“You are not welcome,” Miriam said. “We hold this fortress for the King. If you make war on the King, get you gone.”

Harmodius raised his hand. “Hear me, Miriam. We are not in open conflict with any force. The Faery Knight has marched to save some of his own people. They must be nearby. Let us only find them and shelter them, and our thanks will be yours forever.”

Miriam shook her head. “You have betrayed your King and your God,” she said. “Even now, these dreadful things feast on the dead at Ticondaga. And you have the effrontery to suggest that we let you camp on our plain? I cannot stop you, but by the God I worship, traitor, when you come for this fortress I will make you and your dark master rue it.”

“Wait!” Harmodius begged.

But Miriam was gone from the battlements. The dark stone echoed his words, and they were lost in the air.

“Damn,” he muttered.

Just south of Albinkirk and Southford, three barghasts and a pair of wyverns circled endlessly like late-summer deer flies over the tree-shaded paths at the northward end of the Royal Road.

Amicia detected them after morning prayer, shortly after her first communion with the choir of her sisters at Lissen Carak in many days. By mid-morning she felt them as a presence—not particularly malign, to her new consciousness, but most definitely hostile. She enlightened Ser Thomas and her escort of knights of the Order.

To Prior Wishart, she said, “I would like it if you would allow me to try my own way on these creatures before you turn to violence.” She reached through her many links to Sister Miriam, as well.

Prior Wishart bit his tongue on a retort. She saw him do it and wished she hadn’t needed to be so short with him. It seemed to her that every day the men and women around her handled their swords and their workings too willingly—that this tendency to use force marked the human condition more clearly than all the other sins of her race.

In prayer, she had begun to consider if it was men—and women—who were the monsters.

The Prior—whose only experience of the Wild had mostly involved killing it—clenched his teeth but shrugged. “Sister, you have talents beyond most of ours. And without your warning, we’d have no time to make these decisions. Please—assay what you can.”

Amicia smiled. “You must stay well back from me,” she insisted. “When I release them, I guess that the sorcerer will strike at me.”

Prior Wishart shook his head. “Then stay with us, and we’ll fight or fall together.”

Tom Lachlan laughed. “A wyvern and a pair o’ ’ghasts?” he said. “Tell you what, lass. You stay here. I’ll go kill them.” He smiled at her. “I need a bit of a dust-up.”