The two Other Side women giggled like a couple of girls. He didn't understand it; he spread his hands to confess ignorance when Aeia looked at him curiously, then shrugged as though to say that she didn't understand it either.

But their laughter was infectious, and Jason and Aeia soon found themselves laughing, too. Laughter made the goodbyes easier.

Doria caught up with them in the hall. "She's not in the best shape. She's been subst.i.tuting seeming for real health for too long, and that's an awful trap. So I want her to rest, and not worry. . . . And I also want both of you to get back when you're supposed to. Understood?"

Aeia hugged her. "Understood, Aunt Doria."

Jason nodded. "I'll miss you, too."

She bit her lip and smiled. "There is that, too, boychick. Take care."

PART TWO.

Home.

CHAPTER 8.

Outside of Enkiar.

Miscellaneous is always the largest category.

a"Slovotsky's Laws.

The night was clear and bright above, dark and threatening below. Off to port and perhaps a mile below, the murk of the Enkiar streets was relieved only by a precious few lanterns, and by the glowing coals of three garbage fires at the town's western perimeter.

The stars flickered brightly, while distant faerie lights pulsed in a lethargic adagio of scarlet and cerulean. Again, Jason tried to look straight ahead, past the straining neck of the dragon, as the rush of air beat tears from his eyes. He wiped at the dampness at his temples and let himself ease back into the straps.

A ma.s.sive hand gripped his shoulder. "It shouldn't be too much more," Durine said, his voice pitched to barely carry over the wind and the flapping of wings. "Any time now." He gave Jason's shoulder a rea.s.suring squeeze.

Behind Durine, half-hidden behind tied-down canvas sacks, the others were strapped in their saddles, Kethol, still wide-eyed, looked down with more than a little apprehension, Tennetty watching everything with active indifference. Aeia took flying as a matter of coursea"she'd ridden on dragonback since before Jason was borna"while Bren Adahan kept his expression under strict control.

*They weren't at the first of the usual campsites,* Ellegon reported. *So we'll try the next one.*

While Enkiar was militantly neutral, and the Home warriors were free to make camp in the forests to its west and north, the enforcement of that neutrality was sometimes more theoretical than actual outside the city proper. Though Lord Gyren's troops enforced the neutrality in the city itself, the discipline tended to fade toward the edges.

There were advantages to all that. Enkiar's neutrality didn't stop the Home raiding teams from gathering information. A few times, Home warriors had managed to parlay that information into the ambush of a slaver caravan. It worked both ways, though; once, slavers had managed an ambush of Frandred's team, an attack that had left twenty of his warriors dead. So Home raiders never camped twice in a row in the same spot, and always kept a good watch.

Rising on a pillar of smoke and flame, a signal rocket flared green ahead of them.

*Nope. They're at number five,* Ellegon said. *They have a dwarf standing guard.*

How could you tell?

*Think about it. At this distance,* the dragon said, *human eyes couldn't spot me against a night sky. Dwarves are different.*

The dragon's wings slowed as Ellegon swooped down, then broke into a furious flurry as the ground came up quickly.

"Torches!" a familiar gruff voice called from below.

*Daherrin, what are you doing on watch?*

"We was short of dwarves," came from the darkness.

Three shadowy shapes ran up in the darkness, holding bundles of unlit torches in front of them; Ellegon's flame flared briefly, judiciously, lighting the brands one by one.

Jason quickly unfastened himself from the saddle and dropped heavily to the dew-slick gra.s.s, flexing his knees to take up the shock.

As the torches cast their flickering light around the meadow, Jason found himself face to face with Daherrin and Mikyn. Mikyn was Jason's age; they'd been friends since early childhood. Now Mikyn looked older, a bit world-worn since Jason had last seen him: his spa.r.s.e brown beard just a touch fuller, the hollows under his eyes darker, and the bones of his face more prominent in the flickering firelight. If Jason hadn't known better, he would have put Mikyn's age at perhaps twenty-five, maybe thirty. Old.

The big change was in his expression; Jason's childhood friend was looking at him as if he were a stranger.

