"Daherrin," the dwarf said, returning the human's gaze levelly. "Home raiding team leader."

"Arriken, raider," Arriken said.

"Taren, raider," Jason said.

"Death," Mikyn whispered, his voice barely audible.

"Mikyn," the dwarf snapped, "ta havath."

"I'm your death," Mikyn repeated. There was a tight grin on his lips, a smile that wasn't at all reflected in his eyes. "I'm what you see before it all ends for you." He whispered the words gently, almost lovingly.

When just a child, Mikyn and both his parents had been taken by slavers. He and his father had been freed in a raid by the team headed by Karl Cullinane. His mother had never been heard from again.

"Mikyn," the dwarf repeated. "Ta havath, I said. We're just here to show the flag," he went on in English, "not to get our heads broke in a fight. Ease off, boy."

Mikyn wasn't having any. "Remember me," he whispered. "Always remember me."

There was a metallic taste at the back of Jason's mouth: the taste of bile, the taste of fear. Ellegon!

There was no distant rea.s.surance.

Asklans clapped his hands together three times. "So be it. Enough of this; we're not going to have a fight here." He nodded to one of his men, who stuck two fingers in his mouth and gave out a three-part whistle, which was repeated from outside.

Jason, Daherrin, Mikyn and Arriken found themselves quickly surrounded by easily a dozen soldiers, each with a drawn shortsword; across the room, the slavers were similarly surrounded.

"Enkiar is neutral," Asklans said. "Enkiar will remain both neutral and peaceful, if I have to butcher a thousand slavers and raiders. By the authority of Lord Gyren, you both are to leave Enkiara"Daherrin, you and your team will head out in the morning on the Home road; Willem, you will inform Master Lifezh that all of you are to leave tomorrow, heading toward Khar."

"Such was our intention," Willem said. "Such was our intention."

Soldiers began to crowd Daherrin and his group out the front door, while others pushed the slavers toward the back.

Then there was a low cry from one of the peasants in the dark of the room. "The warrior lives," the harsh voice whispered. "The warrior lives."

Jason couldn't see who said it, but he did catch a glimpse of Willem's face before the soldiers pushed him out the door.

The slaver's face was white.

The warrior lives? What did that mean? And why should it scare the slavers so badly?

"You'll be on your way by sunset," Asklans said. "By sunset, do you hear?"

"We hear," Daherrin said. "I'm not sure we understand everything, but we hear."

CHAPTER 10.

Farewells.

"My idea of an agreeable person," said Hugo Bohun, "is a person who agrees with me."

a"Benjamin Disraeli.

Arguing is one of life's greatest pleasures, even if you have to argue with yourself. 'Course, I could enjoy the other side of that argument, too.

a"Walter Slovotsky.

*There's no enemy in range; I'm coming in.*

Ellegon swooped down out of the late afternoon sky, the backblast from his fast-moving wings drawing nervous neighs from the horses and sending sparks from the dying campfires swirling off into the gra.s.ses.

That had happened before, and the half dozen of Daherrin's warriors on fire duty were ready for it; five of them stomped out the sparks, while the sixth wielded a canteen, for insurance.

The dozen Enkiaran soldiers down by the road had good discipline: although several of the horses pranced their nervousness, none of the hors.e.m.e.n let his mount get away from him. Enkiar's neutrality apparently applied to nonhostile dragons, too.

*As long as none of them have dragonbane on their bolts,* Ellegon said nervously.

I would have a.s.sumed you mindprobed them.

*a.s.sume all you want. All I can tell is that none of them knows he has a poisoned bolt. I doubt that would do me a lot of good if their fletcher's primed one without telling them. Let's get in the air. Now.*

Durine was already tightening the dragon's rigging and helping first Aeia, then Bren Adahan into their places.

I'll be just a minute.

While the others got aboard, Jason took a moment to brace Daherrin. "What was that about a warrior living?"

"Who knows?" The dwarf shrugged. "Wouldn't make too much of that. Probably another freelancer put a scare into them, even if they have been scarce for the past few years. If so, he'lla"most likely show up at Home, sooner or later."

Mikyn led his horse over. "I don't know about that. What say you send somebody on their trail to find out?"

The dwarf shook his head. "No. Just no. There's a full hundred slavers, and I don't like those odds at all."

"Then make it just me," Mikyn said. There was a strange note in his voice, a suggestion of something that could have been resolve, could have been fear. "I have to."

"No," the dwarf said. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds've gotten better over the past coupla yearsa"they been putting rear guards on their backtrail more often than not."

"Then set me up as a roving tradesmana"we've got the traveling farrier outfit all ready to goa"and let me go."

"s.h.i.t, Mikyn, we discussed this a tenday ago, and you said then that the traveling farrier disguise is wearing a bit thin, anda""

"Mikyn," Jason said, "what is it?" Jason had thought at first that Mikyn had just been trying to spook the slaver, but there was more to it than that.

"I remember the voice. It was his voice. When we were sold. I heard his voice."

The dwarf snorted. "Not b.l.o.o.d.y likely. That was twenty years ago; he ain't a lot older'n you."

"Then it's a brother, or a son, or a f.u.c.king cousin, or it's one of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds that just happens to sound like the one who . . ." Mikyn's fists clenched. "But he's mine. You hear me, Daherrin? He's mine. You're right: the team can't take their trail. But I can."

*Jason, we have to go now.*

Just a moment. "Daherrin, it's your team, and I wouldn't think of interfering with how you run it . . ."

"Right." The dwarf actually laughed. "The usual Cullinane opening to interfering with how I run the company. You think he should go get his liver sliced open?"

