LADY KNIGHT

BOOK 4 OF THE PROTECTOR OF THE SMALL QUARTET

Tamora Pierce

Copyright

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019

Copyright © Tamora Pierce 2002

Map copyright © Isidre Mones 2017

Jacket design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019

Tamora Pierce asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008304287

Ebook Edition © September 2019 ISBN: 9780008304294

Version: 2019-06-25

PRAISE FOR TAMORA PIERCE

‘Tamora Pierce didn’t just blaze a trail. Her heroines cut a swathe through the fantasy world with wit, strength, and savvy. Pierce is the real lioness, and we’re all just running to keep pace.’

LEIGH BARDUGO, #1 New York Times bestselling author

‘Tamora Pierce creates epic worlds populated by girls and women of bravery, heart, and strength. Her work inspired a generation of writers and continues to inspire us.’

HOLLY BLACK, #1 New York Times bestselling author

‘Tamora Pierce’s books shaped me not only as a young writer but also as a young woman. Her complex, unforgettable heroines and vibrant, intricate worlds blazed a trail for young adult fantasy – and I get to write what I love today because of the path she forged throughout her career. She is a pillar, an icon, and an inspiration.’

SARAH J. MAAS, #1 New York Times bestselling author

‘I take more comfort from and as great pleasure in Tamora Pierce’s Tortall novels as I do from Game of Thrones’

Washington Post

‘Tamora Pierce and her brilliant heroines didn’t just break down barriers; they smashed them with magical fire.’

KATHERINE ARDEN, author of The Bear and the Nightingale

Dedication

To the people of New York City, I always knew the great sacrifice and kindness my neighbours are capable of, but now the rest of the country knows, too.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Praise for Tamora Pierce

Dedication

Map

Mid-March, Corus, the capital of Tortall; in the 21st year of the reign of Jonathan IV and Thayet, his Queen, 460 H.E. (Human Era)

Chapter 1: Storm Warnings

Chapter 2: Tobe

April 1–14, 460 near the Scanran border

Chapter 3: Long, Cold Road

Chapter 4: Kel Takes Command

April 15–23, 460 the refugee camp on the Greenwoods River

Chapter 5: Clerks

Chapter 6: Defence Plans

Chapter 7: Tirrsmont Refugees

Chapter 8: First Defence

April 30, 460 Fort Mastiff

Chapter 9: Mastiff

May 2–3, 460 Haven

Chapter 10: The Refugees Fight

May 6–June 3, 460 Haven and Fort Mastiff

Chapter 11: Shattered Sanctuary

June 4–7, 460 Haven and Fort Mastiff

Chapter 12: Renegade

Chapter 13: Friends

Chapter 14: Vassa Crossing

June 8, 460 Scanra, between the Vassa and Smiskir Rivers

Chapter 15: Enemy Territory

June 9–10, 460 the Pakkai road

Chapter 16: Opportunities

June 10–11, 460 Blayce’s Castle

Chapter 17: The Gallan’s Lair

Chapter 18: Blayce

September 10, 460

Epilogue

Cast of Characters

Glossary

Notes and Acknowledgments

Read on for a Preview of Tempests and Slaughter

Also by Tamora Pierce

About the Publisher

Map

Mid-March, Corus, the capital of Tortall; in the 21st year of the reign of Jonathan IV and Thayet, his Queen, 460 H.E. (Human Era)

CHAPTER 1
STORM WARNINGS

Keladry of Mindelan lay with the comfortable black blanket of sleep wrapped around her. Then, against the blackness, light moved and strengthened to show twelve large, vaguely rat- or insectlike metal creatures, devices built for murder. The killing devices were magical machines made of iron-coated giants’ bones, chains, pulleys, dagger-fingers and -toes, and a long, whiplike tail. The seven-foot-tall devices stood motionless in a half circle as the light revealed what lay at their feet: a pile of dead children.

With the devices and the bodies visible, the light spread to find the man who seemed to be the master of the creations. To Keladry of Mindelan, known as Kel, he was the Nothing Man. He was almost two feet shorter than the killing devices, long-nosed and narrow-mouthed, with small, rapidly blinking eyes and dull brown hair. His dark robe was marked with stains and burns; his hair was unkempt. He always gnawed a fingernail, or scratched a pimple, or shifted from foot to foot.

Once that image – devices, bodies, man – was complete, Kel woke. She stared at the shadowed ceiling and cursed the Chamber of the Ordeal. The Chamber had shown Kel this vision, or variations of it, after her formal Ordeal of knighthood. As far as Kel knew, no one else had been given any visions of people to be found once a squire was knighted. As everyone she knew understood it, the Ordeal was straightforward enough. The Chamber forced would-be knights to live through their fears. If they did this without making a sound, they were released, to be proclaimed knights, and that was the end of the matter.

Kel was different. Three or four times a week, the Chamber sent her this dream. It was a reminder of the task it had set her. After her Ordeal, before the Chamber set her free, it had shown her the killing devices, the Nothing Man, and the dead children. It had demanded that Kel stop it all.

Kel guessed that the Nothing Man would be in Scanra, to the north, since the killing devices had appeared during Scanran raids on Tortall last summer. Trapped in the capital by a hard winter, with travel to the border nearly impossible, Kel had lived with growing tension. She had to ride north as soon as the mountain passes opened if she was to sneak into Scanra and begin her search for the Nothing Man. Every moment she remained in Tortall invited the growing risk that the king would issue orders to most knights, including Kel, to defend the northern border. The moment Kel got those orders, she would be trapped. She had vowed to defend the realm and obey its monarchs, which would mean fighting soldiers, not hunting for a mage whose location was unknown.

‘Maybe I’ll get lucky. Maybe I’ll ride out one day and find there’s a line of killing devices from the palace right up to the Nothing Man’s door,’ she grumbled, easing herself out from under her covers. Kel never threw off her blankets. With a number of sparrows and her dog sharing her bed, she might smother a friend if she hurried. Even taking care, she heard muffled cheeps of protest. ‘Sorry,’ she told her companions, and set her feet on the cold flagstones of her floor.

She made her way across her dark room and opened the shutters on one of her windows. Before her lay a courtyard and a stable where the men of the King’s Own kept their horses. The torches that lit the courtyard were nearly out. The pearly radiance that came to the eastern sky in the hour before dawn fell over snow, stable, and the edges of the palace wall beyond.

The scant light showed a big girl of eighteen, broad-shouldered and solid-waisted, with straight mouse-brown hair cut short below her earlobes and across her forehead. She had a dreamer’s hazel eyes, set beneath long, curling lashes, odd in contrast to the many fine scars on her hands and the muscles that flexed and bunched under her nightshirt. Her nose was still unbroken and delicate after eight years of palace combat training, her lips full and quicker to smile than frown. Determination filled every inch of her strong body.

Motion in the shadows at the base of the courtyard wall caught her eye. Kel gasped as a winged creature waddled out into the open courtyard, as ungainly on its feet as a vulture. The flickering torchlight caught and sparked along the edges of metal feathers on wings and legs. Steel legs, flexible and limber, ended in steel-clawed feet. Between the metal wings and above the metal legs and feet was human flesh, naked, hairless, grimy, and in this case, male.

The Stormwing looked at Kel and grinned, baring sharp steel teeth. His face was lumpy and unattractive, marked by a large nose, small eyes, and a thin upper lip with a full lower one. He had the taunting smile of someone born impudent. ‘Startle you, did I?’ he enquired.

Kel thanked the gods that the cold protected her sensitive nose, banishing most of the Stormwing’s foul stench. Stormwings loved battlefields, where they tore corpses to pieces, urinated on them, smeared them with dung, then rolled in the mess. The result was a nauseating odour that made even the strongest stomach rebel. Her teachers had explained that the purpose of Stormwings was to make people think twice before they chose to fight, knowing what might happen to the dead when Stormwings arrived. So far they hadn’t done much good as far as Kel could see: people still fought battles and killed each other, Stormwings or no. Tortall’s Stormwing population was thriving. But this was the first time she’d seen one on palace grounds.

Kel glared at him. ‘Get out of here, you nasty thing! Shoo!’

‘Is that any way to greet a future companion?’ demanded the Stormwing, raising thin brown brows. ‘You people are getting ready to stage an entertainment for our benefit up north. You’ll be seeing a lot of us this year.’

‘Not if I can help it,’ Kel retorted. Grimly she walked across her dark room, stubbing her toe on the trunk at the foot of her bed. She cursed and limped over to the racks where she kept her weapons. When she found her bow and a quiver of arrows, she strung the bow and hopped back to her window. She placed the quiver on her window seat and put an arrow on the string. Outside, the courtyard was empty. The Stormwing’s footprints in the snow ended right under Kel’s window.

Scowling, Kel looked up and around. There he was, perched on the peak of the stable roof, a steel-dressed portent of war. Kel raised her bow. She wouldn’t actually kill the creature, just make him go away.

He looked down at her, cackled, and took to the air, spiralling out of Kel’s range. He flipped his tail at her three times in a mockery of a wave, then sailed away over the palace wall.

‘I hate those things,’ grumbled Kel as she removed the bowstring. The thought of anyone’s dead body providing Stormwings with entertainment gave her the shudders. And she knew chances were good that she might become a Stormwing toy very soon.

There was no point in going back to sleep now. Instead, Kel cleaned up, dressed, and took down her glaive. It was her favourite weapon, a wooden staff five feet long, filled in iron, cored with lead, and capped by eighteen inches of curved, razor-sharp steel. Banishing all thoughts, opening herself to movement, she began the first steps, thrusts, lunges, and spins of the most complicated combat pattern dance she knew.

Her dog, Jump, grumbled and crawled out of bed. He leaped out of one of the open windows to empty his bladder. The sparrows, fluffed up and piping their own complaints, fluttered outside to visit their kinfolk around the palace.

Raoul of Goldenlake and Malorie’s Peak, Kel’s former knight-master and present taskmaster, was not in his study when Kel arrived there after breakfast. Another morning conference, she thought, and sat down with chalk and slate to calculate the number of wagons they’d need to move the King’s Own’s supplies up to the Scanran border. She was nearly done when Lord Raoul came in, a sheaf of papers in one ham-sized fist.

‘We’re in it for certain,’ he told Kel. He was a big man, heavily muscled from years of service with the Own. His ruddy face was lit with snapping black eyes and topped with black curls. Like Kel, he was dressed for comfort in tunic, shirt, breeches, and boots in shades of maroon, brown, and cream. He slammed his bulk into one of the chairs facing the desk where she worked. ‘You know, I thank the gods every day that Daine is on our side,’ he informed Kel. ‘If ever we’ve needed a mage who can get animals to spy and carry messages, it’s now.’

Kel nodded. Unlike other generations, hers did not have to wait for Scanran information until the mountain passes cleared each year. Daine, known as the Wildmage, shared a magical bond with animals, one that endured even when she was not with them. For three years her eagles, hawks, owls, pigeons, and geese had carried tidings south while the land slept through winter snows, allowing Tortall to prepare for the latest moves in Scanra.

‘Important news, I take it?’ Kel asked.

‘I’m glad you’re sitting down,’ Raoul said. ‘The Scanrans have a new king.’

Kel shrugged. Rulership in Scanra was always changing. The clan lords were unruly and proud; few dynasties ruled for more than a generation or two. This one hadn’t even lasted a full generation. She was surprised that Raoul would be concerned about yet another king on what was called the Bloody Throne. Far more worrisome was the threat that had emerged a couple of years before, a warlord named Maggur Rathhausak. He had studied combat in realms with real armies, not raiding bands. Serving as one clan’s warlord, he had conducted enough successful raids in Tortall that other clans had asked him to lead their fighters as well. With more warriors he had won more victories and brought home more loot and slaves, enough to bribe other clans to swear allegiance to him. It was Rathhausak that the Tortallans prepared to fight this year, not the ruling council in Hamrkeng or its king.

‘So they’ll be fighting each other all summer instead of …’ Kel let her voice trail off as Raoul shook his head. ‘Sir?’ she asked, unsure of his meaning.

‘Maggur Rathhausak,’ Raoul told her. ‘He’s brought all Scanra’s clans into his grip. This year he’ll have a real army to send against us. A real army, trained for army-style battle, instead of a basketful of raiding parties. Plus however many of those killing devices he can send along to cut our people to shreds. The messages from the north report at least fifty of the things, wrapped up in canvas and waiting for the spell that will make them move again.’

Kel set her chalk and slate down. Then she swallowed and asked, ‘The council let Maggur take over?’

‘They weren’t given a choice. Maggur had nine clans under his banner last year. The word is he smuggled them into the capital at Hamrkeng after the summer fighting and, well, persuaded all the clans to make him king.’ Raoul tossed his papers on the desk with a sigh. ‘We knew it was to be war this summer, but we thought we’d be facing half the warriors in the country, not all. Jonathan’s sending messengers out to all the lords of his council. He wants our army to start north as soon as we can manage it.’ The big man grinned, exposing all his teeth, wolflike. ‘We’ll prepare the warmest reception for our northern brothers that we can. Once they cross our border, they’ll think they’ve marched into a bake oven, by Mithros.’

Kel stared blindly at the papers Raoul had just thrown onto the desk. It was decision time: await the crown’s orders, or slip away to wait for the northern passes to clear so she could track down the Nothing Man? She didn’t know enough; that was the problem. She needed information, and there was only one place she could think of to get it. ‘Sir, has anybody ever entered the Chamber of the Ordeal a second time?’

For a moment the only sound was the crackle of the fire in the hearth. Raoul froze. At length he said, ‘I must tell the bathhouse barber to clean my ears tomorrow. I could have sworn you just asked me if anyone has ever returned to the Chamber of the Ordeal. That’s not funny, Kel.’

‘I didn’t mean to be funny, sir,’ she replied. Shortly after her Ordeal and knighthood, Raoul had commanded her to address him by his first name, but ‘sir’ was as close as she could bring herself. She clenched her hands so he couldn’t see them shake. ‘I’m serious. I need to know if you’ve ever heard of anyone going back there.’

‘No,’ Raoul said firmly. ‘No one’s been mad enough to consider it. Most folk can tell if once is more than enough. Why in the name of the Great Mother Goddess do you ask?’

Kel swallowed. If he didn’t like her question, he really wouldn’t like what she was about to say. ‘I need to talk to it.’

Raoul rubbed his face with one hand. ‘You need to talk to it,’ he repeated.

Kel nodded. ‘Sir, you know me,’ she reminded him. ‘I wouldn’t ask anything silly, not when you bring such important news. But I have to know if I can enter the Chamber again. I need to find something out.’

‘You’re right, I do know you,’ Raoul said glumly. ‘No, no, you wouldn’t jest at a time like this. I’m afraid you’re stuck, though. No one has been allowed back inside that thing in all history. No one would ever want to go back. You’ll just have to settle for what you got in there the first time.’ He held her questioning eyes with his own anxious ones.

Kel wished that she could explain, but she couldn’t. Knights were forbidden to tell what had taken place during their Ordeal. ‘I didn’t mean to worry you, sir,’ she told him at last.

Raoul scowled at her. ‘Don’t frighten me like that again. I’ve put far too much work into you to see you go mad now.’ He looked around. ‘What were we doing last?’

‘Wagon requisitions, sir,’ she replied as she held up her slate.

He took it and reviewed her numbers. ‘Let’s finish this now. I won’t be able to work on them this afternoon – the council will be meeting.’

Kel fetched the papers he needed. ‘There was a Stormwing in the courtyard this morning,’ she remarked as she laid them out. ‘I think he already knows how bad things will be this summer.’

Raoul grunted. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised. They probably smell it. Now what’s this scrawl? I can’t read Aiden’s writing.’ They spent the rest of the morning at work, sorting through the endless details that had to be settled before the men of the King’s Own rode north to war.

