“True enough, and it’s not far as the eagle flies. Aui. I’ve only been there once, though, and not so late in the afternoon as this with the cursed sun going down. The hells. Gods rot it, what choice have we?”

They swung around, flying toward the setting sun and the dull red gleam of far distant mountains. The female reeve followed, and for a while they flew in silence with the marshal breathing raggedly while Mai counted off the intervals between her pains. Not too close together, enough that she began to get tired of counting. Yet Joss was right: They could not fly all night over the water, with a chance the baby might drop before they reached Olossi.

“What can I do?” he said after pain had ripped away her breath again. “I’m cursed useless.”

“Eh! Ah! The hells.” She pressed a hand to her head as the pain receded, relieved she had a respite, however brief. “Get us put down in a safe place. The pains will come more quickly, and be more severe. We’ll need a fire, boiled water, scraps of cloth or grass for the bleeding afterward. Priya knows a tea to brew for the pain, but she hasn’t any with her, never mind.” On she talked, because it kept him quiet and her mind busy, sorting through her memories of births she had attended, only one of which had ended in a mother’s death.

Do not think of that, nor of early babies and how difficult it was for them to survive.

The shore rose into view. To the right she saw the settlement’s embankment.

“Too close,” muttered Joss. “Eh, well, now I know my heading.”

They passed above the turbulent break between sea and land. Mai glimpsed a party of unknown mounted men wheeling to face trouble: a mass of Qin and local riders approaching both from the direction of the settlement and, somehow, from the road behind the out-landers. The outlander troop broke toward the sea, the Qin in steady pursuit over rugged ground. Down the Qin drove them. A pair of arrows tipped with fire traced a spectacular arc out of the Qin company and up into the sky before plunging into the sinks and shallows along the shoreline.

Flame licked the surface, boomed in a sink with a startling burst, and then raced in a flare of light along the shore as the oily smear that stained the surface caught fire and spread.

The Qin pushed their enemy down into the burning sea.

PART SEVEN: CLEANSINGS

52

TWO RIDERS ON winged horses emerged from Toskala’s council hall and rose, flying, into the gathering night. In quick succession, four more emerged and galloped into the heavens in pursuit. The people crowded into Justice Square began to call and scream and argue in a clamor that made Nallo wish she could smack each one until they all shut up.

Pil was crouched beside Volias, his own face hovering just above the reeve’s parted lips. Straightening, he shook his head. “He’s dead.”