"That's not what he said," Mahkas corrected, "but I take your point. What do you think, Captain? Is it worth the risk?"

"I would think so, my lord."

Mahkas thought about it for a moment and then nodded his approval. "Very well then, I will issue the necessary orders. How many head of cattle do you want, gentlemen?"

"Four score would relieve our immediate problems," the butcher told him. "For now."

"You heard the man, Almodavar. Bring us four score of fine Medalonian shorthorn so that Krakandar may eat beef." Mahkas rose to his feet, which was obviously the signal that the audience was at an end. "Good day, gentlemen."

The delegates bowed to their lord, with varying degrees of elegance, and departed in a buoyant mood now they'd had their way about the cattle raids as well as sealing the city.

As soon as Orleon closed the door on the last of them, Mahkas turned on Damin. "Please don't do that again."

"Do what?"

"Contradict me in front of others."

Damin stared at his uncle in confusion. "All I said was that we agreed with their proposal. Which apparently we did, seeing as how they wanted the city sealed and we sealed it."

"I had already sent a letter to the Chamber of Commerce before you arrived, denying their proposal, Damin. You made it look as if you overruled my decision. You made me look like a fool."

"Well, if you'd told me that before the meeting, Uncle, I might have known better."

Mahkas didn't seem to have an answer to that accusation, so he turned to Almodavar. "Be ready to leave first thing in the morning, Captain."

"Of course, my lord," Almodavar said, saluting the regent sharply.

"Can I go with them?"

Mahkas shook his head without even stopping to consider the suggestion. "Absolutely not, Damin."

"Why not?"

"It's not safe."

"Almodavar says it is," Damin pointed out reasonably. "He said the Medalonians will be concentrating their efforts on protecting their towns and cities. I probably won't even get to see a Defender, let alone pick a fight with one."

"I could take along extra men, my lord," Almodavar volunteered. "To be on the safe side."

Damin looked at his uncle hopefully. With Almodavar supporting him, he had a much better chance of being allowed to go on the raid. "We'll only be gone for a few days. Eight or nine at the most.

Right, Captain?"

"It shouldn't even take that long," Almodavar agreed, "if we raid the farms closest to the Border Stream."

Mahkas glared at the captain, then turned to the chief steward for his opinion, which Damin considered a very good sign. It meant Mahkas's resolve was weakening.

"I suppose you think I should let him go, too, Orleon?"

"I think, my lord, that any constructive activity which keeps his highness occupied and out of the palace at such a trying time as this is an excellent suggestion," the old steward replied solemnly. "If you recall some of the previous . . . incidents we've been subjected to over the years, directly attributable to Prince Damin's efforts to relieve his boredom, I believe the most worthy recipients of his attention on this occasion should be our enemies."

"He means yes," Damin translated. He grinned at the old steward. Good old Orleon. Already he was going insane with Damin underfoot.

"I know what he means, Damin," Mahkas informed him. "And much as I hate to admit it, I'm inclined to agree with him. I heard about your little incident in the city the other day."

"What incident?" he asked innocently.

"A near riot in the Beggars' Quarter? In a tavern?"

"Oh, that," he said, wondering how Mahkas had learned of their visit to the Pickpocket's Retreat. "And it wasn't a near riot. It wasn't even close, was it, Starros?"

Mahkas turned on Starros. "You were involved? I might have known. I suppose it was your idea."

"It was my idea," Damin said, annoyed at the way Mahkas constantly tried to find fault with Starros. He was so annoyed, in fact, that he added, "There's a working court'esa down there I'm rather fond of, actually." Damin knew Mahkas would be appalled to think he would even know any of the working court'esa in the Beggars' Quarter, let alone be on intimate terms with one of them.

"You try my patience, Damin."

"Keep me cooped up in the city for another couple of weeks," Damin suggested. "Then you'll find out how really irritating I can be when I'm bored."

It was blatant blackmail and Mahkas wasn't happy about it, but Damin could tell he was on the verge of giving in.

"If I agree to this, I want your promise that you'll be making no more visits to the Beggars'

Quarter. We have court'esa in the palace for that sort of thing, Damin. And there's always . . ." Mahkas didn't finish the sentence, but Damin knew what he was thinking. And there's always Leila.

"I swear," Damin said, dramatically placing his hand on his heart. "If you let me go with Almodavar, Uncle Mahkas, I will give up my dear Fyora and never lay another hand on her." This time it was Starros coughing to cover up his laughter. Fortunately, only Damin recognised the strangled noise the young man was making for what it was.

"I will hold you to that oath, Damin."

"Then I can go?"