"Jason," Daherrin said, his voice shockingly cool, no tone betraying warmth or anger. The dwarf hadn't changed in the many tendays since Jason had last seen him: a solid, seemingly unchangeable stump of a person, almost as wide as he was tall. While Daherrin's head barely came to the top of Jason's chest, his shoulders were every bit as broad as Jason's father's had been. Above a mouse-brown beard shot with gray, two beady eyes peered out over an absurdly aquiline nose.

The dwarf's lined face was unreadable in the flickering torchlight.

Then he broke into a smile so broad it would have torn apart a human's face. "Jason," Daherrin said, hugging him so hard bones threatened to break. "Jason, boy, it's good to see you." He released Jason and stepped back. "d.a.m.n me if you ain't a bit less skinny across the shoulders." His face sobered. "Heard about your father, and I'm sorry."

Jason nodded. "So am I."

Mikyn didn't say anything; he watched Jason.

The dwarf slapped Jason across the shoulder, almost bowling him over. "I also heard that you did for Ahrmin. Nice going." He smiled. Killing didn't bother Daherrin; it was by way of his business. "You sure the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's dead? I recall that your father thought he'd killed him once."

Jason returned the dwarf's level gaze. "I saw his brains."

"Good man. Betcha your mother's proud a' you." The dwarf started to turn away. "One more thing?"

"Yes?"

The dwarf turned toward the dragon. "Hey, Ellegon, keep a lid on things for a minute, would ya?" he called out, then turned back to Jason.

*I'd rather you didn'ta"*

"Chew on this, f.u.c.ker," the dwarf said. A huge fist caught Jason on the cheek; the world came up and slapped him in the back, knocking the wind clean out of him. He tried to sit up, but curtains of darkness threatened to enfold his mind.

The distinctive clicks of rifles being c.o.c.ked cut through the darkness.

"Tennetty, ta havath," Durine said. "I say ease up, all of you."

"Shove it up your a.s.s," Tennetty shrilled. "You're ready to kill me for f.u.c.king putting my hands on him, and you're going to leta""

"Tennetty, shut up. Everybody put your weapons down, now," Aeia shouted into the night. "Ellegon!"

*Everyone, be still. There's nothing going on that's worth dying over.* Dragonfire brightened the sky, penetrating through the haze around Jason's brain. *He's fine. a"Jason, get up.*

Mikyn looked down at him. "That didn't square things. But maybe, just maybe, it's a start." He offered Jason a hand.

Jason took it, and for a moment considered kicking his boyhood friend in the b.a.l.l.s. Twice. Hard.

But he dismissed the idea and accepted Daherrin's and Mikyn's help to his feet.

"You coulda gotten half my team killed." The dwarf's nostrils flared as he gripped Jason's hand with painful strength. "I should give everyone a paddle and make you run the gantlet over bare coals, and if you was anybody but the future f.u.c.king Emperor, that's exactly what I'd do. But you are, so I can't, so we're all going to have to live with the way you f.u.c.ked up.

"You can be Heir, or boy Emperor, or his son, or whatever you wanna be, but you never, never do that again, or what I'll do to you'll make you think this was like the kiss on the b.u.t.t your mother used to give you when she was done changing your diapers. You hear me, Jason Cullinane?"

"I hear you." Jason released their hands and stood, wobbly.

*Everybody, calm down. There has been no harm done.*

Off in the darkness, Tennetty and Kethol still faced off against Daherrin's three warriors, Aeia and Durine standing between them. Guns and swords were drawn, but there hadn't been any shots fired or blood spilled, or damage done.

No harm done.

The dragon loomed above them all, whisps of smoke issuing from his nostrils. *Tell them that.*

"Ta havath." Jason raised a hand. "Everybody, ease up, eh?" He took a step and reconsidered. Except for his head; he had a b.i.t.c.h of a headache.

Close to a hundred warriors gathered around the campfire as Daherrin's quartermasters divided up Ellegon's supplies. The supplies were divided into three categories: clothes, weapons, and miscellany.

