“I wasn’t aware anyone forced you to come on this expedition. Are you done?”

“People like me, you know. Everyone likes me.”

“Of course they do. You’re young and rich and handsome, even if you are a hells-cursed Silver. Now can I sleep?”

“I wish you would stop using that word. I am Ri Amarah.”

“Aui!” The exclamation caught in his weary lungs, and he coughed, once started unable to suck in enough air to stop.

Eliar plucked at his sleeve. “Hsst! Do you hear that?”

This time he did hear something. He covered his mouth and listened. It sounded like the jangling of harness. As with one thought, he and Eliar crawled to the remains of the door. Dawn would come soon, and as he peered into the gloom he was able to distinguish the road as a stripe below. Mercifully, the rest of their party were well hidden at the edge of the rocks.

The sound echoed off the high mountain escarpments, amplified by the predawn quiet and the eerie lack of wind. Men trotted into view, carrying lamps extended on poles. After them marched a force of soldiers, the men walking on the steep upgrade but each one leading a string of four horses, one saddled, one packing, and the other two as remounts. They wore swords slung at their hips and javelins or bow quivers across their backs; spears and bundles of javelins and arrows laded the pack horses. At speed, they passed quickly, moving north and vanishing from sight before the first birds woke to sing awake the dawn.

“Is that a trading company?” Eliar whispered. “Trying to get across before the snows close the pass?”

“Are you as stupid as you sound? Those are soldiers. Several hundred, I’d estimate.”

“Eiya! Whose soldiers?”

“Sirniakan, by the look of them.”

“But what if—?”

“I’m not listening. It’s none of my business. I don’t care. Let’s roust the men and make an early start. I want to get down off the heights before more snow falls. Aui! I hate the cold!”

Eliar shut his mouth, but as they raised the grumbling company and set off in marching order while dawn lightened the cloudy sky, he loosed dark, brooding glances toward Keshad that were, Kesh supposed, meant to disturb Kesh into troubling himself over the matter.

None of the drovers had noticed anything, so their company of ten hirelings and ten doughty guards—in truth nothing more than reckless young men hankering for an adventure and, perhaps, a chance to slip chains binding them in Olossi—set off downroad, traveling south.

Keshad scanned the slopes, not that there was a cursed thing they could do about it if they were attacked by a numerically superior force of bandits. But as the morning unfolded and their knees ached from the jarring descent, they met no one walking north.

“I thought we’d see more people on the roads,” said Eliar, who had moved up alongside Keshad at the front.

“Not this time of year. The big snows could come any day and block the pass. We’ll be trapped in the empire for months.”