Edard spurred after the young militia man, Eridit right after him and Ladon pushing past as Bai hung back.

“I’ll do a circuit,” said Tohon. “Make sure we’ve missed none. You go ahead with Shai.”

Bai nodded, and Shai followed her. But the soldiers they were chasing were on foot, made swift by desperation, while they were impeded in the woodland by having horses. They pushed south, yet their quarry remained just out of range all day, and they had to switch out walking and riding lest they blow the horses. Only Tohon and Shai’s Qin horses were tough enough to keep the pace.

As afternoon settled into twilight, the woodland cover became more scattered and the land sloped steadily upward until with night falling they reached high plateau country. The fleeing soldiers pushed on into a sea of grass. Where they crossed a shallow stream, Tohon and Bai handed out their horses to the others and jogged into the darkness.

“The hells!” muttered Edard. “Do they think we can’t manage? A cursed outlander, and her, not much older than my own eldest daughter? Do they think they’re going to kill them all?”

Shai watered the horses, careful they did not take too much. Then he led them by turns in cooling circles, Ladon and Veras walking the others, while Eridit washed and bound Edard’s wound by lamplight.

“Do we wait here for them to come back?” Eridit asked. “Or go after them?”

“At night?” Edard clucked irritably. “Ouch!”

“Sorry. It’s not too deep. I don’t think you’ll die.”

“Didn’t say I thought I would.”

“He’s a prick,” muttered Ladon to Veras, and Veras grunted agreement. Shai could tell these two knew each other well, and he had to admit they’d handled the skirmish decently and, like Eridit, kept up today’s hard pace without complaint.

Eridit was murmuring close beside Edard, asking him to tell her about himself and his famous clan, the river transporters who wore the badge of the silk slippers, like in the tale. He looked like he wasn’t feeling any pain from his injury as long as she was petting him. Ladon and Veras walked with heads bent together, checking the horses now and again but mostly talking in low voices and occasionally peering into the darkness.

Shai offered them the leads. “I’ll take watch.”

That sent them over to Edard. “Here, Edard, are we staying or not, because either we should get moving or we should set out sentries. We might be attacked at night, taken unawares, like you on the cursed track today sizing up Eridit and not paying attention to—”

“I said, shut up,” said Edard. “Anyway, she was behind me.”

“I was,” said Eridit. “You two were the ones sizing me up.”

A long slow slithering drag like a heavy weight through grass hissed in the darkness. They all shut up. Faintly, in the distance, rose screams and shouts and afterward silence.

Eridit shuttered the lamp. Since they had no cover and nowhere to hide being exposed there by the stream, they circled the horses and set up positions to sight in all directions, not that their night vision was any good. The land was flat. Grass sighed as the wind blew. Shai’s ears itched, and he slapped at clouds of tiny bugs rising like mist around their bodies. Everyone began waving hands in a vain attempt to drive them away.