"Dead."

He raised an eyebrow and clamped his teeth together to stifle a yawn. Shiv desperately needed some sleep.

"All of them dead. Dead and buried."

Shiv c.o.c.ked his head to the side, a gesture that encouraged her to continue.

"We were directed to Neraka about a year and a half ago, twenty of us ordered to the foothills just north of the Lords of Doom. We were to meet a Dark Knight commander there, escort him safely out of the country."

"But . . .?"

"But we learned too late that the commander didn't intend to defect. He meant merely to lure Solamnic Knights into Neraka. He must have been disappointed that the council sent only twenty. I guess he expected a small army. Still, he had some measure of triumph, as two of our number were from the council itself."

"What happened?" This came from the child Jamie. "Were you ambushed?"

A nod.

"But you escaped," Shiv said. "Obviously."

"I was the only survivor." She let out a deep breath, the sound like sand being blown by a hot breeze.

One sister came forward and poured her more broth. "Then don't mind my asking, and don't believe we're not grateful-we are-but why are you here?"

She didn't answer, and so Shiv pressed, "Why didn't you join another Solamnic outfit? Why aren't you . . . ?"

Her doe eyes regarded the disguised a.s.sa.s.sin, cutting off his words. She ran her thumbs around the lip of the bowl and finally replied. "Elsewhere? I'm not needed elsewhere. I'm needed here."

Shiv really saw her then-selfless, driven, filled with a determination he had never seen before, and perhaps touched by madness. He finished his broth, his eyes never leaving hers.

"You're tired." This came from Wilcher, who hovered at Risana's shoulder.

"A bit" She smiled slightly. It was die first time Shiv had seen her smile-a smile that melted the coldness in her face.

"Rest here, in my home. As long as you like. Please."

"I will stay with your wife until. . ."

"I thank you for helping my grandchildren. I know you can't help her." There was a deep sadness in the old man's eyes. "Ill tend to her alone. You don't have to sit with her."

"Yes, I do."

Two hours later, their vigil was over, and Risana allowed herself an all-too-brief rest before getting up. "I am sorry for you loss, Erl Wilcher," she said, as she reached for her cloak.

The old man nodded, his eyes filled with tears. "Stay for a while," he said. "Have dinner. Spend the night."

She shook her head. "I must be on my way. As you said, there are ill folks in Graespeck, and I'd like to get there before nightfall."

Wilcher clasped her hands and gestured with his head toward the a.s.sa.s.sin. "This fella here-"

"Safford," Shiv stated. "He said he's going to Graespeck, too."

"Then I shall have company."

"Her name is Risana," the Dark Knight commander told Shiv several weeks earlier. The commander and a half-dozen of his esteemed fellows met with the a.s.sa.s.sin in a closed banquet hall in Telvan.

"She is concentrating her efforts in the Broken Chain Mountains, and has been for much of the past year from what we've gleaned. She heals the sick, traveling from village to village, and she touts the glory of the Solamnic Knighthood. She relies on the witless and the grateful to keep her hidden and to feed her. The villagers will not give her up and will not reveal her contacts. Locating her could be difficult."

"Not for me."

The commander's lips edged upward in a sly grin. "That's why we sought your services."

Shiv steepled his fingers. "I am, as you've acknowledged, your most expert spy and a.s.sa.s.sin. And the most expensive. But why send me all this way for just one woman?"

The commander let out a laugh, then instantly sobered. "At first we thought her inconsequential," he said, eyes flitting to Shiv's, then finding the a.s.sa.s.sin's gaze uncomfortable and looking away. "We have done nothing about her for several months-considering her, as you said, just one woman."

"At first," Shiv mused.

"At first. But singlehandedly, she appears to be turning the villagers against us."

"One woman?"

The commander growled. "We've had reports of youths in some of the mountain towns leaving Neraka under her direction to join our enemy. Others are talking against us. She is a blight that must be stopped. Her allies and contacts must be found and eliminated."

"Why not send an army of Dark Knights to deal with this blight?"

"There can be no hint of Dark Knight involvement. The mountain villages embrace this Solamnic, and we cannot afford to make a martyr of her. That would only make matters worse. No clues can point to us."

Shiv agreed to the job. They offered him more than enough money-despite the weather.

The a.s.sa.s.sin followed Risana, glancing over his shoulder to see the people of Keth's Cradle smiling and waving good-bye. In the s.p.a.ce of less than twenty-four hours the "blight" had been thoroughly embraced by the village.

