"Why would anyone joke about something like that?" I asked, shaking my head at him. "When you say you can fight, there's usually someone around who decides to make you prove it.

Especially when you don't have bulging muscles and room-width shoulders."

"Oh, there's no doubt about you being able to fight, Aelana," another voice chimed in, and then Ranander was sitting down with us. "They were so afraid of you that the one who didn't run fought like a madman. For a moment I was afraid you'd need my help, but you did just fine without it."

"We all did just fine," Garam put in as Ranander grinned, settling himself with a plate. "At first I thought Fearin was crazy, wasting three blades to protect those females when we were so badly outnumbered, but it worked out just fine. None of us had any trouble."

"Those girls must be even more important than we've been told," Talasin said, chewing his food thoughtfully. "I know Fearin knows how good with a blade we all are, but he was cutting down our chances by cutting down our numbers. And speaking about those girls, Ranander, why aren't they here for breakfast, giving everyone a hard time? You haven't done anything foolish, have you?"

"If I'd had to go near them again I'd definitely have been tempted," Ranander answered with alaugh, his face open and friendly. "Luckily for me, though, the High Master decided they'd be better off staying in their apartment until we have some idea about who sent those attackers.

He also said something about not wanting to risk our lives again to protect theirs."

"That's definitely why he did it, then," Garam said with a nod, his brow furrowed. "Those females are important enough for him to risk our lives, and his own as well. I don't think we need to ask who put that kind of a value on the girls, but there's another question needing an answer. Who could possibly have sent those attackers?"

"Couldn't it have been some element in the city, trying to rid themselves of conquerors?" I asked when no one else offered any sort of suggestion. "I mean, it would stand to reason. Who else would know we're here, and who else would benefit if we were killed?"

"Your guess may sound reasonable, but it just isn't possible," Garam denied with a shake of his head. "There was power and planning behind that attack, but no one is left in this city capable of either. We made sure of them all the night we attacked, both administrators and military leaders, with only a few having escaped us. The rest we took care of yesterday, before they could have had a chance to arrange anything like that attack."

"And don't forget they were protected from Fearin's Power," Lokkel added to what Garam had said. "That would take someone with a good deal of Power of his own, but Fearin checked the city thoroughly before we attacked. There was no one here with that kind of Power."

"Is that supposed to mean no one sent the attackers?" I countered, looking back and forth between the two leaders of our army. "Those men simply got together because they were bored, and for that same reason decided to try their luck with us? Of course that would mean they weren't protected against Fearin's Power, he just thought they were. He made a mistake because he was tired after a long day and they were in a position to take advantage of his weariness. Well, now that that's settled we can forget about it."

"You're right, it isn't settled and we can't forget about it," Fearin himself said, coming over to stand near our circle of chairs. "We'll all have to keep our eyes and ears open to see if we can learn anything, but answering the question won't be our first priority. It's more important that we finish up with this city, then continue on our way."

"Things will go faster now that it's stopped raining," Talasin told him. "No matter how willing men are to keep going, they don't get very far slogging through knee-deep mud."

"That's part of the problem my men have had," Garam agreed. "There's nothing but stragglers left for us to round up, but the rain made it harder to dig them out. If the girl really can find Brangol, the rest should be in our hands by sundown."

"They have to be," Fearin said, his expression determined. "Since you'll be leaving tomorrow with the advance guard, today is the last chance you'll have. Lokkel, I'll need our talents today, and yours as well, Ranander. Talasin, you'll oversee the rest. Finish your meals, now, and then we'll get to it."

He turned away from us to go to the table of food, and the others began to eat just a little faster. Fearin's energy and hurry always seemed to rub off on those around him, that and some of his other feelings as well. I silently scoffed at myself for thinking of that, then turned my attention to my own food.

We all finished at just about the same time, and Talasin left first. Lokkel went directly over to Fearin, but Ranander paused to tell me he'd see me later before doing the same. Garam looked as though he wanted to comment on that, but he had already shifted too far over to the business at hand to waste time with teasing.

