“Being inexperienced and therefore cautious, they kept elevation. I’ve lost four reeves in the last four months, and there’s no knowing whether they’re dead, captured, or run off. Meanwhile, I’ve sent an older reeve to confirm the sighting.”

“Could this be a scouting force come out of the north and now headed back?”

“Perhaps. But I think these are stragglers he’s rounded up and is leading back north.”

“Men who went to ground for five months instead of running? It’s possible.” He tapped fingers on the desk, thinking. “I’d like to get my hands on a Guardian. Can we ambush the company and take prisoners?”

“I should think it would be impossible to take a Guardian as a prisoner. If it is a Guardian. Maybe it’s a demon.”

“I’m willing to try. How far ahead are they?”

Joss brushed a hand over his tightly shorn head. “I have a difficult time with earth-bound distances. Fifty or sixty mey.”

“A strike force with remounts can travel that in two days.”

“Impossible. A message rider would take four days to cover that distance. Regular traffic, ten or more.”

“For a fixed distance, along a good road? If we change over to remounts at Storos?” He was well started now, a wolf already begun its race after a herd of scattering red deer. “We’ve got militiamen in training who need experience fighting. Such a strike would build cohesion, and give them a sense of triumph.”

“If we win.”

“Against three hundred of the same rabble who besieged Olossi? If we remain steady, and allow for the troubles that invariably beset orderly plans, it could prove a small but significant victory.” He stood, grabbing his sword belt and riding whip. “Especially if we capture a Guardian.”

“The ghost-girl killed three of your men.”

“She caught them by surprise. What if we can trap this one where it can’t see us?”

His determination caught in Joss, tumbling his thoughts through possibilities. “A barrier to delay them.” He grinned.

“What are you thinking?” asked Anji.

Joss told him.

ZUBAIDIT WAS SHARPENING her knives.

Shai glanced toward the awning strung low between trees. Their little cadre had set up camp off the path in a narrow clearing, not much more than an arm’s reach of open ground where a pair of massive old trees had fallen, taking down smaller trees. The children huddled beneath the canvas, settling down for the night after a scant meal of rice and nai paste. He saw their forms as darkness churning, but maybe that was only the fear in his heart. Weren’t they all captives, in a way, of Zubaidit’s insane plan to join up with the northern army posing as merchants with slaves to sell?

“You’re crazy,” he said.

“Every dawn I tell those who wish to stay behind that they are free to go,” said Bai without looking up. Eihi! How the whetstone grated his nerves! “Every day, they stay with us.”

“You can strand a man in an oasis in the middle of the desert. You can tell him he is free to walk in whatever direction he wishes. But he knows he will die of thirst before he reaches the next water hole. Anyone can choose to die instead of live as a slave. That’s not the same as freedom.”