Clothes were plentiful. There was a change for everybody. Warriors would pick up fresh clothes and disappear into the night down the lamplit path to a nearby stream, soaping up, then shivering as they sluiced off in the cold water and changed into fresh clothes to return, damp and cold but clean, to bag the dirty laundry for washing at Home.

There was plenty of powder and shot to go around, and a few spare rifles to be exchanged for ones damaged beyond field repair.

Miscellaneous was, as Walter Slovotsky used to say, the largest category. There were: spare lamps, sewing kits, a few precious flasks of healing draughts, leather thongs, coils of rope, bundles of arrow stock and fletching equipment, a small bag of mail . . . but no food. While raiding teams were expected to buy staples and fodder locally, dried meat and fresh vegetables were a great treat on the road.

Not this time.

Daherrin swore softly. "An' it's real good to see you," he said to Aeia, his voice only a trace sarcastic, "and your n.o.ble baronship," he added, with a too-deep bow toward Bren Adahan, "and all that, and Durine's a real treat for the eyes. . . ."

The big man chuckled.

The dwarf expectorated into the fire and considered the sizzling gobbet of spit for a moment. "But I'd have rather had your weight in carrots and prunes than all of you."

His second, a lanky man who was missing most of his front teeth, shrugged. "Well, sho we shend shomebody in to town tomorrow to pick up shome more shupplies."

"We could. Buta"" The dwarf considered it for a moment. "I don't like facing the slavers if we don't have to."

Jason raised an eyebrow.

"Slavers in town." The dwarf spat again. "Big caravana"too big fer us ta take right now. But they are headed back toward Pandathaway, and I've got a runner off to Frandred; mebbe we'll join up and jump them around Metreyll, if they take that route."

*A large caravan?* Ellegon's wings fluttered nervously.

Large slaver caravans almost always meant a lot of dragonbaned crossbow bolts.

The dwarf nodded. "Yeah. Which is why, if I'm sending somebody into town right now, Enkiar being neutral or not, I'd like you to hang around until tomorrow. Fly up into the hills and get lost fer a day; but we might need some quick rescue."

Steam hissed from between the dragon's teeth. *But if I'm that far away, I can't mindtalk to anyone, and I can't even get distant thoughts and impressions from anyone except Jason.*

Thanks a lot.

"Jason." Daherrin toyed with his beard. "You got a problem with going into town?"

Not again, he thought. I'll not run again. "There's no problem, Daherrin." Jason shook his head. "I can handle it."

Tennetty nodded. "Right. I'll watch your back."

"No." Bren Adahan said.

Heads turned toward him in surprise.

"I don't recall asking your opinion, Baron," Tennetty said.

Bren Adahan waved her objection away. "You're too well-known. Anybody sees Karl Cullinane's one-eyed attack b.i.t.c.h and they'll start looking at who she's protecting. Jason will be safer if he's less visiblea"just him, and a few others. Jason will be just one of the crowd."

"The baron's making sense." Durine nodded. "Count us in."

"No." Bren Adahan shook his head again.

Kethol c.o.c.ked his head to one side. "What's your problem with that?"

"Mixed teams. Do you like working with mixed teams? It's better if Jason is protected by a team that's used to working together. They're used to working in concert; they can read signals from each other that you and Durine and I would miss."

Kethol bit his lip, and then nodded. "You may be right. I don't like it, but you're right. Rather have Daherrin work with his own peoplea"Jason will be safer that way."

"It's my call, not any of yours," Daherrin said. "I go in with my people, plus Jason. Jason, me, Mikyn, Arrikol and Falherten. Now, what do we call you? Any name you prefer?"

"Taren," Jason said. "I'm used to answering to it."

The dwarf raised his voice. "Okay, everybodya"this is Taren. You all get used ta calling him that, and just that. Five extra watches and a twentieth-share penalty on the next haul for the first one who miscalls him. Double the penalty for the second. There won't be a third." He slapped his meaty hands together. "Okay. Let's get this s.h.i.t unpacked."