"There's no one on the banks." Tathrin looked up- and downstream.

"No one goes fishing till the harvest's home," grunted Reher.

"Do we have a boat?" Gren looked around.

"Of course," Sorgrad said scornfully. He slid down the crumbling clay bank and hauled a marsh hunter's punt out of a tangle of washed-up branches.

"Aren't we waiting till dark?" Tathrin looked up at the afternoon sky.

"It'll be dusk by the time we reach the bridge." Sorgrad dragged the shallow-sided boat towards the water.

"Do we have oars?" Tathrin tried to sound offhand.

"A paddle." Gren wasn't about to relinquish it.

"Get in, lie low, and we'll let the river do the work." Sorgrad waded into the water.

Gren sprang into the prow and knelt there, alert.

Tathrin shared an eloquent glance with Reher as they climbed cautiously aboard.

"Lie flat," Sorgrad ordered.

The two tall men stretched out as best they could. It was cramped and uncomfortable, and water soon seeped through the planking. Tathrin tensed as Reher shifted his bulk and the punt rocked alarmingly.

"Best to lie still." Sorgrad was crouching in the stern, watching where the current might take them.

The waters whispered on the other side of the planks. The chill of the river soaked the back of Tathrin's shirt and breeches and the marshy odour grew steadily stronger. Add the reek of his own sweat and Reher's and he wondered wryly if the mercenaries holding the bridge or the militias penning them in would need to see the little boat approaching. Surely they would just smell them coming?

He lay still and looked up at the cloudless sky, the blue growing steadily richer as the sun slid towards the horizon. This was at least preferable to the first trip he'd taken on this river.

What did Sorgrad or Gren have planned? Why had they gone to such lengths to bring Reher here? Doubtless Arest and his band of mercenaries could use a blacksmith's skills but why bring Reher to Emirle Bridge to fight in this battle? One man, however strong, surely couldn't make that much difference?

"You've known Arest for years, right, Sorgrad?" he said suddenly. "Why do you need me and Reher along to talk him into your plan?"

"I need you because you're the one Aremil talks to." Sorgrad shifted slightly.

"Can't he talk to you?" He remembered Sorgrad's magebirth. "Or to Gren?"

"That's not a good idea." Sorgrad's tone sent a colder shiver down Tathrin's spine than the river water he was lying in. "If he's caught unawares, Gren tends to lash out."

Tathrin heard a hiss as the paddle bit into the flow and Gren chuckled. "Some sheltya sheltya bastard tried getting inside my head once. He soon regretted it." bastard tried getting inside my head once. He soon regretted it."

"What are you talking about?" Reher demanded.

"Never mind," Sorgrad said repressively.

Sheltya. These mysterious adepts who wielded their Artifice in remote mountain valleys. Tathrin had seen no sign of Sorgrad fearing anything but he certainly treated these unknown enchanters with wary respect as well as mistrust. They could pluck thoughts out of a man's head if they wanted to, without him even knowing--that's what Sorgrad had said. Reniack had talked about enchantments that could find out all a man's secrets. These mysterious adepts who wielded their Artifice in remote mountain valleys. Tathrin had seen no sign of Sorgrad fearing anything but he certainly treated these unknown enchanters with wary respect as well as mistrust. They could pluck thoughts out of a man's head if they wanted to, without him even knowing--that's what Sorgrad had said. Reniack had talked about enchantments that could find out all a man's secrets.

Was that why Sorgrad told him so little of his and Evord's plans? Tathrin suddenly wondered. Because he didn't trust Aremil not to pick things out of his mind? Not so long ago, that notion would have angered him. Now he wasn't inclined to be so affronted. Not when every time Aremil used Artifice to contact him, he seemed to see deeper into his friend's thoughts and feelings, just as Aremil saw further into his. Would bringing more adepts into their conspiracy mean he'd have strangers uncovering his innermost thoughts?

Uncomfortable, Tathrin turned his thoughts instead to the concerns that he knew he and Aremil shared. Where was Captain-General Evord going to get his army from? Just what could they hope to achieve before Aft-Autumn and then For-Winter put an end to all campaigning? The Mountain Men and the Solurans were supposed to be experts in waging war. Weren't they gambling everything on decent weather lasting past the Equinox?

He turned the endless questions over and over in his mind. Was there any way he could phrase a query that might prompt Sorgrad into an unguarded answer? He was tired of the Mountain Man's sarcastic answers that didn't actually tell him anything.

Chapter Twenty-Six.

