The target was five hundred meters ahead of her, flat on to the course... but from the street or rooftops closer, it would be hidden by intervening buildings.

Tricky, she thought, even as she moved. Long legs flashed, driving her along the ridge of the roof; she leaped to the house of the garden, sacrificing time for a better angle. Her boots struck the railing. She was pulled back, unbalanced by the weight of thebowcase on her shoulder. Fifteen meters onto stone went through her, as she crouched and punched her hands forward to shift her weight. Shins knocked into the railing; she landed on forearms among dead herbs that crushed with a dry smell, spices and decay. She rolled and was up, sneezing as she ran.

The uphill course was clear. Any closer, and that roof ridge will hide the eagle, she thought, running forward to the upper right corner of the roof; furthest away from the target, but the closer to a side-on angle.

Extreme range, she thought. Four hundred meters, north and west. The bow rose; her mind blanked, stilling like a pool of calm water. Feel the lines of force to the target. The remembered words of the Warmaster flowed through and over her, finding nothing, not even ego to catch upon. Her motion was graceful and smooth and fluid as the arc of a dolphin leaping into sunlight. The pull of the bow dropped off as the fletching came to the angle of her jaw, her grey eyes unfocused, blank as mist.

The arrow loosed, flicker-thought.

A sigh rippled across the spectators. Bird-high above, there was a single harsh glitter of sun on metal as the long shaft slowed, tipped, and began its descent. Silence, then clear through it the sound of steel sinking into wood, as the eagle's shield split.

The sound carried through the unquiet air, to where the Schvait had halted. They had continued to another roof; two stood to make a shooting-rest for the third, six feet above the rooftree. He was aware of her shot arcing overhead but his crossbow rose to his shoulder as smoothly as before. If he hesitated it did not show despite the impossible range Shkai'ra's arrow came from. Impossible for any local bow.

Shkai'ra was already moving.

The Schvait loosed. Megan barely noticed. They're off center to the route, she thought. They would have to descend to street level, cross to the building before them, then turn left to the odd three-cornered one where the next aimpoint was. Gods! Her own descent would be shorter.The mercenaries had other plans. Their next building was a merchant's warehouse; like many such it had a projecting timber balk braced below the eaves, a hoist for merchandise.

The mountaineer unlimbered his grapnel again; the tines bit, with three pairs of strong arms pulling. An end of the line was braced about a chimney, and the three ran across it lizard-agile, a story higher than Megan's head. She wasted no time on stunned amazement, and only an instant for a grudging admiration.

The Zak drove claws into the half-timbered wall of the building and swung around a corner. Yes, there was a direct route to the wedge-shaped roof. A clothesline, an old staysail line from a fishing boat from the looks, stretched between the buildings and solidly anchored to brick. But slack, slack.

There were powdery fragments of brick dust in her eyes, between her teeth. Descending to the line, she lost the grip of one hand and her claws squealed on the stone. Then the rough hemp prickled on the cold bare skin of her feet. It swayed, and she half-ran down it to the midpoint, half slid, balance and a madman's luck keeping her centered until she reached a point where her body weight pulled the rope taut without throwing her forward. There it cradled her like a giant swing; she began shifting her weight to set it swinging, in increasing arcs, and felt a frozen swirl of exhilaration lying with the lightness under her breastbone at the upswing...

Leaped . . . And was flung like a sling bullet by the impetus, out, up, roof rushing toward her, impact.

The crowd roared, that portion of it that could see. A ripple ran across the rooftops, as those closer relayed the news to their neighbors, heads and shoulders bowing and swaying like grain in the wind. Megan traveled through the sound, in a chill circle of isolation fenced by need. The gap between the triangular building and the next was an easy stride; below, the target flashed white.

"Shkai'ra! Target!" She yelled in Fehinnan, which no one here would understand save the Kommanza.The Kommanza reached the strung line, dropped and went along it hand over hand, swinging like a pendulum at the anchoring end to push herself into a position to grab the roofline. Some advantage to standing a hundred and seventy-odd centimeters, she thought grimly, forcing her breathing to regularity. Glancing to her left; saw the odd little building like a wedge of pie, with Megan gesturing down between it and the next in line, then leaping easily across a narrow gap. To her right; the mercenaries swarming along the roofline toward her.

In through the nose. Breathe to the pit of the stomach. Out through the mouth. This was burning energy, drawing on reserves of oxygen faster than even heart and lungs trained by a lifetime's effort could replenish them. Don't gasp. Control.

