TENTH IRON CYCLE, SIXTH DAY.

The mindspeaker dribbled and whined, face twitching, soft, baby features strange coupled with a man's body. Then it settled into a dough-impassive mask, and the lips moved.

"Communication," they said. The accent was slurred, but had a crisp south-coast tone. That was the key word, implanted in the damaged brains of the relay speakers. This one's twin was in Brahvniki, hearing the words spoken by the keeper there.

"From: Benaiat Ivahn of Saekrberk."

"To: Habiku Smoothtongue of F'talezon."

The idiot savant talent of the mindspeaker gave an eerie mimicry of the voice that was dictating the message to his brother, two thousand kilometers to the south.

"Greetings. Let this message constitute formal notice that theBenai Saekrberk, on instruction of the proprietor, Megan Whitlock, has resumed Agency for the Sleeping Dragon trading company in the Free City of Brahvniki and its environs."

"Further note that we are instructed to ignore all further communications from Company headquarters in F'talezon until the proprietor has resumed residence therein."

"End of message. Costs reversed. Communication ends."

The small stone cubicle echoed with the last words of the mindspeaker. The room was cold, having none of the normal tapestries or hangings to muffle the sharp corners and stone.

The only heat in the room came from a grate in the wall by the floor, where a carefully shielded brazier stood. His keeper hurried to touch and reassure the mindspeaker who was reaching out, clutching at air like a baby in search of contact, a whimper already rising. She threw a look over her shoulder at Habiku, who gripped the arms of the folding chair until they creaked, close to breaking. He was pale and sweating, hair matted around his face as he stared at the two, keeper and mindspeaker, ignoring the disinterested guard by the door. He was rumpled, disheveled, unshaven and unwashed. His lips moved, slightly, his voice a strangled whisper.

"That's im..." He swallowed. "Impossible. Impossible!" His voice rose. "No! I refuse..."

"Teik." The keeper cut him off, her voice low and soothing for the telepath she tended, but her glare was icy. "Teik. Last time Jahn here had one of his fits he almost killed someone. He did set fire to the DragonLord's audience hall because we were forced to go there, and the tapestries and cloths torn down and shredded were invaluable. If you don't want me to let him have you, keep your voice down?"

Habiku would have paled further if that were possible. He had no power, no inner eye, not even to the slight degree that an ordinary Zak did; the manrauq frightened him. It was sorcery, terror from the world beyond. Liar, liar, witch, his mind screamed, only his will keeping tongue and throat from echoing it; easy to see, to feel the reason for the pogroms against the Zakelsewhere. He wanted to smash, to pound his fists like mallets into the keeper's smug face that stared at him as if he were a blind man, a deaf beggar...

Instead he closed his mouth and rose, bowed jerkily to the keeper, ignoring the smirk on the guard's face. He avoided looking at the vacant, empty stare of the idiot savant; a baby had more knowingness in its look. An obscenity, he thought, and shivered.

Outside, he leaned against a wall a moment, breathing heavily. She was alive. Vhsant had sworn he had killed her.

Sweet DragonLord's favor! He felt at his middle, at the roll of fat gathered there over the last two years. She had stretched him, always too clever, always too quick, always a half-step ahead until that last time... Why didn't I kill her myself, after I used her? Habiku felt the question slide over his consciousness; the answer was there, but his mind refused to look at it.

Run, something prompted him. Take the cash and the banker's drafts, hire a few guides and run. North, up the white-water stretches of the river where only canoes could go, up past the salt mines. Into the trackless forests, where the fur traders went to deal with the woodsrunning tribes, then west.

West to the Schvait cities, then south into the Empire; he could buy his way in where she would be barred by Arkan law and custom, a woman and dark- No, he would meet her here, in the center of his power. Oh, not here; she could die, die in the far south. Slowly. Slowly, he told himself. He was not her second officer now; he was a man of wealth, of power. He had agents, hirelings; eyes were for sale in the river cities, and knives. And here in F'talezon he had the favor of the Court, Avritha, as well as the power of wealth. She'll die, or be mine again. Mine forever.

Once outside the Nest he did break into a run, confounding his escort. Where did I send her arms-master? The salt mines?