"Okay, where do we start?" Garam asked me, still looking the least bit skeptical. "I have my special squad waiting, so what do you want them to do first?"

"The first thing I need is something our quarry wore recently, preferably unwashed," I said as I walked back to the food table. "Tell whoever you send for it to wrap it in something without touching it. We don't need a lot of different scents confusing the issue."

"You expect to use dogs?" he asked as he watched me. "That wouldn't be a bad idea, exceptthat we don't have trained dogs. And what do you need all that food for? Are you afraid of missing the noon meal?"

"You can't expect to get the answers you want without doing a little bribing," I returned, giving him something of a smile as I wrapped my plunder in a large cloth. "All right, I'm ready to leave now."

"If you expect me to ask who you intend to bribe with food - " he began, then cut off the vocal annoyance with a snap. He did want to ask, and didn't care to look like a fool by saying he wouldn't and then doing it anyway. We both turned toward the door to the corridor, Garam stomping along for a few steps in silence, then he decided to try to return the annoyance I'd given him.

"I'll bet you can't wait until later," he said, glancing down at me sideways. "Being in the middle of a war is hard, but I've heard it said that waiting makes it sweeter."

"What are you talking about?" I asked, honestly at a loss. My mind had gone to the best way to start the search, and what he'd said made absolutely no sense.

"I'm talking about the way Ranander said he would see you later," Garam supplied, giving me the same sort of smile I'd given him. "The boy is obviously crazy about you, which is something most girls seem to like. That's why I said - "

"Ranander and I are friends," I interrupted his nonsense, finding it impossible not to feel the annoyance he'd wanted me to. "I know the concept of friendship is hard to understand when you've never had any friends, so you'll just have to take my word for it."

"Friendship isn't what he's feeling," Garam corrected, surprising me by not showing insult.

"He's got it bad for you, girl, and no matter what he says he's not interested in just being friends. He watches every move you make with a grin I never knew he had in him, and if he doesn't have plans already made I've never seen a man who did. If you want him that's up to you, but if you don't you'd better handle it."

Handle it. We'd stopped just past the doorway into the corridor, and I had to keep myself from turning back to look at the man who had joined Fearin. Garam being Garam he could have been trying to give me a hard time, but I couldn't bring myself to believe that. Garam had completely changed his att.i.tude toward me, and I remembered what Ranander had said before the attack, about going to bed with me...

"I don't want to have to hurt him, so maybe I can talk him out of it," I muttered half to myself, wondering if that would be possible. "If he's been watching me that closely he ought to know how badly he'd do trying for an Earning."

"What's an Earning?" Garam asked, frowning at the way I shifted the food bundle out of discomfort. "The word seems to mean something I heard about, but I can't remember what."

"It means that any man who wants a Kenoss woman has to Earn her," I answered, still mostly distracted. "He has to be a better fighter than she is, and he has to prove it the only way it can be proven. If Ranander ever tried to Earn me... "

"You'd do him for good and always," Garam finished for me with a dirty laugh, the frown completely gone. "I know the camp women like being with him, but that's probably because he's easy to please. You just send him back to them and then everybody will be where they belong."

For some reason Garam's att.i.tude was really rubbing me the wrong way, but before I could say anything to him the situation changed. The private conversation we'd been having abruptly became less private.

"Well, good morning," a voice said, just about the last voice I wanted to hear. "You don't seem to waste much time getting started with a new day."

"Those who like to sleep late don't usually get involved with wars of conquest, Prince Ijarin,"

Garam answered, visibly shifting ground from something else that he would have preferred to say. Seeing Garam back down that way, certainly at Fearin's orders, added to my annoyance in a way that I didn't have to understand to feel."Which means you might try rethinking your decision to stay while you're having breakfast," I said, giving him one of those smiles Garam and I had been exchanging. "If you head for home right now, you can sleep late every day without worrying that you're missing anything."