After lunch Kel saw to her horses, stabled in the building the Stormwing had turned into his momentary perch. There were ostlers, whose job it was to mind the hundreds of horses kept at the palace, but Kel preferred to see to her riding mount, Hoshi, and her warhorse, Peachblossom, herself. The work was soothing and gave her time to think.

Jump watched as she tended the horses. The scruffy dog had put in an appearance at Kel’s side about mid-morning, clearly recovered from having his morning’s sleep interrupted by Kel and a Stormwing.

Jump was not a typical palace dog, being neither a silky, combed, small type favoured by ladies nor a wolf- or boar-hound breed prized by lords. Jump was a stocky, short-haired dog of medium size, a combat veteran. His left ear was a tatter. His dense fur was mostly white, raised or dented in places where it grew over old scars. Black splotches covered most of the pink skin of his nose, his only whole ear, and his rump. His tail was a jaunty war banner, broken in two places and healed crooked. Jump’s axe-shaped head was made for clamping on to an enemy with jaws that would not let go. He had small, black, triangular eyes that, like those of any creature who’d spent a lot of time with Daine the Wildmage, were far more intelligent than those of animals who hadn’t.

‘I need more information,’ Kel murmured to Jump as she mucked out Hoshi’s stall. ‘And soon, before the king orders us out with the army. I certainly can’t tell the king I won’t go. He’ll want to know why, and I can’t talk about what happened during my Ordeal.’

Jump whuffed softly in understanding.

Her horses tended, Kel reported to a palace library. There, she and the other knights who were her year-mates (young men who had begun their page studies when she had) practised the Scanran tongue. Many Scanrans spoke Common, the language used in all the Eastern Lands between the Inland Sea and the Roof of the World, but the study of Scanran would help those who fought them to read their messages and interpret private conversations.

After lessons Kel spent her time as best she could. She cared for her weapons and armour, worked on her sword and staff skills in one of the practice courtyards, ate supper with her friends, and finally read in her room. When the watch cried the time at the hour after midnight, she closed her book and left her room, with Jump at her heels.

The palace halls were deserted. Wall torches in iron cressets burned low. Kel did not see another soul. In normal times the nobility would be at parties; not this year. The coming war dictated their hours now. They retired before midnight after evenings spent figuring what goods and labour they could spare for the coming bloody summer. Even the servants, always the last to sleep, were abed. It was like walking in a dream through an empty palace. Kel shivered and grabbed a torch from the wall as she passed the Hall of Crowns.

It was a good idea. No lights burned in the corridor that led to her destination. The Chapel of the Ordeal was used only at Midwinter, when squires took their final step to a shield. Now it was shut and ignored. Still, the chapel’s door was never locked. Kel shut it once she and Jump were inside. There was no need to post a guard: over the centuries, thieves and anyone else whose motives were questionable had been found outside the chapel door, reduced to dried flesh and bone by the Chamber’s immeasurable power.

Once a year during her term as a squire, Kel had visited the Chamber to try her will against it. On those visits she had confined her encounter with it to touching the door. To converse with the thing, she suspected that she had to go all the way inside once again.

Kel set her torch in a cresset near the altar. Its flickering light danced over the room: benches, the plain stone floor, the altar with its gold candlesticks and cloth, and the large gold sun disc, the symbol of the god Mithros. To the right of the disc was the iron door to the Chamber of the Ordeal.

At first Kel could not make her legs go forward. She had never had a painless experience from the Chamber. In the grip of its power she had lived through the death of loved ones, been crippled and useless, and been forced to stand by as horrors unfolded.

‘This is crazy,’ she told Jump. The dog wagged his tail, making a soft thwapping noise that seemed loud in the quiet chapel.

‘You wait here,’ Kel told him. She ordered her body to move. It obeyed: she had spent years shaping it to her will. She stepped up to the iron door. It swung back noiselessly into a small, dark room with no windows or furnishings of any kind.

Kel trembled, cold to the bone with fear. At last she walked into the Chamber. The door closed, leaving her in complete darkness.

She stood on a flat, bare plain without a tree, stream, or animal to be seen. It was all bare earth, with no grass or stones to interrupt the boring view.

‘What is this place?’ she asked aloud. Squires were forbidden to speak during the Ordeal, but surely this was different. In an odd way, this was more like a social visit than an Ordeal. ‘Do you live here?’

It is as close as your human mind can perceive it. The Chamber’s ghostlike voice always spoke in Kel’s head without sounding in her ears.

Kel thrust her hands into her pockets. ‘I don’t see why you haven’t done something with it,’ she informed the Chamber. ‘No furnishings, no trees, or birds … If you’re going to bring people here, you ought to make things look a bit nicer.’

A feeling like a sigh whiffled through Kel’s skull. Mortal, what do you want? demanded the Chamber. Its face – the face cut into the keystone over the inside of the iron door – formed in the dirt in front of her. It was lined and sexless, with lips so thin as to be nearly invisible. The deep-set eyes glinted yellow at Kel. The task you have been set is perfectly clear. You will know it when you find it.

Kel shook her head. ‘That’s no good. I must know when and where. And I’d like another look at the little Nothing Man, if you please.’

Instantly the dirt beneath her was gone, the air of the plain turned to shadow, as if she dreamed again. She fell like a feather, lightly, slipping to and fro in the wind. When she landed, she was set on her feet as gently and tidily as she could have hoped.

During her Ordeal she had seen the Chamber’s idea of her task as an image on the wall in a corner of the grey stone room. Now she was living the image, standing in a room like a cross between a smithy and a mage’s studio. Unlike her vision and the dreams that had followed it, this place was absolutely and completely real. Behind her, a forge held a bed of fiery coal. An anvil and several other metalworking tools lay nearby. Along one wall stood open cupboards filled with dried herbs, crystals, books, tools, glass bottles, and porcelain jars. Between her and the cupboards was a large stone worktable with gutters on the sides. It was covered with black stains. To her left was another, smaller, kitchen-style hearth set into the wall. Its fire had burned out.

Kel inhaled. Scents flooded her nose: lavender, jasmine, and vervain; damp stone; mould; and under it all, the coppery hint of old blood.

There he was, scrawny and fidgeting as he stood beside the worktable chewing a fingernail. Kel shrank back.

It is safe, the Chamber said. He cannot see you.

The Nothing Man was just as she remembered, just as he’d been in all those dreams she’d had since Midwinter. There was nothing new to be learned from this appearance.

In the shadows to Kel’s right, metal glinted. She gulped and backed up as a killing device walked out of the shadows, dragging a child’s body. The devices also looked just as she remembered, both from her Ordeal and from a bloody day the previous summer when she and a squad of men from the King’s Own had managed to kill one. The device was made to give anyone who saw it nightmares. Its curved black metal head swivelled back and forth, with only a thin groove to show where a human neck would be. Long, deep pits served as its eyes. Its metal visor-lips could pop open to reveal clashing, sharp steel teeth. Both sets of limbs, upper and lower, had three hinged joints and ended in nimble dagger-fingers or -toes. Its whiplike steel tail switched; the spiked ball that capped it flashed in the torchlight.

The little man flapped an impatient hand. The machine left the room through a door on Kel’s right, towing its pitiful burden.

Moments after it was gone, a big man came in. He was tall enough to have to stoop to get through the door. His greying blond hair hung below his shoulders. A close-cropped greying blond beard framed narrow lips. Brown eyes looked out over a long, straight nose. He wore a huntsman’s buff-coloured shirt, a brown leather jerkin, and brown leather breeches stuffed into calf-high boots. At his belt hung axe and dagger. He stopped in front of the Nothing Man and hooked his thumbs over his belt.

‘We just shipped twenty more to King Maggur. That leaves you with ten, Master Blayce,’ he said, his voice a deep baritone. He spoke Scanran. ‘Barely enough to make it to spring.’

Blayce, Kel thought intently.

‘It’ll do, Stenmun,’ Blayce replied. His voice was a stumbling whine, his Scanran atrocious. ‘Maggur knows—’

Suddenly Kel was back in the Chamber’s dreary home. She spared a glance around – did she see a tree in the distance? – before she turned to glare at the face in the pale stone. ‘Where is he?’ she demanded. ‘Look, Maggur Rathhausak is king now. He’ll march once Scanra thaws out. The king will be sending the army – that includes me – north as soon as he can. You have to tell me where to look so I can leave before that happens! If I go now, I won’t be disobeying the king. We mortals call that treason.’

I cannot, the Chamber said.

Kel disagreed with a phrase she had learned from soldiers.

I am not part of your idea of time, the Chamber told her. Apparently her language had not offended it. You mortals are like fish swimming in a globe of glass. That globe is your world. You do not see beyond it. I am all around that globe, everywhere at once. I am in your yesterdays and tomorrows just as I am in your today, and it all looks the same to me. I only know you will find yourself in that one’s path. When you do, you must stop him. He perverts life and the living. That must not continue. Its tone changed; later, Kel would think the thing had been disgruntled. I thought you would like the warning.

Kel crossed her arms over her chest, disgusted. ‘So you don’t know when I’ll see that piece of human waste. The Nothing Man. Blayce. Or that warrior of his, what’s his name? Stenmun.’

No.

‘And you don’t know where they are.’

Your ideas of countries and borders are meaningless to me.

‘But you thought I’d be happy to know that the one who’s making the killing devices, who’s murdering children, will come my way. Sometime. Someplace.’

You must right the balance between mortals and the divine, the balance that is my reason to exist. That creature defies life and death. I require you to put a stop to it. Your satisfaction is not my concern.

Kel wanted to scream her frustration, but years of hiding her emotions at the Yamani court stopped her. Besides, screaming was a spoiled child’s response, never hers. And as a knight at eighteen, she was supposed to act like an adult, whatever that meant. She tried one last time. ‘The sooner, the better.’

You will meet him, and you will fix this. Now go away. The iron door swung open.

‘Can I at least talk to people about it? Tell them that you showed me this?’ she demanded.

If you think they will believe you. You are not considered to be a seer or a mage, and your own mages know the name of Blayce already. They just cannot find him.

Kel responded with another word learned from soldiers and walked out of the Chamber.

The news of Maggur’s coronation in Scanra sped the process of gathering Tortallan fighters and supplies. Preparation for war filled the hours at the palace. Every knight not already assigned was summoned to the throne room. The king and queen told the knights that they were now in military service to the crown for the length of the war and gave them their instructions. Kel remained under Lord Raoul’s orders for the moment. She readied her own gear as she helped him assemble all that his men would require.

Weather-mages turned their attention to the northern mountains. A week later they told the monarchs that while it would be hard going, Tortall’s army could move out. The next day the warriors readied for departure in the guest-houses and fields around the Great Road North, assembling knights, men of the King’s Own, six Groups of the Queen’s Riders, ten companies of soldiers from the regular army, and wagon after wagon of supplies. It would take three times longer to reach their border posts than if they waited another two weeks for the sleet, snow, and mud of the northern roads to clear. But it would be worth the trouble if they could be in place when the Scanrans came to call.

At dawn on the first morning of the last week of March, the army’s vanguard of knights and lords of the realm set off for the border. Kel rode Hoshi, with Jump in one of her saddlebags and sparrows clinging to every part of her and her equipment. On the bluffs north of the city she murmured a soft prayer to Mithros for victory and one to the Goddess for the wounded to come. She was starting a prayer to Sakuyo, the Yamani god of jokes and tricks, when Lord Raoul snarled a curse. She looked at him, startled: he was riding just in front of her with the King’s Champion, Alanna, the realm’s only other lady knight, and Duke Baird of Queenscove, chief of the realm’s healers and father of Kel’s best friend, Neal. Everyone else turned in their saddles to see what could make the easygoing Raoul so angry. He was pointing a finger that shook with rage.

Below them lay the city of Corus, sprawled on both sides of the Olorun River. Across from them on the high ground south of the river lay the royal palace, its domes and towers clear in the growing light of sunrise.

Above the palace flew Stormwings by the hundreds, males and females, like a swarm of hornets. The sun bounced off their steel feathers and claws, shooting beams at anyone who looked on. Higher the Stormwings rose. Slowly, lazily, they wheeled over the capital city, then streamed north over the army as if they pointed the way to battle.

CHAPTER 2
TOBE

Riding with Third Company of the King’s Own, Kel had spent plenty of time slogging through mud and slush. She was used to that. It was her frequent riding companions, Prince Roald and Sir Nealan of Queenscove, who sometimes made her wish her family had stayed in the Yamani Islands. The bitter conditions were echoed by the moods of both young men. They were betrothed and in love with the women they were to marry. They moped. Kel tried to make them think of other things, but the moment conversation lagged, they returned to the contemplation of their Yamani loved ones.

Kel felt sorrier for Prince Roald. Two years older than Kel, the prince was to have married Princess Shinkokami in mid-May, before the arrival of word that Maggur had taken the Scanran throne. Instead of an expensive ceremony, he and Shinko had decided to put their wedding off. Both showed cheerful faces to the public, saying they had traded rose petals for arrows to arm their soldiers, but to their close friends their disappointment was plain.

Neal, usually dramatic in love, would not talk about his lady, Yukimi, at all. It was such a change from his normal behaviour that Kel was convinced he truly loved her Yamani friend. Before, he’d made high tragedy of his beautiful crushes and his own heartbreak, but not this time. Not over a plump and peppery Yamani.

With Roald on one side and Neal on the other, Kel had to wonder about her own sweetheart, Cleon of Kennan. They hadn’t seen each other in over a year. A knight two years older than Kel, he was stuck in a northern border outpost, where he had been assigned to teach the locals how to defend themselves. He’d been unable to get or send letters during both winters. Had he forgotten her? She wasn’t even sure if he knew she’d survived her Ordeal.

I’ll write to him when I know where I’m to be posted, she promised herself. Maybe we’ll even be assigned to the same place. I’d like that.

She smiled at the idea. They’d never got much time alone: something had always interrupted. Perhaps by now he’d be over his impractical idea that he wanted them to marry before they made love, as proper young noblemen did with proper young noblewomen.

Nothing would come of waiting to marry. Years ago, Cleon’s mother had arranged his marriage to a young noblewoman with a fine dowry. Cleon thought that, given time, he might convince his mother that Kel would make a better wife. Kel was not so sure. As the youngest daughter of a family that was not wealthy, her dowry was small. She was also not ready to marry. She’d only just earned her shield; there was so much to do before she could think of settling down. Cleon loved her, wanted to have children by her. She wanted love and children, too – someday. Not now. Not with Scanra ready for all-out war against Tortall. Not with a future that included Blayce the Nothing Man.

Romance wasn’t the only thing to think about, but it was more pleasant than reality. Knights used their powerful mounts and the wagons of armour, tack, and weapons to break trail through snow and ice, clearing the way for the foot soldiers of the regular army. It was slow going.

At least Peachblossom, Kel’s infamous, temperamental warhorse, behaved. He was a strawberry roan: reddish hide flecked with white, and red-brown stockings, face, mane, and tail. Eight years with Kel had cured him of his tendency to attack others. It was only when they got held up and he was bored that Kel caught him eyeing Neal, his favourite target. When that happened, Kel excused herself and rode ahead to join Lord Raoul or Lady Alanna.

To everyone’s relief, the countryside offered dry quarters for the military. War parties rode north so regularly that local farmers made extra money by letting soldiers bed down in their barns. Officers and knights slept at crown wayhouses. These large inns provided snug quarters and plentiful food, doubly welcome after a day in the cold and wet. Often villages encircled the wayhouses, offering shops and more places to find shelter for the night.

Each day as she walked into the comfort of a wayhouse, Kel hoped the Stormwings that flew above the army found only cold, damp perches for the night. She wished them ice-covered wings and frostbite in their human flesh. Each morning she saw the flash of their steel feathers and heard their jeering calls as the army marched on. And each morning their numbers were as great as they’d been the day before.

