Another flash of lightning illuminated the area, and she realised the gelding had vanished.

When the day dawned, she was wet and cold and there was no sign of her horse. After examining her cuts and bruises, she looked for hoofmarks, but the overnight rain had washed away all traces. No amount of whistling, calling or searching turned up any sign of the gelding, and by mid-afternoon, she admitted defeat. She'd lost Herbrobert's horse.

There was nothing left to do but walk on. A newly fallen tree provided a way for her to cross the river. She made a half-hearted attempt to be grateful for that, and for the certificate in her purse, signed by the Pontifect, which would enable the requisition of a mount and riding tackle from any cloister or chapel. She wouldn't have to walk all the way to Vavala, just to the border settlements, but vex it, that was miles away.

Another restless night in the forest, and she was on the move again at first light. When it started to rain once more, the track alternated between glutinously muddy, or as slick as ice. Her cloak flapped wetly around her ankles; water streamed from her hood and cape until the felted wool was a sodden burden. Head down, shoulders hunched against the driving rain, she fell into a rhythm of placing one foot in front of another in unthinking misery.

Va-damn, but she was missing her marenot just because it would not have bolted far; no, she just missed its company.

She sighed. Getting sentimental, are you, Gerelda? Going to name your next mount Daffodil or Dandelion, perhaps?

As the day wore on, unease pricked, until her insides ached with it. The trail was too narrow, too closed in for a mule track, although every now and then she did see a footprint or the mark of a horseshoe in the mire. She plodded on, unable to be sure what direction she was heading in, because the sky was uniformly grey.

When someone yelled ahead of her, she was so sunk into grim acceptance of her cold discomfort that it was a moment before she stopped dead, jerking her head up to listen. The regular chonk-chonkchonk of an axe on wood reached her ears through the pattering of the rain. Woodcutters working in this weather? More than odd.

All senses alert now, but feeling exposed on the track, she threaded her way through the trees towards the sounds. A horse neighed and was answered by another. The gusting wind snatched up disjointed words and delivered them in nonsense syllables. She pulled the hood from her head to hear better as the rain lessened, and was appalled to hear not just a couple of people ahead of her, but many. She dodged from trunk to trunk until she had a better view of the valley below.

There were men and horses everywhere.

She dragged in a deep calming breath. Don't panic. You don't know for certain who they are. They might be harmless.

Pressed against a tree, half hidden by undergrowth, she watched. This wasn't a makeshift camp set up for the night. These men had erected tents and bough shelters, built proper fire places of rocks and earth, cut and stacked firewood. She spotted lances stacked like sheaves for drying, glimpsed camp fires through the trees and horses staked out at intervals to forage. These men had been here too long to be the ones who'd killed Perie's father. These were a different group of lancers, perhaps two hundred of them. All wore coats of a uniform dark grey, although their trousers were more varied in cut and more motley in colour.

The path she had followed descended to a river, its flow too swift to cross without a bridge, a lack now being addressed. Horses were hauling cut logs; soldiers were wielding hammers and axes. A bridge was not only under construction, it was close to completion.

Va-damn, she thought in sudden realisation. Somewhere back there, I left the main track. It would have had a bridge. She'd been misled in the rain, blindly following footprints and hoofprints. Their sentries, if they had spotted her at all, must have mistaken her sodden figure lugging her makeshift pack for one of their own wood gatherers bringing in fuel for the fire.

Her gaze moved on, then snagged on something she hadn't noticed at first. Two bodies lying near a fire, neither wearing a grey coat. One appeared to be missing a head.

Oh, pox. Oh, blister it.

Ordinary folk, she guessed: unfortunate men in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bodgers or hoopers, perhaps, collecting wood. Or hunters. Folk going about their normal business like Peregrine's father, caught up in a larger conspiracy they hadn't even known existed.

Worse, these lancers could well be waiting for the arrival of the killers of the petition writer. If she turned back, she might just meet that second contingent of lancers face to face, and she knew what could happen then. There were those bodies down there to tell her.

Hang you for a ninnyhead, your luck has really run out, Gerelda Brantheld. Now what are you going to do?

That night Gerelda bedded down far enough away to think herself safe, and the next morning she followed the river downstream to find another way to cross. She had to admit defeat when the watercourse entered an area of gorges and high cliffs.

