The captain had not gone far when two others rode up from the north, hailing him with cries and news.

“Zrenn has made south, with Nemarl’s seven and the slave. He thinks Vazkor has gone that way, and Zrenn means to circle around and trap him between two bands.”

“Does he?” said the silver captain.

The two riders trotted over to him and cowered in the rain. If they had known how near dry dust they were, they would have savored every drop. The silver captain leaned to the nearest and knifed him between the ribs. As this one toppled, his neighbor, with an oath, snatched at his sword. Not quickly enough. The captain’s own sword, already bloody, went through his neck, ending oath, intention, and life.

This silver captain, clearly a renegade and madman, thereafter turned his horse and galloped southeast, letting the rain clean his weapons as he went.

We see what we have always seen. If it seems, it is.

The renegade mad captain—I—soon came on three more silvers. The storm was slackening at last, in sinking buffets. The rain eased and left a sky purpling with dusk, with one brass hammerhead standing where the sun should have gone down. Beneath a rocky overhang, three men wrung out their cloaks and reviled nature, and spoke of Zrenn and Nemarl’s seven captains and the lack of bronze soldiery, and, noticing me, hailed me, and soon lay in the grass, one without his head.

From being quarry, I had turned hunter, and it pleased me.

These men who had jeered as they watched me writhe in Eshkorek now ended their quest on my blades. I should not, had they caught me, have ended so daintily. I did not mind leaving the clues of their corpses for guide and pack. Coming on their dead, the living must have imagined witchcraft was afoot in those southeastern hills.

I was learning, too, from their snippets of dialogue before I killed them, the strength of their forces and their method of campaign.

All told, there were eighteen silvers, seven of them Nemarl’s men, scouring the land for me. It appeared an odd number. If they were intent on having me, why send this few; if I was worth little, why bother with me at all? It seemed a personal feud, as before. I considered that Demizdor could have rallied her kinfolk on my trail, her bitter love curdling into hate again. That would certainly account for the small number of Kortis’ men, and for the sparsity, yet determination, of Nemarl’s band, for no doubt there were several in the city who were sweet on my blond wife and ready to run her errands.

As for their plan—some rode ahead, less, now that I had had dealings with them; some rode around, circling for me. The storm had disorganized the hunt, and the wolf had fallen on the pack from behind.

The night dawned black, rain-washed of its stars.

The marsh had slid from sight to the east; the hills were leveling into rolling uplands of gray chalky turf and clawing trees.