"Oh, I never eat breakfast when I do as little as I've been doing," the barbarian answered with the same kind of smile while Garam choked, Ijarin's light eyes brightening. "That means I can't rethink any decisions, but it also means I'm free to join you two in whatever you're about.

That is, if you don't mind, Prince Garam."

"Not at all, Prince Ijarin, not at all," Garam said immediately, obviously to keep me from voicing a different opinion. All those "princes" back and forth were making me queasy, but I doubted if either of them cared. "Fearin said he wanted you involved as soon as possible, so the girl and I are delighted to have you. Aren't we."

Garam nudged me with the question, none too gently or subtly, but Ijarin pretended not to notice. All he did was smile pleasantly at me, waiting for the agreement I'd been ordered to give, so I shrugged.

"If he has to, he has to," I grudged with a sigh, briefly meeting the light blue gaze on me before looking away with indifference. "I'll get the job done no matter how much of an audience I have, and he won't be able to hurt anything - "

"We're going that way, Prince Ijarin," Garam said hastily as he gestured up the hall. "Shall we get started?"

I could feel a pair of eyes on me for a moment before the barbarian gave in to Garam's request and started off up the corridor, but I ignored whatever reaction he'd shown to my prodding.

Less easy to ignore was the shove and scowl I got from Garam, a silent dressing down behind Ijarin's back. It wasn't Fearin who wanted the man with us, I was supposed to remember, it was someone a lot more powerful. Did I want to find the sort of trouble none of my skills or talents would be able to get me out of?

The answer to that should have been obvious, but as I followed the two up the corridor, I wondered.

Garam's special squad was waiting for us at the front of the palace, and he sent two of the men ahead to find the article of used clothing I'd requested. The rest of us followed at a more sedate pace, heading for the man Brangol's house and the real start of the search.

The streets of the city were as busy as they'd always been, but the busyness was one no citizen would have recognized. Armed intruders were everywhere, most buildings and houses looked half torn apart, and as far as any citizen went, there didn't seem to be any. The fearful hid in whatever shadows there were, peering out at their conquerors like slaves, and the rest - The rest were slaves.

"There's another coffle going out now," Garam said to Ijarin, pointing to a chained line of men being forced toward the city's gate. He'd been telling the barbarian what his forces were doing, and had gotten up to the fate of the people still alive.

"You're selling everyone in the city as slaves?" Ijarin asked, looking as though he was bothered by the idea. "Isn't that on the unusual side?"

"It takes a lot of gold to keep an army moving and happy," Garam answered, too busy looking around at the working guardsmen to notice Ijarin's reaction. "But no, we're not selling everyone as slaves. Those who are healthy and strong have been chosen, those with soft lives or formerly good businesses. We first relieve them of whatever gold and silver they have, and then we collect a price for them. I'll bet the girl's not too unhappy about all this, considering what they did to her."

"You really were a slave here, then," the barbarian said, turning to look at me. "I thought I might have been mistaken, that you'd only been pretending - It doesn't bother you that others are having done to them what was forced on you? Just as unwillingly and just as completely?"

"'Bother' is the wrong word to use," I answered with a shrug, watching the stumbling, moaning line of men who were being prodded out of their city and their former lives forever. "I wasmade a slave because most of those people allowed it. They liked the idea of slavery because they weren't bright enough to understand that it might be someone else being collared today, but who knows about tomorrow? As long as slavery is possible, tomorrow it could be you wearing the chains. No matter how safe you feel, no matter how convinced you are that it could never happen, as long as it can be done to others it could also happen to you. With some people, it's a lesson that has to be learned the hard way."

"I think they've learned it," Ijarin muttered, also staring at the coffle. "Does it help if you learn a lesson too late for it to do you any good?"

"It helps us," Garam put in with a grin. "What else are we supposed to worry about? Let's get moving again, we're almost there."

He headed off to the left and I followed, leaving the barbarian to join us or not as he pleased.