Kel had been on the road ten days when they stopped in Queensgrace for the night. The Jug and Fire was the largest of three wayhouses there, so large that even first-year knights had rooms to themselves. By the time Kel got to her room after tending her mounts, a hot bath awaited her. She soaked until the mud and ice were out of her pores, then dried herself, dressed in clean clothes, and went down to eat with her friends. Except for the conversation of the villagers, who had come to see the nobles, the only sounds were the clatter of cutlery and occasional quiet requests for butter, salt, or the refill of a tankard.

Kel finished and thrust her plate back with a grateful sigh. A bowl of winter fruit sat on the table she shared with Neal and her year-mates, reminding her of her horses. They deserved a treat after that day’s work. She scooped up two apples and excused herself.

A shortcut through the kitchens meant she was outside for only a couple of yards rather than the width of the large courtyard. It also meant she entered the stable unnoticed, through a side door rather than the main entrance.

The long building lay in shadow, the lanterns being lit only around the front entrance. The horses dozed, glad to be under shelter. Kel was letting her eyes adjust to what light there was when she heard the hard whump! of leather on flesh, and a child’s yell.

‘I tol’ ye about foolin’ around the horses when there’s work to be done,’ a man snarled. He stood two rows of stalls over from Kel, his back to her. He raised his right hand; a leather strap dangled from his fist. ‘You’re supposed to be in that kitchen washin’ up, you thankless rat turd!’ Down plunged the hand; again, the sound of a blow as it struck, and a yelp.

Kel strode quickly but silently across the distance between her and the man. The next time he drew his arm back, she seized it in one iron-fingered hand, digging her nails deep into the tender flesh between the bones of his wrist.

‘You dare—’ the innkeeper growled, turning to look at her. He was bigger than Kel, unshaven and slope-shouldered. His muscle came from hoisting kegs and beating servants, not from eight years of combat training. His eyes roved from Kel’s set face to her personal badge, a grey owl on a blue field for House Mindelan, and below it, Kel’s own ornament of crossed glaives in cream lined with gold. There were two stripes of colour for the border – the inner ring cream, the outer blue. They meant she was a distaff, or female, knight.

The innkeeper knew who she was. That information spread quickly everywhere Kel went. ‘This’s no business of yours, lady,’ he said, trying to yank free of her. ‘Look, he’s allus ditchin’ chores, never minds his work. Likely he’s out here to steal. Leave me deal with him.’

The boy, who sat huddled in a corner of the empty stall, leaped up and spat at the innkeeper’s feet. He then bolted across the aisle and into the next stall.

‘No!’ shouted Kel, but it was too late. The boy slipped in manure and skidded to a halt under Peachblossom’s indignant nose. ‘Peachblossom, leave him be! Boy, he’s mean, get out now!’ While the gelding had learned to live near others like a civilized creature, he could not be approached by just anyone.

Peachblossom lowered his muzzle to sniff the ragged scrap of humanity before him. The boy waited, perfectly still, as the big gelding whuffled through his guest’s hair and under his arms, then gently lipped the boy’s nose. Kel waited, horrified, for the shriek of agony that would come when Peachblossom bit.

The shriek never came. Peachblossom continued to inspect the newcomer inch by inch.

‘Milady, you oughtn’t go between a man an’ his servants,’ the innkeeper said, trying to be agreeable. ‘I’ll never get him to do proper work now.’ He tried to wrest his hand from Kel’s grip. She tightened her muscles, digging even deeper into his wrist. He couldn’t shake her loose, and he was afraid to anger a noble by striking her.

As he struggled, Kel inspected the skinny urchin who had so bewitched Peachblossom. The shadows around the lad’s deep-set blue eyes were not all from lack of sleep. There was an old black eye, a newer bruise on one cheekbone, and a scabbed cut across his sloping nose. The boy glared at the innkeeper, his chin square and determined. There were new welts on his arms and back visible through holes in his shirt. A slit in half-rotten breeches revealed a long, recent bruise. He was barefoot, his feet red and chapped. His matted hair might be blond if it were clean.

As she watched, he reached up and gently stroked Peachblossom’s muzzle.

Horse magic, Kel thought. It has to be. And this idiot treats a lad that useful like a whipping boy. She looked at the innkeeper. Fury boiled in her veins, but she kept her face calm, allowing no emotion to escape. It was a skill she had perfected. ‘Tell me he is not your son,’ she said mildly.

The innkeeper made a face. ‘That stray pup? We took him in of charity, fed and clothed him, and gave him a home. He works here. I’ve the right to discipline him as I please.’

‘You would lose that right if he weren’t forced to depend on you. He’d be long gone.’ Her voice was still pleasant. Her inner self, the sensible part, shrieked that she had no business doing what she was about to do. She was on her way to a war; boys took much more looking after than sparrows, dogs, or horses.

‘Let him starve? That would be cruel,’ the man insisted. Looking at him, Kel realized that he believed it. ‘He’s got no family. Where can he go?’ demanded the innkeeper. ‘But he can’t just leave work. Boys need discipline. Elsewise he’ll go as bad as the feckless Scanran slut that whelped him an’ left him on the midwife’s step.’

‘If he was left with the midwife, how did he come to you?’ Kel asked.

‘She died. We bid for the boy’s indenture. Paid for seven years, we did. Been more trouble than he’s worth, but we’re gods-fearin’ folk, an’ charity be a virtue.’ The man looked piously towards the ceiling, then at Kel. ‘Forgive my sayin’ so, milady, but this be no affair of yours.’

Kel released him. ‘I think the district magistrate would find your treatment of this boy to be very much his affair,’ she informed the man. ‘Under the law indentured servants have some rights. What did you pay when you bid for his services?’

‘You can’t buy his contract,’ protested the innkeeper. ‘It ain’t for sale.’

Kel wrapped both hands in his tunic and dragged his face down to hers. ‘Either tell me, or I visit the magistrate tomorrow, and you’ll have no say in the matter,’ she informed him. ‘This boy is an indentured servant, not a slave. Accept my coin now, or have him taken with no payment tomorrow, it’s all the same to me.’

When the innkeeper looked away, she released him, knowing she had won.

‘Two copper nobles,’ growled the man.

‘One,’ said the boy grimly. ‘Only one, an’ I been workin’ for ’im for three year.’

‘Lyin’ little rat!’ snapped the innkeeper, darting to Peachblossom’s stall. The gelding lunged without touching the boy at his feet and snapped, teeth clicking together just in front of the innkeeper’s face. The man tried to run backwards and fell, ashen under his whiskers.

Kel looked in her belt purse. She wouldn’t have paid a copper bit for ten boys in that condition, but she wanted to be rid of the innkeeper. She held up two copper nobles. ‘I’ll take his indenture papers before you have this. Get them, right now.’

The man fled the stable.

Kel sighed and walked into Peachblossom’s stall. ‘You’re getting slow,’ she informed the gelding. ‘Time was you’d have had his whole arm in your teeth.’

Peachblossom snorted in derision and backed up.

‘Not that I’d mind,’ Kel admitted, looking at the lad. ‘A good bite would keep him from hitting people with that arm for a while. But I suppose it would make a fuss.’ She propped her hands on her hips, disgusted with herself. Why had she done this?

Even as she asked herself if she’d run mad, she knew that she couldn’t have done anything else.

Kel inspected the boy. Clothes, particularly shoes, were required. His present rags would have to be burned. He needed a bath and a haircut. He probably had lice. Shaving his head and scrubbing him with lice-killing soap would eliminate that problem. He didn’t look old enough to need shaving anywhere else. And he needed a healer.

Kel looked over at Hoshi’s stall, where Jump gnawed a bone. Chances were that it had not been intended for his supper, since there was quite a bit of meat on it. She only hoped the inn’s staff didn’t know who the thief was.

‘Jump, will you get Neal, please?’ Kel asked the dog. Jump thrust his bone under the straw, then trotted out of the stable. The boy followed the dog’s movements with wide eyes but made no comment that might draw Kel’s attention.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked. ‘And how old are you?’

The boy retreated under Peachblossom’s belly. He watched her warily from between the gelding’s forelegs. After a moment he said, ‘Tobe, miss. Tobeis Boon. I think I’m nine.’

Kel repeated, ‘Boon?’

The boy nodded. ‘Auld Eulama said I musta been a boon to someun, though she didn’t know who.’

‘Eulama?’ asked Kel.

‘Midwife as reared me, best’s she knowed.’

Kel scratched her head. ‘Whose opinion is that?’ she enquired, intrigued by his frank way of talking. ‘That she did the best she knew?’

‘All Queensgrace, lady. They all say’t. Way they talk, it din’t do me much good.’ It seemed Tobeis – Tobe – was as intrigued by Kel as she was by him. He inched forward.

Kel indicated the boy’s guardian. ‘It’s not so long ago that I convinced him not to savage everyone in reach. I’ve known him eight years. I was sure he’d kill you.’

‘Aww, he’s a good un.’ Tobe wrapped a casual hand around as much of Peachblossom’s right foreleg as he could manage. ‘Ain’t nobody likes Alvik – me master there.’

Here came Alvik himself with a writing board, a quill, an ink pot, a sheet of grimy paper, sealing wax, and a candle. Kel briskly signed Tobe’s indenture papers, handed over the coins, and watched the innkeeper also sign, then seal the document. As soon as Kel had the completed bill of sale in hand, Alvik fled. He passed Neal and Jump on their way in.

‘You know, Mindelan, our lives would be easier if the dog just broke down and talked,’ Kel’s friend announced. ‘I was winning that card game.’ He glared down at Jump. ‘There was no need to grab me.’

Kel smiled. ‘If you’re not bleeding, he was being nice, and it’s not fair for you to play cards with ordinary folk.’ To Tobe she explained, ‘He remembers all the cards dealt.’

Neal looked to see who she spoke to, and stared. ‘Kel, that monster has a boy under his belly.’

‘That monster hasn’t touched him,’ replied Kel. Neal had every reason to expect the worst of the big gelding. ‘Will you take a look at the boy? Tobe – Tobeis Boon, this is my friend Neal.’ She didn’t give Neal’s titles, not wanting to make the boy uncomfortable. ‘Tobe, my friend is a healer. I want him to look at you.’

‘Not while he’s in there,’ protested Neal.

At the same time the boy said, ‘He’s no healer, just some noble.’

Neal glared at Tobe. ‘I’m a healer and a noble.’ He looked at Kel. ‘What have you done now, Mindelan?’

Kel shrugged. ‘I need a servant. Tobe seemed to want a change, so I hired him away from the innkeeper.’

‘You mean he’s another of your strays,’ Neal pointed out. ‘Didn’t that griffin teach you anything?’

‘Griffin?’ Tobe asked, scooting a little forward of Peachblossom’s legs. ‘You saw a griffin?’

Kel smiled. ‘I’ll tell you about it if you’ll let Neal have a look at you.’

Tobe eyed Neal with considerable suspicion. ‘Folk like him don’t touch the likes of me.’

‘If you knew how I spent my squiredom, you’d know the likes of you are most of what I ended up touching,’ Neal informed him. ‘I can get rid of your lice and fleas,’ he added as Tobe scratched himself.

‘Cannot,’ retorted the boy.

‘Can too,’ Neal replied. ‘The handiest spell I ever learned.’

Convinced that Neal would talk the boy around, Kel went to see about having a hot bath drawn and carried up to her room.

‘Miss, you shouldna bother with that un,’ the maid she paid for the service commented. ‘He’s a gutter rat, as like to bite a helpin’ hand as not.’

Thinking of Peachblossom and the baby griffin she’d once cared for, Kel replied, ‘If he does, it won’t be the first time.’

When Neal brought Tobe to her room, Kel was just donning the oiled canvas cloak and broad-brimmed hat she used to keep off the rain. Under the cloak she wore a quilted coat made by her former maid, Lalasa, now a dressmaker. Lalasa had spared no effort on the coat for the mistress who had given her a start in business. By the time Kel had tied the cloak around her neck, she was sweating.

‘Here he is.’ Neal pushed open Kel’s door to admit Jump and Tobe. ‘Did you order supper for him?’

‘I remember that much from my own healings, thank you,’ Kel replied. ‘I appreciate your seeing to him, Neal.’

Her friend waved a hand in dismissal and left, closing the door. Kel regarded her new servant. ‘You see that?’ She pointed to the tub that sat squarely in front of the hearth. ‘It’s a bath. You climb in and you don’t climb out and eat before you’re clean. Scrub all over, understand?’ Hanging on to Tobe, she saw that Neal had done well: the boy’s weals and scabbed-over cuts showed now as pink, healthy, new skin. ‘There’s soap in that bowl. Use it,’ she continued. ‘The little pick is to clean under your nails. Remember your hair, your ears, and your private parts.’ She released him.

The boy went to the tub, stuck a finger in the water, and glared at Kel. ‘It’s hot!’ he exclaimed.

‘Don’t expect hot baths every night,’ she told him, straight-faced. She could see that he was dismayed at the thought of washing in hot water. ‘But you’ll do this on your own, or I’ll do it for you, with a scrub brush. My servants are clean.’

Tobe hung his head. ‘Yes, lady.’

Kel pointed to the bed, where she had set out drying cloths and one of her spare shirts. ‘Dry with those and put that on for now,’ she said. ‘Don’t wear your old things.’

‘Not even me loincloth?’ he asked, horrified.

‘You’re getting fresh ones. Clean ones,’ she said, immovable. ‘I’m off to take care of that now. When you’re dry, wrap up in a blanket and look outside – the maid will leave a tray with your supper by the door. I got a pallet for you’ – she pointed to it, on the side of the hearth opposite the table – ‘so you can go to bed. You’ll be sleepy after a decent supper and Neal’s magicking.’

‘Yes, lady,’ replied the boy. He was glum but resigned to fresh clothes and a bath. He glanced around the room, his eyes widening at the sight of her glaive propped in a corner. ‘What pigsticker is that?’

Kel smiled. ‘It’s a Yamani naginata – we call it a glaive. I learned to use one in the Islands, and it’s the weapon I’m best with. Clothes, off. Bath, now, Tobe.’

He gaped, then exclaimed, ‘With a girl lookin’ on? Lady, some places a fellow’s got to draw the line!’

‘Very true,’ Kel replied solemnly, trying not to grin. ‘Don’t give Jump any food. He’s had one good meal already tonight.’

Jump, sprawled between the tub and the fire, belched and scratched an ear. His belly was plump with stolen meat.

Kel rested a hand on Tobe’s shoulder. ‘You’ll do as I ask?’

He nodded without meeting her eyes.

Kel guessed what was on his mind. ‘I’ll never beat you, Tobe,’ she said quietly. ‘Ever. I may dunk you in the tub and scrub you myself if I come back to find you only washed here and there, but you won’t bleed, you won’t bruise, and you won’t hobble out of this room. Understand?’

He looked up into her face. ‘Why do this, lady?’ he asked, curious. ‘I’m on’y a nameless whelp, with the mark of Scanra on me. What am I to the likes of you?’

Kel thought her reply over before she gave it. This could be the most important talk she would have with Tobe. She wanted to be sure that she said the right things. ‘Well, Peachblossom likes you,’ she answered slowly. ‘He’s a fine judge of folk, Peachblossom. Except Neal. He’s prejudiced about Neal.’

‘He just likes the way Neal squeaks when he’s bit,’ Tobe explained.

Kel tucked away a smile. It sounded like something Peachblossom would think. ‘And for the rest? I do it because I can. I’ve been treated badly, and I didn’t like it. And I hate bullies. Now pile those rags by the door and wash. The water’s getting cold.’ Not waiting for him to point out that cooler water didn’t seem so bad, she walked out and closed the door. She listened for a moment, waiting until she heard splashes and a small yelp.

He’s funny, she thought, striding down the hall. I like how he speaks his mind. Alvik didn’t beat that from him, praise Mithros.

