"It didn't go well?"

"There was never much chance, was there?" he said.

"Did you get near him?"

"No." He didn't know if Charlie was safe, then, or a danger to the tribes.

Cries-alarms, from the sentries-brought them outside: There was a new party at the entrance to the lakeside camp, a great gathering of horses and riders, shrouded against the weather, and heavily armored.

The Cree were moving, suddenly, as one. Some of the braves melted into the wood; others stepped up to defend the camp-spearmen ahead, archers behind. The rodeo clowns rode to form a front line. Teens too young to fight drew the children toward the Fortress.

"My King," Huon said in obvious surprise.

He was right: as the curtain of snow parted she saw it was Artos himself. Standing at the head of the party, cloak whipping, he raised the Sword of the Lady.

Had he followed the Baron? Was that possible? She supposed that, when someone tried to kill your cub . . .

Could it be he didn't trust Huon to bring Charlie back?

A gust threw ice into her eyes. When her vision cleared, she saw the baker.

He had bolted past his guard of rodeo clowns, and was running toward Artos, hands outstretched, feet kicking as he waded through deep snow.

"Charlie," the Rodeo princess, Allie, shouted. She started forward.

Suddenly Lester was there, catching at her horse's reins. She raised an arm, as if to strike the old man.

"You believe in your man or don't you?" he demanded.

Bending, she raised Lester up and tossed him away, on his backside, so he fell harmlessly into the snow.

Finch blinked. Were those feathers, black-and-white ones, falling from the hand that had grabbed him?

By now the baker, Charlie, was almost to Artos. As he ran he was stooping, stumbling, showing his neck. He still had his hands out.

One of the Baron's men had an arrow drawn. "He rushes the King," he murmured. "We'd be justified."

"If the King felt threatened by such as him, we'd have greater worries in Montival than a runaway maker of croissants," Huon replied. "Hold."

Artos and his men waited, untroubled. The cook clearly wanted to touch the Sword.

He wanted the truth known.

Flesh met blade; the flat of Chuckwagon Charlie's bare palms slapped down on the metal with an audible thump, like fish on a grill, as he knelt. He said something, his voice low. Begging forgiveness? The words were shredded by the wind, but they carried the flavor of a sob.

"Come." Huon began striding across the ice to join his King.

Now Charlie was wriggling, strangely, writhing and jerking as if he was caught in a dog's teeth. Guilty after all?

Instead of screaming, or attacking Artos as a magus of the CUT would, he yelled. "Goddammit, Magpie!"

His hands appear to be stuck to the sword.

Jerking, undignified, Charlie put his boot on the tip of the Lady's blade. He gave a mighty yank, and went toppling into the drift, taking half the sword blade and Artos' arm with him.

The party from Montival gasped.

It was a fake, a colored statue. It wasn't the High King at all.

Allie ran to her baker's side, striking the remnant blade with her tomahawk. The King's false arm broke into shards. Beneath the ice, Charlie's hands were frozen to a foot-long length of old steel pole.

She whirled, facing the Baron.

"He reached for your truth-stick!" she said. "He put himself freely to the test."

A false test, Finch thought. "He might have known."

"Did any of us?" She waved a hand, indicating the assembled throngs and their drawn weapons. "Did you doubt this was your precious king?"

Charlie didn't say anything in his own defense. He wrenched himself free of the pole, and dusted snow off his leather pants with the backs of his ice-burned hands.

Up close, the illusion didn't hold. The horses, Finch saw, were mounts borrowed from all around the camp. The host of Montival soldiers was nothing more than snowmen, already slumping and sliding off the saddles.

Charlie said, "I'll go south with them, Allie. Reconcile myself with Artos."

"They might execute you."

"Right or wrong, I let those soldiers into Todenangst."

"It won't be necessary," Baron said.

The hubbub quieted.

"Charles Frayne," Huon said, "as vassal to King Artos and his voice in this matter, I release you from the burden of the crime. You were compelled; you bear no responsibility."

