"How?"

"Doesn't matter," said Maroto, the cigar turning tarry in his mouth. He would never, ever speak of what had happened the night of the ritual, but even down all these years, what he'd seen-what he'd done-haunted him worse than any devil. How had they ever let Hoartrap talk them into it? Or had it been Zosia who'd first proposed it, another dire gambit by the blue-haired general so ruthless that even her own troops had taken to calling her Cold Cobalt? With everything that had come after, the lead-up to the ritual had largely fallen from memory.

"So you bound the devils," said Purna. "Sure, I've read plenty about that sort of thing."

"Have you?" What if this girl was some amateur demonologist? Eyeing her hot pink collar and chartreuse vest with heart-shaped brass sequins, Maroto decided it didn't seem likely. Not impossible, but not likely.

"Yeah yeah yeah. But isn't the whole point of binding them so you can force them to do what you want? Lead you to long-forgotten buried treasure, or write down the formula for turning coal into diamonds... or grant your wishes?"

"They only grant a wish if you let them go," said Maroto quietly. "Otherwise, they tend to be pretty sore on the person who bound them. But since I guess it goes real bad for a devil whose master dies without freeing it first, they do try to keep you safe from harm however they can, even if they hate you. How they manage it, I couldn't tell you, but it definitely ain't natural-I've seen blades coming straight at my neck suddenly fly wide of the mark, and poisoned mugs of ale start to bubble over when I went to take a sip."

"And your devil, the one that you bound-what is it?" Purna sounded right respectful now. "A pox, like that Hoartrap you rode with? The songs don't match up on that count at all."

"Crumbsnatcher," said Maroto with a smile, almost able to feel his devil squirm across his shoulder and nuzzle at the overgrown hair where his fade had been, back when he'd given half a damn about maintaining a respectable haircut. The devil had loved using its paws to trace where Zosia had shaved a stylish M into the stubble on the side of Maroto's head. "A grey rat. Smaller than you'd think."

"Can I see him?"

"I let him go," said Maroto, remembering all too vividly the horror when he came back to his senses and realized he'd loosed the fiend. The creeping black cliffs of the canyon they rolled through could have been the walls of any number of stinghouses, Maroto too stoned to move from the cot even as the world slid away from him. "Ages ago."

"So you released your devil."

"What I said," said Maroto, flicking his cigar away even though there was plenty of life in it. Bad as the taste of his memories could be, it was the bitterness of all but forgotten fuckups that had seeped into the end, poisoning its flavor-instead of a girl's gloss or strong tubq, it smacked of stale hornet toxins oozing out of his swollen lips the morning after a bender.

"Now do you see why I'm skeptical about devils having any real supernatural powers?" said Purna.

"No," said Maroto grumpily. "You didn't even ask what I wished for."

"Unless it was to end up so broke and desperate you'd take a trashy gig leading people you despise through country you hate, I can't imagine your little devil granted it. You don't seem like the sort to squander a once-in-a-lifetime wish on something like the perfect sandwich, so there's the proof-if you'd gotten your heart's desire, you wouldn't be such a sad case, would you?"

"I... wait." After years of uncertainty, of fearful doubt, it finally came to Maroto, what he must have wished for back in that last stinghouse where he'd almost died repeatedly, where he'd lost weeks at a time and probably shaved years off his life. When he'd finally sobered up enough to realize his devil was gone, that he had wished it away, the possibilities had seemed endless, and mostly terrible, given the propensity for wishes to somehow turn out bad for their recipients. Realizing he'd freed a devil and couldn't even remember why had been the absolute rock bottom of a middle age riddled with potholes, and had freaked him out so badly he'd never touched insects again.

Now, though, half a year off of the bugs, it occurred to him that in a drug-blind haze he must have simply requested to be free of his dependence on the stuff. Old Black knew he'd wished to be clean enough times, when he was doing some depraved act in order to score another caterpillar or coming down from an icebee bender... and the last time he'd wished it, Crumbsnatcher must've heard his prayer. He should've guessed it wasn't just his iron-steady willpower that had enabled him to walk out of that last stinghouse and, after a few rough weeks of withdrawals, start his life anew.

