He found Gadrial kneeling beside his injured prisoners. The tender look on her face as she stroked Jathmar's scorched hair with gentle fingertips, sounding his pulse with her other hand, touched something deep inside Jasak. He, too, was worried about the unconscious man. Jathmar hadn't roused even once, although that might have been as much Gadrial's doing as the result of his injuries.

Gadrial looked up as Jasak approached Jathmar's litter, which someone had adjusted to float ten inches above the ground.

"You need me for someone else?" she asked, and he nodded, his expression unhappy at the demands he was placing upon her.

"How are you holding up?" he asked quietly, and her eyes widened, as though his question had surprised her. Then a smile touched her lips.

"I'm tired, Sir Jasak, but I'll manage. Where do you need me?"

"In the tent. We've got two men Ambor's losing-belly wounds, both of them. They've slipped into a coma."

She paled and bit her lower lip, then simply nodded and rose in one graceful, fluid motion he couldn't possibly have duplicated. He escorted her into the tent, then stepped back outside, giving her privacy to work.

He looked around the bivouac one last time, then inhaled deeply. He'd done everything he could to settle everyone safely, however little it felt like to him, and curiosity was riding him with spurs of fire. Since there wasn't much else he could do about any of their other problems, he decided he could at least scratch that itch, and pulled out some of the strange equipment they'd recovered, both from the stockade and from the massive toppled timber.

He took great care with the long, tubular weapons every man-and woman-had carried. There seemed to be several different types or varieties of them, and he rapidly discovered that they were intricate mechanical marvels, far more complex than any war staff his own people had built. Of course, war staffs-including the infantry and field-dragons which had been developed from them-were actually quite simple, mechanically speaking. They merely provided a place to store battle spells, and a sarkolis-crystal guide tube, down which the destructive spells were channeled on their way to the target.

Jasak had no idea what mysterious properties these tubular weapons operated upon. Nor could he figure out what many of the parts did, but he recognized precision engineering when he saw it.

A dragoon arbalest, like the one Otwal Threbuch favored, used a ten-round magazine and a spell-enhanced cocking lever. The augmented lever required a force of no more than twenty pounds to operate, and an arbalestier could fire all ten rounds as quickly as he could work the lever. It had almost as much punch-albeit over a shorter range-as the standard, single-shot infantry weapon, and a vastly higher rate of fire, but no man ever born was strong enough to throw the cocking lever once the enhancing spell was exhausted. Infantry weapons were much heavier, as well as bigger, and used a carefully designed mechanical advantage. They might be difficult to span without enhancement, but it could be done-which could be a decided advantage when the magic ran out-and they were considerably longer ranged.

The workmanship which went into a dragoon arbalest had always impressed Jasak, but the workmanship of whoever had built these weapons matched it, at the very least. Still, he would have liked to know what all of that craftsmanship did. Even the parts whose basic function he suspected he could guess raised far more questions than they answered.

For example, the weapon he was examining at the moment was about forty-two inches long, over all. The tube through which those small, deadly projectiles passed was shorter-only about twenty-four inches long-and it carried what he recognized as at least a distant cousin of the ring-and-post battle sights mounted on an arbalest. But the rear sight on this weapon was set in an odd metal block mounted on a sturdy, rectangular steel frame about one inch across. The sides of the rectangle were no more than a thirty-second of an inch across, as nearly as his pocket rule could measure, and its frame could either lie flat or be flipped up into a vertical position.

When it was flipped into the upright position, a second rear sight, set into the same metal block as the first, but at right angles, rotated up for the shooter's use. But the supporting steel rectangle was notched, and etched with tiny lines with some sort of symbols which (he suspected) were probably numbers, and the sight could be slid up and down the frame, locked into place at any one of those tiny, engraved lines by a spring-loaded catch that engaged in the side's notches.

Jasak had spent enough time on the arbalest range to know all about elevating his point of aim to allow for the drop in the bolt's trajectory at longer ranges. Unless he missed his guess, that was the function of this weapon's peculiar rear sight, as well. If so, it was an ingenious device, which was simultaneously simple in concept and very sophisticated in execution. But what frightened him about it was how high the rear sight could be set and the degree of elevation that would impose. Without a better idea of the projectiles' velocity and trajectory, he couldn't be certain, of course, but judging from the damage they'd inflicted, this weapon's projectiles must move at truly terrifying velocities. Which, in turn, suggested they would have a much flatter trajectory.