Mahkas shook his head, as if he was about to make the worst decision of his life. "I suppose you might as well."

"Yes!" Damin cried, and then quickly curbed his eagerness in the face of Mahkas's obvious disapproval of his unseemly enthusiasm.

"You'd better make certain he comes back in one piece, Captain," Mahkas warned Almodavar.

"I'll keep him safe," the Raider promised.

"You'd better," Mahkas said. "Because it won't be me you'll have to answer to if he comes to any harm. It will be Princess Marla."

Chapter 57.

Three days later, Damin stood on the edge of the Bardarlen Gorge, the cool wind whipping the hair around his face, wishing he'd thought this through a little more carefully before demanding he be allowed to accompany the Raiders across the border into Medalon. In front of him was a cutting, deep and treacherous, which could at its narrowest point-so Almodavar assured him-be cleared by a man on horseback. Almodavar and Raek Harlen stood either side of him, watching Damin survey the canyon, both of them veterans of many leaps over this gorge and both of them highly amused by Damin's reaction to his first sight of it. It wasn't that Damin wasn't expecting the gorge to be here. He'd heard tales of it all his life. He just hadn't expected it to be so . . . big.

"So how wide is this gorge, exactly?" Damin asked doubtfully, putting one foot on the fallen log that lay just on the edge of the drop, so he could lean forward a little to look down. The bottom was far below them, two or three hundred feet at least. He could just hear the faintest sound of rushing water echoing off the steep, jagged walls of the canyon, where the Border Stream gathered speed over the rocks as it fell towards the lowlands of southern Medalon. The other side of the gorge was about three feet lower than the Hythrun side and fell away in a gentle, lightly forested slope.

It wasn't just that you had to clear the gorge, Damin realised. You then had to avoid hitting the trees on the other side when you landed.

"Eighteen, maybe twenty feet," Almodavar told him with a shrug. "Or thereabouts."

"And if I'm terrified by the idea of jumping this thing on a borrowed horse, that just means I'm sane, right?"

"Better a borrowed horse who's done it before than that show pony you rode here from Greenharbour, lad."

Raek nodded in agreement. "If you're going to ride with the Raiders, Damin, we're going to have to find you a better horse."

Seeing Damin was still not convinced about the likelihood of surviving this mad leap across the gorge, Almodavar smiled encouragingly. "All Krakandar Raiders have to be able to clear the Bardarlen Gorge before they can truly call themselves a Raider."

"And the ones that miss? They're all down the bottom of the gorge, I suppose?"

Raek Harlen laughed. "We train the horses for it, Damin. And the riders."

"You've been training for this your whole life," Almodavar agreed. "From the first time you were put in a saddle."

Damin shook his head. "My first riding lesson was on Elezaar's back, playing 'horsey' around the nursery. I might have only been two or three at the time, but I don't believe we covered death-defying leaps that first day."

"What would that damned dwarf know?" Raek shrugged. "Besides, I've seen you jump this distance in the training yards plenty of times."

Damin looked down again, unconvinced. "There's quite a difference between six inches of water below you and a six-hundred-foot drop, Raek."

"Actually, there's not," the captain disagreed. "The technique is the same, no matter what's beneath you. Anyway, you won't be jumping it, Damin, the horse will. Let the beast have his head and he'll decide on his own how much strength he needs to clear it. He's done it before. Just don't fall off."

"And don't exaggerate, boy," Almodavar scolded. "It's no more than two hundred and fifty feet down there. Three hundred, tops."

"Oh, well, that makes all the difference."

"You're not scared, are you, Damin?"

He shook his head. "Scared seems far too inadequate a word, Raek."

"Don't worry," the younger captain assured him optimistically. "We all felt like that the first time."

"You'll be fine," Almodavar added, clapping Damin on the shoulder. "Mahkas would never have let you come if he didn't think you couldn't make it over the gorge."

"As I recall, Captain, you told my uncle we were going to stay near the Border Stream. The Bardarlen Gorge didn't actually rate a mention."

"We are at the Border Stream," Almodavar replied, looking down at the thin silver ribbon of water tumbling over the rocks far below. "Sort of."

"Didn't we promise Lord Damaran we'd keep you safe?" Raek reminded him. "We've got twice the men we need, twice the officers we'd normally take on a raid like this-"

"None of which will matter one iota, if I miss that damned jump." Damin looked up suddenly and grinned at the two officers. "Mahkas is going to kill both of you when he finds out you brought me here."

"Only if you don't make it," Raek pointed out reasonably.

He glanced down at the terrifying drop one last time and then turned away from it and gathered up the reins of his borrowed gelding. "Guess I'd better not miss then, eh?"