For all the good it had done him. It hadn't returned any of the wealth he'd lost or traded, it didn't bring back dead lovers or dead dignity. He'd wished himself a new life, and, surprise surprise, it was just as shitty as the last one, only now he was far more conscious for it. Better still, it was liable to stretch on for year after miserable year, instead of abruptly terminating in a painless overdose. That was a devil's wish, all right-nothing crueler than giving people what they ask for. Why not score some firewings when he got the caravan to Katheli, see if good old Crumbsnatcher had given him the ability to handle the stuff without getting hooked all over again? That was something to look forward to...

"You all right, big chief?" asked Purna, and Maroto shook his head, realizing he'd been drifting. "Didn't mean to pry," she said.

"Yes you did, but it's no matter," said Maroto. The kid was probably getting off on talking to a legend, albeit one fallen on hard times, but the truth was it felt good to have an ear to bend about it all. "Crumbsnatcher granted my wish, Purna, though it's taken me a long time to realize it. Young as you are, you shouldn't doubt something just because you can't fully wrap your brain about it. Yet. Devils are real. Everything you've heard about them is true. And then some."

And if Cobalt's really alive, if we find her and the rest, you'll see for yourself, Maroto almost said but didn't. Telling Purna about his destination, his true motive for returning to the caravan, would surely get the girl's blood up, but he balked at repeating the rumor lest he make it false by speaking it aloud. A secret of the gods, or devils, entrusted to him, and him alone. Well, him and the pilgrim he'd heard it from, and the sister or whomever she'd heard it from, and on down the line, but still: you don't count pelts from untrapped cats.

Purna was giving him some sass, and he was about to put the question to her of just what the merry hob she thought the Gates were if not wells dropping straight down into hell, when something caught his notice up the road. This was why he insisted they take the lead vehicle and wouldn't have it any other way. They were almost out of the Wastes, the gunmetal strip of predawn sky overhead widening with the canyon, and by its faint light he saw that Captain Gilleland and his two outriders had come upon a large cart or wagon parked in the center of the road. The three guards were still on their steeds, talking down to a small cluster of silhouettes. Of all the miserable dick-kicks destiny could deliver...

Grabbing the reins and stopping their camels short, Maroto winced as one of the beasts vocally expressed its displeasure. The animals pulling the vehicles behind theirs gave similar protests as they, too, stopped, the caravan bottlenecked in the canyon. "Ambush. Kill that lantern and get everybody ready to fight. Bring the rear guard in, let them know. Fast."

"What are-"

"Now, girl. Miserable guana-fucking bandits couldn't hit us when we were going into the Wastes, no, we have to run into a crew on our way out. Wake those bums up, at this point the Giggle Collation outnumbers the guards we have left. We're already in their killzone, so anyone who wants to live is going to have to fight, and dirty. These vultures are a ways worse than a lizard or some lepers."

Purna didn't second-guess him, credit where due. They slid off the riding bench in opposite directions, Maroto pausing to root his chainmail vest out from behind the seat. Not his favorite kit by any means, but he could shrug it on fairly quickly, and once he had the armor fitted he drummed his fingers on the two handles jutting up from the recess. He decided on the ax, since he was quicker with it, and no mangy desert bandit deserved the taste of his mace anyway. Would that he still had one of his sun-knives to chuck around, but ages back he'd pawned the last couple he hadn't lost. He'd have to invest in some new ones, if he came out of this, but for now, well, it was never good to put off doing a job for want of better tools. A favorite of Zosia's mantras, trotted out whenever one of her Villains was whinging about the long odds she'd set before them.

When they finally caught up to the Cobalts, what would Zosia make of Maroto's new sidekick? For that matter, what would Purna make of Zosia, after all the songs she'd heard? Zosia was bound to be less of a disappointment than Maroto had proven!

