Ael reached a brawny scar-patterned arm ended by a dagger, sliced off a roast-hunk, and bent to gnaw it. “You’ve come a little late,” he said, not looking at me. “The Dragon’s already asked for you—I said I sent her on to you, with two of my men. Their bodies were found on the battlefield, and the chariot she should have been in was discovered empty on the hillside with the remains of a hefty meal beside it, he told me. This is a great pity, I said politely. But the Dragon said, She can’t be dead. Who would have kidnapped her, I said reasonably, and yet not yet contacted you for the ransom. We decided perhaps they, or she, or both, were killed just before they could. He was angry and distrait. His two brows became one bar, and that black. But I said my rascals must have died defending you, and because we need each other he took that, and there was no schism because of the betrayed trust.” He wiped his mouth along the harsh back of his arm. “He will not think to find you with us any more,” he said.

“So you aren’t keeping me here to give to him, since he doesn’t expect it? I can journey on after this—this kind hospitality?” I said gladly.

“Bustling little bitch,” said the Second without any particular malice.

“To go where, in this wilderness?” said Ael, his composed voice and look quite opposite to the sudden action of his body as he hurled a bone across the glade and hit a hyaenodon which yowled affrontedly and limped away whining. Ael giggled a little.

I was trying to think quickly of an answer which would acquit me of trying to get to the coast to warn the Southern army, when there was a complete unexpected burst of howls out of the darkness and the Southerners who had found our position and crept up were upon us. They must have dealt with the sentry.

In a flash I was alone at the cooking-fire, staring bemused at hunks of deserted roast. Every bandit had seized his saw-edged knife and chopper-ended spear, and sprung forming an instantaneous melee. The glade suddenly rang with the clash and gurgling shouts. The hyaenas stared in amazement from the distance to which they’d retreated, but presently ran down and began tugging away the meat farthest from the fight. The foliage swayed and disturbed birds, but I couldn’t hear their rustling above the din.

I got up, stuffing meat and onions into my hood and getting a long-lidded pitcher of rum hooked by its handle through my belt. I hurried over to Urns and untethered him. (He’d already been unmuzzled to be fed.) I mounted.

About to ride him up the bank, I paused.

The fighting bands were about the same size. The bandits 443