The baker staggered against the horse. "I . . . I should-"

The princess steadied him. Then she reached out, taking the Baron's hand and shaking it. Walking past him, she crossed the drift to lift Lester out of the snow.

"It's like a winter miracle, ain't it?"

"Shut your chatter, Magpie," she said, but there was no heat in it now.

He shook his cloak, and for a moment there was a creak in his movements: he seemed old, achy, and tired, worthy of every line on his ancient face. Then his eyes gleamed, like those of his totems, bright as hungry birds.

"Well! Allie! You oughta take your new pal here to meet those Wheat Pool bastards. They hate my guts, Huon, or I'da done yesterday. And there's a helluva dance at the end of this thing, if you change your mind about going early."

The Baron looked to the princess.

"You shouldn't miss the Doubledouble breakfast," she said, leading him off into the crowd even as it dispersed.

Finch stayed where she was, searching the trampled ground for black-and-white feathers.

Lester interrupted her search. "Guess you know your business," he said, tapping the satchel where the book of sketches was nestled. "Good portrait."

"I'd-" She nudged a piece of ice, the false king's illusory crown, with her toe. "I would like to be worthy of this badge."

"Sculpture, you mean, or trickery?"

"I wish to learn," she said. "I am the Eyes of the Morrowlanders and your skills would benefit my people."

"Come back next winter," he said, "if your boss agrees. In the meantime, our friend Charlie makes an incredible crab-apple turnover. Can you smell it?"

She turned into the wind and it was there: fruit, an unknown spice, fresh flour, and a hint of meat. "Is that real, or is it merely that you suggested it?"

"Should a Scout be so philosophical, little bird?" Lester asked, leaning on her arm for a moment before springing lightly atop a shelf of ice and, from there, to a felled tree trunk. "Seems a little impractical for such hands-on folk."

"I'm beginning to think 'should' is a useless word," she said, hopping up after him, two bird-named people of the forest, balancing on a downed spruce.

"Don't knock 'should.' She's a tyrant, but she's got her uses. Don't ever trump what is, though."

"Says the illusionist," Finch said, and she raised her nose to the freezing air and the cooking crab apple wafting on it, and spread her arms like wings before jumping down to the ice and sliding, twirling like a child, laughing as she cut through the eye-opening bite of the northern wind.

Tight Spot.

by Kier Salmon.

Kier Salmon.

I'm Kier Salmon, jack of many trades, master at a few. A list of many of the things I've done includes sales clerk, teacher, secretary, executive assistant, programmer, mental health worker, interpreter, copy editor, and first reader.

I have been honing and working on my writing skills in the midst of doing other things like earning a living, being a good witch and community member, and raising my adopted daughter.

My first story, written when I was fifteen, was in Spanish, because I was living in Mexico-I was there between my ninth and twenty-seventh years. I am still fully bilingual.

My first commercial publishing was in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword & Sorceress VI and under my previous last name of Neustaedter. Then things like real life got in the way and I dropped the idea of writing professionally and focused on earning a living. I'm fairly sure that was the wrong decision. Since 2003 (Beltane) I've been working as S. M. Stirling's first reader, and I've been editing and running his fan-fiction Web site since 2005.

A number of other stories are yammering to be told and between his blunt pointers and the work I do telling people "No, no, no! You can't do that!" I have seen my skill level rise. I'm pleased to present a post-Change story in this anthology.

"You're such a fool!"

Colin laughed and juggled the rocks higher and higher, dancing and turning on the narrow path, his great kilt folds swirling around his knobby knees, his dark blond ponytail jouncing on his shoulder blades. One by one he slapped the rocks out of sequence, each one flying over the steep drop-off to the north. He caught the last one neatly and began to toss it, up and up and up, snatching it out of the air as it plummeted down and tossing it again.

". . . And why would I be being a fool?" he asked, catching the stone and turning a bright inquiring gaze to Robin.

She sniffed. Colin reflected that even at twelve she could do a disdainful sniff to rival his stepmother Esther's. As he'd turned sixteen, he'd found himself trying to read female attitudes the more.

