The man holding his arm advised Bro to close his eyes and pinched him hard to distract him from the first of the cuts. Bro's legs spasmed; the heaviest men in the camp sat on his hips to keep him still. Someone said he'd faint soon and it would be easier after that.

But Bro didn't faint while they cut him or when they poured honey wine on the enlarged wounds. He didn't faint when he saw his knife moving toward him, lashed between two sticks and distorting the night air with its dull-red heat. Once Bro saw the knife, he couldn't look away.

Someone put his hand over Bro's eyes. Agony took him by surprise, and, finally, he fainted.

Pale sunlight had replaced the stars when Bro opened his eyes again. His chest was tight in bandages that reeked of wine and bitter herbs. Separate bandages bound his arm to his waist. He was in Rizcarn's camp, propped up against a fallen tree. A man knelt beside him, Bro recognized him as the one who'd held his arm during the night and remembered his name, as well: Yongour. He held a wooden mug that steamed and stank worse than the bandages.

"A purgative. If any poison lingers."

Not thinking, Bro reached with the arm that was bound to his waist. Embarrassed and hurting, he warded the mug away with his left arm and immediately felt for the Simbul's knife. It was where it belonged. He drew it out for examination.

"That's a fine knife, Rizcarn's son, and nothing that you got while living in a dirt-eaters' village. Now drink this while it's hot."

Bro refused for half a heartbeat, then wisdom prevailed. He took the mug from Yongour's hand and drained it in several unpleasant gulps. The mug slipped through Bro's fingers as he passed out again.

His consciousness flickered all morning. It was mid-afternoon before Bro was alert again. Front and back, shoulder to waist, he was in pain, though nothing like the previous night. A deep breath convinced him he could not get to his feet or walk anywhere before sundown. Then he realized no one had walked anywhere; the camp hadn't moved. The Cha'Tel'Quessir had stayed put, waiting for him to live or die before Rizcarn led them all to MightyTree.

"Poppa?" he asked after the woman tending him had given him a drink of water. "Rizcarn. Can I see him? Will you tell him I'm awake?"

"Not here," she replied, the same answer he'd gotten last night before they pulled the arrow.

"Where is he? I want to talk to him… tell him I'm better."

"Rizcarn's gone. He came back at dawn, before you woke. He said the gods had spoken when you fell and that there were things he had to do alone. We're to wait here until he returns."

The bandages tightened over Bro's ribs. "Did he say where he was going?"

"Headed east, that's all. Toward the Sunglade."

Toward MightyTree. Bro put his hand on his neck. His talisman beads were there. Shali's were gone. He'd given them to his father; he'd been a fool. A fool to look for Rizcarn; a worse fool to swallow anything Rizcarn said. Rizcarn had beguiled him by talking about Shali. He'd soothed Bro's surface hurts and left his deeper questions unanswered.

"You'll be well again, Rizcarn's son." The woman misunderstood his despair. "Walking, climbing trees, dancing in the Sunglade."

Dancing in the Sunglade with Zandilar. Rizcarn had called Zandilar's name as he fell. Bro arched his back against the tree trunk, savoring the pain.

"Leave me," he asked. "I need to rest."

Bro stared at the sun. His eyes burned; he shut them. The woman walked away. He let the tears flow until there were no more. Then he tried to stand.

"Not so fast, Ebroin."

A woman he'd never seen before sat on the fallen trunk on his unharmed side. He couldn't see her clearly in the sun, but she'd known his name. Bro thought that was a good sign, though Rizcarn had called him Ebroin, too.

He tried again to stand. She laid her hand on his good shoulder. Her fingers were ice; they froze his breath in his lungs.

"They told me you wanted to rest."

She'd withdrawn her hand and moved slightly, so he could see her better. She bristled with steel weapons and brass studs. Her fitted boots and wine-dyed leathers hadn't been put together in the Yuirwood, but she was, without doubt, Cha'Tel'Quessir. Though there was nothing extraordinary about her brown hair, her brown eyes, Bro couldn't keep himself from staring.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Call me Chayan. You've seen a woman before, haven't you?"

He wondered if he had and wondered, too, where the pain had gone. "Where are you from?"

"A bit of everywhere, but I was born in the Yuirwood, same as you. Left it, too; it's a long story. I got the urge to come back a while ago. When I got here, I heard your father was going to wake the gods in the Sunglade and figured that's what I'd come home for. Anything else you want to know, Ebroin?"

A hundred things, maybe a thousand, but they could wait. The pain was back, less intense than before, but still potent. Bro braced his good arm behind him. "I've got to get up, catch up with my father."

"Not a chance." Chayan laid her hand on him again. It wasn't cold this time, but just as effective in keeping him pressed against the log. "Wherever your father's gone, he's got a day's start on you. You couldn't catch him if you were sound, which you're not. You need a day's rest, which some Cha'Tel'Quessir think you've earned."

"You?" Bro blushed and didn't believe he'd said that.

"When I told the Cha'Tel'Quessir in charge-" Chayan tipped her head toward the center of the camp-"that I'd tended more than my share of arrow wounds fighting the Tuigans, they sent me over here to tend yours. They'd lose faith in me if I let you wander."

"You fought the Tuigans? You've been in the East?" Bro began to suspect that his good sense had leaked away with his blood. He stopped caring when Chayan threw back her hair and laughed.

"I've been everywhere, Ebroin, and I've fought with everyone. I'll fight with you, too, if you try to get up again. I want to look at your wounds. Are you going to behave like an intelligent man? Or am I going to have to knock some good behavior into you?"

For a moment-for no good reason-Chayan reminded Bro of the Simbul. Then he'd promised to behave intelligently and she was poking at his wounds.

"Who shot you?"

Bro couldn't answer. He had his teeth clenched, pretending nothing hurt. By the time he trusted himself enough to open his mouth, they weren't alone. Yongour challenged Chayan, who stood up with a confident smile.

"He was talking nonsense. I thought the wounds might be festering; they're not. I'd like to see the arrow that pierced him."

Yongour said, "Rizcarn's son was pierced by the gods."

Bro didn't like the sound of that for many reasons and was relieved to see Chayan didn't either.

"Shot by the gods and you cauterized the wound? That's a strange sort of faith. The gods don't miss, and when they use poison they get it direct from Talona. The arrow?"

It took another few rounds of discussion, but the arrow arrived, bigger than Bro imagined it would be and stained with his blood.

"It's not Cha'Tel'Quessir," Yongour insisted. "Not Aglarondan at all."

"I can see that," Chayan agreed with a tone as cold has her icicle touch.