"Graespeck isn't all that far," he told her after Keth's Cradle was out of sight, "but all of this snow makes it seem leagues away."

Shiv had straightened his back and was no longer pretending to have a clubfoot. Walking behind Risana, he didn't need to keep up the ruse. However, an hour past sunset they neared her new destination, and he adopted his crippled guise again. They plodded into Graespeck, a place only marginally larger than the previous village. Once again, he watched her go to work.

There was a group of young men in this village who were keenly curious about the woman, tales of whom had obviously preceded her arrival. As she moved from home to home, ministering to those who were stricken with the fever and offering kind words to the elderly, the young men followed her, plying her with questions about the Order of the Rose and about life outside of Neraka. A few made it clear they wanted to be Solamnic Knights.

The blight spreads, Shiv mused, noting, however, that she encouraged no one to join her Order. At least not here. Furthermore, it was clear she had no contacts in this village and that she hadn't known a single soul here before she arrived.

They spent the night in a log home with one family. Following dinner, they helped sh.o.r.e up a shed that was threatening to collapse, then they slept for a few hours and headed out at first light.

For weeks Shiv accompanied Risana, and not once in that time-despite his many questions-did he hear her mention other Solamnic Knights in Neraka or name villagers who might be in league with her. In that time she never asked why, upon reaching Graespeck, he kept going along with her on her healing missions. In truth, he wasn't quite sure himself.

She simply seemed to accept his company, enjoying it at times between places where they stopped to rest. He regaled her with stories he made up about a boyhood that never happened and a family that never existed.

Gradually, she told him quite a bit about her own youth and, one night, about why she came to Neraka. They were hunkered just inside the entrance to a small cave, watching the snow fall and the evening deepen.

"I was a chirurgeon," she said, her voice and eyes soft. "The youngest and the most inexperienced of the Solam-nic Knights sent here. I was brought along as an a.s.sistant, really, for the two council members, as I am not the most skilled with a sword. Councilman Crandayl suffered from gout. I was there to aid him." She paused and turned to stare at Shiv, again her eyes seeing something far beyond him and the darkening cave. "I was charging forward into the battle against the Dark Knights when I fell, slipped on the blood already thick on the ground. I struck my head and lost consciousness. When I awoke hours later I discovered that someone had fallen on top of me-Crandayl. He was dead. Everyone was dead. And the Dark Knights had taken me for dead, too. It took me three days to bury my brethren, nearly another day to bury the Dark Knights who had fallen."

"And you left your armor there?" Sanford asked.

A nod. "I left my oath there, too."

Shiv waited.

"I'm not a Solamnic Knight any longer. If I was, I wouldn't be here."

"I don't understand."

"A Solamnic Knight would have returned to the Order's nearest outpost. I would have let them a.s.sign me to another unit."

"Then why . . .?"

"Am I here? I'd rather wander these mountains helping people live than return to the Order and ride off to kill people. I hate fighting. I hate the regime and the mandates and the notion of always following orders. And maybe I hate the Knighthood because it fosters bloodshed."

"The villagers think you're a Solamnic Knight."

She shrugged. "Better, perhaps, they think that than to know the truth-that I'm a deserter."

"Maybe you're still a Solamnic at heart. After all, the pendant . . ." Shiv gestured to where he knew the charm hung on the gold chain beneath her shirt. "You still wear a symbol of the Order of the Rose."

"I wear a symbol of my guilt," she corrected him. She paused and resumed studying the snow. "Get some sleep, Safford. Morning will come too soon."

Morning did come too soon. Shiv knew Risana well enough by now, better than any of his previous targets. He knew she worked alone, that there had never been any contacts or fellow Knights supporting her cause. She had never encouraged a soul to leave the mountains and join the Solamnic Order. He could kill her and complete his a.s.signment. It would be simple.

They were nearing a branch in the trail that led back to Telvan. There were places nearby to hide her body. A journey of seven or eight days and he could tell the Dark Knight commander that the contract was fulfilled. He could finally collect his pay.

"Aren't you worried?" Shiv asked her, the fingers of his right hand brushing the handle of a knife. "Rish, aren't you in the least little bit worried?"

"About . . . ?"

"The Dark Knights. This is their land, after all. Aren't you worried they'll be hunting you? If you keep this up, healing people and ending plagues, they might try to do something to stop you."

