“Near enough to what?”

The ground gave way to an incline thick with flowering brush, humming with bees and flitting birds. Shai’s gaze skipped over these wonders to the vista beyond as the children clustered around him, murmuring in amazement, shocked out of their daze. It took him a while to realize that the wide strip of blue-green land that split the earth was not land but a river twice as wide as the River Olo. The spilling murmur was its voice.

He looked down. A second river flowed past, neither as wide nor as deep, but much closer, cutting a swath through cultivated land.

“Look.” Bai nudged him.

Where the rivers met, a city rose, ringed by walls. Within the inner wall, canals quartered the inner city. A huge outcropping thrust into the confluence of the two rivers, tiny buildings visible like children’s toys set atop the broad rock.

But this astounding city was not what Bai was pointing at. The soldiers had already started down the track, which zigged and zagged through the flowering growth.

Between the rivers the land, of course, narrowed in the manner of a funnel. Tidy ranks of orchards and cultivated fields covered this tongue of land as far north as he could see. Above, a pair of eagles circled. Below, a vast army marched, rank upon rank descending on the city to the beat of drums. The drums stuttered a new rhythm, and in stages the ranks staggered to a halt, their line stretched from bank to bank. Merciful God! There were so many!

“We can’t take the children into that,” he whispered.

“It’s exactly what we must do.” With her body lit by the westering sun, Bai looked eager.

Vali held Yudit’s hand, his gaze cold, hers exhausted like a hurt dog who knows it must keep limping. The other children watched Shai. Ladon and Veras walked up behind with the leader and his second, and Ladon shaded his eyes and gave a grunt of surprise, while Veras flung his head back like a startled horse catching sight of unfamiliar movement in dangerous country.

“Heya!” The second cheered, then laughed. “The main army beat us to Toskala, eh? I’ll be glad of a dram of cordial tomorrow.”

“Eh,” agreed the leader. “If we can get it, which I doubt. We haven’t much coin between us for cordial.” He looked at Bai, whose gaze had not left the army settling into its new camp. “I’m counting on our arrangement, verea.”

“Eiya! Both whores and slaves need cleaning and fattening. As it is, they’re too scrawny to be of interest to any but the worst sort, if you take my meaning, and that sort hasn’t more than a vey or two to rub together. I can’t earn my fortune that way, eh?”

His gaze slid to Eridit’s behind, and back to Bai. “Neh. Neh. I don’t have many connections, I admit, but there’s opportunity for those following the camp. It’s true a better class of offerings will attract more coin.”