"How far is that in li?" he asked, but the chieftain shrugged.

"I have never measured the grass in Shannish terms.

But we will reach the outskirts of the khan's encampment by nightfall."

Another day lost. They would lose as much time and more fighting over the detour, however. With a glance to either side, Llesho gave his own sign for his two companions to follow, and they set their course in the path of the Harnish riders.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE.

THEY rode toward nightfall at a leisurely pace so that Llesho's forces could catch up. Before too long had passed, the line of march arrived and flowed around them, led by Kaydu in her human form. Little Brother traveled with Dognut in the baggage wagon, unwilling to abandon the dwarfs shiny flutes, so his mistress rode without benefit of his monkey commentary. She nudged her horse closer and gave Llesho an informal salute. If he hadn't already figured out what was going on, he'd have thought she'd come up close on Harlol's side with no special purpose. The Wastrel, who fought for his position at Llesho's side under most circumstances, shifted to make room for her. The little smile they exchanged left no doubt about their feelings. Not at all like the sappy glances between lovers in the ballads, Kaydu and Harlol seemed to see in each other a prized weapon once lost but now fitted to its proper place.

In his dream, Harlol had died with the other Tashek, had offered up his dead eyes to Llesho on a grassy plain much like the one they now traveled. Llesho's feelings about Kaydu confused him, but he knew he didn't want the Tashek dead over them.

For all that she wasn't much older than he was, Kaydu was his teacher and the captain of his cadre. She'd kept him alive on a few occasions and nervous on others, a part of his personal landscape since he'd left Pearl Island. He didn't want that to change, but Kaydu had always served the Lady SienMa, through her father's command. Now she had a new tether on her heart.

Fortunately, the Dinha of Ahkenbad had put that tether, Harlol, into Llesho's hand. He figured he could work with that.

Catching the Wastrel's eye, he gave a clench-jawed jerk of his chin, unwilling acceptance. "Don't you die on her." He made it an order.

Kaydu looked at him like he'd lost his mind. "Are you listening to me?" she asked. "Because I don't know what you're talking about."

Llesho gave a guilty start. He hadn't heard a word she'd said. Harlol had been watching him, however, and he'd heard the Dinha's prediction. The Wastrels were Llesho's to spend, as the dream readers knew he would. "You can't change fate," he said.

"Yes, I can." Llesho brought his fist down on the horn of his saddle to emphasize his point. "Changing fate is what this quest is about."

"Maybe," Kaydu interrupted, "but right now, Master Den wants to see you. He rides with the baggage."

Llesho nodded an absent acknowledgment. "Nobody dies," he said with a last glare at Harlol, and pulled his horse out of the line of march. None of his own captains followed.

Yesugei, however, pulled out of line with a gesture to his men to stay where they were. The wait wasn't long. Carina, deep in conversation with Balar, flashed him a little smile in greeting as they passed, but his brother didn't notice him at all. Lluka, however, latched a piercing stare on the Harnish Yesugei, turning full around in his saddle rather than let go of that scrutiny.

"That one is trouble," the chieftain pointed his chin as Lluka moved away.

Llesho had to agree, "To the Ham, probably. He resents the loss of his country and his family."

"Warn him that your numbers are few and the armies of the Northern Khan are great. It would not serve his dead, or his king, to make war against an ulus that has done him no harm."

By coincidence, or so it seemed, Shokar was passing with his tiny band of Thebin fighters as the Harnishman gave his warning, and Llesho took his meaning to heart. No harm yet, but he didn't know how strong Yesugei's ulus was, or how his khan might respond to even their small threat. His host was quick to tell him.

"No army may enter the ulus of the Chimbai-Khan," Yesugei said. "However, an honor guard suited to his station may accompany any visitor of rank."

"How many for a king?"

"Fifty will do." The number of Llesho's troops, said with a wry twist of a smile to his mouth.

"And if I crossed your khan's attention with a thousand?"

"That, too, for a king," Yesugei acknowledged. "More would be asked to wait their king's pleasure on their own side of our border."

Llesho judged the khan's might by what he considered a threat but the numbers always came out the same. He hadn't had even a thousand troops in his service since he'd tangled with Master Markko's forces on the borders of Shan Province, and that had been more Shou's battle than his. Without the empire's backing, what did he have? Nothing, compared to the numbers Master Mar-kko could throw at them. But their numbers would grow, somehow. Why else had the gods dragged him halfway across the known world? Why else sacrifice the dream readers of Ahkenbad, if they didn't intend that he win?

