A pair of kobolds rushed Gaedynn. He smeared the first one's eye down its face with a stop cut and balked the second by chopping the steel point off its javelin.

Then he scrambled to interpose himself between Jhesrhi and as many of the enemy as he could. Now that she was belatedly making herself useful, it was his task to keep the kobolds off her while she cast her spells.

He landed a cut to a kobold's flank, then twisted aside from a javelin thrust. Almost nimbly enough-the steel point ripped his jerkin and shirt and grazed along a rib. Because shiftless poachers, Glasya take them, didn't wear brigandines. He killed his assailant before it could pull the weapon back for another try.

Behind him, Jhesrhi chanted a rhyme. For a heartbeat iridescence shimmered through the air. Rain fell upward, leaping from the puddles toward the clouds. A point of red light flew past Gaedynn into the mouth of the burrow-where, with a roar, it exploded into flame. The blast ripped the kobolds that were just emerging into burning, tumbling limbs.

Jhesrhi rattled off another spell. Rumbling and thudding in big chunks and little pellets, earth fell from the roof of the opening. The collapse didn't quite fill it all the way to the ceiling, but no more kobolds would be coming out that way.

When the reptiles who'd already emerged saw what Jhesrhi could do, they hesitated. Panting, Gaedynn wondered if he and his companion could get past without having to fight the rest of them.

Then the big creature bellowed. Gaedynn glanced around just in time to see it launch itself at Jhesrhi. Its face was a charred, oozing mass. But the fire was out and had spared the brute's eyes.

Jhesrhi spoke a word of command and stabbed with the tip of her staff. A fan-shaped flare of yellow flame leaped from the staff. It seared her attacker, but the creature kept charging, war club raised for a bone-shattering blow.

Gaedynn was too far away to interpose himself between the officer and Jhesrhi. So he hurled his sword.

He was no expert knife thrower, nor was the blade balanced for throwing. Tumbling, it hit with the flat, not the point, and did no more harm than if he'd tossed a stick.

But perhaps it startled the brute, for it looked around. And maybe it was that momentary hesitation that gave Jhesrhi time for one last spell. She stamped her foot, and the ground split beneath the officer's feet. It howled as it plunged into the chasm. It released the club and snatched for the edge but failed to grab hold.

Whipping out the hunting knife he wore on his belt, Gaedynn spun back around to face the remaining kobolds. It wasn't much of a weapon for a man battling multiple opponents, but to his relief, the reptiles looked even less inclined to keep fighting than they had a moment before.

One of them spoke in their own harsh, hissing tongue. Then they retreated, at first backing away with weapons leveled, then turning and scurrying into the rain.

Gaedynn watched to see if their withdrawal was a ruse. It didn't appear to be.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yes," Jhesrhi said, looking around for creeping kobolds like he was. "You?"

"Scratched." And the graze was starting to sting, now. "Some healer's salve would be a good idea. What happened to you?"

"It won't happen again."

"That's not what I asked."

"But it's all I have to tell you."

"Curse it, woman, it was my life in danger too."

Her voice was ice. "It won't happen again!"

"How deeply reassuring." He took a breath. "Do you know a charm to help us catch the horses?"

The Brotherhood had conducted its first successful raid into Threskelan territory. Now they were bringing their plunder into Soolabax. Laden with sacks of flour and seed, the carts squeaked and rumbled. The skinny sheep baaed, and the goats bleated.

As Aoth watched from the battlements atop the gate, it occurred to him that his men had just condemned a bunch of peasants to hardship if not starvation. They'd left the wretches with nothing to eat or plant, with no better justification than that the farmers happened to live on the wrong side of the border.

For a moment, he felt guilty. Which was stupid, since he'd given the same order many times before and, if Lady Luck smiled, would give it many more. This kind of predation was just a part of war.

Better, then, to focus on the reaction of the people in the street below. Watching, grinning, chattering to one another, they seemed happy that someone had finally hurt the Threskelans as the Threskelans had injured them, even if it had taken a war-mage to lead the way.

Aoth waved his hand at the scene below. "You see, milord, with griffon riders scouting from on high, we can find what we want, hit it, and get away before the dragons and such even realize we were there."

Hasos's lip curled. "You were lucky your first time out, Captain. It doesn't mean your overall strategy is sound."

If anything, the baron seemed even colder than before. Maybe he felt that the sellswords' quick success pointed out his own shortcomings as a soldier.

If so, then Aoth agreed with him. But he didn't want Hasos to resent him. It would make his job harder. Unfortunately, he couldn't see much to do about it, except keep offering the noble the chance to participate in his endeavors and so earn a share of the credit.

