Her belt pouch held a careful assortment of mixed coinage from around the coast. Copper from Yaressal, bright six-sided steel coins from home, finger-length bars of silver from Parha, ankaryal of all metals... what any adventurer with relatively good fortune would have. The bulk of their fortune would be dealt out through the Benai, through hands unlikely to cut throats for it.

"To pardon ask, Teikas." The new voice made them look around. A tall, thin Schvait stood there, his dark-green knee-breeches buckled over heavy wool socks, the black shirt showing his status as mercenary and a mountaineers rope and pitons clipped to his belt. In his hand he held a scroll of parchment. "Is finding of Teik Megan, one Whitlock, possible is?" His blue eyes scanned the two of them. "To me is she not known, but was told to find her shipyard, with."

"I am Megan Whitlock."

He handed her the scroll. "Is challenge opfor... pardon...

offered. Can get read if Teik cannot, before acceptance of scroll is acceptance of challenge."

"I see. Yes, I can read. A moment please." The challenge was from the Thane. Ridiculous, she thought. A race over rooftops ofthe city, in his condition...? Ah. The archery involved was to be her downfall. He knew she was no archer. But Shkai'ra was. If I can drag her into this. Hmmm.

"This challenge, is it personal or by proxy?" she asked the mercenary.

He gestured. "Not great understanding I have, but my brothers, three, will race."

The people out of Schvait were known as some of the best climbers in this area of the world, rivalling the Yeolis in skill. She squinted up at the sun. Shkai'ra should still be at the black smith's... before I do this, she thought, I'll have to ask her.

"Provision for non-immediate acceptance," she said. "Yulai, witness. My word on returning within two hours before challenge is automatically accepted."

"Teik Whitlock, I hear."

"In two hours," she said, and was gone.

A BLACKSMITH'S SHOP AGAINST THE KREML WALL.

The smithy pressed hard against the inner wall of the city, that had once been the wall of The Kreml itself. Shkai'ra ducked her head under the lintel and paused to allow her eyes to adjust to the smoky gloom. The surface beneath her feet was crushed rock-ancient concrete from the look and feel; it might date from before the Godwar. The hearth of the forge was pressed against the stone of the fortress wall itself, a sensible precaution in this city of tarred timber.

Never had much luck with smiths, Shkai'ra thought with a grimace; for a moment she remembered another place, snow and the smell of blood. Shrugging, she unslung the shield from her shoulder where it had lain hidden by her new cloak.

The smith paused in his work and stared at the outlander.

Cormorenc-feather cloak, he thought. The fabric was unmistakable; green-grey in ordinary light, almost black indarkness, lightweight.

"You must be off the Pride of Shoupir" he said. "Fast work, to have the down feathers woven up so soon."

Unsurprised, Shkai'ra flipped a palm. "Traded four times the weight of raw feathers for it," she said. From what Megan said, a spearbill kill by a merchantman was not common, and news spread fast.

"Yah, you'd have to. Now, what can I do for you, Zingas Forus?" One of Shkai'ra's eyebrows rose.

She pulled the smooth curve of scabbard out of her belt and raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'll rebond the peace wire, Zingas." She nodded and broke the wire, laying the blade on the cleaning silk as she pointed to the hilt. "That," she said. The dimpled bone handle was split along most of its length in two places. "It comes off now, rather than in the middle of a fight." At her nod, the smith took up the sword and probed at it.

"Yah, it's loose already. Now I'm no boneworker, nor in ivory.

You could go to the leather merchant and have it bound in sharkskin, special order it from Anya, the ivory carver... or I could replace the whole thing with brass?"

She shook her head. "Nia, the metal would be slippery when the hand sweats."

"Or when blood runs over it, but braided wire allows grip."

She nodded. "And lasts longer. Also, I can afford it now: do it."

He blinked surprise. "Price?" he asked.

The blonde woman shrugged. "Name one, if it's fair I'll pay."

The blacksmith began rummaging in a drawer for wire. "Two Dragonclaws," he said, preparing to haggle."Good enough," Shkai'ra said indifferently; she had not been raised a merchant. Among the Keep-holding kinfasts of the Zekz Kommanz you gave freely or, more commonly, killed and took.

"Also, I need a new shield; about the size and weight of this, steel rim and boss."

She toed the shield beside her. It was a disc a meter across, rimmed and bossed with iron. The frame was moulded fiberglass, the surface tough layered bullhide.