He looked away so that the Harnish chieftain didn't see the despair wash through him and spied, at some distance, a small flock of sheep and a greater herd of horses grazing in the still of the afternoon. Harnish outriders kept a careful watch, unmoving as statues on their short horses while herdsmen patrolled among their animals, gathering strays with the expertise the raiders had shown when driving their human stock to market on the Long March.

The grass was too short, and had been the while they'd traveled, for so small a herd to have cropped it. Llesho wondered what army awaited them whose beasts had cleared the land down to the bone for all the li around. Fingers clenched pale against the dark leather of his reins, he held to his nerve by a thread. The Harnish chieftain at his side made note of his sudden tension, though he kept his opinion to himself.

I'm not afraid right now, he would have told the man; he would have told the man; that other time sneaks up on me at inconvenient moments. that other time sneaks up on me at inconvenient moments. But words refused to come. Presently the baggage cart rolled into view with Dognut's camel, which Harlol had named Moonbeam a lifetime ago it seemed, tied to its side. Among the guards who surrounded the wagon, two each of Tashek and mercenary and Thebin, he recognized the Wastrels Zepor and Danel, but not the others. But words refused to come. Presently the baggage cart rolled into view with Dognut's camel, which Harlol had named Moonbeam a lifetime ago it seemed, tied to its side. Among the guards who surrounded the wagon, two each of Tashek and mercenary and Thebin, he recognized the Wastrels Zepor and Danel, but not the others.

The end of the cart had been let down. Master Den, in his usual garb that served him as well in the laundry as on the march, sat facing the way they had come. His back rested comfortably against a heap of red tent cloths and his legs hung off the tail of the storage bed, his toes nearly dragging on the ground. Seemingly unaware of the picture they made together, Dognut perched at his shoulder on a sack of clean bandages, his back to the side of the cart. Little Brother slept peacefully in his lap as he played a marching song known for its scandalous verses on a small silver flute. The baggage guards knew the song well, Llesho guessed. They hid their laughter with little success behind their battle-callused fingers.

"Master Den." Llesho swung off his horse and joined his teacher at the back of the cart. Reins held loosely in his lap, he let his legs dangle in unconscious imitation of the trickster god.

"Master of the washtubs, I surmise," Yesugei jerked his shoulder in a Harnish gesture at the supplies in the baggage cart. "I didn't know that launderer counted itself a higher rank than prince among the Thebin people." His tone clearly suggested that such ordering of the ranks went far to explain why a Harnish bandit sat on Kun-gol's throne.

The insult raised the hackles on Llesho's neck, and he would have returned an acid reply, but Master Den patted his leg, as if he calmed a spirited horse. It should have made him angrier, but to his chagrin it worked. He actually found himself settling again. Much changed in his world, but Master Den remained a sun around which Llesho planned his seasons. At least until he pulled the saddle blanket out from under him. ChiChu, the trickster god, would do that. It was his nature. As the nature of a Harnish chieftain made him prod for the weaknesses of a potential enemy.

"Even a prince can learn a lot from the right launderer," he answered.

"Washing shirts. A useful skill for a warrior prince," Yesugei scoffed, though with a question in his eyes. His seat on a horse should have given him a height advantage. Llesho's head came only to the chieftain's knee, but Master Den met his gaze on an equal level. The launderer's eyes, Llesho observed, twinkled with secrets.

"That, too," Master Den answered. "When a prince has been sold into slavery by enemies he had no part in making, he can do worse than learn to wash a shirt."

He can test poisons for a witch, Llesho thought to himself. Unaccountably ashamed of the time he'd spent chained in Master Markko's workroom, he kept that behind his teeth. Llesho thought to himself. Unaccountably ashamed of the time he'd spent chained in Master Markko's workroom, he kept that behind his teeth.

The trickster god continued, however, with a wry smile. "When he reaches beyond his unjustly reduced station, a prince can be taught many things."

"Master Den instructed the gladiators of Pearl Island in hand-to-hand combat," Llesho explained.

"A gladiator, a washerman, and now a warrior prince. You have been many things in such a short life." Yesugei jested with a sweeping bow to Dognut, "And this must be your swordsmaster."