"Be that as it may," Cera Eurthos said, "to me this seems a portent of greater victories to come."

Short, snub-nosed, and pleasingly plump, Cera was one of several dignitaries who'd climbed to the top of the gate to watch the plunder come into town. With curly hair as yellow as her vestments, she seemed a fitting high priestess for the sun god.

She had a warm, sunny smile too, although, after his experiences with Daelric Apathos, Aoth was surprised to find it shining in his direction.

Hasos inclined his head. "With respect, Sunlady, perhaps that's why you're a cleric and not a soldier."

"Oh, very likely, milord. Captain, now that you too are what passes for a notable in this sleepy little town, we should become better acquainted."

Aoth inclined his head. "You honor me."

"Perhaps we can start with a stroll along the wall."

He looked out to the end of the column and beyond, making sure no one was in pursuit. Nobody was. "That sounds nice."

Seeming more a coquette than the wise mistress of a temple, she reached to take his arm, then smiled at her own awkwardness when she noticed something was in her way. He shifted his spear into his other hand, and they set off down the wall walk. He fancied he could feel Hasos's glare boring into the back of his skull.

Cera looked at the blue sky above the fields speckled with blades of new green grass. "Here in Chessenta, we have a saying. 'Precious as a sunny day in Tarsakh.' "

Aoth smiled. "The gods know sellswords have reason to dislike this time of year. You have to come out of winter quarters and start making coin. Of course, you want to anyway. You're half mad with boredom and confinement. But you always end up marching through storms and mud."

"Like the man and woman who rode out just a day after you arrived."

He started to frown then caught himself. His instincts suggested it was better to go on matching her light, casual air. "Keeping track of us, Sunlady?"

"Everyone's keeping track of you, Captain. You're objects of great curiosity. So be gallant and satisfy mine. Who were those people, anyway?"

"Just scouts."

"On horseback. When I've just heard you extol the advantages of reconnaissance from the air."

"You see things from on high that you wouldn't from the ground, but occasionally the reverse is also true."

They sauntered up on a sentry. He was one of Hasos's men and looked like he couldn't make up his mind how much courtesy he owed to Aoth. In the end he decided to salute, and Aoth acknowledged it with a dip of his spearhead.

"Interesting," Cera said. Aoth couldn't tell if she meant his explanation of the spies' mission or the sentry's reaction to him. "Do you know, you seem like a very ... practical sort of person. If I had to guess, I'd have said you weren't profoundly interested in any religion, let alone a mad cult like the Church of Tchazzar."

"Well, that answers one of my questions. Daelric sent you a message conveying his opinion of me."

"It's one of my great blessings that my superior writes me often, with an abundance of observations and instructions."

"Well, he was wrong about me. I couldn't care less about the Church of Tchazzar. I didn't let him roast the fools in that parade because I feared it would start a riot." He smiled crookedly. "Of course, before we were through, Luthcheq had a riot anyway. But at least I tried."

Down below them, sellswords started chivvying the plundered goats and sheep into the butchers' pens. The carts rolled on toward the bakers.

"That's good to know," Cera said. "In dangerous times, people need to put their faith in the true gods, and the lords the gods appoint to watch over them."

"You're sure Tchazzar's not a real god?" asked Aoth, simply to see her reaction. "Plainly, you know far more about such matters than I do. But as I understand it, it wouldn't make him the first creature to start out mortal and ascend to divinity."

"If he'd truly been a god, he wouldn't simply have disappeared."

"Didn't Amaunator? For many centuries? When I was young, he was just a distant memory without a worshiper or altar to his name."

She smiled. "When you were young, indeed! You don't look all that withered and decrepit to me. But as for the Keeper of the Yellow Sun, we now know he was with us all along, in the guise of Lathander the Morninglord."

"Then couldn't Tchazzar put on his own disguise? The stories say he was always a shapeshifter, sometimes a man and sometimes a wyrm."

"Are you sure you're not a cultist?"

"I promise. When I pray, it's to Kossuth."

She cocked her head. "Not to Tempus, or some other war god?"

"During the War of the Zulkirs, when my comrades and I fought necromancers and the undead they sent against us, the fire priests were our staunch allies. I've never forgotten that."

He supposed that even after all this time, he'd never quite forgotten Chathi, the Firelord's priestess, either. For a moment, sadness cast its shadow over him.

Cera's blue eyes narrowed. Apparently she'd noticed that fleeting change in his mood. But instead of asking about it, she said, "That's understandable, and Kossuth is a legitimate object of veneration. So I won't bore you with another theological argument explaining that technically, he's not a god either."