Thoughts grim, she retraced her steps back past the lancers' camp. She circled around outside the perimeter of sentries and rejoined the track on the other side. At sunset, she settled down for another cold night huddled into a tight ball inside her bedroll.

Sounds jerked her from a doze into alertness: horses, jingling harness, the occasional curse. Cautiously she raised her head to glimpse lights bobbing through the trees. She stayed motionless, watching. Men trudged in single file down the track towards the camp, each using a lance as a staff, most also leading a horse, some carrying lanterns. She began to count as they passed her.

Stumbling with fatigue, pushing their horses hard, they blundered through the night. Around her, the forest still dripped and trickled with water, although the rain had stopped. Every now and then a quiet rustle reminded her there were other creatures abroad. A hedgepig, perhaps, or a moldwarp digging a burrow.

The long line plodded on. She guessed they were the men who had killed Peregrine's father, and rejoiced to see how exhausted they were. It had been a long hard haul via the high-country route they'd taken. Bad weather, too. They'd been sleeping rough and hunting for their meat. And the horses? Not much grazing for them, obviously.

The last few men on foot were strung out, limping, weary. The clouds thinned a little, and moonlight made the night less grimly dark. By the time she was certain there were no more coming, she'd counted ninety-eight men and eighty-five horses, including pack animals strung together. There would soon be a crowd of tired, exhausted men mingling with the men in the camp ahead, probably strangers to one another. She gave a hard smile as she rolled up her bedding; she knew an opportunity when she saw one.

Just as she was about to hoist her pack up on to her back, she thought she heard the soft whisper of a footfall somewhere in the darkness. Jumpy, spooked by her own fears, she stayed rooted to the spot, her gaze flicking from one movement to anotherno matter that it was a leaf shivering or a patter of raindrops from a tree canopy.

A little later she was certain there was someone else coming, a straggler whose tired feet stumbled and dragged through the wet leaves underfoot. She edged away from her pack and pressed her body close to the trunk of a tree.

A dark shape took form, moving slowly. She eased her dagger into her hand, although she had every intention of allowing the fellow to pass unmolested. He drew level and stopped, a short fellow in an enveloping cloak. No horse, no lantern.

She froze. She was half-hidden by the tree trunk, but perhaps he'd caught sight of her when she moved off the track. Pickles 'n' pox, now what?

He spoke then, and his voice quavered. "Who... who is that?"

She stood frozen, dumbfounded.

I'll be beggared. Perie.

He really had followed the fobbing lancers. She stepped out on to the track, hands on hips, to confront him. "What the pickled pox are you doing here? I left you at the shrine! And how the grubbery did you know I wasn't one of the lancers?"

"Well, I know you're not one of them pitch-marked men, don't I?"

"But I could have been anyone else with unfriendly intentions!"

"I suppose so. But I reckoned anyone who's not a pitch-man around here is in as much danger as I am, and that makes them a friend."

"You walked all the way here? Are you daft? Injured the way you were?"

"Red Trefoil healed me good, so I left. Followed the smutch."

"You dewberry! Why? What can you hope to achieve, one lad against a hundred lancers?"

"I already killed one."

She stared at him, stilled with shock.

"Knifed him with his own blade, when they left him behind 'cause he was sick." His tone was flat, as if he was talking about something that had no real meaning. "Then I stole his food. And his cloak."

Oh, help. He's just a child.

"They deserve to die. All of 'em."

"Well, yes, perhaps. But you can't kill them all."

"Maybe not. But what else am I supposed to do? First I was a long ways behind. Thought I'd never catch up, 'specially when my bones ached something awful. But they leave their mark behind like scat and they're real easy to find, 'specially when the mud made the going hard for the horses. In the end I was going lickety-spit compared to them. So I caught up. Why else was I given a witchery if not to hunt them down?"

He had a point. Who could understand the whys of a Va-granted witchery? "I think... I think you had better argue that one with a cleric, not me. For now, no more killing. Unless it's a matter of life or death. Our life or death, all right?"

"So what are we going to do now?"

"We?"

He was silent.

Pickle me sour. I guess it is we.

She took a deep breath and assembled her thoughts. "I want a horse," she said. "I lost mine. In fact, we need two horses. We're going to take advantage of the confusion there's going to be when the group you were following meets up with a group that's camped ahead of them. If anyone sees us, with luck they'll think we belong with the other lot."