Which, assuming the sophisticated, intelligent people who'd designed and built it hadn't been in the habit of providing sights to shoot beyond the weapon's effective range, suggested that it must be capable of accurate shooting at ranges far in excess of any arbalest he'd ever seen.

There was a long metal oval underneath the weapon. It was obviously made to go up and down, and he suspected that it had to be something like the cocking lever on Threbuch's dragoon arbalest. In any case, he had absolutely no intention of fiddling with it until they were in more secure territory, away from potential enemy contact. And when he let the very tip of his finger touch the curved metal spur jutting down into the guarded space created by a curve in the metal oval, his fingertips jerked back of their own volition. That startled him, although only for a moment. Obviously, that curved spur was the weapon's trigger-it even looked like the trigger on one of his own men's arbalests-and his meager Gift was warning him that it was more dangerous than the cocking lever (if that is what it was).

The metal tube itself was made from high-grade steel, and when he peered-very cautiously-into it, adjusting it to get a little firelight into the hollow bore, he saw what looked like spiraling grooves cut into the metal. Interesting. The Arcanan Army understood the principle of spinning a crossbow bolt in flight to give it greater stability and accuracy. He couldn't quite imagine how it might work, but was it possible that those spiraling grooves could do the same thing to the deadly little leaden projectiles this thing threw?

He put that question aside and turned his attention to the snug wooden sleeve into which the tube had been fitted. It was held in place with three wide bands of metal that weren't steel. They looked like bronze, perhaps. The wood itself continued behind the tube to form a buttplate-again, not unlike an arbalest's-so a full third of the weapon's length was solid wood.

The long, tapering section of wood, narrowest near the tube, widest at the weapon's base, had been beautifully checkered by some intricate cutting process. It was the only decoration on the weapon, and it was obviously as much a practical design feature as pure decoration. As Jasak handled it, he realized that the checkering would serve exactly the same function as the fishscale pattern cut into the forestocks of arbalests, making them easier to grip in wet weather.

Other items ranged from the obvious-camp shovels, hatchets, backpacks-to the completely mysterious, and he gradually realized that what wasn't there was as interesting as what was. Although Jasak searched diligently, he found no trace of maps or charts anywhere in their gear. He found notebooks, with detailed botanical drawings and startlingly accurate sketches of wildlife, but no trace of a single chart.

The implication was clear; they'd realized-or, feared, at least-that their position was hopeless, so they'd destroyed the evidence of where they'd been. If they were, indeed, a civilian version of Jasak's Scouts, working to survey new universes and map new portals, they would have carried detailed charts that showed the route back to their home universe. From a military standpoint, losing those maps was a major disaster for Arcana. From a political standpoint . . .

Jasak thought about the reaction news of this battle was bound to trigger-particularly in places like rabidly xenophobic Mythal, whose politicians trusted no one, not even themselves. Especially not themselves. As he thought about them and their probable response, Jasak Olderhan was abruptly glad these people had destroyed their maps, even as the Andaran officer in him recoiled from such blatant heresy.

He told the Andaran officer to shut up, and that shocked him, too. Yet he couldn't help it, for a shiver had caught him squarely between the shoulder blades, an odd prescience quivering through him like a warning of bloodshed and disaster.

Than a log snapped in the fire, jolting him out of his eerie reverie, and the uncanny shiver passed, leaving him merely chilled in the night air. He rubbed the prickled hairs on the back of his neck, trying to smooth them down again, and his glance was caught by a small, flat circular object lying wedged into the box of jumbled gear at his feet. He picked it up, and was surprised by its weight. The object was made of metal, rolled or cast to form a strong metal casing. After fiddling with it for a couple of moments, he determined that the top section was a lid that unscrewed. He removed it . . . and stared.

Inside were two . . . machines, he decided, not knowing what else to call them. In the lid section, there was a glass cover that sealed off a thin metallic needle, flat and dark against a white background. Tiny hatchmarks were spaced evenly around the circular "face" with neat, almost military precision. More alien symbols-letters or numbers, he was certain-marked off eight points around the perimeter.

Someone moved beside the casualty tent, and Jasak glanced up, automatically checking to see if it had been Gadrial. It hadn't, and when he turned back to the device in his hand, his gaze snapped back to the needle. He'd moved the case with the rest of his body, but the needle-which appeared to be floating on a post, able to spin freely-hadn't moved with the rest of the case. Or, rather, it had moved, swinging stubbornly around to point in the same direction as before despite the case's movement.