The blacksmith picked it up and turned it between huge horn-palmed hands. It had been a good shield, he saw; now the frame was cracked, the rim broken or hacked through in six places, and the boss loose. That was unsurprising: a good sword might be a heirloom for generations, but a shield rarely lasted more than one afternoon of strong warriors and heavy blows.

"I can duplicate it, I have the armorframe and glasscloth...

that will cost you dearly: most about here use birch plywood."

"No matter, I'll-ha, kh'eeredo." She paused, and looked at the careful lack of expression on Megan's face. "Trouble." That was a statement, not a question.

One corner of Megan's mouth twitched. "That's becoming another of my use-names," she said. Shkai'ra swung a leg over the heavy anvil and flung, "Do the shield, I think I'll need it,"

over her shoulder. As she turned back to Megan she noticed the closed-in expression on her face, the one that she hadn't worn very often since they'd met; the expression that held everyone at arms' length.

Megan tapped the scroll on the curled-in nails of one hand.

"Challenge scroll?" The smith asked, curious. Megan looked at him in the old way, from the time before she knew how to smile easily, and he abruptly became engrossed in his work.

Can I drag Shkai'ra into this? she thought. Even after all we've been through and she is my celik kiskardas, my steel sister. Even the slight flicker of emotion on her face was enough to tell Shkai'ra what she was thinking."Kh'eeredo, you're forgetting. There is steel between us, and blood as well." She nodded at the scroll in Megan's hand.

"Another charming local custom?"

Chapter Five.

BRAHVNIK.

TENTH IRON CYCLE, EIGHTH DAY.

Three days later, half of Brahvniki assembled near the Harbour Gate; much of the remainder were strung out along a route that ran in a straight line across the roofs of the city, to the gate of The Kreml itself. Most challenges were far less exotic than this, a roll of dice, the outcome of a spider-fight or some game of skill such as cniffta, and it was rare for a ClawPrince to agree to such public terms, in these days when most preferred courts of arbitration.

It was bright. A chill autumn wind whipped at hair and cloaks, tossed the manes of horses, blew white froth from the tops of choppy waves in the rivermouth behind them. There was an irregular square, here behind the row of tall warehouses that did double duty as an outer wall facing the water; five thousand boots rustled and clicked across the cobblestones. The crowd's clothes were a mass of color and dun wadmal against which faces showed pale as they stared toward the cloth-draped wooden dais where the gentlefolk and officials stood.

There was murmuring, but less than there might have been at a Nardimoot, the public assembly of the Praetanu. Pie sellers and mulled-wine vendors moved through the crowd, pickpockets were busy; token-vendors hawked bits of feathers from the cormorenc killed by the outlander and Megan Fleet'sbane.

Betting was lively, the odds changing from minute to minute.

There was more decorum on the dais. Merchants, officials, some of the younger ClawPrinces of the Praetanu and officers of the civic militia sat in blue-fingered dignity. Schotter Valders'sen sat there in the tight trousers, high boots, ruffled shirt and embroidered cutaway overrobe of Thane formality.

Wife and children stood behind, the women decently coveredfrom head to toe, their faces hidden by veils hanging from broad hats piled with flowers and feathers. Behind them stood their servants, ever attentive; to his people, they were an essential mark of status.

Megan perched below on a coil of rope. Her face was calm, looking younger than her years, with her hair laced back in a braided coronal. Her feet were bare, for the task to come; a wool cloak held tight against the wind hid leather breeches and roll-necked knitted jerkin. Her slim hands flexed unconsciously, the razor edges of grey claws cutting slits in the dense weave of her cloak.

Shkai'ra stood behind her, braids looped and strapped beneath a headband, flexing and swinging her arms to be sure that the leather arm guards did not hinder her. Otherwise her thin shirt covered only the tight bindings about her breasts; this would be work needing all the agility she had. Her feet bore soft kidskin buskins rather than the riding boots she preferred. Her skin showed milk-pale and gooseflesh in the cold, or tan where sun and wind had burned, and the raw copper of her hair blazed in the bright morning sunlight. A wooden chest rested beneath one foot.

"I call thee forth!" The judge's voice boomed out in trained carrying tones as he mounted the block. The loose robe fell away from his arms as he raised hands in the spreading gesture of the ritual. "I call thee forth! I call thee forth!"