The dwarf stopped his playing to raise his hands, warding off any fight between them, a gesture at odds with his stature. "Just a lowly musician, kind chieftain," he said, "who would record the tale of this quest in song. I am no warrior. This monkey, however, has seen much of battle."

Little Brother chittered fitfully in his sleep, and Llesho smiled. "He saved my life at least once," he remembered fondly, and tickled the creature under its chin.

Yesugei laughed, disarmed by the seriousness of the curious little man and the monkey in the uniform of the imperial militia. "My khan will have my head for bringing before him such a motley jumble of madmen."

"And yet," Master Den countered with a familiar smile, "your shaman dreams just such dreams, does he not, Yesugei?"

"He does," the chieftain agreed. He spent a long moment studying the gently smiling face of the trickster god, and finally nodded, as if some unspoken question had been answered, though not to his liking. "The dreams of the shaman never foretell good fortune."

"In troubled times," Master Den agreed, "fortune good and evil often travel side by side."

Yesugei rightly took this for a prophecy. "A matter for the khan to sort out," he decided. With a bow of more respect than he had shown to that point, he left them to regain his place at the head of the line.

Llesho had almost forgotten why he had dropped to the rear in the first place. When Yesugei disappeared among his own small band of clansmen, however, he remembered Kaydu's message.

"You asked to see me?"

"Mm-hmmm." Master Den closed his eyes and let his head fall back onto the folds of tent cloth.

"Did you want to tell me something? Or ask me something?" Llesho prodded gently. It didn't pay to be too demanding with the trickster god.

"Mm-hmmm." Master Den gave a little wiggle that set his whole great bulk in motion and taxed the springs of the wagon. Llesho realized he was burrowing more comfortably against the cloths at his back.

"And that would be?"

"It's a perfect time for a nap, don't you think?"

Great Sun was fading, and just looking at Little Brother, lying in boneless ease, sapped the tension out of his shoulders. A cool breeze off the grass teased lazily at Llesho's hair and the sound of Dognut's flute in a wistful lullaby took the threat of old memories out of the creak of saddle leather and the smell of the grasslands. Llesho decided that, yes, a nap sounded very good. It seemed there ought to be more to it, though, so he asked.

Master Den shrugged, quaking the wagon they were in. "I wanted to check out this Harnish chieftain you found for us. Now I have."

A question started to form-what had Master Den concluded?-but his teacher knew his mind.

"A good man," he answered without being asked. "He'll do."

"I thought so, too."

"Do" for what, he hadn't figured out yet, but he was already falling under the spell of Dognut's lullaby. Master Den took the reins from his hand and tied them to the latch at the end of the wagon. Freed of worries for his horse, Llesho curled up at the bottom of the cart and fell asleep. Under the watchful protection of the trickster god and the dwarf musician, he did not dream.

A small foot tapping insistently at his ribs brought Llesho awake just as Great Sun fired a horizon dotted with a scattering of white felt tents. Between sleepy Winks he noted that they were smaller than he'd expected: pale mounds huddled like nervous sheep on the grassy plain beneath a bowl of hard indigo sky turning purple at the edges.

"Are we there already?" He stretched as he mumbled his question, and only opened his eyes when Balar's voice answered.

"Not yet. We are on the outskirts of the Chimbai-Khan's tent city. The chieftain Yesugei says that we can camp here for the night. He's sent word ahead to the khan; by morning we should know whether we go ahead or die in our bedrolls."

"What are you talking about?" Llesho needed to be at the front of his forces when they entered the camp of Chimbai-Khan, so he untied his reins and hopped down off the wagon. "Has Yesugei been making threats?"

"Not threats, exactly," Balar admitted.

Master Den still slept-already he had expanded into the space Llesho had left, sprawled in untidy relaxation on the wagon floor. Dognut, however, followed the conversation with bright, eager eyes. "Leaving us so soon?" he asked. "I am curious about these not-exactly threats."

"My brother calls me to duty," Llesho answered. "If you want to eavesdrop on your betters, you need to saddle Moonbeam and ride in state among the warriors, not rattle along in an old wagon."

"Moonbeam and I have decided that, for our mutual comfort, we should spend some time apart." Dognut rubbed his backside to emphasize his point.