His past and his present were barreling toward a collision, and when they connected the whole Star would tremble before the second coming of the Cobalt Company. He gave silent thanks to Crumbsnatcher for freeing him of his bug habit in time to hear about Zosia's return and pick up her scent; how tragic would it have been if she'd come back but he never knew it, too busy mourning her loss in some stinghouse?

Assuming it really was Zosia leading these mercenaries, of course, that the pilgrim's rumor was something more than gossip. But no, there'd be time aplenty for doubt in the days to come, and for now he must have faith. It had to be her. If anyone could cheat death this bad it would be his old general; not even a devil could bring back the dead, but leave it to Zosia to find a way back from hell.

If he wanted to see her again, though, if he wanted to introduce her to his new buddy Purna and see the rest of the old gang and, later, when they'd snuck off somewhere, hold her in his arms and breathe in her bad boozy breath and know for certain it was truly her, first he had to get past whatever death-hungry fools had blocked his path.

It felt all right, walking fast up the canyon with the ax casually slung over one shoulder. Felt like old times. In the blushing dawn he saw that Captain Gilleland and his men had dismounted, the morons, and it occurred to him that for all his fantasies of reuniting with Zosia, every single person he had led into this canyon might be dead inside of five minutes. Himself included.

And then, darker still: even if they weren't butchered, even if everyone walked out of the Wastes without a scratch beyond those he'd given them, there was Tapai Purna, the second daughter of an Ugrakari noble house he'd never heard of. Even if that girl lived out the night, when she died it would be because of him-long before he'd even met her, he'd derailed her life from its easy course, filled her with ambitions of the glory you found not at a card table but on a battleground. It wasn't just that she knew his songs that told him this, it was that she'd doubted their veracity and still sought him out-she didn't want to hear stories, she wanted to live them, and find for herself where the truth lay. That girl didn't want to play a part in some drawing-room drama, either, she wanted to star in the theater of war, and whenever death came cleaving for her, it would be all Maroto's fault.

Good for her, and good for him. A barbaric thought, something to make his ancestors proud as they sat around Old Black's Meadhall. Good for her, and good for him. Besides, whenever blame needed to fall somewhere, it always seemed to end up landing square at his feet.

Maroto walked right into the bandits' ambush, a caravan of fools behind him, and somewhere far ahead, Cold Cobalt. The Stricken Queen. Zosia. Zee.

CHAPTER.

17.

Sullen and Grandfather were sitting around their campfire sharing a bulging beedi of crumbly old saam rolled in a dried tubq leaf when the witch emerged from the darkness. Neither of the keen-eared Wolves detected his approach, the gargantuan geriatric materializing out of the smoke like the Deceiver in a tale of the new faith, or a prophetic ghost in a tale of the old. One of those born-again heathens Sullen had given the slip back in the Falcon People's forest would have doubtless leaped up and begun bellowing invocations to the Fallen Mother to cast out the interloper, but Sullen and Grandfather were not heathens, and so knew that nothing happened without reason. It was better to hear out a traveler, however dubious, before deciding on a course. That, and they were both blasted out of their minds, and until Grandfather spoke Sullen wasn't sure the big man was actually there.

"The night is cold, our fire is warm, and friends are made as easy as foes," said Grandfather, and, just as in a fable, their guest responded to the ancient greeting in the true tongue: "The night is cold, your fire is warm, and I would have friends before me than foes behind." The big man was white as a bone bleached by the sun, white as moonlight on polished ivory, white as treachery, but still Sullen felt strangely undisturbed by his grinning, withered visage. He'd killed a living man he had known all his life, so what harm could a foreign corpse do him, even one that walked and spoke? That was, until the ancient guest continued, "You pups are far from your pack, and these lands are haunted by that which even the Horned Wolf might fear."