At the top of the stairs, Kel halted. Below her, out of sight, she could hear Neal: ‘… broken finger, half-healed broken arm, cracked ribs, and assorted healed breaks. I’m giving your name to the magistrate. I’ll recommend he look in on you often, to see the treatment you give your other servants.’

‘Yes, milord, of course, milord.’ That was Innkeeper Alvik’s unmistakable voice, oily and mocking at the same time. ‘I’m sure my friend the magistrate will be oh so quick to “look in on” me, as you say, once you’re down the road. Just you worry about Scanra. They’ll be making it so hot for you there, you’ll be hard put to remember us Queensgrace folk.’

‘Yes, well, I thought of that,’ Neal said, his voice quiet but hard. ‘So here’s something on account, something your magistrate can’t undo.’

She heard a rustle of cloth. Alvik gasped. ‘Forcing a magic on me is a crown offence!’

‘Who will impress the crown more, swine? The oldest son of Baird of Queenscove, or you?’ asked Neal cruelly. ‘And did my spell hurt?’

‘Noooo,’ Alvik replied, dragging the sound out. Kel imagined he was checking his body for harm.

‘It won’t,’ Neal said. ‘At least, as long as you don’t hit anyone. When you do, well, you’ll feel the blow as if you struck yourself. Clever spell, don’t you think? I got the idea from something the Chamber of the Ordeal did once.’ Neal’s voice went colder. ‘Mind what I say, innkeeper. When you strike a servant, a child, your wife, your own body will take the punishment. Mithros cut me down if I lie.’

‘All this over a whore’s brat!’ snarled the innkeeper. ‘You nobles are mad!’

‘The whore’s brat is worth far more than you.’ Neal’s voice was a low rumble at the bottom of the stairs. ‘He’s got courage. You have none. Get out of my sight.’

Kel waited for the innkeeper to flee to his kitchen and Neal to return to the common room before she descended. It was useless to say anything to Neal. He would just be embarrassed that he’d been caught doing a good deed. He liked to play the cynical, heartless noble, but it was all for show. Kel wouldn’t ruin it for him.

It was a long ride to the wagonloads of goods for those made homeless by the Scanrans. Her lantern, hung from a pole to light Hoshi’s way, provided scant light as icy rain sizzled on its tin hood. Other riders were out, members of the army camped on either side of the road for miles. Thanks to their directions, Kel found the wagons in a village two miles off the Great Road North. They were drawn up beside one of the large, barnlike buildings raised by the crown to shelter troops and equipment on the road. In peaceful years local folk used the buildings to hold extra wood, grain, animals, and even people made homeless by natural disasters.

The miserable-looking guards who watched the wagons scowled at Kel but fetched the quartermaster. Once Kel placed money in his palm, the quartermaster allowed her to open the crates and barrels in a wagonload of boys’ clothes.

The wagon’s canvas hood kept off the weather as Kel went through the containers. Tobe looked to be about ten, but he was a runty ten, just an inch or two over four feet, bony and undersized from a life of cheap, scant rations. She chose carefully until she had three each of loincloths, sashes, shirts, breeches, and pairs of stockings, three pairs of shoes that might fit, a worn but serviceable coat, and a floppy-brimmed hat. If she was going to lead Tobe into battlelands, the least she could do was see him properly clothed. The army tailors could take in shirts and breeches to fit him properly; the cobblers could adjust his shoes. Once she had bundled everything into a burlap sack, Kel mounted Hoshi, giving a copper noble to the soldier who had kept the mare inside a shelter, out of the wet. As the rain turned to sleet, they plodded back to Queensgrace.

In Kel’s room, Tobe sat dozing against the wall, afloat in her shirt. When Kel shut the door, his eyes flew open, sky-blue in a pale face. ‘I don’t care if you was drunk or mad or takin’ poppy or rainbow dream or laugh powder, you bought my bond and signed your name and paid money for me and you can’t return me to ol’ Alvik,’ he told her without taking a breath. He inhaled, then continued, ‘If you try I’ll run off ’n’ steal ’n’ when I’m caught I’ll say I belong to you so they’ll want satisfaction from you. I mean it! You can’t blame drink or drug or anything and then get rid of me because I won’t go.’

Kel waited for him to run out of words as water trickled off her hat and cloak onto the mat by the door. She gave Tobe a moment after he stopped talking, to make sure he was done, before she asked, ‘What is that about?’

‘See?’ he cried. ‘You forgot me already – me, Tobeis Boon, whose bond you bought tonight. I knew you was drunk or takin’ a drug or mad. But here I am an’ here I stay. You need me, to, to carry your wine jug, an’ cut the poppy brick for you to smoke, an’, an’ make sure you eat—’

Kel raised her eyebrows. ‘Quiet,’ she said in the calm, firm tone she had learned from Lord Raoul.

Tobe blinked and closed his mouth.

Kel walked over and blew into his face so he could smell her liquor- and drug-free breath. ‘I’m not drunk,’ she told him. ‘I take no drugs. If I’m mad, it’s in ways that don’t concern you. I went out to get you clothes, Tobe. You can’t go north wearing only a shirt.’

She tossed the sack onto her bed and walked back to the puddle she’d left by the door, then struggled to undo the tie on her hat. Her fingers were stiff with cold even after grooming Hoshi and treating her to a hot mash.

When she removed the hat, a pair of small, scarred hands took it and leaned it against the wall to dry. Once Kel had shed the cloak, Tobe hung it from a peg, then knelt to remove her boots. ‘I have clothes,’ he said, wrestling off one boot while Kel braced herself.

‘I saw,’ she replied, eyeing the heap they made on the floor. ‘I wouldn’t let a cat have kittens on them. I ought to take Alvik before a magistrate anyway. Your bond says you get two full suits of clothes, a coat, and a sturdy pair of shoes every year.’

‘It does?’ he asked, falling on his rump with her boot in his hands.

Kel reached inside her tunic and pulled out his indenture papers. ‘Right there,’ she told him, pointing to the paragraph. When Tobe frowned, she knew Alvik had neglected something else. ‘You can’t read, can you?’ she asked.

‘Alvik said I din’t need no schoolin’, ’acos I was too stupid to learn,’ Tobe informed Kel, searching for a cloth to wipe her boots with. He was practised at this: the innkeeper had taught him to look after guests’ belongings as well as their horses, Kel supposed.

‘Lessons,’ she said, folding the papers once more. ‘After we’re settled in the north.’ She yawned. ‘Wake me at dawn. We’ll try those clothes on you then. And I’m not sure about the, the’ – she yawned again – ‘shoes. I’m not sure these will fit. If we stop on the way, perhaps …’

She looked around, exhaustion addling her brain. Her normal bedtime on the road was much earlier than this. She eyed the door, her dripping hat and cloak, her boots, Tobe.

‘Lady?’ he asked quietly. ‘Sounds like you mean to do all manner of things for me. What was you wishful of me doin’ for you?’

‘Oh, that,’ Kel said, realizing that she hadn’t told him what duties he would have. ‘You’ll look after my horses and belongings, and in four years you’ll be free.’ A will, she realized. I need to make a will so he can be freed if I’m slain. She picked up her water pitcher and drank from the rim. ‘For that, I am duty bound to see that you are fed, clothed, and educated. We’ll settle things like days off. You’ll learn how to clean armour and weapons. That ought to keep you busy enough.’

He nodded. ‘Yes, lady.’

‘Very well. Go to bed. I’m exhausted.’ Unbuttoning her shirt, she realized he hadn’t moved. ‘Bed,’ she said firmly. ‘Cover your head till I say you can come out. I won’t undress while you watch.’

She took her nightshirt out of a saddlebag and finished changing once Tobe was on his pallet with his eyes hidden. In the end, she had to uncover him. He’d gone to sleep with the blanket over his head. Kel banked the fire and blew out the last candle that burned in the room.

The killing device moved in her dreams. Blayce the Nothing Man watched it. He pointed to a child who cowered under his worktable: it was Tobe. The metal thing reached under the table and dragged the boy out.

Kel sat up, gasping, sweat-soaked. It was still dark, still night. The rain had stopped. She was at an inn on the Great Road North, riding to war.

‘Lady,’ Tobe asked, his voice clear, ‘what’s Blayce? What’s Stenmun?’

‘A nightmare and his dog,’ Kel replied, wiping her face on her sleeve. ‘Go back to sleep.’

The rain returned in the morning. The army’s commanders decided it would be foolish to move on. Kel used the day to finish supplying Tobe, making sure that what he had fit properly. Tobe protested the need for more than one set of clothes and for any shoes, saying that she shouldn’t spend money on him.

‘Do you want to make me look bad?’ she demanded at last. ‘People judge a mistress by how well her servants are dressed. Do you want folk to say I’m miserly, or that I don’t know my duty?’

‘Alvik never cared,’ Tobe pointed out as he fed the sparrows cracked corn.

‘He isn’t noble-born,’ Kel retorted. ‘I am. You’ll be dressed properly, and that’s that.’

At least she could afford the sewing and shoe fitting. She had an income, more than she had thought she’d get as the poorly dowered youngest daughter of a large family. For her service in the war she received a purse from the crown every two weeks. Raoul had advised her on investments, which had multiplied both a legal fine once paid to her and her portion of Lalasa’s earnings. Lalasa had insisted on that payment, saying that she would not have been able to grow rich off royal custom if not for her old mistress. It was an argument Kel had yet to win. And it did mean that she could outfit Tobe without emptying her purse, a venture Lalasa would approve.

The rain ended that night. The army set out at dawn, Tobe riding pillion with Kel. Once they were under way, Kel rode back along the line of march until she found the wagon that held the gear of the first-year knights, including Hoshi’s tack, spare saddle blankets, weapons, and all Kel needed to tend her arms and armour. She opened the canvas cover on the wagon and slung the boy inside with one arm.

‘There’s blankets under that saddle, and meat and cheese in that pack,’ she informed him. ‘Bundle up. It’s a cold ride. I’ll get you when we stop for the night.’ She didn’t wait for his answer but tied the cover and returned to her friends.

They ate lunch on horseback as cold rain fell again. Knights and squires huddled in the saddle, miserable despite broad-brimmed hats and oiled cloaks to keep the wet out. Kel had extra warmth from Jump and the sparrows, who had ducked under her cloak the moment the rain had returned.

They were crossing a pocket of a valley when Neal poked Kel and pointed. In the trees to their left, a small figure moved through the undergrowth, following them. Kel twitched Peachblossom off the road and into the woods, cutting Tobe off. He stared up at her, his chin set.

‘I left you in the wagon so you wouldn’t get soaked,’ Kel informed him. He was muddy from toes to knees. ‘Are you mad?’

Tobe shook his head.

‘Then why do this?’ she asked, patiently. ‘You’re no good to either of us if you get sick or fall behind.’

‘Folk took interest in me ’afore, lady,’ replied the boy. ‘A merchant and a priestess. Soon as I was gone from their sight, they forgot I was alive. Sometimes I think I jus’ dreamed you. If I don’t see you, mayhap you’ll vanish.’

‘I’m too solid to be a dream. Besides, I paid two copper nobles for your bond,’ Kel reminded him. ‘Not to mention what we laid out for the sewing and the cobbler.’

‘Folk’ve given me nobles jus’ for holdin’ the stirrup when they mounted up,’ Tobe informed her. ‘Some is so rich, a noble means as much to them as a copper bit to ol’ Alvik.’

Kel sighed. ‘I’m not rich,’ she said, but it was for the sake of argument. Compared with this mule-headed scrap of boyhood, she was rich. It was all she could do not to smile. She recognized the determination in those bright blue eyes. It matched her own.

She evicted the sparrows from the shelter of her cloak and reached a hand down. When he gripped it, Kel swung the boy up behind her. ‘Not a word of complaint,’ she told him. ‘Get under my cloak. It’ll keep the rain off.’

This order he obeyed. Kel waited for the sparrows to tuck themselves under the front of her cloak, then urged Peachblossom back to their place in line.

Neal, seeing her approach, opened his mouth.

‘Not one word,’ Kel warned. ‘Tobe and I have reached an understanding.’

Neal’s lips twitched. ‘Why do I have the feeling you did most of the understanding?’

‘Why do I have the feeling that if you give me a hard time, I’ll tell all of our year-mates your family nickname is Meathead?’ Kel replied in kind.

‘You resort to common insult because you have no stronger arguments to offer,’ retorted Neal. When Kel opened her mouth, Neal raised a hand to silence her. ‘Nevertheless, I concede.’

‘Good,’ Kel said. ‘That’s that.’

‘You got anything to eat?’ enquired a voice from inside her cloak.

April 1–14, 460 near the Scanran border

CHAPTER 3
LONG, COLD ROAD

It was well past dark when they reached their next stop, the village of Wolfwood. ‘We’re here for a few days,’ Raoul told the younger knights. ‘Lady Alanna and the troops for the coast leave us here. So will the troops and knights meant for the eastern border. Maybe we’ll even be here long enough to dry out.’

‘What’s dry?’ asked Faleron of King’s Reach wearily.

‘Good question,’ Lady Alanna said, stretching to get the kinks out of her spine. She and Neal chorused, ‘Next question.’ The lady grinned at her former squire. ‘You rode with me too long, Queenscove,’ she pointed out.

‘And I learned things every step of the way, lady knight,’ said Neal with a bow.

Tobe offered to groom Peachblossom and Hoshi. Kel watched as the boy worked.

‘You think he’s a horse-mage?’ Neal murmured. He’d tended his mounts and was ready to go inside. ‘He’s got wild magic with horses?’

‘It seems so,’ Kel admitted, gathering her saddlebags. ‘Look how easy Peachblossom is with him.’ Satisfied that Tobe needed no help, she followed Neal into the wayhouse, Jump and the sparrows trailing behind.

Messengers had warned their hosts of their arrival. There was a tub of hot water in Kel’s room. She scrubbed, changed, then went to find her charge. She found Tobe in Peachblossom’s stall, though both the gelding and Hoshi had been groomed and fed.

‘You’ll sleep in my chamber like last night. There’s a tub there now. Go and wash,’ she ordered. ‘The servants take meals in the east wing of the house. Eat properly, vegetables as well as meat. And drink some milk.’

Tobe grinned at her. ‘He said last night you’re a bear for vegetables – Sir Nealan, that is. Auld Eulama were the same.’ He went to do as he was told. Kel returned to the wayhouse, thinking. They needed to come to an understanding. She couldn’t let him walk, but she didn’t like to share a saddle. Perhaps he could ride Hoshi? Normally Kel would have ridden the mare on a journey like this, but she needed Peachblossom’s strength to help open the road in spots. Hoshi would barely notice Tobe’s weight, and she would keep him out of the mud.

In the common room, Kel picked at her supper, too weary to eat. She was about to go to her room when someone came in. A servant rushed forward to take his wet things; the innkeeper followed to see what the new guest required.

The newcomer was a big fellow, a knight from his tunic badge, with red curly hair and grey eyes. Kel froze. It was Cleon of Kennan, her sweetheart. But something was wrong. She looked at him and saw a brawny knight she knew. Where was the joy of looking at him that she had felt the last time they met? Cleon was as attractive as ever, but he didn’t make her skin tingle as he once had.

Kel bit her lip. As a page she’d thought she was hopelessly in love with Neal. Then, a newly made squire, she’d spent a summer with Lord Raoul and Third Company. Seeing Neal after months of separation, she’d found he looked like just another man, not the bright centre of her heart. Now it had happened again. She and Cleon had kissed, had yearned for time and privacy in which to become lovers. He’d wanted to marry her, though she was not sure that she wanted marriage. Here he was, but she didn’t feel warm and eager at the sight of him. Friendship was there, but passion was gone.

Worse, a part of her wasn’t surprised by the change. They’d been apart for such a long time, with only letters to keep their feelings alive. So much had happened, too much, all of it more vivid and recent than her memories of him. She didn’t want Cleon as a lover now, of that she was sure. There was work to be done. She wanted no lovers until she had settled the Nothing Man’s account.

