Shai looked up.

Even Eridit’s scowls were sexy. “I’m good at what I do.”

“In truth, I’ve seen you perform the tales at the arena. You are good.”

“My thanks,” she muttered grudgingly as she hoisted her pack over the saddle.

“Good at your art. Don’t be an ass, Eridit.” Bai slapped her on the rump.

Shai jumped, and so did the other men, all except Tohon, who shook his head as if wondering how he had ever had the misfortune to end up on this deer track carved through woodland country, riding east into the heart of the enemy. If they ever got there. Eridit laughed.

Shai and Tohon hung back as the others set out in single file, soon hidden in the woods although he could track their noise. Tohon ruthlessly tightened the girths on both saddles, shaking his head. “Those lads are strong enough, yet not only the lass but even the horses play them. Hu!”

He paused, tilted his head back.

Shai looked everywhere, but saw nothing.

A shout rang out.

“Draw your sword. This is a good trail for an ambush.” He handed Shai the reins of all four horses. “Come up behind them. I’m going around.”

He slipped into the woods, and Shai stood there like an idiot while more shouts and cries broke. Then he got the horses strung on leads, mounted up, and pushed along the trail. A crashing in the brush alerted him. He swung in the saddle, glimpsed movement to his right, felt a kiss on the breeze, and slashed down, just missing a man who lunged at him brandishing a crude spear. With a hoarse gasp, the man fell across the path with an arrow buried in his back. Shai kept riding, the horses jumping over the body as they caught his tension. Ahead, Ladon had plunged into the trees and was hacking at a person on the ground, while Veras crashed through the forest in pursuit of unseen others.

Edard was swearing, clutching his right arm. “I didn’t see them! They jumped right out at us!”

“There’s four or five more,” said Zubaidit, holding a bloody sword. A man had crawled off the trail and collapsed. “Best we catch them. We can’t chance being recognized later.”

“Let’s go!” Eridit had a short sword, one of those common to Olossi’s militia, and although she’d drawn it, she held it as if in gesture, a way to look dashing and brave, not as if she had the least idea how to kill. But wasn’t that what she did as a professional entertainer? She chanted and acted tales in front of an adoring audience, they’d told him. She grinned at Shai, and he thought it would be better to die than to feel this way when he needed to be concentrating on the trouble at hand.

“Where’s Tohon?” asked Bai.

The scout appeared as she spoke, grabbing the reins from Shai. “If they escape, they might recognize us later. Veras is on their trail, good lad.”