Sullen wanted to shout this stranger down, to impress his grandfather, to impress himself, and most of all to impress upon this fucker that they feared neither witch nor devil... but nothing clever came to his tongue, and his grandfather had impressed upon him that when you have nothing to say, it is best to say nothing. Grandfather, though, always kept his cleverness close to his tongue.

"All I see by the light of my fire is a weary pilgrim, one with even more harvests than I under his back. One who would do well not to raise the ire of his hosts, lest they bash in his sly mouth so that they might again enjoy the more honest crackling of the fire." Grandfather looked pretty smug about this pronouncement, as well he should. It was solid, and Sullen felt a shiver in his marrow at discovering himself in the midst of a song in the making.

"Horned wolves," said the stranger, shrugging off a wicker-framed pack of such impressive size that the rucksack reached to his chest even when he set it on the grass at his feet. Considering how tall he was, that was some pack. "Do they still stalk the Savannahs, pray tell, or have they been hunted to ruin, all so that you might have a cloak less warm than that of the same-horned ram?"

"I wear no skins save that of the sheep," said Grandfather. It was true; Sullen remembered how he had been made to watch as Grandfather burned the hides of all the horned wolves he had killed on the day the council voted to accept the Fallen Mother and reject the Old Watchers. "You can sit down and act the role of guest at a fire you took no hand in kindling, or you can keep talking that weakness and see what happens."

The beedi had burned down to Sullen's thick fingers, scalding him, and he quickly popped the end of it in his mouth, puffing it back to hotness, the skunkiness of the bud mixing with the acrid yet earthy tubq wrapper. Passing the smoke to his grandfather, he saw that his hand was shaking. The old giant had not sat, but he wasn't talking any more shit, either, instead watching them with that unwholesome smile on his shriveled apple of a face. Grandfather still didn't seem particularly concerned, though, so Sullen tried not to be, either. If great deeds needed doing, they'd announce themselves.

"Is it both of you, or just the boy?" said the old man. "Maroto's blood?"

Sullen's head swayed from the weight of trying to hold up this nonsense for a proper inspection. What in the name of the first fires was a Maroto? He glanced to Grandfather, who reclined against a rock with his legs folded beneath him in such a way as to give the illusion that he was just sitting down, could stand on his own anytime he wanted. Grandfather coughed on the hit he'd just taken, ground out the beedi in the dirt, and sat up straighter, his eyes narrowed.

"You've got a nose on you, to smell us out," he said.

"My nose is keen, yes, but not as sharp as that boy's eyes," said the stranger. "As I approached I saw them flashing in the firelight, and they gave me quite the fright-why, I thought a snow lion had wandered all the way down to the Empire! Now that I see you both up close I know I have nothing to fear, do I?"

"Sullen, if you have to kill this creature be sure to cut off the head," Grandfather growled. "Burn the lot of it. When the snakes and spiders try to flee the blaze, push them back in."

That dumped some water on a fellow's hearth, to be sure, and as soon as the words sunk in, Sullen found his feet already planted beneath him, his body in a tight crouch, ready to leap across the campfire at the stranger. In one of the Deeds of Boldstrut, an assassin sent by the Shaman King of Hellmouth had bewitched her around just such a campfire, and Sullen had no intention of allowing such a fate to befall him and Grandfather.

"Peace, peace, oh Horned Wolves," said the colossal man, raising a tattooed palm. "Maroto and I are friends, old friends, and I do not seek to quarrel with his family. There is a mistake, nothing more-I sought my ally, but found you instead. These things are known to happen. I assure you my nose is as plain as yours, if not plainer, and while I have been called worse things than 'creature,' I am simply a man, the same as either of you."

"You a witch, then?" demanded Grandfather. "Or do you expect us to trust that out of all the fires burning across the Star this night you just happened on ours and saw the familial resemblance?"