She shrugged. "Let them send someone, Safford. Let them send their very best a.s.sa.s.sins. I'll stay here until my last breath."

"Till your last breath," Shiv whispered, staring at the trail ahead. "This way," he said louder, stepping onto the trail toward Telvan and, for the moment, taking the lead.

Shiv didn't hear the boots crunch on the snow ahead, or see the shadows stretch out from a spire along the path. If the sun hadn't been shining so fiercely, he wouldn't have caught the glint from their swords, which they stupidly hadn't blackened. The glint was the only thing that alerted him.

"Rish!" he shouted as his hands tugged free the twin blades. He crouched as he heard the swoosh of steel behind him, Risana drawing her long sword.

"Safford, what is it? What-?"

Shiv darted forward just as the first a.s.sa.s.sin lunged into his path. He was a young man, full of muscle and energy and, fortunately, not terribly skilled. Shiv dropped below the swing of his short sword and drove one of his knives up into his belly. The second knife stabbed higher and punctured a lung. He twisted the blade for good measure.

Shiv stepped back and kicked the man down the mountain path. The young man struggled to stop his descent and managed to grab onto an embedded stone. Shiv turned his attention to the second figure. This one was older, well into middle age, and careful from experience. His eyes narrowed as he caught Shiv's angry expression.

"Shiv." The word was a hiss of remembrance. Then, much louder, "Shiv of Telvan!"

Shiv grimaced. He had seen this one in a Dark Knight camp last year, a mercenary who had the favor of the commander who had ordered Risana's a.s.sa.s.sination. The man opened his mouth to say something else, but Shiv cut him off, hurling one of his knives and watching as the sharp, slender blade pierced the man's throat.

So the Dark Knights have sent more a.s.sa.s.sins, Shiv thought. They are tired of waiting for me to finish her. They are in a great hurry to have this woman die.

There was a sudden clash of steel and Shiv whirled, shaken from his thoughts. Risana was battling her own foe, a third man whose weapon was blackened and whose presence Shiv had not sensed. Perhaps the two Shiv had dispatched had been sacrificial lambs, part of a ruse to distract the woman from the more dangerous killer.

"Who are you?" Risana demanded. She was trading blow for blow with the man. "What do you want with us?"

No answer.

The a.s.sa.s.sin was a professional, Shiv quickly understood, one who was merely gauging Risana's strength and skill. The man was dressed like the first two, as a shepherd with ragged clothes, but his unlined and unweathered face made it clear he wasn't native to the mountains.

"The contract is mine," Shiv hissed, as he charged up the path, drawing his remaining knife and taking aim.

The man crouched and spun, catching Risana off guard and slicing at her abdomen, then continuing on past her and hurtling toward Shiv. Risana stumbled back as Shiv threw his knife. The blade lodged in his opponent's shoulder.

"Saf-" Risana cried, as she regained her footing and darted forward.

Shiv's opponent was quick, stabbing down and catching Shiv in the chest. Before the man could deliver a second blow, however, he was speared in the back. He made a gasping sound, then crumpled.

"Safford?"

Risana pushed the corpse away and knelt at Saf-ford's side, putting her hands over the growing blossom of red on his chest.

"There might be others," he managed to gasp. He felt himself growing weak. "Dying," he said. "Leave me, Rish."

Instead she stayed at his side all through the night and the following day, using herbs from her pouch, shielding him from the cold with her own body. When she was certain he would live, she carried him to a rocky overhang and wedged him into a crevice, using her cloak for a blanket. She then tended to burying the three a.s.sa.s.sins. The ground was so hard she had to fashion cairns.

"They were Dark Knights," Shiv told her when she finally returned.

Risana shook her head. "No. Knights, even Dark Knights, would be wearing armor, something to identify themselves. And they wouldn't be using short swords."

"Agents of the Dark Knights then," Shiv returned.

"I guess you would know." Risana's words made him aware of the chance she had taken, healing him and not leaving him for the wolves.

In Brighthollow Risana a.s.sisted with the birth of the mayor's twin daughters. In the next three villages she saw to scattered cases of fever, helped bury individuals she could not heal, mended clothing and fences, and stalked and killed a wolf that had been preying on the local herd. Shiv followed after her, rarely speaking, but intently watching.

"I'll start toward Telvan tomorrow," Risana announced one evening.