At the traditional third repetition the crowd fell silent by segments. At the other side of the dais three black-shirted Schvait stood, two tall, grave-faced men and a woman alike enough to be close kin, holding their crossbows in folded arms.

Their climbing ropes were across their shoulders, slung like bandoliers; pitons and hammers hung at their waists.

"Hear the terms of challenge. To redress offense, a race across the city is set from harbor point to the gate of The Kreml."

Hah, Shkai'ra thought. Offense. The idiot asked for it. I'm never going to get away from, running around on rooftops, it seems to go with being around Megan.The judge raised one hand, was answered by a flash of mirrors from points staggered on opposite sides of the course approximately one hundred yards from the route. "Targets are arranged along the way for the archery," he continued. "Two forfeits are demanded of Megan Whitlock should she lose.

Should she be last to the gate, she is to bond herself to Schotter Valders'sen for one year. Should she be beaten in the archery, the bonding is to be indefinite." He turned to the Thane as a murmur spread through the crowd. This was not mere challenge for loss of face, this was a forfeit demanded of blood feud.

"Valderssen, is this correct?"

"It is." The Thane's voice was thin, whipped to shreds by the wind.

"Whitlock. As challenged you have not named your forfeits."

Megan rose, her eyes scanning across the dais. "The challenge I answer. Since three run against me as proxy for the Thane, I demand a second of my choosing; and that if three run, then all three must beat us to the gate." She smiled. "As forfeit when I win... I will demand," she paused. "A favor."

"Whitlock," the judge said. "This is all?"

"All? I will ask one thing of the Thane and he will be bound to do it, should it be in the realms of possibility." Her voice was mocking.

"And for your condition." The judge paused to look at the Thane who nodded. "Agreed. Your second?"

"Shkai'ra Mek Kermak's-kin of the Zekz Kommanz, the one who stands by me, celik kiskardas, my kin in all sight next only to my cousin Rilla."

There was a rising murmur; Megan had been well known along the trade routes of the Brezhan, and was said to be clannish even for a Zak.

"Shkai'ra Mek Kermak's-kin," the judge said, stumbling over the unfamiliar gutturals of the name. "You agree to sharechallenge and forfeit?"

Shkai'ra grinned like a wolf, caught and held the Thane's eye.

"Ia," she said, toeing open the chest. It was her armor case from the Kchnotet Vurm. She bent, and straightened with a bow in her hands, a bow unknown on this side of the Lannic. No longer than the length of her leg, with thick limbs springing from a central block of hardwood. At the ends of the stave were offset bronze wheels, the string secured to eyelets just below each U-fork running down, over the grooved rim of the opposite wheel, up the back of the bow, and over the other wheel.

The Schvait stiffened with sudden interest, and one whistled softly; the pulley principle was well understood in their homeland, which had many factories run on waterpower. On the left side of the grip was a rack holding five long eagle-fletched arrows with narrow pile heads; armorpiercers.

The Thane glared at her. The tall woman's lip curled back further, and her eyes stayed locked on his as the thumb of her right hand curled around the string; there was a bone ring on it.

She moved swiftly, yet without haste. Arms and body turned; there was a click as the jeweled bearings in the wheelbow's pulleys turned, and a switch as the thumb-ring locked under a shaft that appeared on the string. The bow swung up and the arrow vanished, simply a flicker of flight feathers and head, too fast for the human eye to see. Above, a gull halted in mid-air as if rammed into an invisible wall, fell to land at Schotter's feet. A few stray feathers landed on the hats of his womenfolk. Seconds later the arrow followed, sinking a handspan into the timber at the edge of the dais; the bird had not slowed the pile-headed shaft, not even deflected it.

"Wait and sweat, pig-face," she sneered. "You'll never guess my favor." She licked her lips.

His wife fainted, her head landing with a hollow thock on the boards of the dais. A servant in clown's motley and facepaint made an abortive clutch at her; his truest attention was focused on Megan.* * *

Koru, Lady of Life! Piatr thought. She's alive. Alive, damn all your rotten attempts to kill her.

He caught the glance that passed between the shorter of the two Schvait men and the Thane, and suddenly his heart constricted. He knew that look, had heard enough of the other slaves' rumors. Treachery; no court would listen to his accusation, but he could give warning. He wheeled on his one foot and froze.

Francosz's knife point touched his face.

