“Eh, that sounds like where I grew up. We herded our goats and sheep, but there was a bigger village eastbound and a bigger village westbound, and we got caught in the middle when they had their disputes over tolls, pastures, and contracts.”

Volias walked over. “Hush. Do you hear voices?”

Pil stood and walked to the edge of the clearing, head bent and eyes shut as he listened. A male voice rang faintly in the distance, but after that it was quiet. They held still until the rice was done, and then they ate and, with darkness falling, stretched out under the shelter to sleep, sharing out the watch.

No one disturbed them. Trouble roosted elsewhere, appearing at dawn. She thumped down hard, agitated, and Volias called from the clearing’s edge to Nallo, who was folding up the canvas shelter.

“Nallo! Get to your eagle and hook in. Where’s Pil?”

“Off to do his business, I think. Or pray. I don’t know what the hells he does every morning.”

“Leave everything. Now!”

She dropped the half-folded canvas, abandoned the bedrolls and cooking equipment, but grabbed her gear pouch—fortunately with her gear neatly packed away—and the baton and short sword they had issued her, not that she had the faintest idea of how to use either one effectively. Of how to fight at all, if it came to that.

She ran across the clearing to Tumna, the eagle acting restive, talons digging into the earth, wings half open, neck feathers raised. Shouts broke from the far end of the clearing. Nallo whistled, and Tumna bent her huge head down and raked at the hood with her talons. Got stuck. Nallo released her, tugged off the hood, and hooked in just as three men carrying spears ran into the clearing.

An arrow sprouted—like sorcery!—in the chest of one of the men. His companions faltered as he tipped to his knees with a hand clutched around the shaft.

Volias had his sword drawn, but it was Pil, at the edge of the forest, who had loosed. He drew again, released, and hit a second man in the shoulder.

“Move!” shouted Volias.

A third arrow buried its point in the earth, shaft quivering, as the men grabbed their comrade and scrambled back, calling to fellows hiding in the trees.

Pil sprinted across the clearing to Sweet, and cursed if the cunning old bird didn’t catch her hood with a talon and yank it off so that as Pil hooked in she was already thrusting. Volias, in his harness, waited on the ground until Pil and Nallo were aloft.

A shower of arrows painted the air with ghostly stripes. Volias swore, and then he, too, was up, but Trouble had an arrow in her right leg that shook loose and fell away. Blood dribbled earthward. Volias was still cursing, a stream of words less heard as discrete syllables than experienced like a river’s flow. A cadre of men gathered in the clearing. Sweet caught an updraft, and the others followed. Nallo’s pulse thundered in her ears and, slowly, quieted.