Across to the triangular roof, a jarring thud in her bootsoles.

Tired... run lightly, on the balls of the feet...

The target was a gar, a lifesized rendering of the giant Brezhan riverpike. Below her in the bed of a wagon, all of nine meters long, the aiming mark around one little eye. She looked at it and knew at once that there was no way to get a shot except to straddle the two rooftops. She braced one foot, let the other fall out. Just wide enough, and the tendons in her groin stretched and protested.

The target below her; her arrow sliding through the center-line cutout whose groove kept it steady even straight down. Don't envy those crossbows, she thought, even as the shaft slashed down, through the painted eye and the boards beneath to stand ringing between two cobblestones. His bolt will wobble in the aiming slot at this angle. Selfbows they use around here would have been even worse.

Down on the dais, Schotter watched the five swarm up the first building, his clenched fist pounding on the arm of his chair.

Good, good! he thought. No one can beat the Schvait, no one has and no one ever . . . And in the first jumble of roofs, Megan's form showed first, cutting off his surge of relief. Over the uneven roofs it was difficult to tell who led; running figures, a signalfrom one of the judge's seconds, flicker and schrassh of arrows splitting targets, the echoing of a call distorted by walls and wind. His hands clenched on the chair, knuckles beginning to show white with tension as first one group, then the other was seen to lead. If I could make the tiles skid under your feet, woman, I would. Falter, slide, you slut, fall.

To his back, before the cluster of people reviving the Thane's wife, Piatr crouched, his hands also clenched, unconsciously echoing the inarticulate noises that Schotter made as the race progressed, but for different reasons. He strained to see where Megan was, his motley twisting in his grip. Goddess! Gods!

Grant she win! he thought. He glanced over at the woman, recovering from her faint, voice peevish and harsh; the boy, knife limp in his hand, attention fixed on the race. How he hated them all. He squeezed his eyes shut. Sweet Gods!

"... not reclaiming your token," Megan had said to Piatr, when the surgeons were finished with him. "Since when does losing a foot in my service ensure that your mind was damaged?" It was his first lucid moment after the accident-the red-shot black agony as the boom had trapped and ground his foot into a pulpy unhealable mass against the mast-he still could not understand that he was alive. Most captains would have released the boom and allowed him to smash his head open on the deck far below; there were too many others ready to fill his place.

"But... who will hire a one-foot sailor?" Piatr stammered, still not thinking.

"Who else?" she said, looking across him at his net-mate, Reghina. "See that he heals fast. I can use him." Her voice held the harsh note of command; he hung for moments in bewilderment, the sense of what she said warring with the tone.

An attempt at thanks was cut off by a gesture, and a face harder than iron.

Strange, he had thought, muzzy with drugs. Never seen kindliness behind a mask of harshness before. The other way round often enough...Memory trailed off at a sudden gasp from the watching crowd and his mind avalanched back to the unbearable tension of the present as he craned to see. I will take that Thane's throat in my hands, for her, if his treachery...

There was a cleared space before the citadel wall, littered with masons' tools; the marked path lay straight across it, to a sortie ladder fixed to the new wall in brackets, a mobile ladder, pinned for easy removal. To one side was the last of the archery targets, another devil-figure. This time a human figure, an evilly senile man, white-bearded, in a starred jacket and odd cylindrical hat.

But before the paper figure was a construction barricade of planks.

Megan ignored the Schvait halted ten paces to her left, aiming; she plunged forward. Shkai'ra would handle the archery.

Her mouth was dry, and she tried to swallow the phlegm stuck gummily to the back of her throat, retching instead. Down the side of the last building. Difficult, slick stone without carving; new work. Across the littered surface, feet moving as surely as they had minutes ago, as the power of trained will overrode fatigue. The ladder was ahead of her; for once a ladder. Once over the wall, and the gate of The Kreml would be a hundred paces upslope, a straight, clear line. She laid a hand on the bottom rung.

Shkai'ra also raced past the Schvait archers. They responded, with a welcome second's amazed distraction. The last three body lengths of her descent were a fall; she twisted in the air to land on spread limbs, but there was still a ringing blackness in her head, and color-patterns swirling before her sight. Up, you useless cow went through her mind. Stonefort; her childhood; the voice of the Warmaster to a child on her hands and knees, sobbing and vomiting with exhaustion. A boot in her ribs. Rage awoke; she rose.

At the midpoint of the barricade she paused, took stance.

