Gone.

“Where did they go?”

Shardit shrugged. “High Haldia first, then Toskala, and after that Nessumara. Not that we were told anything, not folk like me, but the soldiers have a song about it. ‘The cloaks rule all, even death.’ The Star of Life will rule the Hundred. That’s what they say.”

“And then what? Will the soldiers who lived here come back?

She hunched a shoulder, seemed about to turn away in shame but did not. “I have to hope they do. If there’s no one to sup from my kettle, then how will I feed my children?”

“Did you live in Walshow before, or were you brought here?”

“Oh,” she said, and then, “oh.” She began to cry, not sobs but simply tears trickling down her face, the taste of their salt like sorrow.

“Can you go home?” Marit asked more gently.

The man called from inside. “Shardit! How long do I have to wait?”

“Why do you torment us?” Shardit whispered. “Teach them to kill, who were peaceful before? Isn’t it enough to rule us?”

The hells!

“Don’t give up hope,” said Marit, and knew it for a stupid thing to say the instant the words left her mouth. She tugged on Warning’s reins and rode out of the inn yard without looking back. There’s only so much a reeve can do. But she swore under her breath the entire walk back to the outer gate, as if her words were knives to cut away the bonds that confined people like Shardit.

Guards had meanwhile shown up at the gate, two elderly men who raised hands nervously to shield their faces as she approached. Their rustic spears, little more than sharpened tips, leaned against their frail bodies to leave their hands free for the obeisance: the hiding of their eyes.

“Where’s the army gone?” she asked them.

In stumbling words, clearly frightened, they told her the same story Shardit had. By the look of these broken-down men, Lord Radas had sucked the town clean of all able-bodied men and left the leavings to fend for themselves.

“Is Walshow abandoned?”

“The commanders pulled everyone out, Lady. By your leave, Lady. Is there aught we can do to serve you, Lady?” They cringed away from an expected blow.

“Nothing,” she said furiously, which only made them cringe more.

Outside the gate she mounted, and gave Warning her head. Near here, surely, she would find a Guardian’s altar. The horse must walk, then trot, then gallop and lift. She liked the horse, but the slow rise into the sky had none of the thrill of an eagle’s thrust or soaring glide. It was more as if the horse paced out a road of air invisible to all others and rode it above the ground.

She surveyed the earth as well as she could, with the wings beating wide and, together with the body of the horse, blocking her view. An archer could loft an arrow into the horse’s belly and she never see it loosed. From an eagle, you missed nothing.