We obligingly begin tramping by him in ragged lines. Nikhinoch, still in his smart civilian small clothes, his dark wavy hair parted like mine in the middle and swinging down like cottage’s eaves past his ears, clips up on a chubby pony and takes his position beside Makemin. As I come by he suddenly flings the standard at Jil Punkinflake, who catches it startled.

“You carry the standard,” Makemin says, the creases hard on his mouth’s two sides. “Try not to smudge it.”

Jil Punkinflake looks at me miserably. And now we are going.

*

Through the partial arch and out of the city, turning immediately onto a dirt road that runs more or less directly into the foothills. The soil bleaches as we walk, leaving Tref behind us, the sun is bright but the air is cool and in motion. There’s a gradual slope up into the hills. Our feet raise small plumes of colorless dust, air rustles with sage and rosemary, the pungent smells of miserly, resinous desert plants. Some have spring-action seeds that bore themselves into your stockings and trousers, poke and irritate your skin. Not too many horses—only Makemin and Nikhinoch are riding. The lieutenants evidently deserted as well, so their horses are pulling an extra cart. We have three. The entire company, by my estimate, is not more than seventy. This includes the Clappers, who walk in a compact mass toward the rear of the column; they wear jingling apparatus, all manner of bones, wooden and metal things hanging on thongs around their necks, dangling from their brims like bead curtains in front of their faces. When soldiers fight with their bodies the Clappers fight with their spirits by means of complicated interlocking clapping and chants to Eihoi the Wild Horse.

“The mountains received us in stony silence yuk yuk,” I say inanely. I’m possessed by an imp who slaps such stupidities out of me all the time.