"The sunlady is as merciful as she is wise."

Cera chuckled. "Thank you. And you don't seem nearly as savage and depraved as a Thayan mage and sellsword ought to be."

"I tried to learn to bite the heads off kittens and puppies, but I have bad teeth."

"Perhaps I'll give a banquet so that others can see what I see. It might make it easier for you to conduct your business here."

"If they're willing to eat at the same table with an arcanist, that sounds good."

"Oh, they'll come if I invite them. Especially since we're all afraid of the Great Bone Wyrm, and you're here to protect us. Now, shall we head back? I'm due at the temple soon, and it looks bad if the high priestess of the supreme timekeeper turns up late."

As they strolled back the way they'd come, she chatted about the people he could expect to meet at the forthcoming feast. Humorous, gossipy, and occasionally salacious, the discourse lasted long enough to see them back to the top of the gate.

Hasos and his companions were gone. Aoth escorted Cera to the top of the stairs that would take them to the ground.

Though Soolabax was scarcely one of the great fortress cities of the East, the gate itself was a massive piece of stonework. The wooden stairs spiraled down an enclosed shaft with only a few windows narrow as arrow loops to light the way.

The dimness was no inconvenience to Aoth with his fire-kissed eyes. The cramped quarters, however, required that he and Cera stop walking arm in arm. She courteously waved for him to go first.

They were about a third of the way down when he saw something that brought him to a sudden stop. Cera bumped against his back, and he was glad she hadn't done it harder. Because he wouldn't have wanted her to knock him farther down the steps.

Just as he could see in the dark, and see even farther than a griffon, so too did he see the world in minute and exquisite detail. And thus, just as he was about to trust his weight to the next step, he'd spotted the webs of tiny cracks running through the half dozen risers immediately below him.

"Is something wrong?" Cera asked.

He reached with the point of his spear and touched the first stair below him. Most of it crumbled. He tapped the next. It disintegrated too. The fragments pattered on the undamaged steps one twist beneath them.

"They were fine when we climbed up," Cera said.

"Yes." Some spell or alchemical solution had weakened them in the brief period between Hasos's descent and now.

And if not for his inhumanly keen vision, an edge Aoth liked to conceal from the world at large, the trap might have caught him. True, he had a tattoo to provide a soft landing if he fell, but it took an instant to activate the magic. Caught by surprise and dropping a relatively short distance, he could have cracked his head or broken his leg before he managed it.

Rushing footsteps thumped risers farther down the stairwell. Someone had been lying in wait to finish Aoth off if the plunge didn't kill him. Now that it was plain that his target wasn't going to fall, the assassin was trying to get away.

Aoth wished he could see the bastard. But even spellscarred eyes couldn't peer through the plank stairs blocking the view.

He could give chase, though. He activated the tattoo, jumped through the hole created by the missing steps to the intact ones below, and charged onward.

He bounded all the way to the bottom and out into the street that ran parallel to the wall. Where people of various sorts were going about their business-they gasped and shied as he lunged into their midst with his spear at the ready.

"Did someone run out this doorway ahead of me?" he asked.

For what seemed an interminable moment, they all just gawked at him. Then a woman with the feet of a dead chicken sticking out of her wicker basket shook her head.

"Wonderful," sighed Aoth. The would-be killer had evidently either exited the gate while invisible or used a spell or talisman to shift himself through space. Either way, he'd made a successful escape.

Aoth tramped back up the stairs, and warm yellow light gleamed down at him. Cera still stood where he'd left her, but now she was glowing. She'd raised her power in case she needed to defend herself, and her resolute expression made a marked contrast to her lighthearted manner from before.

"It's all right," Aoth said. "Well, not really. I wanted to find out who the whoreson was. But anyway, he's gone."

"See the dragon?" Jhesrhi asked.

"What?" said Gaedynn, wrenching himself back and forth in the saddle. "Where?"

It was one of those rare moments when he seemed genuinely flummoxed. Despite the potentially dangerous circumstances and her sour mood, it gave her a moment of malicious amusement to see the master scout discomfited at having missed something as big and threatening as a wyrm.

Although if she were inclined to be fair, she'd admit that it was surprisingly easy to miss a blue dragon flying against a blue sky. Fortunately, the wind in these farmlands was now her ally, and as a result she hadn't needed her own eyes to learn of the creature's approach.

"Just keep riding," Gaedynn said. "In Threskel, a dragon's one of the nobility, not a beast of prey. It likely won't bother us unless we do something suspicious."

The remark implied that he thought she might be on the verge of panic. In light of her behavior back at the kobold outpost, he had every right to, but it irked her anyway.