There was the knot she had selected as an aiming point. The last shaft; fight weariness out of arm muscles that had held and lifted her all that morning. Push the shaking away, as she pushed the bowstave. Hold; correct; hold. Loose.It was a pile head, an armorpuncher, four-sided, tapering to an edge, not a point; an edge like a miniature cold chisel.

Designed to pierce armor of lacquered bison hide and fiberglass worn by the cataphracts of her homeland. The half-inch of soft pine boards scarcely slowed it, but it was the roar from the crowd, the crowd who could see over the planks, see that this her last shaft had not been deflected, that enabled her to turn and run for the ladder.

As Megan's hand closed around the rung, a shrill, piercing whistle from the harbor reached her ears, then a two-tone falling note that cut off abruptly. She hesitated only a second, abandoned the ladder and scaled the wall directly, unmortered cracks barely sufficient to hold her claws at speed; metal screech on stone as a hand slipped once, scramble of toes and she drew her torso over the edge of the wall, swinging a leg to sit astraddle. Shkai'ra reached the bottom of the ladder as Megan grasped the top of the ladder and braced it, throwing the weight of her body back to hold the ladder in place. The top pins... She held as Shkai'ra swarmed up the ladder.

"Go for the gate... I come," she panted.

Shkai'ra glanced at her then nodded, a quick, incomplete jerk of the head, and continued.

Megan waited, swallowed a bit of skin pulled off her lips with her teeth, face impassive as the Shvait gaped up at her, then climbed. Her eyes narrowed at the one who hesitated. She held one hand to the leader of the three.

"Cheat. Oathless!" she said in faltering Schvaitisch, and dragged her hand across the top pins of the ladder, scraping away the wax and metal filings that filled and hid the sawn-through metal. Any weight near the top of the ladder would have peeled it away from the wall to kill or badly injure the person on it. The two Schvait nearest her, holding to the wall, turned to the third who had scouted the route the night before. He paled and stepped back a pace; none of the three noticed that Megan was gone.

She hit the dirt running, hurtled over the embanked earthonto the Citadel road and drove the claws of her hands deep into the wood of the Great Gate.

"Fulfilled," she said to the judge at the gate and to Shkai'ra, who was resting one hand lightly on the oak. The judge nodded and she pulled her hands free of the marks in the gate that men would see there for a hundred years.

The Kommanza reached out a hand and brushed the knuckles lightly on the Zak's cheek. "Not finished," she said. "Worth it.

Go!"

The crowd murmured as the three Schvait halted on the ladder. Too much unrestful air lay between the knot on The Kreml wall and the nearest spectators for sound to carry; there was a buzz from the watchers as the mercenaries let the Zak go forward without them; that turned to a roar as two of the Schvait loosened the third from the rungs with a few economical kicks. He fell, mouth open in a soundless O of scream, turning to strike the hard pavement fifteen meters below, and was still.

Surf-like, the noise continued, growing as Megan swarmed back over the wall; it followed her back down the course, growing at what the mob thought was the bravado of her headlong plunge.

But the Zak had seen what was happening down by the dock.

The clown was running from Schotters son, who was lunging after him with a knife. Dodging around the judge, through the clutter on the dais, hurtling over the prostrate form of the Thanes wife, over the edge of the man-high dais.

Megan could hear nothing of the crowd noise. She moved in the peculiar silence that speed and concentration spark, hearing only the sigh of the wind and the occasional grating of her claws on slate, and her own breathing; eyes fixed on the dais. She knew who had warned her and faintly she heard the judge bellow, "Cease this! I command..."as the clown half toppled, falling like a clockwork toy running down. How many other one-footed men knew the Zingas Teik's whistle code? How many had been among the River Lady's crew?

She was almost close enough to see his eyes turned to her as the young Thane grabbed his hair. Silence fell as the watcherssensed the driving intentness of her plunge; almost falling down the side of the last building, racing across the littered cobbles between walls of staring eyes and the crossed pikeshafts of the Guard. A knife flickered into her hand, held by the blade tip with three fingers and a thumb.

Francosz did not know what the fool's whistle had meant. But it was a signal of some sort, that was plain enough. A signal that would harm his father! It was inconceivable insolence in a house serf; and besides, he had been meaning to kill the man anyway.

Now that was doubly urgent, as this might be the last chance he had. He jerked the clown's head back to bare his throat for the cut, wrinkling his nose at the smell of greasepaint and sweat.