Kel looked down at her plate. Maybe Cleon wouldn’t see her.

Merric of Hollyrose, at the end of her table, jumped to his feet. ‘Cleon!’ he yelled. Everyone looked at the newcomer and called out greetings. Prince Roald waved him over. Kel fixed a smile on her face.

Cleon too smiled when he saw Kel, but he didn’t seem to notice that Neal offered him a seat beside her. Instead, Cleon took a chair near the prince.

‘Why are you here?’ asked Faleron of King’s Reach. He was one of the knights destined to defend the seacoast. ‘You’re headed the wrong way.’

Cleon glanced at Kel, then looked at Faleron. ‘I got a mage message asking me to come home soonest. You’ve heard there’s flooding in the southwest hills?’

Faleron, whose home was near Cleon’s, sighed. ‘It’s bad,’ he said. ‘Father said a lot of fiefdoms lost their entire stores of grain – oh, no. Yours?’

Cleon nodded, his mouth a grim line. ‘The Lictas River went over its banks and wiped out our storehouses. I’ve got to help Mother raise funds so our people can plant this year.’

Kel met Cleon’s eyes. They had often talked about his home. She knew his estates were short of money.

Abruptly, Cleon stood. ‘May I have a word, Kel? Alone?’

She couldn’t refuse. Her thoughts tumbled as she followed him outside. They stood under the eaves that sheltered the inn’s door, the wind blowing rain onto them. She wondered if he’d noticed she hadn’t moved to kiss him, then realized that he had not tried to kiss her, either. Suddenly she knew what was coming.

‘I’ve just one way to get coin for grain and the livestock we lost, Kel,’ he said. ‘The moneylenders only give Mother polite regrets. I have to marry Ermelian of Aminar or my people will starve this winter.’ He turned away. ‘I’m so sorry. I’d thought, if we had time …’

Relief poured through Kel. She wouldn’t have to hurt him. ‘We knew our chances weren’t good,’ she said over the rattle of sheaves of rain. ‘We did talk about it.’

‘I know,’ he said hoarsely, standing with his back to her. ‘Even knowing I couldn’t break the betrothal honourably, I went ahead and dreamed. That’s the problem with being able to think. It means you wish for things you can’t have.’

Kel wished she could comfort him. Even beyond kisses, he was her friend. She laid a hand on his back. ‘Cleon—’

‘Don’t.’ He twitched away from her touch. ‘I can’t – I’m as good as married now. It wouldn’t be right.’

Relief flooded her again. Cleon was too honourable to kiss her or let her touch him now that he’d agreed to his marriage. She felt shallow, coldhearted, and sorry for him.

‘You said you liked her, when we were on progress,’ she reminded him. ‘You said she’s nice. It could be much worse. People do find happiness, when they’re married to someone good.’

The awful grinding sound that came from his throat was supposed to be a laugh. ‘That’s you, Kel, making the best of it,’ he said. He rubbed his eyes with his arm before he turned to face her. ‘You’re right. I saw her while we were on progress. It was after you left to help that village after the earthquake. She is nice. She’s also pretty and kind. Some of our friends can’t say as much about the wives arranged for them. She just isn’t you. She isn’t my friend, or my comrade.’ He tried to smile.

Kel’s heart hurt. Cleon was still her friend, if not her lover. ‘Come inside,’ she told him. ‘Dry out, and eat. We’ll do our duty, like we’re supposed to. And we can be friends, surely. Nothing changes that.’

‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Nothing will ever change that.’ He raised a hand as if to touch her cheek, then lowered it and went inside.

Kel didn’t cry for her friend and the sudden, hard changes in their lives until she was safe in bed and Tobe was lightly snoring on his pallet. She thought she’d muffled herself until he said, ‘It’s awright, lady. I’d be ascairt, too, goin’ off for savages to shoot at.’

Kel choked, dried her eyes on her nightshirt sleeve, and turned onto her back. ‘It’s not the war, Tobe,’ she replied. She groped for the handkerchief on her bedside table, sat up, and blew her nose. ‘I’ve been shot at. I can bear it. I’m crying because my friend is unhappy and everything is changing.’

‘Is that what you’re ’posed to do?’ he asked. ‘Cry for your friends, though they ain’t dead? Cry when things change?’

‘If the changes are hard ones,’ Kel replied. ‘If they take away the things you knew were good.’ She wiped her nose, trying to decide what else to say. How could he not know about sorrow for a friend? ‘Don’t you cry when your friends are hurt?’

‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Never had no friends, ’cept maybe Auld Eulama, an’ she only cried when the drink was in her.’

Kel sat breathless for a moment. Tobe sounded as if this was all he’d ever expected his world to be.

‘You have friends now,’ she told him. ‘And with luck, Peachblossom and Jump and I won’t do any crying for you.’

‘I hope not, lady,’ he said. From the rustle of cloth, she guessed he was preparing to go back to sleep. ‘It don’t sound like any kind of fun.’

Cleon left in the morning. Two days later the army split. One part was bound for the western coast. Another turned east. The rest, including Kel, Neal, and Tobe, turned north with fully half of the army that had left Corus. Tobe, now with his own cloak and hat to shed the rain, rode Hoshi as Kel’s personal groom. Watching him made Kel feel good. Tobe looked like a proper boy at last, not a little old man in a child’s body.

Ten days later General Vanget haMinch, supreme commander of Tortall’s northern defences, met them in Bearsford, the last fortress town on the Great Road North before the border. His presence told Kel how important it was to get the new forces into position quickly. Normally they would have gone to headquarters at Northwatch Fortress to receive their orders.

Vanget wasted no time in giving out assignments. Two days after they reached Bearsford, Kel, the other first-year knights, and fifty senior knights accompanied Duke Baird and his healers to Fort Giantkiller. Lord Wyldon of Cavall, Kel’s former training master, commanded there; he would give out their final postings. Lord Raoul would ride a day or two with them before he turned west to take command at Fort Steadfast.

‘Do you know where these forts are?’ Kel asked him as the last of the army prepared to break up.

‘I’ve been informed,’ Raoul said drily. ‘You actually know where Giantkiller is. Third Company named the fort we built with them last summer that, supposedly in honour of me.’ He made a face. Third Company of the King’s Own had waited until Raoul wasn’t there to protest before they named the fort. Raoul continued, ‘Vanget moved Third Company to Steadfast. He’s sending regular army troops to Fort Giantkiller.’

He hugged Kel briefly. ‘Gods all bless, Kel. Trust your instincts – they’re good. Try to survive the summer. I don’t want your mother or Alanna coming after me if you get killed.’

Kel grinned as he swung into the saddle. She wished she were going with him, but she knew that everyone who mattered wanted to see how she did without his protection.

‘Lady knight, come on,’ Neal called. ‘Let’s go and see if the Stump’s forgotten us.’

Kel mounted up. ‘Don’t call Lord Wyldon that,’ she told him as they rode out of Bearsford. ‘I doubt he’s forgotten you. He never threatened anyone else that he’d tie his tongue in a knot.’

‘Threats are the last resort of a man with no vocabulary,’ Neal said, nose in the air.

‘Well, I have a vocabulary,’ said his father, riding behind them. ‘I have often wished I could tie your tongue in a knot. Several of them. I can describe them, if you like.’

‘It’s my fate to be misunderstood,’ Neal announced. He fell back to ride with the more sympathetic Merric.

As the knights shifted riding order, Kel found herself beside Duke Baird. She had often seen Neal’s father for healing after her fights in the palace and felt comfortable enough to talk to him. ‘Your grace, if you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here?’ she enquired. ‘As the royal healer, shouldn’t you be in Corus?’

‘My assistant has to show whether or not he can step into my office,’ Neal’s father replied. He was a tall, lanky man. His eyes, a darker green than Neal’s, were set in deep sockets. His hair was redder than his son’s, but his nose was the same. ‘It’s time to see if he can handle the nobility alone. And I have experience in the layout of refugee camps.’

‘Refugee camps?’ Kel repeated.

‘When villages are destroyed and there are too many people for single lords to take in, someone must care for them. That’s particularly true here, where people scrabble to feed their own.’ He gestured towards their surroundings: thick woods and stony ridges, the unforgiving north. ‘We need camps for the refugees. We also need field hospitals for the wounded now that we’re faced with all-out war.’

For a moment Kel said nothing, thinking of the grim picture he’d just painted. Could she bear the sight of hundreds who’d been cast from their homes? ‘How do you stand it, your grace?’ she asked quietly.

‘By doing the best I can,’ Baird replied, as quiet as Kel. ‘By remembering my wife, my daughters, and the sons I have left. I can’t afford to brood. Too many people need me.’ He sighed. ‘I worry about Neal,’ he confessed. ‘He tries to hide it, but he’s sensitive.’

Kel nodded. Baird was right.

‘If you are placed together, will you watch him?’ asked Baird suddenly. ‘He respects you, despite the difference in your ages. You’re sensible and level-headed. He listens to you.’

Kel stared at the duke, then nodded again. ‘I will look out for him if I can,’ she replied honestly.

They reached Fief Tirrsmont at twilight and spent the night behind the castle’s grey stone walls. The lord of Tirrsmont pleaded scant room inside the buildings of his inner bailey. He also pleaded scant food, though he feasted Duke Baird and two of the senior knights, along with his own family, on suckling pig, saffron rice, and other delicacies.

Camped in the outer bailey, the army was jammed in among thin, ragged survivors of last year’s fighting who were housed there. Kel looked into the commoners’ haunted eyes and felt rage burn her heart. Most of the newcomers’ rations of porridge and bacon went to the refugees. They accepted the food in silence and fled.

‘How can they treat their own people so shabbily?’ Kel asked Neal. ‘The lord and his family look well fed.’

‘You worry too much about commoners,’ remarked Quinden of Marti’s Hill, who shared the first-years’ fire. ‘They always look as pathetic as they can so we’ll feed them. I’ve never met a commoner who doesn’t beg while they hide what they’ve stolen from you.’

‘You’re an obnoxious canker-blossom,’ Neal snapped. ‘Go and ooze somewhere else.’

‘On your way, Quinden,’ added Merric. ‘Before we help you along.’

Quinden spat into their fire to further express his opinion, then wandered off.

‘I pity the folk of Marti’s Hill when he inherits,’ murmured Kel.

In the morning they rode on to Fort Giantkiller. This was country that Kel knew, though the trees were bare and the ground clothed in snow and ice. They were entering the patrol area she had covered the year before with Third Company. This was hard land, with little farming soil. Any wealth came from the fur trade, silver mines, logging, and fishing. They might have trouble feeding themselves if supply trains didn’t arrive. On the bright side, the enemy would have even more trouble staying fed, with the mighty Vassa River at their backs to cut off supplies from Scanra.

Some daylight remained when they reached Fort Giantkiller. Kel saw many changes. The fort had been turned from a quickly built home for a company of over one hundred into a fortress with two encircling walls. An abatis had been installed on the outer wall: a number of logs sharpened on the forward end, planted in the side of the ditch. They made a thorny barrier that horses would baulk at trying to jump. Watchtowers now stood at each corner of the inner wall. The Tortallan flag snapped in the wind. Below it flapped the commanding officer’s banner, a rearing black dog with a black sword in its paws on a white field bordered in gold: the arms of Fief Cavall. Below it were the flags of the army brigade charged with the defence of the district.

Inside, Kel saw even more changes. Third Company’s tents were gone, replaced by two-storey log buildings. Giantkiller now housed at least five hundred men, their horses, and supplies. Lord Wyldon had taken command of the district when Kel and Lord Raoul had ridden south for her Ordeal. He must have rushed to get all his troops decently housed before winter put a stop to most outdoor work.

‘Kel, Kel!’ someone cried. A stocky young man barrelled into her, flinging strong arms around her to give her a crushing squeeze.

‘Mithros save us, I’d forgotten the Brat,’ Quinden muttered behind Kel.

Kel looked down an inch into a familiar round face and laughed. Owen of Jesslaw’s grey eyes blazed with delight; a grin revealed wide-spaced front teeth. His cap of brown curls tumbled over his forehead. As Wyldon’s squire, he wore his master’s badge. ‘We knew you couldn’t hold the border alone, so we came to lend a hand,’ she said as he released her. Owen’s wild courage was a byword among the pages and squires; he would throw himself into a fight even when he was outnumbered.

‘Neal, you came!’ Owen cried as he crouched to scratch the gleeful Jump’s lone ear. Sparrows swirled around his head as he did so, cheeping their own welcome. ‘Merric, Seaver, Esmond, you’re here!’ He looked up, saw Duke Baird, and straightened abruptly. ‘My lord duke, welcome to Fort Giantkiller,’ he said with a graceful bow. ‘Forgive my inattention. If I may take your mount, your grace?’

‘Mithros save us, the Stump broke him to bridle,’ Neal said, his voice dry as he dismounted. ‘I thought it was impossible.’

‘Do not let me catch that nickname on your lips as long as you are under the man’s command,’ Duke Baird told Neal sternly as he gave his reins to Owen. ‘You owe him the appearance of respect, not to mention proper obedience.’

Neal met his father’s gaze, scowled, then bowed silently. Owen whistled softly; Kel, too, was astounded. She had thought nothing could make Neal back down so quickly.

‘’Scuse me, lady.’ Kel turned. There stood Tobe with Hoshi’s reins. ‘I’ll take ’im now.’

Kel gave Peachblossom’s reins to Tobe. ‘Check his hooves, please?’ she asked.

‘Yes, lady,’ the boy said. He headed towards the stables, gelding and mare in tow.

‘Who was that?’ The shocked whisper came from Owen. Kel glanced at him: her friend stared gape-jawed at Tobe. ‘Did you see that? He just – Peachblossom! He just took Peachblossom, and Peachblossom went!’

Kel smiled. ‘That’s Tobe,’ she explained. ‘He is good with horses.’

Duke Baird cleared his throat. ‘Did my lord Wyldon say what was to be done with us?’ he enquired tactfully. A proper squire would have bustled the duke away at the first opportunity. Kel was relieved that Lord Wyldon hadn’t changed Owen completely.

‘Your grace, forgive me,’ Owen said with a deep bow. ‘My lord is out riding patrol yet, but I am to show you where you will sleep and ask if you will dine with him later. To the knights who accompany you’ – he bowed to the group that stood behind the duke and Kel – ‘he sends greetings. Lukin will show you to your quarters’ – he beckoned a soldier forward – ‘and lead you to supper when you choose. My lord asks you to remain in the officers’ mess hall after supper. He will send for you to talk of your assignments.’

Lukin bowed and beckoned; other soldiers swarmed forward to take charge of the newcomers. Kel, Jump, and the sparrows followed them as Owen guided Duke Baird to headquarters.

Over supper with the officers in their mess hall, the newly arrived knights got some idea of what they would face when the fighting began. So interesting was the talk that Kel didn’t realize immediately that Owen came from time to time to lead knights from the mess hall. When he gathered up three at once, she realized he was taking them to Wyldon for orders.

Kel watched as Owen led the knights away. The men’s backs were straight under their tunics, their air businesslike as they left. Were any afraid? she wondered. Did they have unsettled dreams of war, as she did? Were any hoping for a post in a fortified place with orders that kept them from battle? Some would get part of the district to guard, with squads of soldiers to command and a small fort to build. Others would go to Wyldon’s new fortress between Giantkiller and Steadfast, to the town of Riversedge, or to the castles, to be placed under a senior commander. Some would remain here.

Owen came for Quinden, Seaver, and Esmond, then for Neal and Merric. Suddenly Kel realized that she was the last newly arrived knight to be called. A fist clenched in her belly. She didn’t like this. She didn’t like it at all.