"There was a time in my memory, and surely yours, when those who walked both worlds were not always so cursed," said the stranger, sounding a touch nostalgic. "Now the Horned Wolves lie down with the Crimson lambs, turning their backs on the world their ancestors built for one promised after death. Such have things changed that I recently heard a traveler refer to burning a wildborn as a 'barbarian exorcism.' To think I should live to see such decline... Maroto always nodded to me, and I'd hoped his blood might, too. More's the pity."

Sullen would have lunged at the man, Grandfather having already warned this witch about talking more noise, but an epiphany breezed through his skull-smog at that very moment: this "Maroto" must be what Uncle Craven took to calling himself after he left the village. Grandfather had told Sullen there were so many Cravens in the Empire that their relation might earn himself a new name to stand out from the crowd, and they would just have to ask around for a rangy, russet-skinned wanderer with the tattoo of the Horned Wolf on his biceps. There had to be fewer of those in the Empire than there were Cravens. Still, again, what in all the songs sung by bard and beast was a Maroto, and how had Uncle Craven come into such a weird name?

Grandfather spoke again, reminding Sullen that he'd meant to attack the witch before it bestowed curses upon them. From what Grandfather was saying, though, it was all right that he had lost the moment in a saam trance. "Blunt my teeth, but it's true the respect your kind ought to command is in short supply these days. Like you say, things change, but when has change ever been good? It's just another word for rot and ruin... But there was never a time when I'd welcome some pasty Outlander to my fire without having him offer a name for himself, and never a time I'd balk at burning a shaman if he sought me harm."

"Hoartrap the Touch," said the stranger, with a bow that brought his embossed leather robes closer to the firelight so that Sullen could see that they glittered with embedded jewels and charms, an alien constellation of symbols and sigils. "And whose fire do I share this night, may I ask? Kin of Maroto's, yes, but father or uncle, son or cousin? What shall I call you?"

"You can call us both 'sir,' " said Grandfather. "I look green enough to give my name to one of your kind, whether we call you shaman or witch, mudwife or warlock?"

Hoartrap's smile began to appear strained, and Sullen's neck nodded of its own accord at Grandfather's wisdom. If anything happened to the old man, Sullen didn't imagine he'd last one day in this fallen Star, where nothing was as it should be. From the first step he'd taken outside of their ancestral lands, everything had gone to chaos; clanfolk trying to kill him, and now a witch trying to undo them with words... if that was even what was happening. He really wasn't sure what in the hells was going on here, other than his mouth was parched and he was squatting in front of a too-hot fire, not sure if he was blundering into an epic saga or an overlong joke.

"If you're not even willing to share your names with me, however are we going to get along on the road we must share?" That didn't sound like it boded well. "I told you I sought Maroto, and that he was a friend, and both of these are truths. You two likewise track him, and so it would seem best that we seek him out together... yet now I wonder if such a course is wise."

"Well, you might," said Grandfather warily. "Don't know if the boy and I really need to be sharing a trail with any shaman what calls himself 'the Touch.' I'll tell you straight, that's far too peculiar a handle for my liking-not one for getting touched myself, as a rule."

"So you do seek him," said Hoartrap, nodding. "You must have been between myself and Maroto, and what with your blood, our shared target, and your closer proximity, it must have thought this a suitable substitute. It's young and stupid. I'll just have to ask another."

Again, Sullen wondered if he had dozed on his feet, or if the beedi had been stronger than he'd thought-the words this witch spoke made less sense than the lowing of cattle. Before he could glance at Grandfather for clarification, though, a piece of the night tore itself loose from just behind his ear, drifting past him and over the fire to land on the witch's outstretched hand.

It was a large, hook-winged owlbat, its ebon fur and dark feathers shimmering like freshly shed blood in starlight, and Sullen fell flat on his arse, rocked to his bones by wonder so pure and profound it seemed to sober him up and make him reeling drunk all at the same time. Never before had he seen a true devil, not this close anyway, and though it mostly looked like a mundane creature, Sullen knew he was right, for beside him he heard Grandfather give an oath at the sight of the being. Sullen was not the sort of boy who divided the world into poles of beauty and ugliness, ideal and flawed, but in that instant he realized he had never before encountered something so sublimely perfect.