The discovery startled him, so he experimented, and found that no matter how he turned the case around, the needle swung doggedly to point in the exact same direction: north.

Understanding dawned like a thunderclap. It was a navigation device. But this was no spell-powered personal crystal that oriented its owner to the cardinal directions, as every Arcanan compass ever built did. It was nothing but a flat needle on a post, an incredibly simple mechanical device, powered by nothing he could see. How the devil did it work?

The bottom section of the metal case was much heavier than the lid, providing most of the heft he'd noticed when he first picked it up. Clearly, it housed something dense, and this object, too, had a flat glass face, under which lay another dial with hatchmarks, and another series of letters or numbers of some kind, beside each of the twelve longest hatch lines. There were three needles on this device: a short one which scarcely seemed to move at all; a long one which moved slowly; and a very thin one that moved continuously, sweeping around the dial in endless circles.

Its purpose, too, came in a flash of understanding as the slow, audible click-click of the long needle reminded him of the changing numbers in his personal crystal's digital time display. Yet this was no spell-powered device, either. Or, he didn't think so, at any rate. He discovered a small knob at one side which could be pulled out slightly to change the positions of the needles, or simply turned in place. Turning it without pulling it out resulted in a slight clicking sound inside the device, and a gradually stiffening resistance which increased the pressure needed to turn the knob. He stopped before it got too stiff to turn at all, lest he damage it by trying to force it.

He laid the two halves of the case in his lap, gazing down at them in the firelight, and frowned in unhappy contemplation. He was no magister, but his touch of Gift should have been enough to at least recognize the presence of any sort of spellware. Yet he hadn't detected even the slightest twitch of magic. He would have liked to believe that that meant the weapons he'd examined had exhausted whatever powered them, but he knew that wasn't the case.

Instead, what he had was a weapon which had amply proved its deadly efficiency; a navigation device which, for all its simplicity, looked damnably effective; and another device which obviously kept very precise track of time, indeed.

And none of them-not one of them-depended on spellware or a Gift. Which meant they would work for anyone, anytime, anywhere.

The night wind blew suddenly chill, indeed.

Chapter Twelve.

The sun had disappeared into darkness when Windclaw reached the swamp portal camp after almost seven arduous hours of high-speed flight. There were few landmarks to navigate by, but the camp's scattered lights stood out sharply against the unrelieved blackness of a world mankind had discovered considerably less than a year earlier.

Windclaw backwinged neatly to a landing between the base camp's tents and the portal itself. An icy breeze blew across the camp from the portal, rustling the dead trees that speared into the sky on the other side, rattling the reeds on this one. The vast sweep of black-velvet heaven visible above the trees revealed brilliant stars, in an unnerving northern constellation pattern, vastly different from the southern skies it was pasted across.

It didn't seem to matter how many portals Salmeer saw or stepped through; the spine-tingling awe never changed, and he'd been flying portal hops for the better part of thirty years.

Windclaw had barely furled his wings when a soldier ran across the muddy ground, holding what proved to be the transcript of another hummer message. He climbed up the foreleg Windclaw had been trained to offer, and Salmeer recognized him. He didn't know Javelin Krankark especially well, but he'd always impressed Salmeer as a competent trooper, utterly dedicated not only to the Second Andaran Scouts, but also to Hundred Olderhan.

"Thank the gods you're here, Squire!" Krankark panted as he handed Salmeer the transcript. "The hundred's halted at these grid coordinates. He didn't dare keep moving his wounded after dark. He needs you to bring the dragon through for an emergency evacuation of the worst wounded."

Salmeer stared at Krankark in disbelief. He hadn't taken Windclaw through the portal, but he'd made enough deliveries to the base camp when it was daylight on the far side to have a pretty fair grasp of the sort of terrain-and tree cover-waiting on the other side.

"Is he out of his mind?" the pilot demanded harshly. "He wants me to try to set a dragon down out in the middle of those fucking woods?"

"You can't do it?" The javelin's expression was barely visible in the darkness, but the horror in his voice was clear, and Salmeer winced. The critically wounded men out there were this man's brothers in arms, the closest thing he had to a family out here.

"I've seen that canopy out there, and it's murder," the pilot said in a marginally gentler voice, waving one hand at the looming portal. "I haven't actually flown over it, not in that universe, anyway. But I've seen plenty of forests like it. That's a solid sea of trees, Krankark, stretching for hundreds of miles. A transport dragon can't slide sideways between branches that are damned near interwoven!"