Already his breath was wheezing out between clenched teeth, the smooth pavement of the Upper City suddenly feeling rough and uneven-like when I was a child-as he ran; the sling-litter following behind their master, running.THE TRAINING CIRCLE SLAF HIKARME.

TENTH IRON CYCLE, ELEVENTH DAY.

Thud. The blunt tip of the wooden practice sword caught Habiku under the ribs. Breath hissed out between clenched teeth as he backed and parried, oak clacking on oak; the arms-master followed, striking with smooth precision. Habiku forced muscles and lungs to function with a fierce effort of his will, tasting blood where he had bitten his cheek, detesting every moment of the discomfort. But there was no value to a combat skill you could not practice through pain and weariness.

A voice interrupted his focus. Uen; supposedly his representative at the DragonLord's court. Actually the DragonLord's watch on him, of course. The Zak spoke: "A ship was purchased in Brahvniki, in Whitlock's name. An arrow-ship; she left the city at dawning, yesterday; light cargo only, but a foil crew. She is coming home, Smoothtongue."

Habiku strode to the rack beside the courtyard entrance and replaced the sword, seized a towel and began drying the sweat-slick skin of his torso, moving with controlled violence.

The arms-master sank back on her haunches, shoulder to the smooth cool stone of the wall, sword across her knees. Uen reflected that only real need could have driven the merchant to use a female instructor. Habiku notoriously disliked women, although oddly he rarely slept with men. But Anahe was the best he could afford; or rather more. I wonder where the gold is coming from, Uen thought. We aren't paying him that much.

The tall merchant halted before the news bringer, looking down from his double handspan of height. Uen was very much the Zak noble, small, slight, sharp-featured, black of hair and eye. The other's stature did not trouble him; he drew conscious superiority about him as closely as the dark F'talezonian cloak.

Absently, he noted that Habiku had shed considerable weight these past two weeks; the skin hung loose over the revealed muscle, not having had time enough to tighten. His sweat had a sour smell; no wine or dreamweed, the Zak guessed, and hissystem was purging itself.

The fairer man bent. "I don't need to hear that," he hissed suddenly.

Unconsciously, the Zak took a firmer grip on the dagger in his sleeve. A terrified man was a dangerous man, and for all his naZak mother this one had been physically formidable once.

Freed of self-indulgence, he could be again. But he'd never dare lay a hand on a Zak noble.

"Of course, ClawPrince," the smaller man said, hating to flatter this commonborn, a ClawPrince's half-breed, with the title. He did not know why the Dragon wished to continue using Habiku, but it was best to pry only so far into the young rulers plots. If you went too far... He recalled the last one who had known too much, who had lasted days in the lion pit. His face had been licked off by the defanged lions and wet, bubbling noises had been the only sound he could make.

I will not make that mistake, he thought. I will be useful, and inconspicuous, and I will wait. Ranion's power is rotting out from under him, and when he and those who rose to the heights just under him are gone, I will still be here.

Habiku watched the Zak's impassive face, wanting to throw the towel into it. This one bent with every breeze like a reed in the river marshes, and thought his pliability was strength. The Sheep-herders will be glad of your services when F'talezon falls, he thought. If I decide to tell them to let you live. He tossed the towel over the rack, stretching until joints cracked.

"Uen," he said, signing for Anahe to leave. "We could speak in more comfort within." His breathing was smoothing and the cold air of near winter touched him not at all.

"Of course, Zingas. It must take much gold to maintain such genteel surroundings in the Upper City." The smile on Habiku's face froze even more.

"Uen, my friend, your eye was ever sharp. Tell me, how does the gentle lady Avritha?"The Zak noble almost stopped in shock. The Viper is giving him gold? Habiku was her current favorite? A powerful ally, if she was smitten enough to give rather than take. Dark One guard me from such favor, he thought. May you have joy of her, naZak. His eyes dropped, hooded.

"The Woyvodaana is as beautiful as ever." And whoring as always, he thought. He pushed the thought back, into the guarded keep in the back of his mind. She was the only one Ranion listened to any more, and even she could persuade him less and less.

Lixa met them at the door holding a tray with steaming cups and a tunic folded carefully over one arm.

