“What?” Wraisau said, “Disappointed not to see us gutted and laid out?”

“Why would I want that?” Roh said.

Wraisau frowned. Driaa said something to him sharply in Saiduan, too fast for Roh to make out.

“The fighting is farther north,” Wraisau said. “They haven’t reached us here yet. We just abandoned Caisau to them and retreated to Kuonrada.”

“With luck, you can stop this before we must move again,” Driaa said to Roh, but her tone was bitter.

“Why don’t you want us here?” Roh said. “We’re fighting the same enemy. We should be friends.”

Wraisau grinned and glanced over at Driaa. “You must admit,” he said, “he grows on you.”

“It’s dumb talk,” Driaa said.

“It’s the way we all sounded before the war,” Wraisau said.

“I never sounded like an illiterate Dhai,” Driaa said.

“I can read,” Roh said.

“Ze means you lack wisdom,” Wraisau said, using the Saiduan pronoun for ataisa to refer to Driaa. “But to be honest, I could do with some company who has a little more hope than sense these days.”

When they arrived in sight of Kuonrada, it was high autumn in Dhai, but here, the trees had already shed their leaves, frost covered the ground in the morning, and a cold wind came in off a tangle of craggy mountains framing the city. From a great distance, Roh saw a massive glacier wedged into the maw of the mountains above the city from which sprang the cold, clear river their caravan followed.

Kuonrada was a mountain city, a city built for cold weather and defense. It was the first big city Roh had seen since Anjoliaa. The defensive wall reared a good fifty feet above the grassy plain, an impassive face to the dark city.

As they crossed over the threshold of the stone gate and into Kuonrada, Roh rode up near the front between Nioni and Dasai, just behind the sanisi. The ground beneath them was bare stone, worn smooth. The city buildings, too, were of stone fit with the same precision as those of the defensive wall. Where were the famous living holds of Saiduan?

The city felt as old as the mountain. Its residents wore much darker colors than those in Anjoliaa. Instead of sandals, they wore boots and heavy coats lined in fur. Their hair was braided back in three long braids, one on either side of the head, another along the top, knotted with dark ribbons. They seemed taller than their southern counterparts, darker-skinned.

Passers-by stopped to stare at them. When Roh looked up, he saw the open wooden shutters of the apartments above. Veiled children peered out at them.

As they approached, the great gates of Kuonrada opened.