The reeve didn’t notice. He walked to the ruins of a stone wall and jumped up atop it, right at the edge of the drop-off where most men wouldn’t dare to stand. Shading his eyes, he gazed across the basin now turning a hazy purple-blue as daylight faded. He was breathing hard, as was Kesh, face suffused with blood. Bai watched the reeve when he wasn’t looking at her. This was a side of his sister Kesh had never seen. Sisters weren’t supposed to have such feelings, nor to flirt with men so much older. The hells! Bad enough they should flirt at all.

He took a few steps, closing the distance between them.

“Bai, he’s old enough to have fathered you. What can you see in a man like that?”

“The horses need water, Kesh. Make sure they don’t drink too much.”

Stung, he grabbed the reins and led the exhausted horses to the trough while, naturally, she sauntered over toward the reeve.

“Not many men would stand right there at the edge of the cliff,” she called to the reeve.

“I’ve no fear of falling,” he said without looking at her. “Or did you think I was afraid of taking the plunge—”

Halfway across the open space, she paused beside a scatter of faced stones long since tumbled from their place. She turned. She raised a hand and, seeing the gesture, Kesh stepped back from the horses. The reeve turned, alerted by her stillness, and when she waved a hand, he started talking again.

“I never feared climbing trees when I was a child, or standing at the very top of the watch tower in Haya, but even so, after years with an eagle, you get used to surveying the land from very high up.”

Bai prowled past Kesh, circling the horses and the cistern, and vanished behind the remains of a round building. The reeve nattered on, but as he spoke he drew his short sword and shifted sideways on the wall, ready to move.

“Some people can’t abide heights. That’s a strange thing about the eagles. They never choose a person who fears heights so much he can’t bear to go aloft.” He gestured meaningfully at Kesh. Your turn.

“Eh, emm, how do reeves get chosen?” Now that he thought about it, he wondered. “I always thought it was other reeves who picked out likely candidates.”

“Not at all,” said the reeve in a lively voice, although he wasn’t smiling. As he spoke, he scanned the ruins. “Eagles choose, not reeves nor any other person. Some do try to put forward certain young men or women.

We’ve been offered bribes. But it makes no difference to the eagles. They will choose at their own—”

A man shrieked. An object slammed against stone, and metal clattered. The reeve leaped from the wall, dashed across the open space, and ran out of sight around the building. Kesh grabbed the horses and pulled them away from the trough.

The reeve backed into view, retreating against the attack of two desperate men. One slapped at him with a staff, while the other cut wildly with an axe. They were not well-trained fighters; the reeve punched away their strokes easily, but he could make no leeway because they were crowding him.