Wyldon of Cavall had not wanted a girl page. He thought females had no place in battle, Alanna the Lioness and lady knights of the past notwithstanding. He had wanted to send Kel home, then shocked everyone, including himself, when he’d allowed her to stay after a year’s probation. Once he’d decided she would remain, he’d taught her as thoroughly as he taught the boys. But he had also said, often, that girls didn’t belong in combat, even if they did have good combat skills. Doubt entered Kel’s heart. What if he planned to keep her safe with him?

She hadn’t become a knight to be safe.

Owen came for her at last. She followed him across the torchlit yard between mess hall and headquarters, her feet crunching the ice that rimmed the ruts in the ground. Surely if Wyldon planned to give Kel a safe assignment, Owen would know and warn her. Owen was a terrible liar, even when he lied by omission. Instead, he bubbled over with plans. Before he entered Wyldon’s office and announced her, he’d predicted that they’d send the Scanrans back to their longhouses in a trice. He left, closing the door behind him.

Inside Wyldon’s office, Kel studied her old training master. The crow’s-feet around Wyldon’s hard, dark eyes had deepened, as had the lines at the corners of his firm, well-carved mouth. The scar that ran from the corner of his right eye into his short cropped hair was puffy, which meant it probably ached in the night’s raw damp. If it hurt, then certainly the arm that had also been savaged by a killer winged horse called a hurrok would be in pain, too.

Silver gleamed in the hair at Wyldon’s temples. His bald pate shone in the light of a globe spelled by mages to cast steady light. Wyldon’s skin was chapped, like everyone else’s, by northern weather. His cream wool shirt was neat and plain, as was the brown quilted tunic he wore. Kel knew his breeches and boots would also be made for warmth and comfort, not elegance.

‘Have a seat, lady knight,’ he said. ‘Wine? Or cider?’

Kel sat in the chair before his desk. Despite her fear of what was coming, she was deeply pleased that this man she respected used her new title. ‘Cider, please, my lord.’ Recently she had found that wine or liquor gave her ferocious, nauseous headaches. She was happy to give up spirits; she hadn’t liked the loose, careless feelings they gave her.

Wyldon poured cups for both of them, then raised his in a toast. ‘To your shield.’

Kel smiled. ‘To my fine instructors,’ she replied. They both sipped. The cider, touched with spices, was very good.

Wyldon leaned back in his chair. ‘I won’t dance about,’ he said. ‘I’m giving you the hardest assignment of any knight in this district. I think you will hate it, and perhaps me.’

Kel’s skin tingled. So the news was bad. She set her cup on his desk and straightened. ‘My lord?’

‘General Vanget has asked me to build and staff a refugee camp in addition to the new fort. As soon as it’s ready, we’ll take about three hundred refugees, all ages, from Tirrsmont, Anak’s Eyrie, Riversedge, Goatstrack village, and outlying districts. About two hundred more will arrive once fighting begins. Maybe seven hundred in all by summer’s end.’ He reached for a map of the countryside before him and tapped it with a blunt forefinger. ‘The only ground I can get for it is an open piece of elk-dung valley between Fiefs Tirrsmont and Anak’s Eyrie, on the Greenwoods River. There’s the river for water, and flat ground for planting if no one expects to grow more than enough to survive. There’s fortified high ground now, and troops to defend it. My new fort, Mastiff, will be here, on the other side of these hills. We’ll patrol as much as we can, to keep Scanrans from getting very far, but there’s just too much empty ground and too much forest to plug all our gaps.’

Kel nodded. From her experience the year before, she knew how easy it was for the enemy to slip by Tortall’s defenders.

‘I tried to get land farther south,’ Wyldon continued. ‘The nobles there say they pity the refugees and send old clothes, tools, perhaps some grain, but they don’t want all those extra mouths on their lands, hunting their game.’

So her worst fears were true. He didn’t want her in combat. Instead, she was relegated to the protection of refugees. It wasn’t right. She had more real fighting experience than any first-year knight, even Neal. If she had to wait to pursue the mysterious Blayce and his guard dog, Stenmun, she wanted to spend that time fighting.

She swallowed hard to fight off the urge to cry, then cleared her throat. A knight didn’t complain. A knight did her duty even when the duty was unpleasant. Even when everyone would say Wyldon had so little confidence in her that he was tucking her away behind the front lines.

‘Who’s to command this place, sir?’ she asked, forcing her voice to remain even, her features smooth and calm.

Wyldon raised his brows. ‘You are.’

For a moment her ears felt very strange. That feeling promptly spread to the rest of her. ‘Forgive me, my lord, but – I could have sworn that you said I will be in command.’

‘I did.’ Wyldon’s eyes were direct. ‘It’s work, Mindelan. Half of the men I can spare to build and guard the camp are convicts. They agreed to fight if we took them from the quarries and mines. They must be watched and further trained. All have mage marks to expose them as convicts if they run, so you shouldn’t worry about desertions, unless they’re fool enough to go to Scanra. The other half of the men I could find’ – he shrugged – ‘I did my best.’

Kel looked at her hands as thoughts tumbled wildly in her head. She voiced the first thought that came to mind. ‘I expected to serve under an experienced warrior. In combat.’

‘You are more useful with the refugees. You will have advisors. Duke Baird will reside with you temporarily, to help in matters both medical and social,’ Wyldon said drily.

Panic rose in her chest. ‘Sir, I’m only eighteen; I don’t know anything about refugee camps! Everyone says it, first-year knights are so green, we’re better off ploughed and planted with something useful!’

‘You are not a typical first-year,’ Wyldon replied firmly. ‘The Knight Commander of the King’s Own trained you in matters like supply, the building and defence of a fort, and how to command. You helped him recruit new personnel for the Own, and he says your work in supply and logistics is superior.’

The words fell out before Kel could stop them: ‘He also trained me for battle.’ About to apologize, she closed her lips tightly. She had meant it.

Wyldon rubbed his bad arm, staring into the distance for a long moment before he said, ‘If this were last summer’s war, I wouldn’t expect much danger. Raids don’t get far without help. But this isn’t last summer’s war. The border will vanish. King Maggur wants to keep the ground he takes. There is no safe zone within a hundred miles of the border. You’ll see combat. I guarantee that.’

Kel met Wyldon’s eyes with hers. ‘Sir, you’ll have forts and patrols close to the Vassa – between me and the enemy. I still feel like you’re trying to keep me safe. That’s not why I became a knight.’

Wyldon sighed, levered himself out of his chair, and went to the door. ‘Come with me.’

Outside, Wyldon led the way to a large building near the rear wall. Its windows, covered with hides to keep out the weather, leaked bits of light. Wyldon found the door and entered, Kel on his heels.

The large building was filled with sound: conversation, babies’ and children’s crying, the clatter of wood. Rows of three-tiered bunk beds lined the walls. There were lofts overhead on either side, with railings to keep anyone from falling to the ground floor. Rope strung across the open space between them held drying laundry. Bags of winter fruits, garlic, bundles of dried herbs, and vegetables also hung from the rails. The air was filled with the scent of rarely washed human, burned food, cooking fat, and animal urine. Cats and dogs hid in the shadows, lay on the beds, or played with anyone who would bother. At the far end of the barracks a giant hearth provided warmth and cooking fire.

Silence fell as the door closed behind Kel and Wyldon. Those people closest to them went quiet, staring at the district commander and his tall companion. Face after face turned, half hidden by shadow, fitfully lit by lamps or hearth fire. Children and adults appeared between gaps in the loft railings to see why the room below had gone still.

‘If you’ve come to share supper, my lord, we’ve none to spare,’ announced a woman by the fire. ‘We ate it all and could have eaten more.’

She walked forward. There had been more of her once, from the way her stained red wool dress hung on her stocky body. Her eyes were brown and heavy-lidded, the eyes of someone who had seen hard times. Age had scored deep lines around her nose and mouth. Her nose was broad and fleshy at the tip, her lower lip fuller than the upper, giving her a look of dissatisfaction. A kerchief of black wool kept reddish brown hair from her face; a black wool shawl hung from her elbows.

She stopped before Wyldon and Kel. ‘Giving this pup a look at the unfortunate?’ she asked, her husky voice scornful. ‘Something for the lad to write home about?’

It seemed the woman thought she was a boy. Kel looked down at her bosom. She wore a quilted tunic, which hid her small breasts, and it had been so long since a knight had worn the double ring on her badge that most wouldn’t know it signified a lady knight.

‘Good evening, Mistress Fanche,’ Wyldon said courteously. ‘This is one of the knights who has come to defend the border, Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan. Lady Keladry, Fanche Weir.’

His voice was loud enough that everyone nearby heard. For a moment there was no sound. Then a whispered rattle of talk broke out, spreading to fill the room. Kel heard ‘lady knight’ repeated over and over.

Kel bowed to Fanche, glancing at the woman’s left ring finger. Fanche wore a ring of black braid: she was a widow.

‘Fanche’s husband Gothar was the Goatstrack miller,’ Wyldon explained.

‘“Was” bakes no bread,’ Fanche said. ‘I’m single enough now, and I’ve work to do.’ She returned to the hearth to stir whatever simmered in the biggest pot.

‘The Scanrans hit Goatstrack last October – burned the mill, killed the miller and their daughters,’ explained Wyldon softly. ‘Thirty-seven dead in the entire village. Fanche mustered those who remained and got them here, fighting Scanrans the whole distance. She saved fifty-eight lives.’

‘She’s a handful, that one,’ commented the man who now stood by Wyldon’s elbow. He was shorter than Kel, unshaven, with ears that stuck out and an impish glint in his blue eyes. He was going bald in an unfortunate way, losing strands of brown hair in clumps, giving his crown the look of a field gone to weeds. He was weathered, the sun having put deep crow’s-feet by his eyes and two long creases down either cheek. Like Fanche – like all the refugees – he wore clothes that would have fit someone with more meat on his bones. He stood casually, hands dug into his pockets. ‘Gods, I love a tough woman,’ he admitted.

‘You have your work cut out with her,’ Wyldon said with a chuckle.

‘Oh, well, I like work,’ the man replied.

Kel, startled, looked from him to Wyldon. Her training master always stood on dignity; Neal’s epithet, the Stump, was justified. Never had she heard Wyldon laugh or joke. Never had she seen him smile for amusement’s sake, as he did now.

He’s happy, she realized, stunned. Training us – that was his duty. But he didn’t like it. He’s comfortable here, in the dirt and the cold, with people to defend.

‘Keladry of Mindelan, Saefas Ploughman,’ Wyldon said. ‘He’s a trapper.’

The man bowed. ‘Not from Goatstrack, so I’ve had little time to wear her down,’ he said with a grin. ‘The way Squire Owen tells it, milady, you’re ten feet tall and eat ogres.’

Kel smiled. She could see that Owen would like this man. ‘I shrank in my last hot bath,’ she replied. ‘I’m very disheartened by it.’

People came over to be introduced. So did others as word spread that the realm’s second female knight was present. They spoke to Wyldon, asking for news as they eyed Kel. All bore the signs of hard times: clothes that were too loose, ragged, and stained; skin that had once covered more flesh. Their eyes were haunted by family and friends who were dead, crippled, enslaved, or missing.

At last Wyldon bade the refugees good-night and led Kel back to headquarters. Inside, he knelt to poke up the fire. ‘I hear you have a new servant.’

‘Yessir,’ Kel replied. She watched the play of firelight over Wyldon’s features. ‘You took me there because you wanted me to feel badly for them, enough that I would take the command. But all you have to do is order me.’

‘Sometimes it’s better to have understanding than obedience,’ Wyldon informed her. He got to his feet with a grimace. ‘I know this is not what you wanted. No matter what I say, you and others will think this is a dungheap assignment.’

He sat in a chair and motioned for Kel to sit opposite him. She did so gratefully. The long day’s ride and the time standing with the refugees had made her ache.

‘The truth is, you are the only one I can trust to do this job properly,’ Wyldon explained. ‘You care enough about commoners to do the task well. I did consider Queenscove, but he is much too fair. He shares his sarcasm and his inability to abide fools with all, regardless of rank. If they didn’t kill him within two weeks, I’d have to see if he was drugging their water.’ He winced as he flexed the hand on his bad arm. ‘Anyone else will order them about, create more resentment, and turn the place into a shambles – or pursue his own amusements and leave them to get into trouble.’

Kel rubbed her face. He was right. She’d heard her peers’ opinions of commoners, had been accused of caring too much about them. Not so long ago, she had learned that the maximum punishment given to a noble who’d arranged the kidnapping of another noble’s servant was a fine, to compensate for the loss of the servant’s work. That law was being changed, but there were others like it. A noble owed a duty to those who served him, but such duty was not glorious. Fairness and consideration were unnecessary; the affairs and pride of commoners were unimportant. The noble who worried too much about them was somehow weak. Kel knew her world. Her respect for common blood was a rarity. Her father’s grandparents were merchants. Every branch of their family save his was still merchants to the bone. Perhaps it was also because her parents, as diplomats, were so used to seeing other points of view, foreign or Tortallan, that they had passed their attitudes on to their children.

She also knew Wyldon was right about Neal.

‘Well?’ her former training master enquired. ‘Will you do this, Keladry of Mindelan?’

Blayce! she thought, suddenly panicked. The Nothing Man! If I’m pinned to a camp, how will I find him? How will I stop him?

She remembered those thin faces in the barracks, child and adult alike. She remembered Tirrsmont, crammed with people. Looking at Wyldon, she saw trust in his face, the face of a man she respected as much as she did her father and Lord Raoul.

Kel sighed. ‘I’ll do it, my lord.’

Her first task was to choose supplies. Wyldon cautioned her not to get greedy. The next morning he sent Owen with her to write down her choices. When they reached the storehouse, Kel stopped to look at her unusually quiet friend. Owen wouldn’t meet her eyes.

She put her hand under his chin, startled to feel the scrape of newly shaved whiskers, and made him look at her. ‘You didn’t know,’ she said.

Owen grimaced. Words tumbled from his mouth: ‘Kel, I swear I didn’t! He told me this morning. He – he apologized, for keeping something important from me,’ he said, ’specially when I have to learn about making camps like this, but he said you’d see it on my face, and he wanted to talk to you first. Kel, if I knew, I’d’ve argued him out of it. Well, I’d’ve tried to,’ he amended as Kel took her hand away from his chin. ‘He’s hard to argue with. But I would’ve tried! I’m so sorry!’

Kel grinned. ‘Of course he wouldn’t tell you,’ she informed him. ‘You’re the worst liar I know, even if you’re just not saying anything. You ought to feel virtuous, that he knows you can’t lie.’

‘I feel like a failure,’ Owen confessed. ‘A true friend would have found out and warned you.’

‘How?’ Kel asked reasonably, leading the way into the storehouse. ‘Search his papers? That’s hardly proper. And what could I have done if you’d told me? Run off? Stop fussing.’ She opened the shutters, admitting the morning light so they could see the rows of goods. Her sparrows flew in. Some perched on Owen; others zipped around the stacked supplies, as if taking their own inventory.

‘But, Kel, making you a, a nursemaid!’ protested Owen, stroking a male sparrow’s black collar with a gentle finger. ‘When you’re a better warrior than anybody but my lord! And Lord Raoul, and the Lioness,’ he added, belatedly remembering that there might be others Kel would think were better. ‘It’s just not right!’

‘My lord says I’ll see plenty of fighting,’ Kel told him.

Owen studied her for a long moment. Whatever he sought in her face, he seemed to find it. ‘Anything you want me to do, Kel, you let me know,’ he told her seriously. He gripped her arm for a moment, then let go. ‘Anything I can do to help.’

For a moment they looked at one another, Owen’s gaze firm, Kel’s thoughtful. He’s growing up, she thought, surprised. And he’s growing up well.

She patted his shoulder, then surveyed the storehouse. ‘For now I need a quartermaster,’ she said. They might never talk about what had just passed, but neither would they forget it. ‘Someone who can say what’s reasonable to draw for my people.’

‘Be right back,’ Owen promised, and trotted out the door.

