It was Mauritane's signal flare, bursting into glistening trails of red fire.

"Are your men in trouble?" said Mave.

"They'd better be," answered Mauritane. "That was my only flare."

life is fragile.

"You are under arrest! Dismount and lay down your weapons."

Gestana, the leader of the Hawthorne City Guard, was a young man, with thin, oily hair that sported two limp victory braids which hung down his back. He led twenty-two of the Hawthorne Guardsmen, including the gatekeeper, as well as a few dozen of the city's militia. The guardsmen, armed with poleaxes, had Silverdun, Raieve, Honeywell, and Satterly surrounded in the center of the fish market, while the militiamen, most of whom were fishermen, stood ready to leap into a melee with their long, serrated fish knives.

Silverdun remained in the saddle of his roan, a sour expression on his face. He still held the spent flare cartridge in his hand. Looking over his shoulder, he could see Raieve and Honeywell sizing up their opponents with the same pessimism he currently felt. Satterly was trying his best to remain calm but still cast furtive glances at the gate from which they were now separated by two layers of armed men.

"You heard me," said Gestana. "I said dismount. And no tricks."

"What crime have we committed?" asked Silverdun.

"What crime?" Gestana chuckled. "You want to do it this way? Fine. We have reason to believe that you are escaped convicts from Crere Sulace."

"By what evidence? I won't lay down my arms without evidence." Silverdun dropped the spent flare and touched his sword.

Gestana sighed. "Appeals to legality will only delay the inevitable," he said. "And they won't improve your treatment in our cells one bit."

"I only ask what is mine by right." Silverdun narrowed his eyes.

"Fine," huffed Gestana. "Milon, come forward."

Silverdun recognized the farrier, who stepped forward and pointed at Honeywell's horse. "The bridle on that mare," he said, "belongs to Jem Alan. He's the Vice Warden at Crete Sulace and my wife's brother. I fashioned the bridle myself as a birthday gift for him two years ago."

The farrier nudged Gestana's shoulder. "And those boots. Those are prison issue."

Gestana thanked the farrier and turned to Silverdun. "Such is our evidence."

"That means nothing," said Silverdun. "Perhaps Jem Alan loathes this man and rues the day his sister married so far beneath her station. He probably threw the bridle in the trash the day he received it. I myself received it as a gift from a notoriously cheap uncle." He shrugged.

"Hold your glib tongue, or I'll have it cut," said Gestana. "Dismount. Now."

Mauritane entered the market from a side street and strode to the center of the market, a scroll tube under his arm, with Gray Mave a few paces behind him. "He'll do no such thing," Mauritane said. He walked past Gestana and took Streak's reins from Honeywell. "Now step aside. We're leaving."

"I think not!" shouted Gestana, his face reddening. "I don't know who you people think you are, but you'll dismount and surrender right now!"

"Or what?" said Mauritane, casually stowing the long cylinder containing his charts behind his saddle. He looked Gestana in the eye. "What will you do?"

Gestana's eyes widened. "We'll cut you down where you stand! Is that clear?"

"No, you won't," said Mauritane, busying himself with the straps of his saddle.

When it became clear that Mauritane was not going to elaborate, Gestana laughed. "You're mad! Pray tell me, why not?"

Mauritane turned on Gestana and marched toward him, his sword still scabbarded. "You won't kill us. You won't even try. For two simple reasons: you lack the skill and you lack the desire."

"That's enough," said Gestana. "Men! Take ..."

"Be quiet," said Mauritane, holding up his hand for silence.

"You don't tell me ..." Gestana began.

Mauritane raised his voice. "I said be quiet." Mauritane's stare was fierce and unmoving. Gestana fell silent beneath it, the weight of Leadership bearing down upon him.

"First of all," said Mauritane, "my men are well trained and well armed, whereas yours have been poorly trained and armed even worse. The weapons your guardsmen are carrying are appropriate only against mounted opponents. As soon as you order an attack, my men will dismount and close with them before they have a chance to take a swing. Regardless, half of your men are handling them incorrectly." Mauritane waved his hands around the market, which had grown silent.

Mauritane turned his back on Gestana and addressed the guardsmen. "Second, each of my men is prepared to die here attempting an escape. We have been charged with a mission of critical importance to this land, and we will stop at nothing to achieve our goal. You, on the other hand, have nothing to gain by killing us and very little to lose by allowing us safe passage. Certainly you outnumber us, but how many of you do you think we can kill before you take us? Twenty? Thirty? Which of you wants to be the first to die? Which of you wants to make his wife a widow? His child an orphan? Anyone?"

