Back to the horses. Deo up on one knee but holding there, sword in a two-fisted grip at the ready. She went past. Three figures were racing up the road, charging. They wore mismatched bits of armor. One carried a shield, also a cudgel. The other two, swords.

She flung the throwing knife—hard, accurate trajectory, into the shield with a resounding thump. Her heavy sword came up for the other two assailants, both of whom were chopping their swords for her, downward strokes, side by side. She caught both blades against her sword, her sinewy left shoulder absorbing the impacts. Neither of their weapons was going to break her blade.

The one with the club had had his shield jammed violently back against his body by the force of the throwing knife, whose tip had spiked through the shield's metal mantle and into the wood beneath. He was still blundering forward.

Radstac reached, tore the knife free, kicked the clubber's knee out from under him; down he went.

The scarred bracer on her right wrist caught the blow as one of the swords tried another chop. She stepped out— seeing two more here, two more here, figures coming out of the trees and scrub.

The finely balanced throwing knife launched again. Her combat sword jumped nimbly from her left to her right hand. Out from her glove came the paired prongs, her left leathered fist a fighting weight. She swung, hearing and feeling hooks catch a too-slow limb as she turned the other way with her sword. Deo still behind her. Herself between him and these ambushers, quite a few of them. Another arrow now, this one picking off a bit of her left earlobe; she'd barely moved in time. Spinning, parrying, chopping, dancing just outside of the blows, but they were closing.

They were good, but she was better. But they had numbers. They weren't going to have an easy time of it, though. They—

"Stop it! Stop."

She hopped back, cut a hard slice out of the air to keep anyone from immediately following.

"Stop it! We lay down."

Deo's sword hit the ground. He had called the surrender.

She waited, stance firm, head swiveling once more, meeting the ambushers' eyes, seeing that the words were heard. Waited until all movement stopped. Then she let her sword fall to the ground—a step away, still in reach for her. She wiped her hooks on her black leggings, gave the hand a fast snap, and retracted the prongs into their glove. The pain from her ear was at once intense and remote. Blood was pouring warmly down her neck.

Twelve, she counted, including the initial archer who was now approaching from farthest away. She'd hurt a few; none were dead.

Bandits, obviously. Their interests, traditionally, were merchant caravans, the ones that moved in the high summer, on larger roads. No doubt, however, the Felk war had seriously disrupted trade. By now those caravans that had ventured forth had returned to the Southsoil or their home city-states.

One among the bandits strode forward, waving down everyone's weapons, an air of command about her. "Desist!" The group held their places. "That means you, too!" She threw this last back over her shoulder at the archer, tall and young, coming up the road.

Radstac slid a glance at Deo. He was watching the woman, measuring, studying. His posture was confident. A look of calm about him.

The woman was short and exaggeratedly muscled. She halted several paces off, her body seeming to plant itself.

"If you've killed any of my people, you die." She said it to Radstac like someone explaining a dice game's rules.

"She's in my employ," Deo said to the muscular woman. "If you intend to kill her, after we have laid down arms, she'll hear it through me. Not from you."

Radstac heard the resolute tone in his smooth, eloquent voice. Hard wood beneath attractive varnish.

"Then for your sake," the woman said, "I hope you've been worth the trouble of ambushing."

"Worth it? Monetarily?" Deo asked, tone becoming almost droll. He put a hand into his coat pocket. He wore traveler's clothes of purely functional cut; but of course he wore them particularly well. The man would look suave dressed in a sack. "I should think so." His hand came out smoothly, then shook, rattling the coins.

A very distinct sound, Radstac thought, the sound of money.

That focused everyone's attention, keenly. When Deo opened the hand and let the midday sun gleam lovingly all over that gold, the group was mesmerized.

At that Deo turned. His hand swept behind him, and the goldies went flashing into the river just a few steps away. A lively current, foam around the rock outcroppings. It wasn't a wide river—they hadn't been concerned about fording it—but it was no streamlet either.

No less than five of the bandits raced for the bank, including—incredibly—the one that Radstac had ripped with her hooks.

The short woman shouted, "Godsdamn you fools! Leave it!"

They hit the water anyway. Radstac's sword was still only a step away.

Deo put back his head and laughed. He had a laugh as fine as his smile, as sincere and rich. The archer who'd shot away a part of Radstac's ear was now standing behind the woman who was spitting more exasperated orders.

The archer had meant that second arrow to kill her. The head of his first arrow, which she'd put herself in the way of purposely, was still jammed into her armor above her right breast, though the shaft had snapped off when she hit the ground.

"You're laughing yourself toward a slit throat."

Deo's chuckling trailed off, but he only smiled back at the woman's glare.

"A demonstration." He slapped the same pocket, made the contents jingle. 'There is more. But everything I carry, every scrap of money, is a bent copper compared to what I can offer. To the wealth I can tap. I can make you rich. Every single one of you. I can write a promissory note, to be redeemed in the Noble State of Petgrad... if you will do what I say."

"Let you go?" sneered the woman.

Deo took an easy step forward, still showing no fear. "Take me north. To the Felk. To their army. I wish to intercept it. I will assassinate the individual who leads that army. Get me to him, and I'll glut you with more money than you'd want to spend in your lifetimes."

THEY WERE IN the bandits' tent for negotiations, though there was nothing to negotiate, really. Deo had made his offer, his very generous offer, and it had plainly already been accepted, despite the perfunctory dickering on the part of the bandit leader. She had introduced herself as Anzal.

They sat on the canvas floor, Radstac behind Deo. She was wearing her weapons once more. The bandit leader didn't like her, though none in the gang had died of the wounds she'd inflicted. Radstac herself had smeared a bit of plaster on her ear, using the small aid kit that she carried. The chunk that had been torn from her lobe was gone; she didn't give it any more thought than she did her body's scars.

Anzal named a staggering sum of money. Deo nodded. She doubled the sum. He nodded still.

He shook a page of paper from a sheaf he removed from his coat pocket. It bore a dark border and much official-looking print, stamped here and there.

"Promissory note," he said.

"To be filled in... ?" Anzal was trying to hide the hunger in her eyes.

"When you've gotten me to the Felk war commander, of course. Or"—he grunted a tiny chuckle—"just before, I suppose. Or," he said, a sober crease appearing between his red brows, "you could murder my bodyguard, hold a blade to my throat, and force me to sign now. And when you got to Petgrad and the Municipal Funds Office, they would read the name I had written. It would be a code word. You would never leave that city. You would never see daylight for the remainder of your lives, which wouldn't last long."

He had not given his name to these people, Radstac realized, her scarred face remaining bland.