Tobe and Jump came in as he left, Tobe directing a scowl at Owen’s back. ‘I can do anything he might do,’ Tobe informed Kel.

She clasped his shoulder, amused and yet flattered. ‘I need you for other things, Tobe,’ she informed him. ‘We’ve a lot of work ahead.’

CHAPTER 4
KEL TAKES COMMAND

With the men who had built the camp – soldiers, convict soldiers, and refugees – already in residence, Kel saw no reason to linger at Fort Giantkiller. She needed a thorough view of her new home and its surroundings before the bulk of her charges arrived. Once they did, she would be short on time.

Two days after her arrival at Giantkiller, she left at the head of a train that included Duke Baird, Lord Wyldon, Neal, Merric, and Owen, as well as the supplies she had taken with the quartermaster’s approval. She had been disconcerted to find that Neal, the camp’s healer, and Merric, their patrol captain, would technically be under her command. Neal didn’t seem to mind, but Neal never reacted like most people. On the other hand, she would have to be extra careful with Merric. She wasn’t sure that she would like being under the command of one of her year-mates.

Once the train was assembled, Giantkiller’s defenders opened the gates of the inner and outer walls. Lord Wyldon gave the signal, and they rode out in a rumble of hooves, the jingle of harnesses, and the creak of wagon wheels.

A pure, beautiful voice rose in the crisp air, singing an old northern song about the waking of the sun. Startled, Kel looked for the singer. It was Tobe, his face alight as he sang. A deeper voice joined his, then others: the song was a common one, though the words might vary from region to region. Above the baritone, bass, and tenor voices of the men and older boys soared Tobe’s perfect soprano. Even Kel, Wyldon, and Baird sang, their voices soft. Only Neal scowled at his saddle horn, still not awake.

Giantkiller’s refugees clustered around the gates to watch them go. Fanche had been quite vocal when she had learned who was to command their new home. The kindest phrase she’d used was ‘wet-behind-the-ears southerner’. If the gods were good, perhaps Fanche would change her mind. If they weren’t, Kel would have a long time to get the formidable woman on her side.

‘When people tell me a knight’s job is all glory, I laugh, and laugh, and laugh,’ Lord Raoul had once told Kel. ‘Sometimes I can stop laughing before they edge away and talk about soothing drinks.’

She knew what he meant.

Still, when Tobe started the next song, about the stag who met the Goddess as Maiden, Kel sang along.

April was a chancy month in the north. Normally few Tortallans would try to build or march here until May, but the news of King Maggur’s arrival on the throne had forced their hand. Kel had plenty of time to observe the once-familiar countryside while the men wrestled the wagons out of one muddy dip after another. It took her a little while to place the landmarks: she had been here last in the summer, when the woods and hills were alive with birds, animals, and insects. Now it was cold and grim. Patches of snow lay under the groves of pine trees, but here and there she could see a courageous green bud or sprout. Some of the hardier songbirds were returning from the south. Those birds who had stayed through the winter perched on tree limbs and in hollows, waiting for things to warm up.

Between Fort Giantkiller and Kel’s future home was a series of rocky hills, one or two of which might actually be called a mountain. The road was tucked deep between them, enough so that once they reached it, they were on solid frozen ground once again. They lost no more time pulling their wagons from the mud.

On the far side of the hills, they found the next valley also dotted with patches of melting snow and heavy stretches of pines and newly budding trees. They kept to the road until Wyldon pointed something out to Kel. She raised her spyglass, a gift from Lady Alanna, to her eye and looked. There, on a rise of perhaps twenty feet, stood a log palisade. That was it: her first command. Men and sledges moved along the road that climbed diagonally across the face of the rise, bringing in logs. Every ten feet along the top of the wall stood guards in regular army maroon, each wearing a conical helm, each carrying a bow. The travellers heard a distant horn call: they’d been spotted.

Wyldon’s trumpeter replied with the call that signalled they were friends.

Kel continued to eye her new home. Above the fort she saw the Tortallan flag, a silver blade and crown on a royal-blue field. Suddenly another flag climbed the mast from inside the fort until it flew just below the national banner. It was a square of dusty blue with a double border of cream and blue. The device at its centre was familiar: grey owl and cream glaives bordered in gold. It was Kel’s own insignia, the flag of the commander of the fort.

She lowered her spyglass and took her time as she collapsed it and set it just so into its pouch until her leaping emotions were under control. Who at the camp would have known she was coming and gone to the trouble to create a flag for her?

As the supply train drew closer, they saw the Greenwoods River at the base of the high ground. The ice was breaking up, the water cold and swift as it tore chunks away. The river was a little over twenty feet wide; Kel judged it to be normally fifteen feet deep at most. The spring meltwater would keep it high and swift for now.

They crossed the Greenwoods on a sturdy wooden bridge. It was the only one Kel saw in either direction. She looked at it before they crossed. Flat black discs called mage blasts were fixed on the piles and underside of the bracing planks. Even a non-mage could make the things explode by snapping the thin, flat piece of wood that was the key to the spell. The blasts would then drop the bridge, and anyone on it, into the river.

As a moat, this was fairly good. No enemy would be able to cross the Greenwoods within miles of the camp as long as the spring floods continued. Kel had spent the previous night studying the maps of her new command. In summer the river could be forded, but only ten miles upstream and thirty miles downstream. She devoutly hoped the army could stop the enemy by then.

Their company rode up the sloping road around to the north face of the camp: the river-moat protected the gateless eastern and southern sides of the enclosure. Rocky, inhospitable hills gave some protection to the west. North towards the forest was a squad of ten soldiers guarding a sledge piled with logs. The sounds of hammers and saws grew louder as the riders reached the top and the large gates swung open. Remembering her last encounter with a hammer, Kel winced and entered the camp.

The great expanse of open ground inside the walls was a mess of churned mud, crates, plank walkways, and equipment in between raw wooden platforms that looked to be floors for future barracks. Kel noted a well on her left and another on her right, both covered with wooden lids. Near the right-hand well stood a barracks with the army’s flag hung over the door and a large stable behind it. Beyond those stood two complete long, wooden two-storey buildings and a third that was nearly done. These would house the refugees.

On her left, beside the gate, was the guard shack. Beyond it, in front of the other well, stood a two-storey headquarters that would serve as office and residence for her, Neal, Merric, Tobe, and, for now, Duke Baird. She checked the half-finished building behind it on her camp map. It would be the infirmary, big enough to serve their sick or wounded. Behind that was a second low building, a woodshed for the infirmary and the mess hall and cookhouse near the centre of the camp. Against the rear wall, Kel noted storage sheds and what was unmistakably a latrine. According to her map, this one could seat ten at a time.

Ground space for future buildings was marked by pegs and ribbon or, in some places, complete wooden floors. The flagpole rose at the very centre of the camp, with four sets of double stocks at its base. Kel looked up at the flags and shook her head. Her flag looked very brave. She wished she felt the same way. She sensed the men’s eyes on her as they worked and couldn’t help but wonder what they made of her.

A man in army maroon who wore his grey hair cropped short trotted down one of the wooden staircases that led to the walkway that lined the upper wall. He strode briskly along planks laid on the mud to halt before Lord Wyldon. Kel noted the newcomer wore a yellow band on each arm, embroidered with crossed black swords, a regular army captain’s insignia.

He came to attention before Wyldon and saluted. ‘My lord.’

Wyldon returned the salute and began the introductions. ‘Captain Hobard Elbridge, I present his grace Duke Baird of Queenscove, chief of the royal healers.’ Elbridge bowed. Wyldon continued, ‘Here is Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan, who will relieve you here as commander, Sir Nealan of Queenscove, who will be camp healer, and Sir Merric of Hollyrose, in charge of camp security.’

The captain bowed to each of them. Looking around, he found a man who wore a sergeant’s black circle and dot on his armbands and beckoned him over. ‘Your grace, my lord Wyldon, sir knights, Sergeant Landwin here will take charge of your things and show you where you’re to sleep.’

Kel watched the men follow the sergeant, wishing she didn’t feel so bereft as they disappeared into headquarters. ‘Lady knight, what would you have us do here?’ Elbridge enquired. ‘Will you address the men? Tour what we have? Review the country? I have keys to give you, of course, and I must familiarize you with the state of affairs here. The camp is unnamed. We thought to leave that to you.’

Kel dismounted from Hoshi to hide her confusion. Wyldon had given her no advice about how to actually take command, and this man seemed determined to dump everything into her lap at once. ‘How long are you with us, Captain Elbridge?’

‘It’s my hope to ride on to the new fort in the morning, milady,’ he said, his face unreadable, ‘but of course I’ll stay as long as you have need of me.’

Kel looked around. The soldiers had come to take charge of the horses and supply wagons, leading the free mounts towards the stable and directing the drivers of the wagons to the storehouses. Only Tobe remained with Peachblossom and the packhorse assigned to Kel by the crown. The sparrows and Jump rode on the packhorse, watching Kel and the captain with almost human intensity.

‘Is there any time during the day when the men are all assembled?’ Kel asked. ‘Suppertime, perhaps?’

‘Aye, milady. Lunch most of them take where they work.’

Kel passed Hoshi’s reins to Tobe. ‘You may as well tend the horses, Tobe, and bring my things to my quarters.’

‘Very good, my lady,’ he said, bowing in the saddle before he accepted Hoshi’s rein.

Somebody gave him lessons in manners, Kel thought, amused, before she looked at Elbridge again. ‘Why don’t we tour the camp and you tell me how things are,’ she suggested. ‘Let the men work unhindered – there’s time enough to talk at supper.’

Elbridge fumbled at his belt until what looked like a small bundle of sticks came free in his hand. Bowing, he offered them to Kel. ‘Lady knight, I surrender this camp to you. Here are the keys to the mage blasts.’

She blinked for a moment, then accepted the keys. Each was strung on a leather thong, secured to a ring, and labelled with the location of its mage blast. Now she alone could set off the blasts that would explode and drop the bridge into the river.

‘And here are the keys to this place.’ Elbridge gave Kel an iron ring. More conventional keys dangled from it. ‘Allow me to show you where they are used.’

She had not expected the place to be so big, or that so much work would already be done. She said as much to her escort.

‘They did it inside, most of it,’ the captain explained as they walked through the soldiers’ barracks. ‘Cobbled the floors together in sections in a barn at a homestead nearby – the house was burned, but we could use the barn. They worked all winter, planing boards, whittling pegs, cutting shingles, making nails. These northmen are the fastest woodworkers I’ve laid eyes on. They say they’re used to it, just not so much at one time.’

Outside, he led her towards the flagpole. ‘That long key’s for the stocks,’ he said, pointing them out. They framed the pole, with room for two men on each. Two yards beyond them was a flogging post. ‘Here’s another symbol of your office,’ he explained, handing over a cowhide whip. Kel nearly dropped it in her distaste but hid her feelings behind her very best Yamani mask. She didn’t want to feel the leather in her hand, so she hung it from her dagger hilt.

‘These convict guards, they need a touch of the lash,’ the captain informed her. ‘It’s the only thing they understand.’

‘Will they fight?’ Kel asked as they walked on.

‘If they don’t want to end up collared and on the march back to Scanra they will,’ he replied. ‘They know it. I trained them and the builders on weapons this winter, same as my own men. The convicts’ weapons are locked up in headquarters unless there’s need. I don’t know about Sir Nealan as a healer, but tell him he can’t let them come whining to him whenever they’ve a scratch. These prisoners take any excuse to get off work, and they love it when the healer’s a soft touch.’

With every word Kel disliked the man more and more. Obviously he was good at his job. The proof was everywhere she looked. His manner itched her, though. He didn’t talk about others as if they were human, only animals to be driven.

‘There’s so much room,’ she commented as he pointed out the pens where livestock was kept and the ground that would serve the cookhouse as a small garden. ‘I didn’t understand from the map just how much space we have.’

‘It’ll fill up soon, with civilians bringing their clutter and animals,’ the captain replied. ‘But it’s true we’ve more to work with than we thought last autumn. That’s Master Salmalín’s doing. My lord was showing him this place, saying how it was the best location for a camp. Master Salmalín opens his mouth and says – something, I don’t know what.’ The captain shuddered. ‘It – it made my bones ache. The ground close to the hills, it dropped about fifty feet. And the ground here starts rising up like an inchworm crawls. Suddenly we’ve twice the high ground to build on as we had before. Mages.’ Elbridge shook his head. ‘Very well, you can see we’ve storage sheds enough, and the latrines beyond.’ He led her through the rest of the camp. Stopping at its rear, he asked, ‘Have you questions?’

‘Not really,’ Kel told him. ‘I would like to go over the walls, if you don’t mind.’

Elbridge looked at her, his face impossible to read. ‘These northern woodsmen know what they’re doing, lady knight.’

‘I’m sure they do,’ she replied politely. ‘I just want a full view.’

She circled the camp once inside the wall on the ground, testing the trees that formed it, finding them hard and sound. The gate was also very well built and would take plenty of battering, if it came to that. She went to the first set of stairs and climbed to the top, not looking at the open air outside the rail. At the end of her page term, she had conquered her fear of heights, at least as far as being able to climb without either freezing or vomiting. Still, she would never like them.

On the walkway, she inspected its boards. They were as sound as the wall itself and placed low enough that the top of the wall would give her soldiers protection from enemy archers.

Since the guards were there, the captain introduced them. Kel shook hands with each man, looking him in the eye. Whispers ran the circuit of the wall but Kel refused to try to hear what was being said. She had been through this before, too. These men would respect her, or not, over time. There was nothing she could do now to win them over. She didn’t even try, beyond a smile and a firm handshake. She was responsible for their lives, not their affections. Did it scare them to know a green girl was in charge here? Or did they feel safe this far from the border?

She did not feel safe, for all that this was a well-built refuge. She knew the heavy forests that ranged on either side of the Greenwoods River north of the camp. Last summer had taught her just how many of the enemy could sneak by in such forests. This strong camp might not be enough.

It all depended on the Scanrans, their numbers, their allies, and their strange magic that turned chain, iron-coated bone, and iron sheets into killing devices. Kel wouldn’t be able to guard hundreds of civilians with the forty soldiers Wyldon had promised her. The refugees had to be trained to fight, not just the men, but the women, even the older children. Her next shipment of supplies had to include weapons if the refugees had none of their own.

In a day or two she’d start riding the country until she knew it like her palm. She’d make sure the refugees and soldiers knew it, too. Standing over the gate, she stared blankly into the distance as she made plans. They’d have to know the roads and trails to Forts Mastiff, Steadfast, and Giantkiller, and their escape routes to the south. She was lucky to have local people inside her walls. They’d know the hidden and not-so-hidden trails, bogs, pitfalls, and canyons around here, as well as the best hunting and fishing areas.

She realized the captain was speaking. ‘What? I’m sorry, Captain Elbridge. I was thinking.’

A corner of his mouth twitched – in amusement or scorn? wondered Kel. ‘I was asking if the lady knight had chosen a name,’ Elbridge repeated.

‘A name for what?’ Kel asked, looking at him blankly.

‘This place. We call it “this miserable mudpit”, but my lady will be living here. It’s your privilege to name it as you like,’ explained the captain.

Kel turned, her hands jammed into her breeches pockets, and surveyed her command. Men crawled over beams, hammered, sawed, unloaded wagons, called out to each other, visited the latrines. Wyldon, Baird, Neal, and Merric were emerging from headquarters. She glanced at the road below: here came the sledge with its military guard and its load of cut trees.

‘I suppose “Mudpit” is a little depressing,’ she admitted. ‘I’ll have to think about it.’

The captain bowed. ‘Very good, milady.’

They descended the stairs near the guard shack as the gates swung open. The sledge made its slow way inside the walls.

‘I see you’ve conducted your first inspection,’ Wyldon said to Kel. ‘What do you think?’