"Is that all?" Krankark replied, hope glittering in his voice once more. "The hundred said he's camped along an open stream. He says there's plenty of wing room for a skilled dragon to get in and take off again."

" 'Skilled dragon,' huh?" Salmeer muttered, interpreting that phrase to mean there was just enough clear space for it to be dangerous as hell, but doable . . . if your set was big enough, and your brain small enough, to try it.

In, of course, the opinion of a man who wasn't-and never had been-a qualified dragon pilot himself.

There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. The flight school training mantra ran through the back of his mind, and he hovered on the brink of refusing. After all, Windclaw was an incredibly valuable asset out here. If Salmeer flew him into a treetop, then the possibility of evacuating any of the wounded to Fort Rycharn went straight out the window.

"Just how many casualties are there?" he asked, temporizing while common sense fought against his own sense of urgency.

Krankark's muscles seemed to congeal. The javelin went absolutely motionless, and his voice went wooden and hollow.

"There were twenty-one. There are only twenty now. Hundred Olderhan took a full platoon through the portal-sixty-seven men, counting the supports. Twenty-five of them are dead now."

"Mother Jambakol's eyelashes!" The filthy curse broke loose before he could stop it, and he made a furtive sign to ward off "Mother Jambakol's" evil glance.

"Please, Sir." Krankark gripped his arm. "Please, at least try," he begged. "All the hundred's got out there is an herbalist. We've got men unconscious, and the hundred says Ambor can't bring them out of the coma. . . ."

Krankark's voice shook, and Sword Morikan leaned forward behind Salmeer's shoulder.

"Their situation's desperate, Sir. You've got to get me to those men. I can't heal that many with magic alone, but I can save the most critically wounded, and we've got trained surgeons for the others. Except that unless I get there soon-and from the sound of it, we're talking about minutes, not hours-the death count's going to get worse. Feel that wind blowing through the portal? Badly wounded men won't last the night in that, even with a good hot campfire."

Salmeer swore again.

"All right. All right, I'll get you there, Sword. I won't take Windclaw in unless I decide there's enough room to get airborne again, but I'll lower you through the trees on a frigging rope, if I have to."

Morikan nodded sharply, and Salmeer looked past the healer at the two surgeons and the herbalists.

"I need to lighten the payload, especially if I've got wounded to haul out," he said. "You two dismount and wait for us here."

One of the surgeons looked a question at Morikan, who nodded again, as sharply as before.

"Go ahead, Traith," he said. "I'll take Vormak and two of the herbalists with me; you and the other two can set up here and be ready to work by the time the Squire and I get back. Don't worry," he smiled grimly, "it sounds like we're all going to have plenty to keep us occupied."

Salmeer snorted in bitter amusement and agreement, then turned back to Krankark as two of the herbalists and the surgeon Morikan had addressed began unstrapping and climbing down with their equipment.

"Okay, Javelin. You've convinced me," he said. "Jump down so I can get this boy airborne." The pilot smiled thinly. "Hell, he may just be crazy enough to actually try landing if I ask him to!"

He took the printout the javelin thrust into his hand, with the all-important coordinates of Hundred Olderhan's camp. Then, the moment Krankark and the others were clear, Salmeer patted Windclaw's neck and urged the dragon back aloft.

Windclaw took a running start, snapped his great wings wide, and lifted slowly, rumbling into the air across the open campsite. Windclaw needed nearly a hundred yards just to reach treetop height, because he was big, even for a transport dragon. That gave him lots of lifting power, but he was simply too large and too slow to lift off on his tail, the way some of the smaller fighting dragons could. The fighters-especially the ones bred to go after enemy gryphons-had to be fast and agile, since gryphons were small, swift, and brutally difficult to catch in midair.

Salmeer didn't usually mind Windclaw's lack of agility. Tonight, though, it might pose a major problem. But it might not, too, he reminded himself loyally, for he was proud of his dragon. He and Windclaw didn't share any sort of special bond, like the ones bred into some of the more spectacularly expensive pets wealthy Arcanans sometimes commissioned. No pilot or dragon did. But he'd come to know his beast's moods and temperament. They'd come to . . . respect one another, and Windclaw was fond enough of him-in a dragonish sort of way-to make their working relationship satisfying on both sides, and tonight, Windclaw's decades of experience might just make up for his lack of nimbleness.