The captains looked at each other and nodded with satisfaction. "He's his father's son, all right,"

Raek declared.

Damin appreciated the compliment, but wasn't sure what he'd done to deserve it. "What do you mean?"

"It was Laran Krakenshield who first stood here, and looked across that gorge and decided it was the quickest way into Medalon," Almodavar explained.

There was a hint of pride, and perhaps loss, in the captain's voice. He and Laran had been friends, Damin knew that, but it had never really occurred to him that the captain might still miss the Warlord of Krakandar after all this time. Damin had no memory of his father. He wasn't even two years old when Laran was killed in a border raid much the same as this one. To Damin, Laran was a legend. To Almodavar, he had obviously been a close friend.

"The best part about this crossing," Raek remarked as he swung into the saddle of his own mount, "is that to this day, they're so convinced it isn't possible to breach Bardarlen Gorge that it still hasn't occurred to those thickheaded Defenders how we manage to get across the border when they watch the known passes so closely."

"Pity we can't come back this way," Damin said, thinking no steer would attempt to jump the gorge. But it was a quick and (relatively) easy way into Medalon that allowed the Krakandar Raiders the chance to miss the Defender patrols and steal the cattle they wanted, and left them fresh and ready to fight their way back into Hythria at the ford which crossed the Border Stream some eighteen miles to the west. And where the Defenders are undoubtedly lying in wait, Damin feared, if Almodavar's prediction about them guarding their towns and cities against the plague proves incorrect.

Flanked by the two captains, Damin rode back to where the rest of the troop was waiting. There were sixty men in this raiding party, far more than was normally required for a simple cattle raid. But this was the young Prince of Krakandar's first official raid. Even if the men hadn't been going a little stir-crazy cooped up in a sealed city, this was a historic occasion they all wanted to be a part of.

"I'll send Axton and Helling across first," Almodavar told him. "Then Raek and his scouts. Then you."

Damin nodded, knowing that Almodavar was letting the others go first to reassure him that it could be done. Deep down, Damin had no doubt that he could make it across the gorge. There was just that awkward veneer of reason and sanity that kept getting in the way.

"Whatever you do, don't hesitate," Raek advised. "Trust the horse. Windracer's done this before. He knows how to space his strides, how wide the jump is, and how to carry you over and stay balanced. Just keep focused on something in the distance roughly level with your eyes and make sure that when he jumps you grab the mane and don't pull on his mouth. It doesn't take many times jerking on a horse's mouth-"

"Before he starts to associate jumping with pain," Damin finished, a little impatiently. "And thinks he's being punished for something. I have jumped a horse before, Captain Harlen."

"Just checking," Raek said, obviously pleased that Damin seemed to know what he was about.

He trotted up the slope a little further and then turned and waited for Almodavar to give the signal. The older captain scanned the slope on the other side of the gorge once again and then nodded.

They took the jump one at a time, the trooper Axton in the lead. The young man was a fearless horseman, no doubt the reason he'd been chosen to go first. He gave the mare her head and Damin held his breath as they galloped down the long slope and neared the edge of the gorge. At the very last minute, Axton leaned forward in the saddle and the horse launched herself over the log at the edge of the cliff and sailed across the gorge, stretching out to land on the other side without missing her stride, the momentum carrying both horse and rider into the trees.

Damin let out his breath and grinned. "That was impressive."

"Wait until it's your turn," Raek laughed. "Watching it is nothing compared to doing it."

Helling was already headed down towards the gorge at a gallop, as Raek and his scouts rode a little further up the slope to get as long a run-up as possible. Damin followed them, his heart pounding.

He watched Helling land safely and then Raek Harlen and the two scouts, who would spread out as soon as they reached the other side, making sure the area was clear of Defenders.

And then, before he realised what was happening, it was his turn and Damin was thundering down the slope towards the Bardarlen Gorge and certain death if he misjudged the jump by so much as a single step.

Trust the horse, Raek had told him. There wasn't much else he could do. The gorge appeared in front of them far too soon, and he felt Windracer gathering beneath him for the leap. His heart in his mouth, the blood rushing through his veins so loudly it was all he could hear, Damin fixed his eyes on a thin sapling directly in front of them on the other side of the gorge, leaned forward and grabbed a handful of mane, letting the reins go loose. The horse leaped without faltering, and suddenly they were airborne. Damin had barely time to register that remarkable fact before the ground came rushing up to meet them and Windracer grunted, almost tossing him from the saddle, as they landed on the other side.

A faint cheer greeted his successful landing, but Damin had no time to savour his achievement, too intent on keeping his seat and avoiding the scattered trees that were suddenly in front of them.