Tathrin Emirle Bridge, in the Lescari Dukedom of Draximal, 37th of Aft-Summer of Aft-Summer

"There's lit windows in that village." Gren was kneeling in the prow, crouching so low that his chin rested on the rail.

Propping himself cautiously up on his elbows, Tathrin looked over the shallow boat's side. The day was definitely turning to twilight. "Where are we?"

"Nearly there," Sorgrad said.

Reher was snoring. Gren reached back to shake his massive shoulder. "We're coming up on the bridge."

Tathrin saw torches lit on the watchtowers at either end. The illumination threw the water and everything between the defences into deep shadow.

"Don't stare at the lights," Sorgrad chided him. "They're just to keep the militia looking and ruining their night sight."

"Don't move till I say." Gren reached for a coil of rope.

After the drama of his first arrival, Tathrin's second landing on the bridge was blessedly uneventful. A mercenary waiting beneath the arch caught the rope Gren tossed and drew the punt gently against the central pillar's footing.

"All quiet?" Sorgrad stepped lightly onto the stone stairway.

"Cursed boring," the swordsman growled.

"We'll see what we can do about that," Gren promised.

"Shall I take your gear?" With dry stone safely beneath his boots, Tathrin turned to Reher.

"Thank you." The big man answered Tathrin with a wry smile. "I don't like water and it doesn't like me." He handed his canvas sack to Tathrin and clambered awkwardly out of the shallow boat.

"Where's Arest?" Sorgrad asked.

The mercenary jerked his head. "On the east gate."

As they climbed the narrow spiral staircase, Tathrin wondered if the burly captain would insist that Reher strip to his underlinen to prove he had no mercenary tattoos.

"Going to see Arest." Sorgrad passed through the side room of the bridge's central tower with a brief wave. The swordsmen sitting round a game of runes barely looked up.

Outside Tathrin heard the clip of an iron shoe as one of the horses stabled in the archway shifted. The roadway was dark, all the lit torches confined to the outer faces of the gates at each end. Tathrin still listened for the spiteful chirp of arrows coming out of the darkness. How many militiamen were camped on the banks? Could Arest's men break out, as Sorgrad planned?

A solitary watchman stood by the oak door of the eastern gatehouse.

"Zeil? Where's the boss?"

Tathrin wondered how Sorgrad could recognise anyone in the gloom. But it was Zeil.

"Up top."

A narrow stone stair built into the width of the wall ran up to the room above the gate. Arest was leaning against the portcullis mechanism, looking out of a crossbowman's firing slit. Tathrin peered through another one. Campfires beyond the causeway were bright dots in the distant darkness.

Arest reached for a candle lantern hung on a nail and slid its metal shutter up to let out more light. "Don't fret, lad. At least a third of those fires are false lures, just lit to make us think they have more men than they do." He looked at Reher. "Who's this? A new recruit?"

Arest was half a head shorter than Reher but broader in the shoulder and sturdier in the leg. Tathrin wouldn't know who to wager on, if the two men were to wrestle.

"He's a smith with a talent for starting fires." Sorgrad grinned. "Now, Lady Alaric reckons you'll be bored with this game by now."

"I'll say." Arest spat on the floor. "Orlin, pissing Duke of Parnilesse, hasn't sent us a copper penny, for all his promises of gold for every day we hold the bridge. Duke Secaris of Draximal, the horse-kisser, he's not offering anything to get his river crossing back."

"How's the pickings hereabouts?" Gren was still counting campfires.

"We can keep ourselves fed. Send out boats at dawn and dusk and foraging parties give the militiamen the slip easy enough." Arest scowled. "Beyond that, anywhere within reach is picked clean of dainties and there wasn't much to send home to mother to start with. As for entertainment, Halcarion's tits, it's impossible to find a willing whore. Try for a taste of honey and you risk a pitchfork up the arse while your breeches are round your ankles."

"So you and the boys would take a hire from Lady Alaric?" Sorgrad asked.

Arest's narrow eyes brightened. "Her word's always gold in the hand."

"She wants you and the lads to break out on both banks to start a panic." Sorgrad gestured back towards the town. "Convince the Draximal militia that Duke Orlin of Parnilesse is trying push his border north to the bridge." He nodded in the direction of the causeway. "Go through those peasants like a dose through a sick horse and kick the Parnilesse militia so hard they run back to Duke Orlin screaming that Duke Secaris of Draximal is seizing all the forest up to the southern margin."

Arest looked doubtful. "Why would anyone believe either duke's found stones that big in his codpiece?"

Sorgrad smiled. "Because every militiaman will be running with his breeches on fire, swearing by every god from Saedrin down that the enemy's got a wizard."