Now Salmeer whistled sharply, and the dragon made a wide circle, building speed as he flew. Starlight and moonlight burnished his wings with a metallic shimmer, glittering as they touched the elaborate wing patterns that represented Windclaw's pedigree, as well as his current unit assignment. They swept around toward the opening between universes, gaining speed and more altitude with every wing stroke. By the time he actually reached the portal, Windclaw was moving at very nearly his top velocity and climbing steeply to clear the trees on its far side.

They flashed through the portal, with the inevitable pop of equalizing air pressure in one's inner ear; then they were climbing through clear, cold night air. Windclaw straightened the angle of his climb and leveled out, cruising through a crystalline night sky ablaze with stars and a wondrous moon which wasn't the same one they'd left behind.

Salmeer tapped his personal crystal with the spell-powered stylus that allowed him to plug in Hundred Olderhan's grid coordinates, even though Salmeer himself had no Gift at all, and the crystal obediently displayed a standard navigational grid, with the familiar compass points in a sphere around the circle that represented Windclaw. A blinking green arrow pointed the direction to fly, giving Salmeer a beautifully clear, easy-to-read three-dimensional display to follow. When they reached the target zone, a steady red circle would appear, directly at the grid coordinates Hundred Olderhan had sent.

But before that red circle appeared, they had a good, swift bit of flying to do . . . not to mention the minor matter of figuring out how to thread the needle and land a dragon Windclaw's size, in the middle of the night, along the banks of a frigging stream, of all godsdamned things!

Squire Muthok Salmeer shook his head, not quite able to believe even now that he'd agreed to this. Then he set himself to ignore the biting chill and concentrated instead on the warmth of the extra layer of clothes under his flying jacket and a truly spectacular sky awash with brilliant stars.

Shaylar awoke to darkness, confusion, and the scent of woodsmoke. For long moments, she lay completely still, trying to figure out where she was. She remembered the attack, the frightful cremation of the dead, the strange device they'd used to lift Jathmar and their other wounded on floating stretchers. She even remembered walking beside Jathmar, holding his hand as they evacuated the contact area. But she couldn't figure out where she was now, which suggested a prolonged period of unconsciousness. That made sense, although very little else did. Her head still throbbed with a fierce rhythm, and she still couldn't hear Jathmar, but she felt more rested, which was a mercy.

Unfortunately, she was also beginning to feel the bruises and contusions where that last fireball had blasted her into the fallen tree. Her face was painfully scraped along one cheek and jaw, and the deep abrasions stung like fire. Bruises left that whole side of her face swollen, and they were probably a lurid shade of purple-black by now. She reached up to touch the damage, only to abort the movement when her entire shoulder locked up. A white-hot lance of fire shot straight up the side of her neck, and she hissed aloud in pain.

Someone spoke practically into her ear, and she gasped in surprise, skittered sideways- -and promptly rolled off the edge of whatever she'd been lying on. She bit off a scream, but the fall to the ground was only about ten inches. Which was still more than enough to knock the wind out of her and jar her painfully, especially with her previous injuries.

Whoever had spoken leaned over her almost before she landed, making worried sounds that quickly turned soothing. Gentle hands straightened her bent limbs and tested her pulse, and Shaylar whimpered, cursing the pain that exploded through her with every movement.

Her eyes opened, and she looked up.

She couldn't remember his name, but she knew his face: the enemy commander. He was speaking softly to her, his gaze worried and intense. She hissed aloud and flinched back when he touched the bruises along her jaw with a gentle finger, and his face drained white at the pain sound. What was obviously a stuttering apology broke from him, and she wanted to reassure him. But the unending pain and fear and the silence in her mind left her weak, and far too susceptible to new shocks. She was horrified to discover that all she could do was lie on the cold ground and weep large, silent tears that stung her eyes and clogged her nose.

He bit his lip, then very carefully lifted her. Even through her misery, she was astonished by his strength. She knew she wasn't a large woman, but he lifted her as easily as if she'd been a child, and he held her as if she'd been one, too. A part of her was bitterly ashamed of her weakness, but as he held her close, she rested the undamaged side of her face against his broad shoulder.

He'd been wounded himself, her muzzy memory told her, yet there was no evidence of any discomfort on his part as he held her. He didn't rock her, didn't croon any lullabies, didn't even speak. He simply held her, and despite everything, despite even the fact that he was the commander of the men who'd massacred her entire survey team, there was something immensely comforting about the way he did it.

