“Think it’s worth it?” asked the woman with greasy hands. “Men dying for water?”

“They’ll get irrigation all along here,” said her companion. “Lookya—”

Hillward, the ground sloped in rugged stair-steps cut with gullies and ridges, a light dry soil. Seaward, they looked over level ground whose soil was built up by the accumulation of rainwater coursing down from higher ground during the wet season, which came here only during the Flood Rains, and fanning out to form stretches of richer soil suitable for planting, if only there was a steady supply of water. The mountains hoarded water, if it could be exploited. The Qin meant to do so.

Eagles circled above the distant shoreline. Off to the right snaked the low berm that ringed the quickly growing settlement and fort owned by the Qin outlanders. A pair of rowed cogs were coming in, headed for the shallow bay where they would beach and unload.

“Neh, there. Lookya!”

Thunderclouds boiled over a high mountain ridge to the northwest. A speck swooped out of the storm and, faster than seemed possible, glided close and, then, right over them.

The hells!

She began shaking harder than in the aftermath of the collapse. Best run and hide, and yet her feet took her out pace after pace until she found herself in the deserted parade ground as an eagle plummeted as on its death plunge and, pulling up at the last, thumped hard onto the dirt.

“Tumna.” Her heart raced as her voice choked.

The eagle glared at her from beneath ridged brows, as if to say, “Why did you abandon me?”

“They tried to force me, like when Uncle dragged me to Old Cross to sell my labor. What did you expect me to do?”

“Heya!” Mas signaled from the edge of the parade ground. “Get back, Nallo. That thing could rip your head off!”

She was so fixed on Tumna’s accusing stare that she did not notice the other eagles coming in until one landed with a delicate braking flutter of wings a safe distance away. Its harness held a reeve and a second person, hitched in front in a tangle of lines quickly unhooked. The woman walked out from under the hooked beak of the other raptor. Tumna swiveled her head to stare at the intruder, but the woman sketched a broad gesture, a signal that kept the bird in her place.

“You’re Nallo.” She carried a mass of lines and hooks draped over her right arm. “I’m Arda, training master of Naya Hall. That’s what they call the training hall here. I hear Joss ran you off with some nonsense about reeves being slaves and how you best be grateful for shelter over your head and so on. He’s astoundingly sanctimonious.”

“He was a self-satisfied ass, it’s true,” said Nallo, warming to her but remaining cautious.

Arda looked her up and down in a way that made Nallo alert, and surprised, because she was more used to men looking her over that way—and then dismissing her. But Arda smiled, as if she liked what she saw. “He’s a good reeve, but he’s vain, if you ask me. Always thinking women will come round to his way of thinking just because he’s got a handsome smile and a handsome face. Cursed tiresome, if you ask me.”