army reached Olossi. Even so, I find it difficult to believe I saw what I did. Do you think this supposed ‘envoy’ who approached the Hieros could be in league with the dark spirits that attacked Olossi?”

“Dark spirits, indeed,” said the brother with unexpected heat. “I’ve seen what they’re capable of. But now I’m wondering about that envoy. I met an envoy coming out of the south, but he was killed by ospreys in Dast Korumbos.”

“Ah.” Joss nodded. “You remember.”

“I’m scarcely likely to forget that day, or that we’ve met before, ver. The envoy was a man of mature years, not yet elderly, now that I think of it. And he was looking for something. I think he suspected I had the ghost with the demon eyes. Yet he died, so it can’t have been him who spoke to the Hieros, can it?”

“It’s difficult to see how it could have. Although the descriptions match. It does seem we’re talking about the same man.”

“Anyway, I cannot see that envoy—such an amiable man!—as being in league with those corrupt soldiers.” But, as if struck by a new thought, Keshad sighed sharply.

“What is it?” Bai asked.

“I did meet a different man, with a shadowed manner, and an odd accent. He said nothing of being a Guardian, but I was sure—then I thought I had dreamed it—”

Zubaidit grabbed his arm. “Sure of what, Kesh? You never told me this!”

“That hurts!” He pulled his arm out of her grasp. “I was sure he was riding a winged horse. He seemed to leap down right out of the sky, but it was night, and then I thought afterward I had mistaken it. Wouldn’t anyone think so?”

“Where did you see this?” she demanded.

Reluctantly, the brother spun a halting tale. He’d been marching with the army, forced to do so because he and his sister had been overtaken by the strike force on its march toward Olossi and it was the only way he could save his own life. By his unfeigned disgust as he related the tale, Joss believed that he’d had no part of the army before or after that encounter. While at their night’s bivouac, a man on a winged horse had arrived in the encampment. Keshad had been sent in to speak with him. “He wanted to make sure I wasn’t there to betray his company. He gave me such a look, I thought my insides would be torn out. I said I cared nothing for him and his, and it was true anyway, and thankfully he believed me and sent me away. That was the last I heard or saw of him.”

“The hells!” said Zubaidit, laughing again. “Say something, reeve. For I think that’s shocked you as much as it’s shocked me.”

Joss eased an itch that had sprung up on the underside of one wrist. “The Hieros also said that the envoy of Ilu told her that there has not been peace in the Hundred for these last many years.” He remembered the clipped, forceful way in which she had repeated the words. “That the war for the soul of the Guardians had already begun.”