"Still have the pretty one, Habiku? You always did have good taste in slaves." Human chattel were growing less rare in F'talezon than they had been.

"Thank you, Uen." He shrugged into the tunic and took up the remaining cup. "Attend," he said to her.

"It grieves me that I outbid your steward for her," he said to the Zak noble. A wide, rueful smile, one man to another. "But there are some things in which there's no friendship, not so, my Lord?"

"True as the Lady's mercy," The Zak noble laughed, seating himself on the long couch in the alabaster-roofed atrium. I know an adept who could heat your bones from within. That could last for many days. "Perhaps a loan of her services, in my household? To teach a new one of mine, of course." Uen watched the girl stiffen for an instant, sensed her fear. She knew he could see with the inner eye, of course; that made certain... diversions possible that the naZak could never know.

"I fear I will need her skills here," Habiku said. The warm tone that had earned him his use-name slipped for an instant as he watched the Zak draw a finger down her cheek. "She is mine."

The Zak looked up sharply, aware of the strange note of hate and lust in the blond man's voice. You hate her and she you:why so jealous, sir naZak? He turned his gaze back to the slave girl, searched his mind's eye for a picture of Megan Whitlock. Ah ....

Habiku smoothed his hands over his face. "It is possible, I understand, that the... former owner of the Slaf Hikarme will attempt to return to F'talezon." A laugh. "Unfortunate, that she...

well, perhaps it was understandable that she should feign her own death; as you may know-" he made a palms-up gesture "-when the stewardship fell into my hands, grave debts were discovered. Grave debts, yes, and despite all my efforts-" the company is still solvent and I cannot liquidate it in bankruptcy and buy the assets for a pittance when the debt-notes held by my proxies are brought before the court, he continued silently as his palms opened in a gesture of helplessness. Not without too many questions. Not yet.

"For example," he said, "I find we owe more than 50,000 Dragonclaws for, umm, ship repairs in Rand. Old debts, from Whitlock's day; she would not pay attention to the accounts, and she was always too extravagant with repairs and wages, I warned her but..." He shrugged. "What can one expect, from one of hand-labour blood? Still, how unfortunate if she were to reach Rand itself, and find the creditors demanding the debt. With interest. They might even do her violence; the Rand are...

intolerant of outsiders who neglect their debts." He put on an expression of grim concern. "I myself would be willing to spend as much to see that all went smoothly there. You understand me?"

Uen pursed his lips. "That is sad news. I grieve for your anxiety, however unworthy your former benefactor. Rand. Ah.

My lord Ranion must send his respects to Rand. They do much bridge repair there and someone not home for several years would unfortunately not know the unsafe ones... The rival king's heir met with an unfortunate accident on one of those spans, did he not?"

Habiku mulled over the noble's counteroffer. An accident might be more plausible to arrange, for her, one disappearance with a lame cover story and hints of suicide was about allcredibility would stand. And the Dragon Lord would sanction this. So unfortunate that the Rand King's heir died. For them.

And the Zak wanted Lixa. He clenched his fist on the table he sat by and remembered the flicker of reaction when Uen touched her. The Zak was known for his tastes and a few days of that might make her more enjoyable, for him.

"Yes, poor man. Unfortunate." Unfortunate that he announced an anti-Thane policy before his accession; the Sheep-herders only needed to whisper in certain ears close to the King's second child.

"It is difficult," Habiku continued, "to deal diplomatically with the Rand; the mores are so different, their bureaucracy so unforgiving of a lapse in protocol. Lixa has studied their methods quite intensively. With my compliments, lord Uen, take her for a few days and see if her... ah, scriptorial skills are of assistance."

"My friend, you are too generous. I cannot accept such a gift; please, allow payment, if only for my honor's sake."

"Oh no. Your good friendship is more than enough. Would you care for a glass of wine rather than chai, Uen? I have a seven-years pressing just in. But I fear that wine is much too self-indulgent for me, in recent days."

"One glass would do you no harm, and me either. Thank you."