‘Captain Elbridge has done far more than I could imagine,’ Kel said honestly. For a hard, cold fish, she thought. ‘I’ll be hard put to keep up his good work.’ As soon as I’ve thrown his whip into the compost heap, where it’ll be of use, she added silently.

‘We’ve plenty of work to do in the infirmary,’ Duke Baird said. ‘But I’ve seen the plans. It looks good.’

Elbridge shrugged. ‘It’s these northern woodsmen. If they could find a way to eat trees as well as work them, they’d be rich men. Still, I confess, I’ll be pleased to be working only with soldiers again. These civilians are too contrary for my taste.’

He, Baird, and Wyldon turned away to discuss matters relating to the new Fort Mastiff while Neal and Merric automatically looked at Kel. ‘I feel as ready for all this as a babe who picks up a sword,’ Merric said with a twisted smile. ‘Of course, Neal is ready—’

‘Mithros save us, they’ll allow just any freak of nature up here, won’t they?’ a familiar male voice proclaimed. Kel, Merric, and Neal turned to see the speaker. One of the sledge guards, a tall, broad-shouldered young man, dismounted from his horse. Bright blue eyes blazed and a broad grin flashed in a face splattered with mud. Under other mud Kel could see the familiar tunic, chain mail, and armband of a sergeant in the King’s Own. ‘Meathead!’ he called, handing his reins to a guard. ‘They sent you out with no keeper?’

Neal laughed and strode forward to hug the slightly taller man despite the mud. Kel almost ran to the newcomer as well, remembering just in time that a commander couldn’t throw herself at an old friend. She knew Domitan of Masbolle, Neal’s cousin and a sergeant of the King’s Own, very well indeed. They’d become friends during her four years with the King’s Own. She’d had a terrible, unreturned, crush on him – he was handsome, mud or no.

Neal pushed Dom away. ‘Insubordinate!’ he scoffed. ‘That’s Sir Meathead, to you. What have you been doing, chasing mudhoppers?’

‘It’s a skin treatment. I’ve got so chapped here in the north,’ retorted Dom. He turned to Kel and bowed. ‘Lady knight,’ he said, and straightened with a wide grin. ‘You did it. We knew you would.’

Kel reached out her hand; they clasped forearms, Dom squeezing hers tightly before he let go.

Another voice sounded out. ‘Squire Kel – I mean, lady knight!’ The other men who’d been guarding the sledge came over. Kel cheerfully shook hands with each of them, Dom’s squad in the King’s Own. One hot day the previous summer, at a place called Forgotten Well, she had commanded these men after an arrow shot had put Dom out of action. Both Wolset and Fulcher now wore mud-splashed armbands with the circle mark for a corporal. Dom had lost one corporal before he’d been wounded; the second was killed after Kel took command. She’d given Wolset a field promotion to corporal for keeping his head, and Dom had confirmed it. Two of the other six men before her she did not know. They simply bowed to her and stayed back, watching with interest.

‘What are you doing here, anyway?’ she asked Dom when the greetings were over.

‘Lord Wyldon asked for one of our squads to work here till the place is finished, since we’ve been in the area almost a year. It’s just coincidence that my boys got tapped,’ Dom told her. ‘Have you seen Giantkiller? Just when we got the place all fixed up, the regular army kicked us out. I bet they ruined all of our chair cushions.’

‘I noticed a sad lack of taste,’ Neal said in his usual drawl, ‘but I supposed it was left over from when the King’s Own lived there.’

Dom grinned, then looked at Kel. ‘Do you like your flag?’ he asked.

She smiled at him with all the gratitude in her heart. ‘I love it,’ she told him.

‘He don’t get all the credit,’ Corporal Wolset said. ‘It was me that thought of it.’

‘And you what nearly ruined the embroidering,’ retorted Corporal Fulcher.

Dom cleared his throat. ‘Here comes command. We’ll talk later, Lady Kel, Sir Meathead.’ He waved his squad back to the sledge. They helped the civilians unload the logs.

‘That was friendly,’ Merric remarked, folding his arms.

‘They’re from Third Company,’ Kel said. ‘We rode together for four years.’

‘Dom’s squad fought one of the metal killing devices under Kel’s command.’ Neal’s voice sounded clearly over the racket of nearby hammers and saws. His wry tone told Kel what he thought of her not mentioning such important specifics. ‘Dom got shot; they lost two men.’

‘And it took all of us to beat the cursed thing,’ Kel retorted, wishing Neal hadn’t spoken. It seemed like bragging, even if it was Neal’s comment, not hers.

‘You fought one of those things?’ Elbridge demanded, hard eyes fixed on Kel.

She was starting to feel cross. She didn’t want to boast. Wolset had trapped the thing’s head as the other men roped its limbs. Still, she didn’t appreciate the captain’s disbelief, either. ‘Together with Sergeant Domitan’s squad, captain,’ she replied, locking her hands behind her back as a reminder to keep her face and voice bland and polite. ‘None of us wants to repeat it.’

‘Mithros witness that,’ murmured Duke Baird.

Wyldon and the captain murmured the ritual reply ‘So mote it be,’ Neal and Merric just a syllable behind them. Kel said nothing. She didn’t think anything she said to Mithros on the subject of the killing devices would stop the war god from allowing more of them to swarm over the border that summer.

After lunch, Wyldon, Kel, Merric, the captain, Owen, and a squad rode out to view the land immediately around the fort, returning with Elbridge’s regular patrol as the sun vanished behind the western mountains.

That night the soldiers who rode with Lord Wyldon took supper in the barracks where they slept. Those who would remain to guard the camp – recovering wounded men, convicts, and such whole soldiers as Wyldon could spare – Dom’s squad, and the civilian loggers, carpenters, smiths, and men-of-all-work took their supper in the mess hall. The nobles, Captain Elbridge, and Dom shared a table at one end of the building.

Listening to the men talk, Kel wished that Dom and his squad were to stay all summer, and not just because he was easy on the eyes. Cleaned up and wearing a fresh blue tunic, Dom was fair-skinned, with Neal’s curved brows and that same long nose, wide at the tip. Dom had a relaxed, comfortable charm that made anyone feel confident. That charm could help to ease Kel’s dealings with the men she had to command. Dom would influence those who believed Kel to be no warrior. Like Raoul, Dom had always taken Kel’s fighting skills as a matter of course. He would make it clear to any doubters that she pulled her weight in a fight or a march. She knew that she couldn’t depend on Dom, though. Once the real fighting began, he would return to Fort Steadfast and Raoul.

Over supper, news from the palace and the border was traded. Kel let the others do the talking as she sneaked bits of meat to Jump. At last Lord Wyldon pushed his plate away. Duke Baird had finished some time ago, and Captain Elbridge was nearly done.

‘Keladry,’ Wyldon said quietly. ‘Time.’

‘Yessir,’ Kel said automatically. She extracted herself from her seat between Neal and Merric, then wiped her hands on a handkerchief. For a moment she nearly forgot and raised her hands to check her hair but stopped herself in time. It would not do for men whom she was to command to see her do something so feminine when her mind should be on business.

I can’t do this, she thought desperately as she took a last swig of cider and set down her cup. I’m eighteen! Someone should be commanding me, not the other way around! Wyldon’s trusting me with their lives, and me with the paint still wet on my shield …

Somehow her feet and legs carried her down the long rows of men and tables, past Tobe and Saefas to the open part of the hall. Before her now sat four squads of soldiers, forty men in uniform, and about sixty-five civilians who were all refugees. These were the first people she had to deal with in her new position, and they would carry their impression of her to those who would arrive soon.

Kel looked for something to stand on and found a wooden box. She wiggled it when she put it in position, just to make sure it could bear her weight. The men, who had watched her come their way, chuckled quietly.

Kel looked up and smiled. ‘There’s so much of me,’ she explained. ‘It would be undignified if I stepped on it and it broke.’

Another, louder chuckle rose from them. One of the knots in her chest came undone. Just like the men of Third Company, they liked a joke at an officer’s expense. Carefully she stepped onto the box: it held her. She waited as men set down their forks and knives.

As she waited, she looked them over, face by face. None of them, not even the healthiest soldier, was untouched by the hard times of recent years. She recognized the convict soldiers: they bore a silver circle on their foreheads. It would shine under hair, mud, or face paint; it could not be cut out with a knife. The only way to remove it was to use spells that were carefully guarded by palace magistrates. Even without the mark, Kel would have known the convicts. They were the thinnest of all, hollow-eyed and gaunt-cheeked. Right now they looked to be near exhaustion from a day of guard duty and unloading wagons.

She would have to feed them up if they were to manage any serious fighting. They were criminals, of course. They’d no doubt deserved their sentences to the mines and quarries. She’d known two men who had been sentenced to prison, and she’d hated them for their crime. Presumably the men here were guilty of the same or worse, but surely the officers knew starved men had no strength to fight.

One convict stood and walked between the tables, peering at Kel.

‘You, there,’ Captain Elbridge called. He fell silent; Kel guessed that Wyldon had told him to let her manage this. She kept her eyes on the approaching man. There was grey in his coarse-cut black hair, grey in the stubble on his chin, too. His nose was a long prow of bone, his eyes shadows in their sockets. From the darkness of his skin and from his features, he was kin to the tribes of the southern desert. He was too pale to be full-blooded Bazhir, and as he drew closer she saw his eyes were grey, not brown. His uniform was patched and worn; of course they wouldn’t give convicts the best, she realized. That irritated her. Are they supposed to come here to fight and die quickly, so we can make more room in the quarries and mines? she wondered, keeping her face mild and blank.

‘Can I help you, soldier?’ she asked when he stopped a yard from her.

He rubbed his chin with bony fingers. ‘I begs pardon for my forwardness, lady knight,’ he said, awkwardly gallant, ‘but was you anywheres near the River Hasteren in summer, seven years gone? Hill country?’

‘Yes,’ Kel replied, puzzled. ‘Lord Wyldon took the pages there for summer exercises in camping and field craft.’

‘You seen any fighting, them days?’ the man asked. ‘Nothin’ big, just a scramble, like. With hillmen?’

Now Kel was curious as well as puzzled. ‘We rode with the army when they cleaned out some hill bandit nests,’ she replied. ‘And some friends of mine and I got into a little trouble, which is how we learned bandits were in the area.’

‘I knew it!’ he cried, jubilant. ‘I thought ’twas you, but there’s more of you now. You should’ve seen the likes of her, boys,’ he said, turning towards the other convicts as he pointed at Kel. ‘We was all outlaws, livin’ on the edges, and this bunch of pages stumbled into our camp. We chased ’em back in a canyon, and her’ – he jabbed his finger at Kel – ‘she gutted ol’ Breakbone Dell, and him the meanest dog skinner you’d ever hope to meet. Stood there afoot, her and her spear, cool as meltwater with Breakbone ridin’ down on her with that neck-cutter sword of his. First time she got ’im in the leg, second in the tripes, and he was done. Her and six lads held us all back, just them. There she was, eyes like stone and that bloody spear in her hand. Lady.’ He bowed deep.

Kel looked at him, not sure what to say. Finally she asked, ‘What’s your name, soldier?’

‘Me? Gilab Lofts – Gil. Lady. It’s – it’s good to see you well.’ He bowed again and returned to his seat, whispering with the men on either side of him.

Kel waited for them to quiet once again before she said ruefully, ‘I’m not sure that being known for gutting a man is exactly a recommendation for a commander.’

‘It is in the north!’ cried someone. Several men laughed outright; others grinned. Kel felt the very air in the room lighten.

‘Well, perhaps it is,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve been away all winter, so I may have forgotten.’ This time they were quick to fall quiet, curious to hear what she would say. ‘So you won’t be calling me the girl that gutted Breakbone, my name is Keladry of Mindelan. Lady Knight Keladry of Mindelan. And it’s no good thinking I’m a southerner who’ll squeak at the sight of a mountain, either. My home fief is almost due west of here, by the sea. I’m a northerner by birth.’

She surveyed them, making sure they were with her now. She’d thought long and hard about what she could say. Back at Giantkiller she’d imagined herself delivering a blood-stirring speech full of fire and dreams that would have them all on their feet, cheering her, ready to take on the entire Scanran army. That had lasted all of two breaths; then she had giggled at her own folly. She didn’t have fiery speeches in her; they would make her extremely uncomfortable if she had. In the end, she’d decided to keep it short and simple.

‘You all know why we’re here,’ she told them. ‘You know the enemy. He will be on us soon. When he comes, we will fight not for some glorious cause, but to survive. The gods have given us time to prepare, and we must take advantage of every moment of it. Once the enemy comes, how safe we’ll be is determined by these walls and the people in them.

‘You’ve built our home well. It’s true what they say, that northern woodsmen build the very best.’ That made the civilians happy; they grinned and clapped one another on the back. Kel smiled. When it was quiet again, she continued. ‘We’ll finish building together. The more we do before our guests come, the more time we’ll have for weapons training with everyone, including civilians, who can hold a bow – or a spear.’ The convicts chuckled. She went on, ‘If you have problems, or questions – officers, note this – you will see me every day. You must tell me. I won’t know anything if you don’t speak up, and if it’s something that can be fixed, I’d as soon fix it right away. You look at me and see I’m young. I look at me and see I’m young.’ All of them laughed as their eyes remained fixed on her. ‘I have seen combat in my years as squire to the Knight Commander of the King’s Own. And I’m willing to learn more, if you will be my teachers.’

Kel took a deep breath. ‘That’s all I have to say. We’ll hammer the rest out as we build this haven for those who have lost their homes. Now I’ll let you go to your beds. Tomorrow comes soon.’ She looked down, then had an idea. ‘Who’s the best woodworker here? Signs, and suchlike?’

There was a murmur among the civilians. They pointed at one man, a burly fellow with straggly red hair.

‘First thing in the morning, will you make us a sign? It’s got to be large enough to be read across the river. It should carry the word “Haven”. Not Fort, just Haven. Because that’s what we are.’ The man nodded as a pleased murmur swept through the room. ‘I thank you for your attention,’ Kel said, and stepped off the box.

The men began to rise from their benches. Brief words of welcome and greeting followed Kel as, limp with the release of tension, she walked back to the seated nobles. Tobe patted her arm awkwardly when she passed; she rested a hand on his bony shoulder. When Kel met Wyldon’s eyes, he nodded, once, in approval. Neal clapped her on the back; Merric punched her shoulder lightly; Dom bowed his head.

‘Now all I have to do is live up to it,’ she pointed out to her friends, and collapsed onto the bench.

April 15–23, 460 the refugee camp on the Greenwoods River

CHAPTER 5
CLERKS

The next day Kel rose before dawn and used the quiet time before sunrise to take her glaive outside onto ground still hard from the night’s cold. There she practised, working her way through the complex pattern dances that were combinations of strikes, blocks, and feints strung together so the warrior could build strength and stamina with each step. When she finished, she cleaned the glaive and stowed it in her tiny bedchamber. After that she went to the mess hall, where the morning cooks had started breakfast. As they stirred porridge, fried ham, and set out bowls of honey, bread, and pitchers of milk, Kel thought about her day.

Baird, Wyldon, Merric, and Elbridge took their breakfast in headquarters with Owen to serve them. Neal staggered to the cookhouse after the dawn trumpet sounded. ‘Figured you’d be here,’ he said, yawning, as he slumped onto the bench across from her. Tobe, then Dom arrived shortly after he did.

Wyldon, Elbridge, and Owen rode north after breakfast, taking the extra soldiers and several wagons of supplies on to the new fort, Mastiff. Before they left, Wyldon and Kel settled on a schedule of meetings and messages so they would keep up to date with one another.

Once the district commander, his squire, and the captain had gone, Haven’s residents learned that their officers ate not in headquarters, as the captain had, but in the mess hall: Baird and Merric joined Kel and Neal on that second day. Once everyone was at least half awake, they discussed the day’s schedule, making plans so they didn’t interfere with each other’s duties.

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