Arest was astonished. "Lady Alaric wants to spit in the Archmage's eye?"

"Lady Alaric has found this smith who knows all the secrets of Aldabreshin sticky fire." Sorgrad nodded at Reher. "There isn't a peasant between here and the sea who can tell the difference between that and real magecraft."

Arest looked thoughtful. "But the dukes will have seen real wizardry. They'll know when they're looking at a sham."

"They're not here to see it," Sorgrad pointed out. "All they'll know will be twice- and thrice-told tales."

"Which will have them pissing themselves regardless, for fear their enemy's found some secret ally, renegade mage or Aldabreshin alchemist." Arest rubbed a broad hand over his chin, bristles rasping in the silence. "What's Lady Alaric got coming to the boil that needs this much lamp oil thrown on the embers here?"

"She'll bar her door to me if I tell you." Sorgrad shook his head, regretful. "Tighter than Saedrin locks the door to the Otherworld. But when you break out of here, head west across the Triolle hills and then cut north to the uplands above Losand. You'll find Captain-General Evord there, and you can tell him I sent you."

"Evord's back in the game?" Arest looked keenly interested.

Warfare was just a game to these people? Tathrin hid his contempt behind an impassive face. Innocent men and women were no pieces to be played and discarded, lives worth no more than copper cut-pieces won and lost in a game of runes.

"Only take men you know he'll accept on his muster," Gren warned.

"Do you think I'm a fool?" Arest's scorn was half-hearted. Clearly, he was already thinking ahead.

Letting the others go down the stair ahead of him, Tathrin caught Sorgrad's elbow. "How much mayhem will Arest and his men wreak as they pass through Triolle and Carluse?" he asked in an angry undertone.

"Very little." Sorgrad shook his hand off. "Harvest's been good, so the farmers can buy them off with bread and beer and maybe a pig-killing."

Gren's sharp ears heard their exchange. He looked back. "They won't be idling in hopes of casual plunder, long lad. Not if there's a chance of signing onto Evord's muster roll."

"Don't begrudge them food and drink along the way, not if you want them to fight for Lescar's peace." Sorgrad looked up at Tathrin, his eyes hard. "Not when some of them are going to bleed and die for it."

Reher turned, his face shadowed by some grim memory. "There'll be blood on all our hands before morning. Get used to it, friend."

Tathrin swallowed and couldn't find anything to say.

He followed the others back to the central tower and up to the wide room spanning the whole bridge. It was as loud and rowdy as he remembered. Mercenaries huddled over rune games in different corners and others were laughing raucously as they swapped tattered broadsheets. Lewdly illustrated tales and graphic accounts of hanged felons' crimes, Tathrin guessed. Over by the windows, men and women dipped horn cups into open barrels, talking loudly with expansive gestures, ale slopping to dampen the flagstones. Sorgrad and Gren were already by the fireside, greeting old friends and being offered their choice from the seething pots in the hearth.

"I don't suppose their food will choke us." Reher glanced at him.

So whatever else he might be, the blacksmith didn't count himself a mercenary. That was some comfort to Tathrin. He nodded, accepted the offer of a bowl of fishy stew with a brief word of thanks and found a space to sit. As he ate, he watched Arest moving from group to group, talking in low tones. Around the room, all eyes were intent on the captain. As Arest moved on, dark heads, red hair and tangled black curls drew close together in quiet debate. Every so often someone wandered over to the hearth to exchange a few words with Sorgrad or Gren.

"No one owns the river fish, so no one's been robbed to feed us." Reher came to sit beside him with a second steaming bowlful.

Before Tathrin could answer, a mercenary hunkered down in front of them. It was Jik, the tall, thin man who'd taken his dagger till Sorgrad made him give it back.

"They say you know about sticky fire?" He looked sceptically at Reher.

"Do they?" The smith's bearded face gave nothing away.

"Where's the makings of it?" Jik looked at Reher's canvas sack.

"Only a fool would bring such things anywhere near a live flame." Reher used his spoon to point towards the hearth.

Jik grinned. "Right, then."

Tathrin watched him walk casually back to the men who'd first captured him when he was trying to find Sorgrad and Gren.

"You've seen how dry the woods and fields are. Sticky fire could set half the dukedom alight, couldn't it?" If only half the tales that minstrels told were true, the Aldabreshin concoction was all but unquenchable.

"You think we'd really use such gods-cursed stuff?" Reher said in a terse undertone.

"Then what's the plan?" Tathrin was confused.

"Sorgrad sets the fires on one bank and I set them on the other. We have the same talent for it." Reher glowered at him. "Don't breathe a word about that."