"Lixa." Habiku called her to bring the wine, flicking the lock of hair out of his eyes. Uen leaned back comfortably, watching the naZak's eyes follow his slave. He must burn, to have to lend her. Almost as if she were the one he truly desires, and loves and hates. How amusing; I must leave a few unmistakable marks for him to find. Habiku turned back to the Zak courtier, a smile stretched across his face, and Uen felt the slightest stab of alarm; a fainter version of the fear a summons into the DragonLord's presence brought. Then again, perhaps not. It was a strain to sit and chat and drink with the naZak. He cut it as short as possible without seeming to rush.

"Farewell, my Lord," he said at last, rising and bowing. For aninstant Uen felt weary, with a mortal, moral tiredness seeping out from his bones; a desire to escape. Nonsense, F'talezon is the world, he thought. "Leave the message to Rand to me; you must have many matters to occupy your time."

"As many matters of that type as I can arrange, all the way upriver from Bravhniki," he said. They bowed and parted, in perfect understanding and utter hatred.

You are mine, or dead, Megan, Habiku thought as Uen left.

You are. A soft whisper: "You just haven't gotten the news, yet."

Chapter Three.

THREE WEEKS NORTH OF BRAHVNIK.

BREZHAN, WEST BANK.

OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF THE VILLAGE OF.

NARYSHKIV NINTH IRON CYCLE, TWELFTH DAY.

Dammit, Shyll, Rilla Shadows'Shade thought, keep that overgrown monster of yours down!

There was a muffled thump some distance away in the thicket of scrub cedar, a drum-sound like some large animal being struck on the ribs, and a subdued whine. Then a faint rustling, and the blond teRyadn nomad slithered in beside her, bringing the smell of horse, dog, sweat and leather along with a crushed cedar smell like the linen-chests of home so long ago, when the summer clothes were laid away with fragrant branches and packed away...

"Inu's hungry," Shyll whispered, and reached for Rilla's telescope: Arkan, and hideously expensive as all imports from the Empire. She surrendered it grudgingly, went back to a wide-angle sweep of the scene before them. There were other sounds in the thick brush: a clink of weapons, a muffled curse in Zak or Aeniri or Dark-Lord-knew-what as harness caught on twigs or insects bit and burrowed. Her crew were river sailors, not woods-runners, nineteen off the Zingas Vryka, the Lady Grey Wolf.

The west bank of the Brezhan was higher than the flood-plainand steppe to the east, scattered with rolling loess plains and gully-scarred hills like the one they were on. The town squatted to the southeast, on the bluff where the Oestschpaz flowed east to meet the Brezhan.

Lucky I don't have to attack it, Rilla thought. Megan was the one known as Siegebreaker. Hmmm, four large sails at the docks, she could see the masts over the bank. Doubtless barges and poleboats from up the Oestschpaz; it was shallow draught at the best of times and the summer had been a dry one. The trademart outside the walls was breaking up, wagons and muletrains fanning out along the dry dirt roads leading west, or down to the docks. Dust smoked into the gold-hued autumn air, borne away northward in a hazy plume by the prevailing wind.

Mares-tail clouds in the sky. Rain tonight.

"Our informant was right," Shyll whispered beside her, handing back the telescope. "Habiku's man is taking them overland. Gotten a fear of sending them further upriver with the Vryka hunting about."

She felt herself flush. I'll ruin his slave trade for him, take back what is lawfully mine. Rilla Shadows'Shade, father's sister's child to Megan Whitlock; a close tie by Zak law. Heir to the House of the Sleeping Dragon, if there were any justice in the DragonLord's courts. If Megan were dead. The half-breed naZak son-of-two-brothers says so, and that's enough to make it a lie. Now he controlled the House, and put it to what use?

Slave trading with Thanes.

She forced the rage-trembling out of her hands and put the tube to her eye, pushed and pulled to focus. A long coffle was threading its way from the mart, out between the reed booths and the merchants striking their tents. Careful, careful, she thought. Lives depended on her decisions, and she was a merchant skipper by trade, not a land bandit.

"His manager isn't going to keep them overnight in town,"

she said softly. "Probably no facilities, and the governor wouldn't want to have so many within the walls, damage bond or no, and they'll have the strongbox with them." Closer now; files bound neck and neck with forked wooden poles, their hands behindtheir backs, children running beside their mothers. A few guards on horseback; a dozen or more trudging on foot, and five muledrawn wagons bringing up the rear. That would be the supplies.

