They turned into a street of better-class houses, a few of them as much as four stories tall with the featureless lower walls that spoke of interior gardens or courtyards, or both. Not so fine as nobles’ houses, to Parno’s experienced eye these looked like the homes of well-to-do merchants. And suddenly Parno smelled smoke, and saw as they rounded yet another corner a three-story house with flames dancing in two upper windows that gave on the street.

Even now, he could not hear the sound of the fire, and he knew that Dhulyn-Outlander or no-could not possibly have heard it either. This burning house must have been some Vision she had Seen.

The usual crowd of people who gather out of nowhere at any sign of trouble were milling around in the irregular square in front of the burning building, but something was wrong-more wrong than just a house on fire. Parno frowned as he urged Warhammer forward. He’d seen many a mob in his time as a Mercenary, and this one wasn’t behaving normally. Those closest to the fire acted as he would expect, some craning for a better view, others pointing and yelling-shock and excitement both apparent in faces and stances. As for those farther away, far too many were standing far too still, hands hanging limp, heads all, as he now realized, at the same angle. And aside from some shoving, and what looked like a fistfight breaking out on the far side of the crowd, no one was doing anything. Not putting out the fire, not bringing water, not even helping to drag out furniture. In fact, two men seemed to be preventing someone from coming out of the house… Parno edged forward into the opening Dhulyn had made in the crowd just as a man put his hand on Warhammer’s bridle. Parno bared his teeth as the man looked up. His eyes widened when he saw the red-and-gold tattoo reaching from Parno’s temples to above his ears, and he backed away.

Closer now, Parno could hear the flames as they ate through the house wall, blistering the stucco to the right of the doorway. A woman at the front of the crowd threw a stone at the upper window on the left, screaming something Parno couldn’t make out.

Flames or no, Dhulyn rode Bloodbone right through to the front of the house, swung her leg over the pommel of her saddle, and jumped off, knocking the two men who’d been blocking the doorway sprawling over one another. The darker of the two sprang to his feet, a cudgel ready in his fist. Dhulyn stepped in close to him, knocked his arm away with her left forearm, brought her booted heel down sharply on his instep, and drew her sword from the sheath that hung down her back.

All without taking her eyes from the doorway.

A young girl burst out of the now unguarded door, but was choking too much to actually speak.

“Children upstairs,” Dhulyn called out to him as Parno drew rein beside her, using Warhammer’s size and wickedly rolling eyes to push the crowding people farther back.

“I’ll go,” he said, tossing her his reins. Demons and perverts, he thought, not for the first time thankful that he didn’t See what Dhulyn sometimes Saw. Children. He pulled his feet from the stirrups and, steadying himself with his hands on the pommel, hopped up on the saddle until he was balancing on Warhammer’s back, wishing he was wearing something with more grip than his boots.

“Keep your eyes open.” He didn’t have to tell her to watch the crowd. She’d have noticed before he did that something was amiss.

Out of the corner of her eye Dhulyn Wolfshead watched Parno make the small jump that got his fingers hooked on the windowsill above them. The muscles in his arms bulged as he drew himself up, swung one leg over the sill, and was gone into the smoky darkness within the house.

“My lady.” It was the young girl who had run out of the doorway. “My brothers-”

“I’m not your lady,” Dhulyn said, “and my Brother’s fetching yours.” She glanced at the girl’s soot-marked face. “Where’s your people, then?” She’d known from her Vision the parents weren’t alive inside the burning building, she’d Seen that much, but she hadn’t been sure she and Parno wouldn’t be stuck looking after a passel of orphaned children.

As the girl said something in which only the word “shop” was clear, Dhulyn whirled, her sword knockng aside another stone that came hurtling at them. She turned her head and smiled her wolf’s smile at the thrower, an otherwise respectable-looking woman of middle years. The woman dropped the second rock-taken from her garden by the look of the dirt on it-and stepped back, pressing her lips together but lowering her eyes.

“Will none of you fetch water?” Surely there had to be some well or fountain nearby. Those closest to her shifted their feet, looking down and away from her searching eyes. Some drifted even farther off, one of them bumping into his neighbors in the crowd as if he couldn’t see them.

Dhulyn again smiled her wolf’s smile, and the people nearest her froze.

“I don’t know what you have against this household,” she called out, “but perhaps the neighbors might like to save their homes before they catch alight.”

It was like tossing a snake into a hen coop. Sudden curses and determined scurrying, the quicker slapping the slower into movement. Dhulyn laughed aloud. “Blooded fools.”

“It’s bad luck to help the Marked, Mercenary,” the stone thrower said, sharp nods punctuating her words. “Everyone knows that.”

“Is it so?” Dhulyn looked and, sure enough, there was a sigil next to the door that showed the house belonged to a Finder. She turned back to the woman, still smiling so that the scar on her lip pulled it back from her teeth. “If I find the one who helped them to this fire, they’ll learn what bad luck is.”

Bad enough they were going to Imrion in the first place, she thought, watching to make sure that the people moving through the crowd were bringing water and nothing else, if this was the kind of trouble she and Parno found before they even got there. For herself, she didn’t care, one country was the same as another, and work was work. But Parno had wanted Imrion, reminiscing constantly about his childhood there-far too much for any Mercenary Brother, let alone a Partnered one-until finally she’d given in. Looking down at the Finder girl’s tear-streaked face, Dhulyn hoped she wouldn’t curse the day she’d done so.

And she didn’t like the look of the crowd. She never thought much of town men-even country lordlings like Parno had once been showed more sense-but this bunch was stupider than usual. Why, half a dozen stood toward the back slack-jawed-one was even drooling-as if their wits had left them.

“Dhulyn!”

She looked up. Left-handed, she snatched a small bundle out of the air that turned out to be a little boy, continued the movement to lower him gently into his sister’s waiting arms. Dhulyn looked up again to where Parno stood leaning out of the third-story window, a larger child dangling in his scarred hands. Dhulyn could see the flames close behind Parno’s soot-streaked face. What was he waiting for? She took a breath to call to him, but something on his face stopped her from uttering a sound.

Even as he leaned out to drop the second child to safety, Parno froze, a finger of icy chill tickling up his back. He shivered despite the heat of the furniture burning in the room behind him. Every hair on his body stood up; even the tattoos on his temples seemed to itch. He resisted the urge to look around, feeling that someone was behind him, watching. He knew no one was there-no one could be there.

Only his eyes moving, Parno scanned the crowd. Many watched him, but there was nothing that should give him this feeling of… his stomach twisted. Someone, some thing, patting thieves’ fingers through his thoughts, probing his mind and soul… leaving darkness and confusion in its wake. Parno shivered, blinking, forced himself to take a breath, and another. Forced his breathing into the pattern of the Turtle Shora. In. Out. Forcing his thoughts-