Mauritane drew his sword and swung it over his head. "Life is fragile, friends," he said. "Once we're gone, you can make this story out to be whatever suits you. But if we fight, you will never be able to glamour over the loss of your brothers and sons."

He wheeled on Gestana and pointed the tip of his sword at the man. "The decision is yours."

"Take them!" shouted Gestana. "Now!"

About half of the guardsmen, including Gestana, came forward. The others hesitated, only briefly, but it was enough. Silverdun leapt from the saddle and drew his weapon, swirling it in the air. Raieve and Honeywell followed suit. Satterly remained mounted, looking frightened.

Gestana raced at Mauritane, sword and dagger drawn. He led with a clumsy attack, lunging low at Mauritane's belly, dagger up to parry an overhead blow. Mauritane riposted, pushing Gestana's blade out of the way with an ugly scraping sound and thrusting at his midsection. Gestana's sword lodged in the cobblestones at Mauritane's feet and he stumbled. Mauritane lodged his sword in Gestana's belly and dragged upward, putting all his strength into the effort. An artery in the guardsman's chest burst, gushing a fountain of blood onto Mauritane's fur cloak. Gestana grunted and choked. He waved his hands, trying to rear back. A thin trickle of blood escaped his mouth and Mauritane dropped him.

Only a few of the other guardsman made it into the fray. Some of the remaining men were stuck in place, watching Mauritane disembowel their leader. The rest of them, overcome with fear, took a few steps back, then ran. The militiamen, apparently rethinking the efficacy of their knives, followed them.

When only five of the guardsmen remained, desperately trying to wield their cumbersome poleaxes against Raieve, Honeywell, and Silverdun, who had closed with them as promised, Mauritane stepped into their sightline and waved his sword.

"Enough!" he shouted. "Drop your weapons and go home. You're not soldiers and you don't deserve to die like soldiers."

The fighting stopped and the guardsmen noticed their fallen leader as a unit. The fight went out of them and they ran, saying nothing.

"Come on," said Mauritane to his people. "Get mounted and go. Don't give them time to think about it." He dropped his cloak on the ground, exchanging it for Gestana's. "I grieve at your death," he whispered into Gestana's ear. "You were a worthy adversary." Using Gestana's dagger, he cut a length of the man's hair from the back of his head and tied it in a loose knot, stowing it in his sabretache.

"What's Mave doing here?" said Silverdun, pointing at the former guard, who retrieved his horse from the alley and joined them.

"Coming with us," said Mauritane. "That's the errand I mentioned earlier."

Mauritane climbed onto Streak with a sigh and led the way toward the gate. No one stood in their path, and the gate was already open when they got there.

They took the Hawthorne Road at a gallop, heading toward Crete Sulace. "They'll be expecting us to turn south toward Colthorn," Mauritane shouted. "So we'll take the Longmont Pass instead. They'll assume we're avoiding the prison."

They made Crete Sulace by nightfall. From the road they could just make out the torches moving along the perimeter walls; Mauritane imagined he could hear the bell for the Night Watch ringing over the wind that sighed through the hills and bent the thinnest branches of the gnarled trees in a ghost dance. In the sky, a waxy moon lit the ground with an almost witchlit glow. There were no other riders on the trail. They were not being followed.

Mauritane slowed to a trot and fell back among the others. "We'll keep going for another few hours. Once we're through the pass, we can cut south and camp in the foothills there."

Satterly groaned. "I thought we were staying at an inn tonight."

"Not anymore," said Silverdun. "When the good folk of Hawthorne recovered their wits, they no doubt sent message sprites to Colthorn and Miday. We'll have to cross the river on the other side of the Longmont Pass and continue south around Miday. That means sleeping on the ground."

Satterly furrowed his brow. "Can't you just glamour us into a caravan of desert gnomes or something? Then we could go wherever we want."

"A glamour would be detected around here," said Mauritane.

"In these parts," said Silverdun, "only criminals wear glamours. They'll have deglamouring wards at every guard post. Better to just avoid cities altogether for a few days."

"Looking forward to a comfortable bed, Satterly?" laughed Raieve. "A few nights on the ground will do you some good."

"Ah," said Silverdun. "There's something else." He looked at Mauritane with a scowl on his face.

"What is it?" said Mauritane.

"In all the excitement I forgot to mention it. When we were arrested by the constabulary, the first thing that odious man did was take my purse."

"How much of our traveling money was in that purse?" said Mauritane.

"All of it," Silverdun sighed. "In addition to being fugitives, we are now destitute as well."