"So they'll camp inland," Shyll said, chuckling. "All nice and safe from the Zingas Vryka." The Vryka was actually anchored fifty chiliois upstream, well hidden in a branch-channel of the east-bank swamps with a skeleton crew. "Or so they think."

"Most of those slaves are Moryavska," Rilla whispered. "If we have a chance..." Shyll grinned at her. "I know just the crew who'd love a chance to let them go," he said.

"Once into the woods Habiku's men will never catch them."

She nodded, decisively. "Right. Pass the word to keep well back until they camp... And you keep a tight hand on that overgrown puppy of yours."

INLAND.

BEFORE MOONRISE.

The slavers' campfire was a thick bed of coals under the half-cooked pig; the ruddy light picked out faces, hands, the blackened outer surface of the beast. The fat dripped, bringing spurts of yellow-bright light against the dull glow of the hardwood embers. Scent flowed downwind to the hidden raiders, a mixture of the savor of roasting pork and the filth and fear of two hundred slaves. The guards talked among themselves, laughing and passing a goatskin flask around the fire; one used a stick to scrabble a clay-covered potato out of the fire and broke it open, juggling the hot food from hand to hand, blowing and cursing.

One of the sentries turned his back on the dark, a short wiry man in horsehide, barbaric trimmings of wolves' teeth woven into his black braids.

"Na, Dietr," he called, in harshly accented Thanish, waving a short horn-backed bow. "Stick to the wine, it's safer. And when're you going to bring out the women?"The man with the scalded palms stood, and took a swig. "Shut up, Imre," he called back. "Keep your eyes on the woods; we'll have the girls after the meat is done, you rutting Moghiur bastards have no sense of occasion." He laughed and waved the goatskin again. "But red wine with both meat courses!"

The sentry shrugged and turned to the woods again, as a roar of laughter ran about the fire.

Still an hour to moonrise, Rilla thought. Shamballah's light isn't enough to cut the dark. We outnumber them only by three, and the dog.

She could hear the crewfolk nearest her, but that was because she was listening; soon she would have to order them into combat, and win or lose there would be hurt and dead. They knew it, had accepted it when they had signed on for this private privateer voyage that everyone else would call piracy. Many had their own private feuds with Smoothtongue; the man bred enemies the way Shyll's damned hound bred fleas... That would not make the deaths any less real, or lessen her responsibility.

There. The slaves were in a crudely made lean-to of sapling trees bent over in place and lashed together, some shelter from the rain that was on the wind. The picket line for the horses was to one side, the wagons and the leader's tent pitched beside them. ShyII and Iczak should be in place by now, by the horses and mules, she thought. Inu has to be downwind so he doesn't spook them with his smell. Now, nobody do anything stup- Arrrooufffl A sound halfway between a bellow and a bark, cracking thunder-loud across the clearing, and a dog leaped out of the darkness toward the fire. A white hound, sharp-eared and feather-tailed, tongue lolling between sharp white teeth; a teRyadn greathound, four feet at the shoulder, thick legs pounding nine hundred pounds of weight forward as fast as a galloping horse, armor turning a dog into a demon creature.

"Inu!" Shyll's voice, commanding. The greathound's tail tucked between his legs, his ears flattened; a look of haunted guilt narrowed his eyes as he slammed through the ring of shouting, bewildered guards and seized the roasting pig, lipscurled back from the hot flesh, and galloped into the surrounding darkness. Crashing sounds followed him into the woods.

"Grey Wolf! Grey Wolf!" The crew of the Zingas Vryka rose and threw themselves forward with a roar, and the throwing-darts of their first volley sleeted down out of the dark, humming like a swarm of meter-long bees.

"Shiiiit!" Rilla screamed as she leaped to her own feet, snapping out an overarm cast at the mailed figure of the Slavemaster; he whirled, and the dart plunged past him to kill a guard rolling screaming in the coals where he had been knocked by the dog's passage. Then the throwing-stick went back over her shoulder into the quiver, and she was at handstrokes.

Blood, always so much, always a surprise. There were warm slow drops running down her face; she shook her head, clearing her eyes. Shit. Shit. I'm supposed to be commanding this mess ....