"No. I don't think you should let him go. Not unless you want to, upon reconsideration." Relay, please: but I think he will, no matter what you do, and you're better off giving your blessing than having a deserter gone in the night. "And unless Mikyn promises to keep his head down. My father took out a lot of slavers when he died."

"He did, at that," Mikyn said, a thin smile peeking through his beard.

"But we'd all be better off if he'd lived." Jason gripped Mikyn's shoulder tightly. "All of us would be."

Mikyn hesitated, then nodded fractionally.

*He's still going to go. But the dwarf says: "Okay, kid. Get going; I'll pretend to think about it, and then let him slip away tonight, after we're moving."*

"Take care, Jason." Daherrin clasped Jason's hand. "Hey, I know you're planning on settling down after this, but if you ever change your mind, I've got a job for you. Pay's low, and the working conditions range from bad to terrible, but at least the food sucks."

CHAPTER 11.

Wehnest.

Lord, give me the wisdom to distinguish between unnecessary brutality and brutal necessity. At least some of the time.

a"David Warcinsky.

Probably the most difficult decision real humans have to make is whether something is necessarily brutal or unnecessarily brutal. I wish there was something funny about that, but there you have it.

a"Walter Slovotsky.

Wehnest was usually Ellegon's last stop before Home. Partly it was because it was a solid day's flight from any of several of the usual rendezvous locations; largely it was because there were often extra trade goods remaining after the resupply runs, usually consisting of leftover Nehera-made blades that were marketable anywhere.

This wasn't a usual trip; but they stopped in Wehnest anyway.

The ground rushed up in the dark, more felt than seen; Ellegon's flailing wings battered the air so hard that Jason couldn't keep his eyes open, but he felt the ground coming up as though it was reaching up to knock them out of the sky, until, at the last moment, their downward momentum slowed and the dragon landed with a thump that rattled Jason's teeth.

*Everybody down,* the dragon said.

They all alighted in the dark. By arrangement, Tennetty and Durine slipped off into the trees, on watch.

Everyone was silent for a moment, then Ellegon snorted. *We can light a fire; there's n.o.body around.*

The clearing that Ellegon had chosen was just short of a thinning stand of tall pines and stumps; beyond the trees, a fallow field stood in the starlight, a ragged rug of weeds proclaiming its idleness. Over the rise in the other direction was Wehnest, but it would be safe to start a small fire anyway; the light breeze was blowing steadily into the forest, and the smoke of a fire wouldn't be visible before daybreak, still several hours away.

Jason smiled as they quickly gathered and stacked firewood. At least he wouldn't have to light it. Karl Cullinane had insisted that Jason learn to light a fire with flint and steela"a laborious and downright boring process. Lighting this fire would be easy, what with Ellegon around, but gathering wood took no less time.

*I still say you should just skip Wehnest,* the dragon said. The purpose of this trip is to pick up Walter's daughters and wife, not to trade in some blades.*

Aeia stooped over a fallen tree, grabbing an out-thrust branch with one hand and neatly detaching it from the tree trunk with three quick chops of her hatchet. "The trouble with that is that we're doing more than one thing," she said. "We're also checking into the Kernat raid."

Jason dropped an armload of wood on the charred spot near the center of the clearing. Aeia was right, as usual. Still, the chances of learning anything in Wehnest were minimal; Wehnest was one of Home's main trading partners, and likely the ground had been gone over repeatedly by Home traders.

But the difference between likely and certain was important; Jason would probably never learn what had happened to the people who disappeared from Kernat village, but he had to try. It came with the job.

*As defined by your father,* the dragon said. *Not every ruler thinks he has to look into everything himself.*

Firstly, it wasn't everything. Karl Cullinane had felt perfectly comfortable in sending Danagar, General Garavar's son, out spyinga"about this very matter, in fact.

But, secondly, Karl Cullinane had established the point that the Emperor of Holtun-Bieme wasn't going to be afraid to get his hands dirty, and that was rubbing off, much to the better. Bren Adahan was along on this trip only partly to chase after Aeia; he'd long since accepted Karl's notion that a ruler was supposed to be in contact with the world, not sitting in a castle in luxurious isolation.

Thomen Furnael had picked up on that, too, Jason thought with a smile. Although the last time Thomen had tried something clever, Father had sent him home with a groin kick that Gashier had described in glorious detail. The kick had been to teach Thomen another lesson: opposing Karl Cullinane wasn't a good idea.

*All that's true,* the dragon said. *But I don't have to like it. Getting too involved with the world is what got him killed. You Cullinanes aren't unkillable, you know.*

That was true enough. Although . . . there had been a time when it had been thought that Karl Cullinane was unkillable, that n.o.body could take him on. There were legends that had grown up around Jason's father, about the time that he had single-handedly freed his wife-to-be from a thousand slavers.

And, like all legends, there was a germ of truth in that: Karl Cullinane had freed Andrea. But it had been from a scant dozen slavers, and Walter Slovotsky had been along, softening them up with several crossbow bolts fired out of the night.

Filling a legend's boots was going to be hard. Piling firewood for Ellegon was a lot easier.

"I think that's about enough," Jason said, dropping a final armload on the pile. He stood back. Ellegon's cavernous mouth opened fractionally, and then a quick tongue of flame issued forth.

The wood only broke into a smoky smoulder; Ellegon tried again.

*It's too damp,* the dragon said with a petulant sniff. He raised his head again and exhaled a huge mouthful of flame that not only set the stacked firewood burning, but sent flaming embers shooting off into the night, some of them threatening to start minor fires which could, if unchecked, quickly grow into a major blaze.

Aeia stomped out one incipient ember; Kethol and Durine, both giggling incongruously, p.i.s.sed on a second and third, while Jason ground out a fourth.

Nice going, Ellegon, he thought.

*I can't control everything,* the dragon said.

Still, it did make a good campfire.