Piatr slumped. Not a large man even by Zak reckoning, he would normally have found it easy enough to break the boy's grip. But it had been nearly a week since he slept for more than a stolen moment, the children had been too watchful, and some of them were always awake.

He was not tired, this was beyond that; sound buzzed behind his eyes like fever, a glass wall between him and the world. He could see the honed blue glint of the knife above him, but the terror was distant, as if his body had lost all capacity to feel. And the darkness beckoned; the Captain was back, and had won; that duty had taken the last of his will. To sleep...

Francosz saw a sudden flicker of light, a painful tugging at the new-piled topknot that still made his head feel unbalanced.

There was a bump painful enough to bring involuntary tears to his eyes as the back of his head rapped the timbers of the dais, and a deep thunk as Megan's knife drove through the piled hair and into the oak. Reaching up, he yanked savagely at the hilt, his fourteen-year-old hand fitting it neatly.

The clown looked up to see Megan's follow-through; as clearly as a shout her eyes snapped the command to move. With drugged slowness he staggered to his knees and crawled out of arm's reach of the boy. I'm going to live, he thought. It didn't seem that important. The cobbles were wet-slippery and cool beneath his palms.The young Thane grinned tautly and raised the two knives, beginning the step that would take him near enough to drive them into the clown's back. That had suddenly become very important; if this thing that had defeated his father were to die, perhaps the defeat would die. The logic of it seemed compelling; he grinned at the approaching figure of the Zak and began to raise...

Her eyes. Her eyes were brown, very dark, almost black.

They grew. Words whispered in his mind, alien words.

Somehow, without looking, he was aware of slim taloned fingers tying a knot in air, and his hands were caught. There were no physical bonds, but beads of sweat broke out on his forehead as he strained.

"Release him, Zak." The judge's voice was cold; the Zaki were not much disliked in Brahvniki; they had founded the city, back in the mists of legend, and most born there bore some of their blood. Their arts were not illegal, because so seldom seen. But few outsiders cared to be reminded of a skill they could not understand or match, and there had been riot and pogrom in other towns for less than this.

Panting with exertion she halted before the young Thane, considering him and Piatr's plodding crawl, the goat-foot artificial limb clacking against the pavement. Briefly, her lips tightened, and her hands: Francosz winced. Then the hands snapped apart, and his arms fell to his side.

The boy staggered, and backed so rapidly that his head cracked once more against the edge of the dais. He sat abruptly; to the crowd, it appeared he had been faced down and recoiled in terror. There was a snicker of laughter, breaking tension; Thanes were not liked in Brahvniki, and this added straw on the mountain of Schotter's woes tickled their fancy.

Megan ignored him, the crowd, the world, as she stared up at the judge. Shkai'ra was at her back now, panting; as from a great distance Megan could hear the flat plunk as she idly twanged her bowstring, smell the familiar musk of her sweat.

Her gaze stayed locked on the judge's, keeping her silence until the man shifted uneasily, until the crowd grew straining-quiet tohear the forfeit she would claim. Schotter stood rock-still, but dark stains grew under the arms of his silk blouse and vest. Her own consciousness stayed focused, but the chill of cooling sweat suddenly struck her, and she shivered.

A movement at the corner of her eye. Her hand snatched out, and the roasted apple smacked into it; she caught the irrepressible street-urchin grin of the seller in a glance.

She warmed her icy fingers on the hot fruit, tossing it from hand to hand. "My favor, Most Honorable?" she asked.

"Whatever you would claim," he replied, looking up to the city. Winking mirrors confirmed that the challenge had been fulfilled according to the approved forms. "As you would, Whitlock. And your companion, Farshot," he added.

Schotter Valderssen was white around his lips, but his face was steady, and the stance he braced against his chair. Despair perfect enough can be as heartening as hope; total ruin faced him, even if the Zak did not demand all he owned, or the sale of himself and his kin as bondservants. Out in the crowd his creditors waited, like vultures circling a dying camel or heirs at a rich man's deathbed. His hand had been heavy while he had the power, and it would be remembered.

What zight I have is mine still, he thought. I will not cringe.

The Zak woman would barely have come to his breastbone, but she loomed before him.

"Thane," she said.

"Zak, ask your favor," he said, thickly. " Tis your time. But one day, a Thane will be your death. We remember."

Megan studied his face. Then she stretched out one finger, elegantly clawed in grey steel. "That one," she said, pointing to the clown. "Give him to me."

Schotter sagged in temporary relief, then jerked as if stung.