More than that: the songs and sagas weren't just made-up stories, the way Grandfather sometimes implied. There was more to life than dirt and blood, love and grief. Devils were real, so what else might be possible? Anything and everything, was the obvious answer.

And more than that, still: if Sullen was looking at a true devil, which seemed certain, that meant he had achieved something no Horned Wolf had in a generation. Here, without even seeking it out, he had passed that final test of the council. He gazed upon a devil made flesh, saw the creature in the shadow and knew it was more than just an animal, and that meant something. Watching the devil crawl over the old witch's knuckles, Sullen felt a knot in his throat, wishing his mother could be here to see that her son was more than just a misfit, that he deserved to be a member of the clan. Sullen wasn't a kid anymore... and yet just beholding the devil filled him with childlike wonder and delight. His first devil...

Then, before he could even sort out his feelings on the matter, Hoartrap the Touch clutched the devil in a wide fist and shoved its head into his mouth, biting down with a sickening crunch. The devil convulsed in his hand, trapped wings straining against their bonds, dark blood jetting out to hiss on the fire and spit up rainbow-colored smoke, and the witch's jaw dropped wide like a pit viper's to accommodate the rest of its meal in one go. Even Grandfather was dumbstruck by the appalling sight, and so there was no sound in the night save the brittle chewing of a living creature, and then a series of thick gulps. When next Hoartrap smiled at them, his teeth were as black as his dripping chin.

"They always have their uses, even when they don't do as you tell them," said the witch, smacking his lips.

"The first devil I've seen in twenty thaws, and you..." Grandfather's voice had the dangerously low tone Sullen had only heard a few times, and he worried the old man might crawl on his belly across the coals to get at this monster.

"If you find your kinsman, you'll see plenty more," said Hoartrap with a leer. "Do not fret, though, even if you don't live long enough to meet the man your Maroto has become, I can still show you what you seek. They grow dimmer to the likes of you, old wolf, but I'm sure your cat-eyed whelp can attest they are as plentiful as ever, lurking around us, feeding off your every movement, fattening on your faintest sensation. If all you wish is an audience, I would be happy to light the candles for you to see beyond the shroud of-"

"Kill him!" Grandfather barked, his voice cracking, and the desperation there chilled Sullen more than anything else he had beheld that night. "Kill him now!"

Sullen tried, but he was too slow. Perhaps it was the saam they had chiefed, perhaps it was some inner weakness, or perhaps it was just the will of the Old Watchers, but by the time Sullen had scrambled to his feet and gone for Hoartrap, it was too late. Like Boldstrut before him, he had tarried too long in the company of a witch, and his song was sung before he could contribute a verse.

The witch wiped the devil's ichors from his face and intoned an incomprehensible, earache-inducing phrase as he snapped his bloodied fingers, and the tip of every blade of prairie grass for fifty meters burst into flame. A wildfire would not have frozen Sullen in his tracks, even one incited by such witchery-fires are made to be tramped out. No, it was what the Horned Wolf saw illuminated in the sudden brilliance that pinned him in place so suddenly he toppled over, all the strength he had drawn to propel himself at Hoartrap banished mid-lunge. There he lay for the rest of the night, only chance sparing him from landing in the fire, too scared to even close his eyes.

They wheeled above and around and even through him, some with forms close to that of animals, others strange beyond the imagination of saga singers, and in the depths of his paralyzing dread Sullen vaguely recognized that the devils that had always haunted his dreams and played at the edge of his vision were but hatchlings to the great and terrible entities that exist beyond this world, ever waiting, ever watching. Ever feeding.

Everything Grandfather had told him about such things was wrong, he saw that now, or if not wrong, then incomplete. Naive.

