Helen controlled herself creditably. "What's going on with Sol?"

Suzanne bent her head. Yet another job for Alouzon Dragonmaster. "I'll. . . have to talk to you in person. How about tonight?"

"Yeah, fine." Helen might have been punching the words out of sheet steel, but she gave Suzanne her address and directions.

"Look, it's going to be all right," Suzanne said, trying to sound soothing. "Just take it easy. Sol can't hurt you anymore, and-"

"You better believe he can't hurt me, sister."

"Sure, OK. I'll see you tonight." Suzanne hung up. "Come on, Silbakor. Let's move." There was no answer. The Dragon was gone.

Marrget, Karthin, and the First Wartroop rode to Bandon the next morning, starting out even before the weak sun of winter had risen. The darkness and cold made it a long, miserable ride, but the company was well bundled in cloaks, and the urgency of their mission made them put aside thoughts of warmth or comfort.

Their speed was such that they arrived well before dusk, cresting a small rise to the south of the town just as the afternoon light was beginning to fade. Marrget lifted a hand to signal a halt, for she was unwilling to let her warriors ride directly into such devastation.

Senon's words had been apt. Bandon was no more.

The town had been leveled, its walls broken into cobble-sized stones, its houses ruined, its once prosperous streets filled with wreckage. The blackness of soot and flame was everywhere, and Marrget wondered whether, had she examined the town inch by inch, she would have been able to find a single fragment of unburned wood.

The roads showed the same destruction, and long scorch marks streamed across fields that before had been patched only with snow. Outbuildings and steadings that had been scattered far and wide lay broken as though trodden on by a giant's foot. In the sluggish river, ruined docks and boats bobbed amid chunks of ice.

"O, you nameless Gods," she whispered.

Karthin was beside her. "Sorcery?"

Marrget's face was blank for a moment. Such outright and widespread destruction reminded her of nothing so much as the devastation unleashed by Tireas, the Corrinian sorcerer, when he had killed most of the army of Gryylth and had, simultaneously, transformed the best warriors of the land into- "I do not know," she said abruptly. "But we have little light left, and therefore we must move quickly. Relys, take the left column toward the mountains and search for survivors. Karthin and I will take the right and do likewise in the wood to the east. That done, we will if necessary examine the town itself.''

The wartroop fanned out. The winter dusk was coming on quickly, and the clouds that were building above the Camrann Mountains promised snow. Marrget kept her cloak wrapped tight and her sword loose in its sheath as she rode into the trees. Some fifteen yards off to her left, Wykla's horse snorted in the cold and was answered by a whinny from Timbrin's mount. Much closer was the sound of Karthin's breathing: the big man had, for his own reasons, elected to stay at her side.

His own reasons. She wondered if she, too, had reasons of her own for not ordering him to keep the same distance as the others. Since the night before, she had felt a need for his presence, a deep-seated hunger that she did not pretend to understand. He had ridden throughout the day by her side, and she had felt comforted by his nearness. And he, she knew without asking, had felt the same way.

Their search proved fruitless. Even the foxes and white-furred hares had fled the forest. And when Marrget rejoined Relys, she found that the lieutenant's search had been equally unsuccessful.

"The town, then," said Marrget.

"In the darkness, captain?" said Relys. "Is that wise?" She alone of the wartroop wore her hair as close-cropped as a man's and disdained garments cut for a woman. Her tunic hung in folds on her slender frame, and her eyes had grown harder.

"We have little choice, Relys. A storm is coming."

Relys grunted agreement and posted sentinels. The rest of the wartroop left their horses outside the town and made their way in on foot, swords in hand.

Bandon was a hell of still-smoking rubble, powdered and burned stone, and blackened timbers that had been strewn across the streets like handfuls of straw. A pungent odor as of tallow was thick in the back of Marrget's throat as she and Karthin, their hoods thrown back because of the lingering heat, picked a slow path down the main avenue that led to the town square.

Surrounded by this burned and shattered parody of Bandon, Marrget found herself thinking of the other times that she had trodden this street, when, manly and with a heavy step, she had swaggered through the town, the captain of the First Wartroop, a hero of Gryylth. Here she had been honored by the council-men, and here also she had bought the slave girl who had thereafter kept her house-and sometimes her bed-until . . .

. . . until everything had changed.

Marrget stood for a moment amid the rubble, biting her lip, her eyes aching with suppressed tears. As a man, she had whored and boasted with the best, but now she had neither the body nor the heart for such empty actions. Too well she had come to understand her slave's humiliations, and when she had returned- a woman-to Kingsbury, she had freed the girl, sending her off with generous gifts and a grant of land from the king.

