Dag trudged off several times to, as he said, scout the territory, returning looking variously worried, pleased, or head-down furious. Fawn and Cattagus were sitting beneath a walnut tree having a fletching session when he stalked back from one of the latter sort, ducked into the tent without a word, returned with his bow and quiver, grabbed a plunkin from the basket by the tent flap, and set it up on a stump in the walnut grove. Within fifteen minutes he had reduced the plunkin to something resembling a porcupine smashed by a boulder and was breathing almost steadily again as he tried to unwedge his deeply buried near misses from the tree behind the stump. There were no wider misses to retrieve from the grove beyond.

“That one sure ain’t gettin’ away,” Cattagus observed, with a nod at the remains of the plunkin. “Anybody I know?”

Dag, treading over to them, smiled a bit sheepishly. “Doesn’t matter now.” He sat down with a sigh, unlatched and set aside his short bow, then picked up one of the new arrows and examined it with a judicious eye. “Better and better, Spark.”

She decided this was deliberate diversion. “You know, you keep saying I shouldn’t come with you so’s folks’ll talk frank and free, but it seems to me you might get further with some if they were to talk a little less frank and free.”

“That’s a point,” he conceded. “Maybe tomorrow.”

But the next morning ended up being dedicated to some overdue weapons practice, with an eye to the fact that Mari’s patrol would be going out again soon. Saun turned up, invited by Razi and Utau, and Fawn grew conscious for the first time of how few visitors had come to the campsite. If she and Dag were indeed a wonder of the lake, she would have thought curiosity, if not friendliness, should have brought a steady stream of neighbors making excuses to get a peek at her. She wasn’t sure how to interpret their absence: politeness, or shunning? But Saun was as nice to her as ever.

The session began with archery, and Fawn, fascinated, made herself useful trotting into the walnut grove after misses, or tossing plunkin rinds up into the air for moving targets. Her arrows seemed to work as well as her mentor’s, she saw with satisfaction. Cattagus sat on a stump and appraised the archers’ skills as freely as his breathlessness would allow. Saun was inclined to be daunted by him, but Mari gave him back as good as she got; Dag just smiled. The five patrollers moved on to blade practice with wooden knives and swords. Mari was clever and fast, but outmatched in strength and endurance, not a surprise in a woman of seventy-five, and soon promoted herself to a seat beside Cattagus to shrewdly critique the others.

The action grew hotter then, with what seemed to Fawn a great many very dirty moves, not to mention uncertainty of whether she was watching sword fighting or wrestling. The clunk and clatter of the wooden blades was laced with cries of Ow! Blight it! or, to Saun’s occasional gratification, Good one! Dag pushed the others on far past breathlessness, on the gasped-out but convincing theory that the real thing didn’t come with rest breaks, so’s you’d better know how to move when you couldn’t hardly move at all.

The sweat-soaked and filthy combatants then took a swim in the lake, emerging smelling no worse than usual, and assembled in the clearing to munch plunkin and try, without success, to persuade Cattagus to uncork one of his last carefully hoarded jugs of elderberry wine from the prior fall. Dag, slouched against a stump and smiling at the banter, suddenly frowned and sat up, his head turning toward the road.

“What is it?” Fawn, sitting beside him, asked quietly.

“Fairbolt. Not happy about something.”

She lowered her voice further. “Think it’s our summons from the camp council, finally?” She had lived in increasing dread of the threat.

“Could be…no. I’m not sure.” Dag’s eyes narrowed.

By the time Fairbolt’s trotting horse swung into the clearing, all the patrollers had quieted and were sitting up watching him. He was riding bareback, and his face was as grim as Fawn had ever seen. She found her heart beating faster, even though she was sitting still.

Fairbolt pulled up his horse and gave them all a vague sort of salute. “Good, you’re all here. I’m looking for Saun, first.”

Saun, startled, stood up from his stump. “Me, sir?”

“Yep. Courier just rode in from Raintree.”

Saun’s home hinterland. Bad news from there? Saun’s face drained, and Fawn could imagine his thoughts suddenly racing down a roster of family and friends.

“They’ve got themselves a bad malice outbreak north of Farmer’s Flats, and are calling for help.”

Everyone straightened in shock at this. Even Fawn knew by now that to call for aid outside one’s own hinterland was a sign of things going very badly indeed.

“Seems the blighted thing came up practically under a farmer town, and grew like crazy before it was spotted,” Fairbolt said.

Saun’s gnawed plunkin rind fell from his hand. “I’ll ride—I have to get home at once!” he said, and lurched forward. He caught himself, breathless, and looked beseechingly at Fairbolt. “Sir, may I have leave to go?”

“No.”

Saun flushed, but before he could speak, Fairbolt went on, “I want you to ride with the rest tomorrow morning as pathfinder.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.” Saun subsided, but stayed on his flexing feet, like a dog straining on the end of a chain.

“Being the high season, almost three-quarters of our patrols are out right now,” Fairbolt continued, his gaze sweeping over the suddenly grave patrollers in front of him. “For our first answer, I figure I can pull up the next three patrols due to go out. Which includes yours, Mari.”

Mari nodded. Cattagus scowled unhappily, his right hand rubbing on his knee, but he said nothing.

“Being out of the hinterland, it’s on a volunteer basis as usual—you folks all in?”

“Of course,” murmured Mari. Razi and Utau, after a glance at each other, nodded as well. Fawn hardly dared move. Her breath felt constricted. Dag said nothing, his face oddly blank.

Saun wheeled to him. “You’ll come, won’t you, Dag? I know you meant to sit out our next patrol in camp, and you’ve earned some time off your feet, but, but—!”

“I want to speak to Dag private-like,” said Fairbolt, watching him. “The rest of you can start to collect your gear. I figure to send the first company west at dawn.”

“Couldn’t we start tonight? If everyone pulled themselves together?” said Saun earnestly. “Time—you never know how much difference a little time could make.”

Dag grimaced at that one, not, Fawn thought, in disagreement.

Fairbolt shook his head, although his glance was sympathetic. “Folks are spread all over the lake right now. It’ll take all afternoon just to get the word out. You can’t outpace the company you’re leading, pathfinder.”

Saun gulped and nodded.

Fairbolt gave a gesture of dismissal, and everyone scattered, Razi and Utau for their tent, where Sarri had come to the awning post with her little boy on her hip, staring hard at the scene, Mari and Cattagus to theirs. Saun waved and started jogging up the road back to his own campsite on the island’s other end.

Fairbolt slid down from his horse and left it to trail its reins and browse. Dag motioned toward Tent Bluefield, sheltered in the orchard, and Fairbolt nodded. Fawn hurried after their matched patrollers’ strides. Fairbolt eyed her, neither inviting nor excluding, so when each man took a seat on an upended log in the shade of her tent flap, she did, too. Dag gave her an acknowledging nod before turning his full attention on his commander.

“With three patrols sent out in a bunch, they’re going to need an experienced company captain,” Fairbolt began.

“Rig Crow. Or Iwassa Muskrat,” said Dag, watching him warily.