Ritva felt the force of that spear-sentence, even though she was not the target. Juliet blinked, gaping, and then nodded and sank down in a bit of a heap. Dorje inclined his head back to her and turned his glance away, in respect for privacy rather than dismissal. His hand continued to stroke the dark bronze of the boy’s curls, and the child snuggled closer and dozed.

“You said that we’d meet again, guru,” Ritva said.

Dorje grinned. “You and the others,” he said. “I understand that you need to return quickly, not at the pace of this great mass of people?”

Alleyne nodded; he seemed to be a little less tight-wound now. “Yes, sir. Our mission was to rescue Mrs. Thurston . . . the elder Mrs. Thurston . . . and her children and reunite them with Frederick, who I understand you’ve met.”

Dorje nodded. “A most earnest young man, for good and ill; but more for good.”

Which is a great capsule description of Fred! Ritva thought.

Alleyne went on: “Partly because they were in danger; but also, frankly, because we need to get the truth of what happened out more widely. We’ve made a start on that in Boise, but it will be extremely helpful if we can get them . . . and the younger Mrs. Thurston and her son . . . back to Montival quickly. Living evidence, as it were.”

Though technically we are in Montival, Ritva thought.

She knew what he meant, though; it was people that made a kingdom, not geography, and what few inhabitants there were in the wildlands probably hadn’t heard that the current war was going on, or who the contending parties were. A fair number had survived the Change in this thinly populated wilderness, as numbers went in the modern world. But the reason it had been so empty back then was that there wasn’t much in the way of water or good land. Almost all of the survivors had relocated afterwards, moving to where life was easier in places emptied by the great dying and where hands to work and fight were always welcome. There was a very thin scatter left, Rovers who lived by hunting more than herding. Most of them were people you wouldn’t want to meet, especially if you were alone.

Still, it’s sort of beautiful here. I like deserts, though I wouldn’t want to live in one, she thought, looking up at the aching clarity of the sky, where sparks from the fires were scarcely brighter than the stars. And it’s certainly reassuring to see another twenty-five hundred good cavalry headed our way.

“I will accompany you,” Dorje said, and laughed at his polite dismay. “My son, when I was five years old I walked four hundred miles across the Himalayas to reach Nepal. I know this scrawny old carcass of mine, and I do not delude myself as to what it can and cannot do. It will serve me as long as needed.”