And there was another, too, who had been singled out by a combination of fate, perversity, and braggart lust. Years before, at the shore of the Long River, a slight, blond, Corrinian girl had struggled and screamed as her rapist had stripped her and pinned her to the ground, and Marrget could still feel the now incongruous sensation of penetration and violent release.

Senon's words would have been as apt for Marrget of Crownhark as they were for Bandon. The smoke made her cough, and she found that a tear was making its way down her cheek. She did not even know the girl's name. She wished that she could- "Marrget?"

She wiped at the tear so that he would not notice. "It is the smoke, Karthin."

In the darkness, the fitful gleam of smoldering fires played with his expression. "Nay, friend. I would say that it is more.?'

"Am I so foolish, Karthin, that you can read me like a parchment?"

"You have ever worn your feelings openly, Marrget. For which I am grateful." His deep voice rumbled soothingly, took away what little sting might have been in his words. "I pray I am as open to you."

Relys's voice started up in the distance, hallooing loudly. "Captain, are you well?"

Marrget swallowed her emotion, loosened the knot in her throat. "Well enough, Relys," she called in return. "Have you anything to report?"

Relys, Wykla, and Timbrin forced their way through the wreckage, accompanied by the crunching and crackling of pulverized stone and charred wood. "Nothing, captain, save bones and burnt bodies. And the treasury." Relys smiled without mirth: Bandon had been her home, but she had always hated the town. "Cvinthil revoked the town's charter, but the merchants seem to have been doing well enough: there are sacks and piles of gold." She laughed, again without emotion. "There are a few hapless councilmen, too, who were less brave and more practical than Senon."

"None living?"

"None, friend or foe."

Marrget looked around. "Surely there are some survivors." Tilting her head back, she shouted loudly: "Ho! People of Bandon! Marrget of Crownhark calls!''

A stirring came from the remains of the town hall that lay a dozen yards ahead. Marrget bettered her grip on her sword and braced herself for an attack, but the stirring was suddenly replaced with a girl's tear-choked cry. "Marrget of Crownhark?"

"Who calls?"

"Gelyya, daughter of Holt."

"Speak to us. We will find you."

With Gelyya's voice guiding them, they scrambled forward and worked their way into the hall, Karthin lending his weight and strength as the women shoved timbers and stones out of the way. The wreckage made the ruins treacherous: walls collapsed around them more than once, and broken beams and posts threatened to fall.

Gelyya and three other girls were at the bottom of a deep cellar as black as a well. Perching on the edge and peering down, Marrget congratulated them silently for their luck: the cellar was deep and protected with thick stone walls, and the heat trapped by the stone had kept them alive.

"Shall I summon the wartroop?" asked Wykla.

"Nay. They may find others, and we five will suffice for this." Marrget looked further and discovered that the stairs had fallen in. "Karthin? Rope?"

The big man nodded and pulled a coil from his pack. Marrget took off her cloak and put it aside, then turned to Karthin. For a moment, she recalled how she had turned to him the night before, at the Feast. Then, they had danced together. Now, with a thin smile, she took the end of the rope, knotted it into a sling, and slipped it over her shoulders.

In a minute, Karthin and the women were lowering her into a darkness that was ripe with the unknown stench that seemed to pervade the entire town. Below, Marrget could make out pale faces.

She reached the floor, and the girls crowded about her. They seemed oddly quiet for being in sight of rescue, but the captain knew that they were probably still in shock. Quietly and professionally, with a calm assurance that she knew would do more than overt emotion, she asked names, ascertained injuries, and, one by one, sent them up to the surface via the rope.

Not until she and Gelyya were alone did the girl offer anything more than answers to Marrget's questions. "How . . . how did you find out about us?"

"Senon brought word to Kingsbury," said Marrget.

Gelyya nodded. "The townsfolk thought him a coward because he used to hide behind Kanol's skirts." She shuddered, sobbed weakly. ' 'But he turned out to be braver than us all." Gelyya was the oldest of those in the cellar, and she had obviously taken on responsibility for the others. Now Marrget felt the girl's strength crumbling: she had sustained the others at her own expense.

And have I not done the same with the wartroop? She put an arm about the girl. "You are very brave yourself," she said softly. "As brave as any warrior of Gryylth. Was it you who brought the others here?"