"We're going to steal two horses."

"We are indeed," she agreed.

"I can help. I'm very good at sneaking. I always know where they are."

"Yes, that's right, you do, don't you? You taste them." She wanted to cry for him. Instead, she said, "We'll rest here a while until they sort themselves out."

"Have you got anything to eat?" he asked, sitting down on a nearby log with a sigh of relief. "I'm starving hungry."

She dug into her pack and gave him a piece of cheese and some strips of salted meat.

"What have you been eating?" she asked, watching him cram the food into his mouth.

"Stealing," he mumbled with his mouth full.

"From them?"

He grunted his assent.

"You took huge risks."

He shook his head. "Not me. You'll see."

"Right then," she said, "when we get close to any of them, you warn me. I don't want any surprises. You've got to show me just how good this witchery of yours is."

There was a short silence while he ate, then he said. "You know, Proctor Gerelda, I don't like having it very much. Makes me sick to the stomach every time I come near any of them. That filthy smutch they have..."

She sat next to him and slipped an arm around his shoulders. "That skill of yours may save our lives tonight."

"Then I guess it's worth it," he said, but his tone was stark.

She felt ill. Sometimes she wondered at Va. "They don't set much of a guard. This track is not used much, and they don't fear anyone anyway."

"Who are they? You never said. I heard some of this lot say they're meeting up with East Denva folk. Training, they said." He tore off another hunk of stale bread and chewed hungrily. "Trained as what?"

"Soldiers, I'd guess."

"To fight who?"

"Shenat people. Shenat beliefs." She sighed. "I don't really know, Perie. But I am going to warn the Pontifect."

"Her army can fight them."

Except Fritillary had no army.

When she was silent, he added, "I will join her soldiers."

"You and me both," she said dryly. "I'll take you with me. For now, we are going to rest right here for a couple of hours. Then we will steal horses and flee." I just wish that was going to be as simple as it sounds.

"I know the way," he said. "WeDa and mewe went from the Oak on the Clouds to the border ferry once a year. The turn-off is about six or seven miles back. But this path here also returns to the main track. We could go straight on across the river. There's a ford."

"Not anymore. Too wet. But there is a bridge now."

"They all be asleep except for the guards," Perie said. His tone, hard-edged, was chillingly cold.

They were a bare fifty paces from the first of the lancer's tents, but Gerelda wasn't worried about being overheard: the constant thunder of the swollen river plunging under the bridge swallowed up all other sound.

"Do they all have the pitch-mark?" she asked.

"Yes. Most be sleeping, except for the guards. I can tell you where they are." His reply was confident.

Astonished, she asked, "You can tell what they're doing without even seeing them?"

"They're pitch-men! Guards stand up, so they're easy to pick."

"I don't suppose you can sense the horses."

"No, of course not. Can tell you this though: we can't take the mounts of the men I was following. They treated them real bad. Didn't give 'em time to graze, hardly had any oats. Reckon they'd drop dead afore we got 'em another mile."

"In that case, we'll look for a couple of the others." She pointed over to her right. "There's a picket line of them that way, near the river bank. Can you get us there without being seen by a guard, or will I have to kill someone?"

"Oh, we're already well inside the ring of guards," he said blithely. "We passed through them way back."

She went cold all over. And he hadn't said anything? Va above.

"The only men we have to worry about are the two over there." He pointed. "I don't know if they're sentries. They're sitting down next to one another, like they be on chairs."

"How far away?"

"Two hundred paces."

Which would put them in the middle of the river. "Ah. Then my guess is they're sitting on the edge of the finished bridge with their legs dangling over the side."

"We could kill them and toss them in the river," he suggested. He sounded cheerful. "Easier and closer," he said.

Pox on't, a lad of twelve shouldn't be pleased at the idea of murder.

With an inward sigh, she acknowledged he could be right, on both counts. Leading horses through the undergrowth in the dark would be a nightmare, especially when they were doubtless already unsettled by the new arrivals.

Va-damn. She hated killing people. "Right. First things first. We steal the animals."

As they edged through the trees towards the picket line, she blessed the obliterating sound of rushing water and wind in the trees. The horses jostled and stamped and snorted, expressing their irritation with the wind and with one another. She ignored the more restless ones and unhitched two of the more phlegmatic, handing him one of the leads.

"Anyone stirring?" she asked Peregrine.