His head was low over his horse and his high cheekbones firm. She’d never seen him so determined. Stubborn was more like it. Like those mules they’d left behind in the desert. She wasn’t even sure he’d heard her.

“Would you risk the lives of all these fighters for your mother?” she asked.

She knew he could hear her above the pounding hooves behind, but he wasn’t answering. Only then did she see the wetness on his cheeks.

Tears, drying in the wind. Her heart felt sick for him.

She pressed the issue. “Tell me you’re not going to go in with swords swinging.”

Johnis spun, face hard, eyes wet. “Of course not!” he growled. “Do you really think I’m a fool?”

“I think that if you would jump off a cliff for a Roush named Michal, you’d go even further for your mother.”

He faced the darkness ahead. “And you think that’s a mistake?”

“No. But would you go there for me? For the rest of these fighters? You and your mother aren’t the only ones in the world tonight.”

Just this morning Silvie had wondered if she would like this sixteen-year-old man to ask for her hand in marriage. The notion had quickened her pulse. It had been a wild moment of impossible thoughts, but they were both of marrying age. Both fighters and lovers of Elyon. Both willing to die for the other.

Both beautiful in their own ways. She certainly thought he was.

She wouldn’t necessarily accept his proposal, of course. The Guard discouraged fighters from wedding as young as civilians did, but the heart didn’t always follow army regulations, did it? She relished the thought of being asked.

But the voice that came from him now was from an animal, not a lover. “Leave me, Silvie. If you’re going to undermine me, leave me!”

The words cut like daggers. She knew he couldn’t mean it. He was only reacting to the news of his mother. He’d been overcome by whatever he’d seen in the books.

Still, these words from him made her want to cry. They raced over a dune, then down a long slope that rose again across a wide valley of sand.

“Hold up!” Captain Hilgard whispered hoarsely. “We’re there!”

So soon! They were only several hours out from the forest—surely the Horde had withdrawn much further.

Johnis pulled up and stared into the darkness ahead. The whole company stamped to a halt.

“You’re sure?”

“I can smell a Scab at a thousand paces, lad. If we don’t see the outskirts of their camp in minutes, I’ll give you my sword.”

On cue the lead scout galloped over the next dune, reined in his horse, and made a quick signal for contact.

The captain nodded. “Go slowly.”