He tossed the single stone thoughtfully as they continued to move down the path through the Siskiyous, keeping at a steady dogtrot.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Oh-ho, it's worming the secrets out of the chief's son, is it the now?"

She shrugged and pulled slightly ahead as the trail narrowed, her neatly pleated great kilt flashing stripe, sett, stripe, sett. Colin opened his mouth and shut it. He should really go first, but with two of them alone on the ridge of the world, one position really wasn't safer than another. She was paying attention, eyes, ears, and her sixth sense, and he did the same, still holding the stone.

They'd left Stronghold around midmorning. The aching blue sky of a perfect brisk May day, piled as high with cloud-banks as the earth below was wrinkled into steep ravines and winding valleys, soothed him. Robin was pulling ahead and he pushed himself a bit harder.

"Got it!" she said as he came up to her. "You play the fool every time somebody starts bullying. You did it this morning at practice with that murderer Malcolm!"

Colin clicked his tongue at her. "Well, aren't you the wee bright lassie," he drawled, dodging her sudden fist to the arm. "Di' na, lassie. I'm not truly mocking you the now. But keep that quiet. As I told tha' great brawling bully: when I've the inches and pounds of my sire, I'll smash and bash my way through battle just as he does-I don't think! My faither ain't stupid!

"But Malcolm Robson took two good blows to his kidneys and needed to allow and honor my win. So I made him a laughingstock."

"Robson's got no honor," spluttered the girl. "Murdering bastard . . ."

A cold finger touched Colin's neck. He placed a finger on her lips. "Ah'm thinking we maum go a little milder the now . . ."

She shook off his touch, brown eyes already scanning the forests, barren mountain ridges and arching sky, her ears obviously a-prick and her mind, the real sixth sense, thought Colin, working.

They stood quiet for a few minutes before meeting eyes and shrugging slightly. "Something," said Robin, her voice now low. "But I can't pinpoint it."

"Truth," answered Colin, "truth. Keep alert. We have a serious errand to your da and mam, what with young Derek lying on death's threshold. There's no wrong with your anger at the man, for Derek's the second child he's hit too hard. He's not long for our company, not w' two laddies laid out and me but just escaping this morning thanks to Greer Tennart. When m' faither told me to bait him the morn, we di' na expect it to be so effective. Arguing that he nivir meant for to hurt none rings well hollow the now. And Greer did flite him well . . . I reckon the other men will be dishing out yet more scorn today."

Robin's lips had tightened at the mention of her brother's injury. She scanned the rugged land before them again and opened her mouth, and shut it abruptly, freezing. Her eyes met his and they scanned the trail again. Without a word they moved forward at speed, footfalls now as soft as possible and climbed off the trail, up and behind a large rock face overhanging the ravine.

They lay absolutely still, dark green and rust-red plaids thrown over their hair and faces. Slowly the sound that they'd perceived became more pronounced, regular, and Colin felt his gut twist. Men, damn! Men, for women do not march in syncopation on these trails. And those who do march are not of the Dells of McClintock.

From the west came a small troop of men, dressed in worn battle camo and laced boots. Billed caps, backpacks, and rattling just the slightest bit from all the hardware they were draped in. Colin kept his eyes in the shade of his plaid, but watched and counted. Swords, daggers, axes, and a few morning stars . . . and where he could see a naked weapon, he could see dried blood. The camo was stained, as well. He could feel Robin stiffen beside him. And slowly force herself to relax again.

They stayed where they were until the sound of the pounding feet faded to the subliminal level that'd first caught their notice. Colin turned his head and looked at Robin. Under the kilt's overdrape, her face was pale. After a long stare into Colin's eyes, she buried her head in her crossed arms, shaking.

"Sherries," she said, fear and loathing in her voice.

Well, Da, that backfired on us . . . Big time. What do I do the now? Colin sat up, pushing his plaid off his head and looked west hoping to see smoke.

Gradually Robin stopped shaking. "Sherries, right?" she asked.

Colin snuck a quick look at her tear-streaked face and nodded shortly, still weighing their options.