"It was." Gelyya's voice was hoarse with suppressed tears. "We were together when we met Alouzon Dragonmaster, and we thought ourselves a company.'' She clutched at Marrget's hand. Her fingers were icy. "Did you ... did you find my mother? My father? The fire trapped them in our house, and they told me to run.''

Karthin called down. "The rope is coming."

"We ..." Marrget could see little of the girl's expression, but she could well imagine it. Someone was going to pay for this outrage. "We have found no one else."

Gelyya sagged, whimpering. The rope dangled down invisibly, and Marrget felt it brush across her arms. "Be ready," she called up to the surface. "We two will be coming together.''

"I am glad to hear it," Karthin replied. "These stones seem unwilling to hold themselves up much longer. Fear not: there is strength in our arms for two."

For a minute, she worked in darkness, reknotting the rope about its double load. Among such as Gelyya had she once walked, disdainful and arrogant. Now she was a woman too, holding the girl and willing strength into her like a mother. Silently she bent her head and kissed Gelyya's forehead, then shouted for her comrades to pull. If, somehow, her actions tonight could make up in part for what she had done on the shore of the Long River, she would consider herself well rewarded.

By the. time Gelyya reached the surface, she was near hysteria, and Marrget sat her down and held her. Tears, she knew, were streaking down her own sooty face, but it was some ,time before she realized that wider, stronger arms were wrapped about both herself and the girl of Bandon.

With a start, she looked up and found Karthin beside her, his embrace as gentle as a woman's, as fiercely protective as that of any warrior of Gryylth or Corrin.

* CHAPTER 3 *

Marrget and the rescue party spent two weeks combing through the wreckage of the town, working in a bitter cold that numbed their hands and made them long for a breath of something other than icy air. Slowly they unearthed other survivors, children who had found refuge in cellars and pits and cul-de-sacs that had been protected from the flames by collapsing buildings.

As the days went on, though, and the snow continued to fall, fewer and fewer were found alive, and Marrget finally called a halt to what had become fruitless and despairing work. In the spring, perhaps, what whole bodies there were could be buried. For now, the First Wartroop had boys and girls, injured and sound both, who deserved something more than the spartan accommodations of a winter camp.

The weather was breaking when the wartroop returned to Kingsbury, and its charges were made wards of the king and fostered out to relatives and friends and childless couples who would take the orphans. Some of the older girls, Gelyya among them, found work with the midwives of the town; but as she was the eldest of those who had survived the destruction, the red-haired girl was eventually called before the king and questioned.

Cvinthil's brown eyes were sad as he regarded her, for he had children of his own. "I regret paining you, Gelyya,'' he said softly. ' 'Your wounds are still fresh.''

"Fresh enough, my king." She sat before him, holding herself bravely. "But I will do my best."

"Senon told us as much as he could before he died, but he left the town early on, and therefore he did not see all. Pray, tell us what you can."

With Marrget at her side for reassurance, Gelyya recounted the story of the end of Bandon. At first there had been only sounds in the night, shrill roars and shrieks that had crossed from horizon to horizon in a matter of a few heartbeats. But the sounds had abruptly come closer, accompanied by bright, smoking torches that had drifted slowly through the air, shedding a wan parody of daylight on the doomed town.

The fire fell just before midnight, covering the southern wall in a sheet of billowing flame. More followed, ringing the town with an inferno. Moments later, buildings were exploding in showers of stone and splinters, and townsfolk who attempted to run for the blazing gates were cut down in mid-stride by something that left their bodies a mess of torn flesh and bloody rags.

Marrget's anger had already been kindled in the cellar of the town hall, but listening to Gelyya's shy voice recounting the horror that had befallen Bandon, she found that it was still growing. The attack had been swift, ruthless, and completely effective, and when Gelyya's tale was done, Marrget reported as much.

"It was an outrage," she finished. "Never have I seen a town so completely destroyed; yet we found nothing to indicate the presence of any army or band of warriors. In all my years of battle I have never seen the like."

One of the King's Guard, a new man who had entered the royal service only a month before, was staring at her. Marrget eyed him. Yes, it was strange to hear a woman speak of battle, but he, like many others, would have to get used to it. Irritated by his gaze, she folded her arms and examined him as though picking a place for a sword thrust. The man looked away quickly.

"I once saw something similar," said Santhe. "In the last days of the war with Corrin.''

