Seeing Silvie bearing down on them, the Scabs both shifted their attention to her. She dropped her sword and whipped out a knife.

At the same moment Billos screamed, bearing down from the right, and Darsal from the left. For a split moment, both Scabs diverted their attention to the two fighters at their sides.

Silvie threw her knife. And then a second knife Johnis hadn’t seen her draw. But she hadn’t thrown the knives at the Scabs. Rather at their horses, much larger targets.

The blades glanced off the strong shoulder of one horse and clipped the side of the other, enough to make both jerk and snort in pain.

Billos and Darsal swung their swords when the Scabs were off balance.

For the first time, Johnis watched diseased Scabs fall in battle. And it was a gruesome sight. The earth shook when they landed. Then they lay still, and their horses bolted into the forest.

A lone Shataiki screeched and took flight, soaring away over the canopy toward the west.

Quiet settled on the field. Billos walked his horse back to where Johnis waited in his saddle.

“So you are a coward,” he said.

Johnis said nothing. He’d risked his neck to give them a chance.

“You do that again, boy, and I’ll help the Horde chase you down,” Darsal said.

“It was us four against those four,” Johnis said. “I made it you three against two.”

Billos scoffed.

“And when you three killed the first two, I led the other two into the same fate,” Johnis continued.

“In my mind you are no Guard at all,” Billos said, biting off the words. “I will never fight by your side.”

“Easy, Billos,” Silvie said, kicking her horse into a trot. “Coward or not, we’re alive and the Horde are dead.” She loped past them toward the west. “We have a mission, and the sun isn’t standing still.”

“They were waiting for us,” Johnis pointed out. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“The mind of a coward always sees the worst,” Billos snapped. He slapped his horse and brushed past Johnis.

It took them another half hour to reach the Igal point at the forest’s edge. Johnis once again rode at the rear. The Shataiki began showing up after ten minutes, but apart from their red stares and wicked cries they made no attempt to stop the fighters, so Johnis avoided another verbal lashing by keeping this observation to himself.

Still, two thoughts beat through his mind. First, he alone saw the bats, which he guessed had always been there, unseen by the Forest Dwellers. And second, they probably were being led into a trap. But he was powerless to change their course.

Darsal was leading when they reached the last line of trees, and she lifted her hand to stop them. They pulled up beside her, four abreast.