Valyn figured the angles in his head. Four horses pushing south hard in the middle of the night weren’t a routine patrol. Even on a path, they were taking a risk with their horses, which meant urgency. Urgency meant information, and the only information this far north was information about the Urghul. Valyn gritted his teeth.

He’d intended to stay out of view, to slink into Annur—past the border first, then into the capital itself—and locate il Tornja without anyone the wiser. Maybe he could meet up with Kaden before choosing his course, maybe not, but waiting for Kaden to tell him what was going on hardly made for a complete plan. Sooner or later he was going to need to decide whether or not to actually kill the kenarang, and to do that he’d need to decide whether Long Fist was telling him the truth. The Urghul chief had insisted that his massive camp of horsemen was a purely defensive measure, but tens of thousands of mounted warriors could turn aggressive in the time it took them to mount up. For all Valyn knew, Long Fist was playing him. Either way, this was a chance to get some unfiltered, unblemished, unprepared intelligence. Not only that, but they’d have horses.

“Modified dead-man ambush,” he decided abruptly, turning toward the hill and breaking into a jog.

Laith didn’t budge. “What about sneaking past the patrols?”

“We need the intel and we can use the horses,” Valyn called over his shoulder.

“And the soldiers?” Talal asked. The leach had fallen in beside him immediately, but when Valyn glanced over he could see the concern written on his face. “They’re Annurians. . . .”

“I’m aware that they’re Annurians,” Valyn replied, trying to think through the attack. It was hard to say just how far off the horses were, but they only had a few minutes. “We’re not going to kill them.”

“Captives,” Laith observed as he caught up to them, “are complicated.”

“We take them,” Valyn replied. “Tie their legs. Drop them five miles off the path. Should take them a few days to wriggle back, by which time we’ll be well south. With any luck, they won’t even know we’re Kettral.”

“Luck,” Laith said, shaking his head. “I’d like to start needing it less or having it more.”

As he spoke, they crested a gentle rise, and Valyn paused, scanning the land below. It was almost as bare as the steppe, but there were a few withered pines, a couple patches of twisted alder, limbs silver in the moonlight—enough cover for a dead-man. And there, the only straight line in a landscape of slopes and curves, the hammered earth of the Annurian track, striking south toward the horizon.

“I’m the deader,” Valyn said, considering the contours a moment more, then pointing, “right there. Four horses most likely means two riders, with two remounts.”