Grandfather and Hoartrap were far gone, even the grassy earth pressed against his cheek faded, and the longer he watched the more he saw, the devils dipping down through the sky and up out of the ground to bury their beaks, jaws, and proboscises in his sacrificial flesh. Yet he felt nothing at all from their bites, nothing but devastating horror that this was how his song ended, the Saga of Sullen nothing more than a cautionary tale against straying from the pack lest you spend eternity gnawed by monsters...

Until the first rays of dawn snuffed out the burning tips of the grass, and then they were gone, leaving him cramped and sore and half mad. At first he didn't believe it, couldn't believe it-the devils had fled, and he was still alive. Or close enough; his ragged body dripped translucent gore from a hundred numb wounds that opened and closed as he watched, winking at him... so he stopped looking at them. They weren't real, or at least not real in a way that would slow him down.

"New plan," Grandfather croaked when they had both recovered enough to look up and blink at one another, crumbs of blood crusted in the corners of their eyes. "We'll still find your uncle, but first we hunt down that witch and give him one of them barbarian exorcisms."

Yet when the late spring sun slouched high enough for them to follow the witch's barefooted tracks, the traces only went a short distance out into the singed prairie before terminating in a wide circle of stinking grey tar. The grass and earth were covered in the foul residue, and just looking at the stuff made Sullen's neck sweat and eyes pulse.

Grandfather swore to impress the ancestors, and not just the usual bunch of heroes and hunters but even the especially pernicious ones. Sullen, to his shame, was relieved that the trail could not be followed. It was hardly a valiant sentiment worthy of the songs, but he wished he were back home in the Savannahs, where he knew at a glance who meant him harm, and where the devils kept their distance.

CHAPTER.

18.

The ax felt lighter on Maroto's shoulder than it had in a long time as the cluster of well-armed individuals at the stopped wagon turned to face him. A pale, scrub-bearded youth led the five new arrivals, all of whom wore sand-colored cloaks on their backs and blades on their belts. From the nervous glance this scrub shot Captain Gilleland, Maroto kenned the score in nothing flat. Rather than getting nervous at the betrayal, it put him at ease-with Gilleland having set this up, they'd be cocky, maybe even cocky enough to have all their number down here where he could reach them, instead of camped in the rocks above with bows and harquebuses. At a minimum, it meant he could finally stave in Captain Gilleland's skull before these bandits sent him screaming into whatever hell the devils had reserved just for him.

"Ho, barbarian!" said Captain Gilleland. Unlike the bandits, who were green enough to think they weren't rumbled yet, the mercenary and his two toughs drew their swords. Gilleland jovially gestured with his cavalry saber. "Just the man I was hoping to see. I must say, that chain can't be comfortable in this heat!"

It wasn't, the armor a fair bit snugger than Maroto had remembered, especially in the belly, but he said, "Don't worry on my account, I won't be wearing it long. Got some sort of problem here?"

"Nothing you can't handle, I'm sure. These pilgrims think they may have broken an axle; might you be good enough to crawl under and have a look?"

"Oh, sure," said Maroto, counting the steps between him and Gilleland, minding the loose flap of the wagon's cover where an archer or three surely watched him. Every step he took reduced his chances of being shot before he could do some good. "Always happy to help a pilgrim get where he's going. Let me see if I've got the measure of this-those guards you said got carried off by cannibals the first night, you just necked 'em and rolled 'em into a ravine?"

Gilleland's smile widened, and when Beard Bandit put a hand on the hilt of his sword the other four punks did the same. That was fine. Maroto was an easy two bounds away from Gilleland, and had come in at such an angle that the captain and his two goons were now between Maroto and the wagon, spoiling the shot of anyone inside. Not the shot of anyone hiding in the cliffs around him, granted, but you can't expect everything in life to be easy.

"Tell you what, barbarian," said Gilleland. "You stop right there and we talk through this."

Maroto obliged. He was close enough. "And in the Shrine of the Hungry Sands, you maybe put the idea to those lepers that Diggelby and his knights were interested in having a religious experience?"