“He’s not too swift, is he?” said the reeve to Eridit.

“Umm. But tasty.”

“Oof! That hurt! All right, Shayi.” The reeve mangled the name, and seemed to enjoy doing it. “I think what the captain’s wife is trying to tell you is that you’ve got a demon stalking your tail.”

Hu! His body recalled how it had responded to the sight of Cornflower’s slight, pale form, her demon-blue eyes, her passive air. Every one of his brothers had tasted her, repeatedly; he had refrained, but not from disgust. Not from not wanting her. Not at all. He wiped sweat from his brow, shut his eyes, trying to wring from his memory the image of her lying on a pallet dressed in scanty bedroom silks, trying to freeze his body’s fresh stirring of arousal.

“A lilu, eh?” said Eridit, who missed nothing.

Edard said, “If you’ve delivered your message, get moving.”

“Where’s the rest of your party?”

“The rest of the party is smarter than these two nimwits,” said Edard. “They stayed hidden. You find what you were looking for, Shai, or are you ready to give up on it?”

As Shai opened his eyes, his gaze wandered to the reeve with his harness clipped tight around his torso and his tight leathers beneath, the trousers ornamented by a polished belt buckle engraved with a wolf’s head.

He took in a sharp breath. “Where’d you get that?” he demanded.

“Get what?” asked the reeve indignantly.

“The belt buckle.” Shai raised his right hand to display the wolf ring, sigil of the Mei clan into which he had been born. “That belonged to my brother. I recognize it.” The shock of seeing it made him come alive, as if he were already moving, an axe in its downward swing.

The reeve leaped back, raising his baton. “The hells! Don’t come any closer.”

Shaking, Shai lowered his hand, now curled into a fist. He was about the same height as the reeve, but bulkier, and he felt his strength in the way his entire body was poised; but he also recognized the reeve’s ready stance.

“Heya, Shai,” said Eridit in a cool, amused tone. “We’re playing for the same side, neh?”

“Want to get out of here now?” asked Edard. “If you would be so kind, reeve.”

The reeve furrowed his brow, and slanted a glance at Shai. “Yet it’s true, I found it. Here, on this field.”

Shai’s tongue rooted; he couldn’t speak.

“Down this way,” said the reeve.

“Stay here, Eridit,” said Edard sternly. “Go gather your gear.”

Shai stumbled over every bump and root that hooked his path, while the reeve glanced back several times, no doubt the better to eye Eridit from the rear. The reeve fetched up near where the stream cut through tussocks of flowering grass and white-barked saplings growing among low-lying rocks. Farther upslope, scrub trees and brush covered the hillside.

The reeve searched along the bank of the stream until he reached a spot dense with human remains left to the weather.