The wind tore at them as they crested Longmont Pass. It had shifted as they'd climbed toward the narrow opening and now pressed at their faces, feeling its way into their clothing and their ears, noses, mouths. They clutched at their cloaks and bowed their heads. The horses fought every step of the way. Mauritane led them single file, taking the worst of it on himself.

Beyond the pass, the land flattened and gently descended toward the River Ebe, a silver strand glowing gently in the distance. The road wound downward toward the river through a dense clutter of scrub brush, bent trees, and smooth rock formations that were twisted and warped in impossible shapes. Beyond the Ebe, past the horizon, lay the Contested Lands and, somewhere past them, the walled city of Sylvan.

Mauritane rode a bit down the trail until the wind calmed enough for conversation. "Did any of you get spellrested while we were in Hawthorne?" he asked.

They all shook their heads. "We were busy being apprehended," said Raieve.

Gray Mave raised his hand, the gesture barely visible in the darkness. "I had a few hours of sleep last night. I don't mind taking the first watch."

"Well, you are Low Chief of Watch," said Silverdun, sounding tired. "I suppose it's fitting."

They rode off the trail and followed a rocky declivity that paralleled a shallow stream. The stream rounded a short outcropping that would protect well enough from the wind and would hide the light of a small fire from the road.

With the horses watered in the stream and tied, Honeywell broke out rations of dried meat and flower petals and passed them around while Mauritane built a fire. "I picked these daisies up in Hawthorne," Honeywell said.

Satterly passed on the daisies, contenting himself with the dried venison that had served as the basis for any number of meals at Crete Sulace. After a day of painful riding and the scene in Hawthorne, he found himself ravenous, if a bit queasy.

After a few minutes, Honeywell, Silverdun, and Raieve lay beneath their cloaks and turned their backs to the fire. Eventually, Honeywell began to snore. Gray Mave took his sword and climbed to the top of the ledge above them to keep watch.

Satterly looked at Mauritane over the fire. Mauritane was staring into the flames, pulling strands of his long hair out before him and twisting them into a braid.

"I'm sorry," Satterly said after a long pause.

"For what?" asked Mauritane, not looking up.

"For freezing today, in Hawthorne. I just sat on my horse like an idiot while you guys did everything."

Mauritane looked briefly at him. "I didn't recruit you for your fierceness in battle," he answered after a breath.

"Well, that's just the thing," said Satterly, wringing his hands. "I felt totally useless back there. I just hope that's not an indication of things to come."

"You'll prove useful yet, I've no doubt," said Mauritane, returning to his task.

Satterly watched Mauritane create his victory braid, taking the knot of Gestana's hair from his sabretache and weaving it carefully in with his own in an intricate pattern. "How many braids do you have?" Satterly said.

"It's my fifty-first kill," said Mauritane, without altering his expression. "Each of these," he said, holding out a row of braids on the left side of his head, "counts for five."

"You just ... killed him," said Satterly.

"What?"

"You just ran him through. That guard in Hawthorne. You didn't even think about it. Doesn't it bother you?"

Mauritane looked at him quizzically. "What did you expect me to do?"

"I don't know. I mean, couldn't we have talked our way out of it or something?"

"Would you rather be sitting in a cell in Hawthorne right now, awaiting your execution?"

"They wouldn't have. I mean, they would have contacted the prison and..."

Mauritane raised an eyebrow. "And Crenyllice would have told them that we were escaped prisoners, just as they suspected. They hang escaped prisoners in the courtyard by the South Tower."

"I just can't believe that you killed that guy. Don't you wonder about who he was? What kind of person he was? What his life was like? Don't you ever feel bad for their families or anything?"

"Life is fragile," said Mauritane. He returned to his braiding.

Satterly sat and thought for a while, watching individual fingers of flame merge and separate in the fire.

"I don't know if I can do that," said Satterly. "I don't know if I can just kill someone like you can."

Mauritane tied the braid off with a length of silky black thread that shone in the firelight. "Then pray to your god that you never have to," he said.

an empty jar/the danger of talking trees.

The next day dawned gray and cold, smelling of dissipating smoke and old ice. Mauritane rose at the first dim light and climbed the embankment to the bluff where Raieve kept watch. She sat perfectly still, staring into the distance beyond the River Ebe. In the growing light the valley was barren and inhospitable, gray and white slopes marked with evergreen stands and the bizarre rock formations that sprang irrationally from the otherwise even ground. Far beneath them the river seemed frozen in time, its green ice dull and somber.