Ijarin had sounded really ... bothered by what was happening to the people around him, as though he was used to being able to do something to help. It was nice to want to help people, at least it was nice for those doing the helping. For those being helped, it would do more good if they were taught to help themselves. Dignity and satisfaction come from helping yourself, but idealists seem incapable of understanding that.

Another two streets brought us to an area of middling-good houses, most of which no longer had doors. I could feel hidden eyes on me as we walked, adding to the discomfort of the growing heat of the day. The trail would lead me deeper into the heart of the city, something I'd known from the very first. It would be worse there, more eyes and even more fear, especially when I found the man...

"There they are," Garam said, pointing to two guardsmen standing in front of one of the undamaged houses. "Those are my men, and it looks like they found what they were sent for."

"Make sure," I told him, keeping my voice low. "If what they found doesn't belong to our quarry, or was handled by them or others... It could turn out worse than simply wasting our time."

"Why?" he demanded, stopping to turn and look at me. "What do you intend to do that will make it worse? We need the man alive, remember, and able to talk to us. Tell me what you'll be doing."

"I didn't ask why you want the man, so you don't get to ask how I'll find him," I retorted, noticing that the two guardsmen were coming to us rather than waiting. "Make sure they did what you told them to, and then I can get to it."

"If it's that important, then you make sure," he said, stepping back a little to give me a better view of the men who had reached us. "If you don't need me to help do the finding, you also shouldn't need me for the questioning."

There was a hard gleam of satisfaction in his eyes, the result of what he'd done to ease his feelings of insult. The men were his, and he hadn't told them anything about taking orders from me or answering my questions. When I got nowhere with them then he would take over, but not before he made me tell him what he wanted to know. It was a typical Garam strategy, but he hadn't seen what I'd just noticed. Good and bad aren't always two sides of a coin; if you spin the coin fast enough the two sides become the same.

"Come closer," I told the two men very softly, the two who had stopped as far from me as they possibly could. Their faces held no expression, but their eyes said they'd heard things... They glanced at each other when they realized what I'd said, then came slowly, cautiously, just a little, closer.

"Tell me how you know the article of clothing belongs to the man we're after," I said, still speaking softly but looking directly at them. "If you're convinced of it, I want you to convince me."

They glanced at each other again, their faces paling just a bit, then one of them cleared his throat.

"We - ah - used the house slave," he offered, forcing himself to return my stare. "The boyhates his master, and can't wait until we catch him. He did real bad to that boy - When we freed him he couldn't stop thanking us - He swears the tunic belongs to Brangol, and he didn't wash it because he wasn't a slave anymore."

"We have no choice but to a.s.sume the boy was telling the truth," I said, not happy about needing to accept the word of a slave. Some of them, especially the younger ones, grew to like what was done to them... "And he also convinced you that no one else had been touching the tunic, not even him?"

"The thing was flung into a corner, by Brangol himself, so the boy said," the guardsman answered with a nod. "He came racing in after the main attack, threw things around looking for what he wanted, then ran out again. The boy hasn't seen him since."

"And you two made sure not to touch it yourselves," I said, needing to hammer home the point.

"If you did, all I need is for you to show me where."

"By all the G.o.ds, lady, didn't neither of us touch it," the second man said fervently, his voice trembling very faintly. "Not when we knowed it was you who wanted it."

"They never disobey anybody who's good with a sword," Garam put in, his expression neutral and his gaze calmer than I'd expected it to be. "Do you have everything you need now?"

"I hope so," I muttered, putting a hand out for the bundle the second guardsman still clutched.

He edged closer to give it to me before backing away again, then flinched when he saw the scowl Garam was sending. It took me a moment to understand that scowl, and when I did I couldn't wait to get away from them all.

"I need to be alone for the first part of this," I said without looking at any of them. "Wait here, and when we're ready to go I'll call you."

It wasn't necessary to wait for any agreements, so I didn't. There was an alley between Brangol's house and the next one to it that I'd already decided on, so I strode toward it without another word. Garam had been angry with his men, but not for the reason I'd expected. He'd known they'd answer me, hadn't been expecting anything else as I'd thought at first, but he'd gotten angry over the fear they'd shown. As though he knew what sight of that fear did to me.