He was fated to lose all he had, but this... She was showing her contempt for his wealth and standing for all the world to see,showing that his possessions were worthless in her eyes.

"Given," he choked. "Challenge at an-"

"Not so quickly," Shkai'ra broke in. She sauntered forward, dropping the bow back into the case on her back and thrusting her hands through her swordbelt, looking him up and down.

Schotter turned slightly to watch her, hands picking aimlessly at the cloth of his jacket. There was nothing worse that could happen, after all... he had a vision of mutilation. Insanely, a jape drifted through his mind: Perhaps my wife will regret her dead-fish coldness in our bed now. At least, she'll have no more need of it.

"Name your price, barbarian."

She smiled. "Barbarian? That doubles my price." She reached out and took his son by the wrist, twisting, jerking her other thumb at the boys sister, on the dais. "That one too. We'll see if ugliness and bad manners mean they're untrainable."

He stilled, his eyes flicking over his children, then to his second son. "You take my blood for slave-" he began, then rasped, "Given."

Shkai'ra studied his face with the cool pleasure of satisfied cruelty. Her birth-tongue used variants of the same term for "murder" and "joy"; the most common word for torture could also be rendered as "relaxation." Some of the ways of the Zekz Kommanz she had abandoned in the days of her wanderings, but the deep, sensual enjoyment of triumph over a hated opponent was still keen. This man had tried to kill her, and worse, her companion; now he was down and it was time for the boot and knife.

"Fater, no!" The girl fell to her knees and grasped Schotter's legs, pleading. "Fater, please..." Her words trembled into silence as he ignored her, except for the slight swaying her impact brought. His eyes were fixed below the dais, where Shkai'ra had gripped Francosz by the collar, occasionally delivering a ringing cuff with one sword-callused hand when he struggled too strongly.Shkai'ra pulled out her knife and made to begin shaving the boy's head. In Fehinnan, Megan said, "No, Shkai'ra, don't do that. Shaving his head means he's a slave." The Kommanza looked at her a moment, puzzled; among her people, children went shaven-skulled until adulthood. "I won't have anything to do with taking slaves," the Zak continued tightly. "Especially children. Even Thanes." Shkai'ra stared hard at her a moment, shrugged and put the knife away.

"Standard indentures of apprenticeship, " Megan said to the official on the dais. "Seven years or until the twenty-first birthday, instruction and lodging and a parent's powers."

The Thane freed himself from his daughter's clutch and thrust her staggering to the edge of the dais.

"So I have spoken. My seed I may do with as I wish." He turned to the judge, who concealed his satisfaction under a mask of detachment. The Thane could read the amusement there.

From behind there was a squawking scream as Sova was dragged over the edge of the platform by one ankle.

"Given, and challenge fulfilled," the judge said, and turned to the two remaining Schvait, who stood to one side, having also descended from The Kreml. His expression was cold; the mercenaries had come within a hair's breath of treaty violation.

That, they had avoided by killing their brother, but Schvait would be at a discount for some time; merchants rich enough to pay good wages demanded trustworthy guards, and no free-company captain would swear blades that might be bribed to violate an oath. Their mountainous homeland lived by its exports, and fighters were not the least among them.

"As losing proxy, we have no claim on you," the judge said, the words clipped short. "Go."

The two Schvait looked at him impassively, then the woman leaned to her companion, whispering something. He stepped forward and spoke.

"No claim you say. We have claim. Betrayment is not good...

and from doing this we have our brother saved. Taking coinfrom one who treacherous is... not. Hear us. Here price is." They, as one, held out the small pouches that traditionally marked their fee, dropped them on the ground and spat on them, turning to stalk into the crowd.

The judge surveyed the scene, a cool smile appearing on his face; the situation suited his sense of justice. "Challenge fulfilled!" he cried, throwing up his hands, the crowd at last began to cheer.

Piatr leaned his head back against the dais, leaning on one elbow, watching the Schotters' children, held fast by the Captain's companion.

A dream? he wondered. Dark Lord knew he had dreamed of it often enough, these last few days. The Captain back, the Thane destroyed. He jerked his head back as his body tried to fall asleep, tears of fatigue gathering and being blinked away as he fought to stay awake. She was back.

Slowly the world returned to Megan, the strange, muffled single-mindedness fading as she bit into the apple, tasting its cinnamony sweetness, watching the last of the Valders'sen entourage leave the dais. The scrapes and bruises from the race were just beginning to throb.