"Take what comfort you can, dwarf. For myself, I can't remember a more uncomfortable journey." Llesho could, of course. Riding with an arrow lodged in his shoulder, trying to escape Master Markko's scouting party came immediately to mind. It had hurt more, but nothing had humiliated him quite like bouncing across the desert slung over the camel's hump with his face buried in her rank- smelling flank. Not one of his more heroic moments. It hadn't turned out well for anybody, but he didn't think Dognut had had much say in his kidnapping, and Llesho was inclined to forgiveness. "An hour in your wagon has made up a part of the bill for that experience, and I thank you."

He didn't mention the precious gift of dreamless sleep, but the dwarf read him well enough to know it.

"Any time." Dognut gave a little bow of his head and picked a bamboo flute from his quiver by way of dismissal.

With Balar riding nervously at his side, Llesho eased his horse forward, toward the head of the line. The soldiers they passed stole glances at him with cautious wonder when they thought he wasn't looking. He pretended not to see.

"What has Yesugei done to distress Lluka now?" He couldn't believe he'd misread the chieftain, and Balar's next words reassured him on that account.

"Yesugei has behaved with all proper hospitality. Lluka is worried about this Chimbai-Khan."

Llesho waited for his brother to explain. Eventually, he did. "When you retired to the rear, Lluka took your place among the captains."

"Shouldn't that have fallen to Shokar?" Shokar, after all, led their Thebin troops.

Balar fidgeted in his saddle, spooking his horse. When he had settled the beast, his gaze slid away, seeming to count the soldiers they passed.

"What are you trying not to tell me?"

"Shokar doesn't want the position. You know that. Lluka does want it, but can't have it. What more is there to tell?"

Llesho blew an exasperated sigh. "I didn't ask to be king." He was feeling decidedly put upon by his brother, and not in the least blessed by this quest visited upon him by a dead adviser.

Balar shrugged. "We all know that. Lluka doesn't even want the kingship. He just . . ."

"Doesn't trust my judgment?"

"You're very young, and .. ." Balar gave an apologetic shrug. "Don't take offense, but from what we've seen so far, this quest of old Lleck's has been a disaster. The dream readers of Ahkenbad are dead, the emperor of Shan, by all accounts an adventurer with nerves of adamantine, has left the field in a state of shock. His magician, who might have given us a chance against the allies of this Master Markko, has left the field with his master. And who remains to support our cause should the Har-nishmen in our company prove as villainous as their brothers who laid waste to Kungol? A washerman, asleep in the baggage wagon, who may be mad or may be the trickster god himself!

"I went to a great deal of effort to rescue you from the very fate that so unmanned the emperor of all Shan-the Harnish raiders would have taken you at Durnhag if Har-lol and I hadn't got you out of there. Now I find that I am tagging behind you, with weapons sheathed, as you lead us to the very outskirts of a Harnish tent city about which we have no good intelligence. Your Yesugei has seen to that; he turns back all the scouts we send out to take the measure of our position. I think that warrants a bit of concern."

"Yesugei assures me that his khan means us no harm. I believe him."

"Excuse me for believing him not at all. The emperor of Shan did not fare so well as a guest of the Harn, and yet you put less faith in your own brothers than you do in this stranger from the race of Thebin's enemies."

Llesho had his own doubts, and couldn't really blame his brothers for their concern. Master Den asleep in the baggage wagon seemed little to wager their lives on, but it firmed Llesho's resolve that he'd made the right decision. Master Den had entered every battle alert at his side. He would do no less if they faced treachery now. But Balar had raised the specter of a greater threat, and he didn't know how to answer it.

"It's not that I don't trust you to do to what you think is right." Llesho paused, working through his misgivings. Balar didn't wait, however.

"You just don't trust my idea of 'right,'" he complained. "You're as certain of Shokar as if he were the ground under your feet, and I can tell when you are thinking about Adar because of the longing that crosses your eyes when you think of him."

"It isn't you-" Llesho meant to say, "It's me," but Balar gave a little laugh and answered for him.

"I know. It's Lluka. I just want to know why."

And suddenly, Llesho did know why. "Why is Shokar here?" he asked.

"He brought your Thebin soldiers to fight against the Ham." Few enough of them, for a start, but he'd come.

"And where is Adar?"

"Taken prisoner on your quest." Balar got it now. Llesho could see the pieces falling into place, but he asked the next question anyway.

"And why are you here?"

Balar studied Llesho's face as he considered his answer. "I thought I knew," he said, while allegiances shifted in his eyes. Llesho didn't press him for an answer, but let the questions simmer in his mind.