His comment about swords, trying to excuse their behavior that way... Garam had been arrogant and insensitive; why couldn't he have stayed that way?

I reached the alley and continued on into it, trying to understand why I had such trouble when people were nice to me. It wasn't easy when they hated and despised me, but somehow it was easier to cope with. If, a few days earlier, someone had told me Garam would end up trying to protect my feelings I would have laughed right in their face...

"All right, let's get on with this," I muttered, stopping amid a scattering of garbage and other refuse. Alleys like this weren't used by the people of the neighborhood very often, so public slaves weren't sent in to clean them up any more often than every now and then. The smell wasn't too bad either, nothing like what it was in the alleys around the market place. I cleared a piece of ground with my booted foot, crouched down and scattered some of the looted food I carried, then straightened up again.

"I bring a gift of food, brothers and sisters," I said softly in the language of rats. "Come and take it, for I would speak with you."

I had to step back just a little before even the scout would show himself, but once I did he came scurrying over with nose and whiskers twitching. He grabbed a mouthful of my offering without taking his eyes from me, his ears swiveling even while he chewed, and then he sounded the all-clear. Half a dozen other rats appeared instantly then, more hanging back in the shadows, and it didn't take long before the food was eaten. Only then did the others come out, to lick up crumbs and droplets of what had been there, while those who had eaten stood looking at me.

"You have more," one of the rats said in the squeaking hiss of their language, a rat larger than the rest. "Give it to me."

"In time," I answered, feeling all the rest of the eyes joining his pair. "I have a trade to offer."

"We can take the food," he answered, gathering himself without moving a muscle. "Togetherwe can take that food and the flesh of your bones as well."

"You know better than that," I replied, letting him see and feel my amus.e.m.e.nt. "I am not like the others, and none of you would ever eat again."

"No, you speak to us as the others do not," the rat grudged, his whiskers quivering as he realized there was no fear smell on me. "What trade do you offer?"

"I seek one of my own kind," I said, letting myself feel nothing but total a.s.surance. "He nested in this dwelling beside us, but has left it. I will have his current nesting place, and you will have the food I guard. I will trade for no other thing."

"There is much metal buried not far from here," the rat tried, his voice taking on the least coaxing quality. "It is many-times-touched metal, the sort your foolish kind desires even above food. I will show you where it is."

"I seek the one of my kind who nested here," I repeated, pretending I hadn't heard him just the way he'd done with me. "I will have his current nesting place and you will have the food I guard. I will trade for no other thing."

"What if the one you seek has gone to feed those about him?" the rat asked, his tail moving with frustrated swings. "What, then, will you trade for?"

"Nothing," I answered, making the word very flat and final. "I will take the food I guard and return to the others of my kind."

The rat paused to think about that, his black, beady eyes staring while his nose and ears twitched. If I'd given them the choice of doing something easier than searching for one of those they hated and feared, they would have lied and told me Brangol was dead. Now they knew they had to find him in order to get the food I "guarded," and were wondering if they could take the food without needing to trade. I let the least, distant thought of the beast trickle into my mind, and suddenly all of the rats were quivering.

"Indeed are you unlike the others of your kind," the leader said, held in place only by his overwhelming desire for the food I carried. "We will seek the nesting place of the one you would have."

"Good," I said, clearing my mind in order to calm my small allies. "I have a thing belonging to the one I seek, so you can know his scent. Take only the strongest scent, even should there be others."

I opened out the tunic in the cloth it was wrapped in without touching the tunic itself, and put it down where I'd put the food. Once I stepped back again the rats all came to examine it with their noses and tongues, and once they had what they needed their leader sent them off. All but the core group disappeared, and the leader looked up at me again.

"I, too, will seek the one you would have," he said. "We will return when we have found it."

"I may well be on this very spot," I answered, shifting my hold on the sack of food. "If I am not, I will not return."