Karthin shifted uneasily at the words. He had been listening from his customary place near the edge of the king's dais, his eyes on the floor and the thumbs of his large hands hooked in his belt. Marrget knew that he was well aware that numerous people in the land were already blaming Corrin for the atrocity. She bristled. "Did you wish to make a formal accusation, councilor? I am sure ..." She glared at the new guard, but he was keeping his gaze firmly fixed on the back of the room. "... that you are not alone in your suspicions."

Santhe started at her tone. "There are hasty folk in the land, I know, my friend. But I have no accusation to make. Forgive me if my words were ill-chosen."

As Gelyya's tale had unfolded, Cvinthil's eyes had turned from sad to murderous. He might have been envisioning his own children in the fire storm that had razed the town. "Sorcery. It must be sorcery."

"But whose?" said Marrget. "Mernyl and Tireas are both dead, and there is not another sorcerer in either Gryylth or Corrin."

Karthin himself spoke. "There is a sorcerer in Corrin."

Silence in Hall Kingsbury.

Cvinthil kept his tone carefully noncommittal. "I did not know that, friend Karthin."

Marrget suddenly felt bleak, and she looked away. There was doubt in the hall, and, more upsetting, in her heart too. Another sorcerer? Karthin had never said anything about this before.

' 'Truly, I cannot say that he is much of a sorcerer,'' said the big man. "His name is Helwych. He was apprentice to Tireas, but his studies, so I have heard, were neglected when his master turned his efforts toward the magic of the ..."

He hesitated, flushed, and he looked at Marrget as though he wished that he had kept his mouth shut. But she forced her doubts aside and nodded at him. Kar- thin was a friend. He had danced with her, had held her in his arms, had done much to fill a private and unspoken ache in her heart that, until the New Year Feast, she had thought bottomless.

He smiled at her-fondly, she thought-and went on. ". . . before he was overmastered by the Tree. He commands some few small spells."

"Small spells?" Cvinthil blinked.

"How small, Karthin?" said Santhe.

The Corrinian ruminated. His thumbs worked in his belt. "I suppose that, with effort, he could make a spade look like a pitchfork.''

His farmer origins were showing again, and even Gelyya smiled. There was guile in the world, but there was none in Karthin. The girl, though, spoke up. "King Cvinthil," she said softly. "If it please you, I saw the lights depart. They did not turn toward the east."

All attention was suddenly on the red-haired girl. Cvinthil spoke slowly. "Where did they go, child?"

Her answer was firm. "My king, they went west. They crossed the mountains."

Marrget nearly shook with relief. Not Corrin, then. Definitely not Corrin. But on the other side of the mountains was the coast, and then the sea, and then there was another land.

"Our neighbors in Vaylle," she said, "do not love us."

Cvinthil's hand was on his sword. "Nor do we love them, captain. If this be their greeting to us, we shall answer similarly. I heartily wish that Alouzon Dragon-master were with us now, but since she is not, we must settle matters ourselves." He thought for a moment, then lifted his head. "Who will take a message to my brother in Corrin? I would ask him for the loan of a sorcerer, and for what men and arms he can spare."

The dawn was gray and cold, and Wykla shivered a little as she saddled her horse in the shadow of Hall Kingsbury. The town was silent, and she worked quickly, wishing to be away before any folk were up and about.

Dogs barked. A cock crew. She tried to keep her mind on her hands as she fastened harness and tack and walked the horse out into the street, but she felt keenly the eyes of the men who stood at the gate in the palisade. Marrget was shielded from all but the most abject of fools by her status and her quick temper; but Wykla was neither captain nor councilor, and though her membership in the First Wartroop gave her some prestige, it did nothing to deflect the stares, the laughter, and the snide comments.

She had little trouble with the veterans of the battle at the Circle, for a camaraderie had grown up among those who had braved Corrin's assault of magic and men, a fellowship that persisted still. Within it, Wykla-or any other woman of the First Wartroop- commanded respect and admiration.

But there were others, men and boys who had come to Kingsbury from the distant corners of the land, who had been untouched by war or the experiences of the Circle and the Tree. To them, the decrees that set the women of the land on equal footing with their brothers seemed outlandish things, indications that the settlement with Corrin had actually been a capitulation.

And if the decrees seemed strange to them, then the sight of a maid who had once been a man was stranger still. Wykla could never determine whether they were amused or afraid, but regardless of their motives, their actions were unpleasant and painful.

The half-expected call drifted from the palisade as she prepared to mount. "Good morning, little girl. Where is your mother today?"

"No, Kerlsen, she is too old for her mother."