"You missed my mother, clown. I should take your eyes for that," the boy hissed. Behind him, his sister giggled. The judge glared over his shoulder at the whispered interruption. Piatr watched the knife point now hovering near his face. Warning, he thought. How do I warn her? She wins; I could escape. Escape before they finally cut my throat. Yesterday the little bastard had actually tried to kill him, cheered on by his sister. The line wasn't working any longer and they would kill him now, or very soon.

Lady, show this son of sheepeaters true challenge and I hope to see you win. He sank to the platform before the boy, miming panic, his mind not in it, his eyes fixed on Megan and the tall outlander. When the time came he'd warn them, cost him his life or no, and run. He owed her more than that. He didn't mind that she had not recognized him through the fool's paint. Her face was still and she had looked through him and all the others, her mind already on the race. He'd last seen that look when the Thane's siege was broken. The Captain would win. He knew she'd win, he hoped.

"Ready yourselves, then." The judge sat down next to the sandkeeper with a small hourglass before her on the dais. "One glass, " he called.

Megan got up and threw her cloak over Shkai'ra's box, stretching, warming up. From a position of front splits, as she worked the tension out of her tendons, she stared up the course."I explained that you didn't have to accept forfeit."

"What, and miss seeing the woman keel over?" Shkai'ra chuckled. "Too bad those three are stuck working for a pig."

She nodded at the Schvait. Megan nodded, distantly. The Thane's slave clown, there had been something familiar about him...

"Time!"

Megan bounced to her feet and stood beside Shkai'ra, next to the black-shirts. Ahead, city militia kept a path free through the crowd with the shafts of pikes and halberds, a lane of cobblestones littered with horsedung and fruit rinds ending at the first building of the route. That was laid out with poles, bright red ribbands to the left and yellow to the right, the width of a building apart. It stretched, over roof and lane, cutting a raven-straight path over the crooked, twisting streets and tangled roofs. Looming over the sharp-peaked tangle of the lower town, the towers of The Kreml stood against a hard blue sky, streaked with ragged filaments of torn cloud.

Taller poles marked the four archery targets, each set a hundred meters from the path, separated from each other at irregular intervals; those would be paper figures on a backing of planks. Thick clots of spectators furred the rooflines; this would be a challenge to entertain their children's children with, sipping mulled ale before a midwinter fire. The sound of their voices was a susurrus louder than the wind.

The judge raised his hand, and everything else faded from their minds; anything but the challenge suddenly became unreal, unimportant. What was real was the feel of the cobbles on bare feet, the stretch of lungs breathing a slight fog into cold air, the spot of white held in the judge's hand. That fell, the cloth drifted ten paces in the strong breeze, and touched.

They ran, bodies low, legs pumping. Longer limbs brought Shkai'ra and the Schvait mercenaries to the wall first; the Schvait in the lead had swung a grapnel as he ran. Its tines clattered into an eaves gutter; the mountaineers swarmed up therope, scarcely slowing. The Kommanza halted at the base of the wall, braced her hands against it; her companion ran the last few steps, jumped once from broad shoulders and sprang, hands outstretched.

Palms grated on ornament, nails on brick and half-timbering.

She reached the roof first, slamming over the edge, got a glimpse of the Schvait tugging at their grapnel. She threw a loop of thin, spider-strong line over a carved head, dropping it back to Shkai'ra, then skittered over the roofridge, diagonally down the slanting surface. No time to descend; she left the edge in a soaring leap that ended with her grip slapping onto the stone railing of a garden atop the building opposite. Pavement flew by beneath her; ignore it, swing over, legs twisting in midair to drop her soles onto the flat, winter-bare surface.

Shkai'ra crouched, jumped, caught the line a body's length above her head and went up it hand over hand, toes scrabbling.

Child of distant plains, she still moved with bleak efficiency.

Breath rasped, timed to aid exertion, deep from her stomach to pump oxygen into muscles being pushed to their limits.

"Down the center, up the left!" came Megan's voice.

The Zak had scouted the route last night and had a better eye for urban terrain; could travel more swiftly in any case. Shkai'ra went down the inland side of the first building in a controlled fall; it was a story shorter than the downslope facing. Across the street, up a drainpipe on one corner of the next house. From the low-pitched roof of the warehouse she could see the first target, an eagle clutching an olive spray and a bundle of arrows in its claws, with a shield across its chest. A devil figure in the local mythology.