Perhaps, a small, lucid corner of her brain thought, her Talent was still working, at least a little. That was the only explanation she could think of for why she should feel so safe, so . . . protected in the arms of these murderers' commanding officer.

She was never clear afterward on how long he held her, but, finally, her tears slowed, then stopped. He held her a moment longer, then very carefully placed her back onto one of the eerie, floating stretchers. When she began to shiver, he produced something like a sleeping bag, which he tucked around her. Then he moved her entire stretcher with a single touch, guiding it closer to a bonfire that warmed her deliciously within moments.

The shivers eased away, leaving her limp and exhausted, but she didn't go back to sleep. Her mind was strangely alert, yet wrapped in fog. It was a disquieting sensation, but she found it easier to cope if she just relaxed and let herself drift, rather than struggling to make everything come clear. Thinking clearly was obviously important, perhaps even critical, in her current predicament, but she couldn't see any sense in struggling to do something physically impossible at the moment.

So she lay still on her strange, floating bed, and wondered in a distant, abstracted sort of way, how these people made their stretchers float. There was no logical explanation for it, any more than there were logical explanations for the other mysteries she'd already witnessed: glassy tubes that threw fireballs with no visible source of flame. Seemingly identical tubes that hurled lightning, instead of fire. The odd little cubes that had somehow packed enough explosive force to immolate an entire human body-yet did so without any actual explosion, just a sudden and inexplicable burst of flame.

Sorcery, the back of her wounded brain whispered, and Shaylar was so befuddled, so lost in this unending bad dream, that she didn't even quibble with her own choice of words. Whatever these people used for technology, it looked, sounded, and even smelled like magic. At least, it did to her admittedly addled senses.

As she drifted there in the darkness, she gradually became aware of something else. The scent of food tickled her nostrils, and despite the pounding in her head and the lingering bite of nausea in her throat, sudden, ravening hunger surged to life. The last food she'd eaten had been a hastily bolted lunch, just before Falsan staggered into camp and died in her arms. She had no idea how long ago that had been, or what time it was now, but the stars were brilliant overhead, and the moon was high, nearly straight overhead. It had obviously been up for hours.

It was the middle of the night, then, which left her puzzled by the smell of something cooking over a fire. Most people tramping about in the wilderness did their cooking early in the evening, at or shortly after sundown. But then the commander returned to her, with a bowl and spoon. He smiled and said something that sounded reassuring, and helped her sit up. Her stretcher continued to float, rock steady despite the fact that it was only canvas and ought to have shifted as she moved. Its motionlessness was yet another strangeness she couldn't understand . . . and didn't want to think about yet.

She would much rather think about the contents of the bowl. When he handed it to her, after making sure she was able to grip it, she discovered a surprisingly thick stew, with what looked and smelled like wild carrots-thin and pale golden in the firelight-chunks of what might have been rabbit, and other things she couldn't readily identify. She took a tentative taste, unsure how her uneasy stomach would react to food, and was instantly transported to a state of near-ecstasy.

She actually moaned aloud, wondering how any camp cook could create something this magnificent under such primitive conditions. Then she forgot everything else in this or any other universe and simply ate. Flavors rich and savory with spices she couldn't identify exploded across her tongue, and the hot food warmed her from the inside out. Some of the pounding in her head eased as her body responded to its first nourishment in hours, and she didn't even mind the savage ache in her bruised jaw when she chewed.

By the time she'd ravened her way through the entire bowl, she felt almost human again. A battered and bedamned one, but human, nonetheless. When she lifted her head, she found the enemy commander watching her, his expression wavering between intense curiosity, pleasure at how much she'd obviously enjoyed the food, deep concern, and lingering guilt. She looked back at him for several seconds, and his name finally floated to the surface of her memory.

"Jasak?" she asked tentatively, and his eyes lit with pleasure.

"Jasak," he agreed, nodding. He touched his chest and added, "Olderhan. Jasak Olderhan."

He waited expectantly, and Shaylar considered the intricacies of Shurkhali married names. Better to opt for simplicity, she decided.

"Shaylar Nargra," she said, and he repeated her name carefully, then glanced at Jathmar. His stretcher floated less than a yard from hers, close enough to the fire to keep him warm, and someone had laid a lightweight cover over him, so that the blistered skin and scorched clothing wasn't visible. He was still unconscious though, which terrified her, and her eyes burned.

"Jathmar Nargra," she said through a suddenly constricted throat, and an expression of profound contrition washed across Jasak Olderhan's face.