Instead of the gleam Bakrell had expected, the innkeeper’s face showed disappointment. “Better than nothing,” he said. “Rather have food, or candles. Or wine.”

“I have-” In his mind, Bakrell went over the items he was carrying on his horse. He had no candles, and he wasn’t willing to give up his two skins of wine. “I have dried meat,” he offered finally. “And salt.”

The innkeeper’s face brightened. “Salt? You can have a room for a whole turning of the moons!”

“It’s in a pack on my horse, outside.”

“Outside! You can’t be leaving something valuable like that outside. It’ll be gone before you can blink.” The innkeeper rushed to the door behind the bar and shouted for someone to go and get Bakrell’s horse. “And bring the bags in here!”

Bakrell sat back, his fingers closed on the warm mug.

The innkeeper narrowed his eyes. “Where is it you said you’re from? Have I seen you around here before?”

“I stayed here in the fall. My sister and I. We were waiting for… someone.”

The Ogre’s eyes narrowed as he considered Bak-rell. “I remember a young one with a sister sharp as a whip. He was pretty useless-looking, though, decked out in fine clothes. Not like you.”

Bakrell smiled sadly. “No, I guess I don’t look much like that.”

“Them two, they were heading out onto the plains, looking for Igraine.” The innkeeper spat on the floor as soon as he said the name. “And may they find him, too. Heretic bastard!”

Bakrell nodded, then sipped thoughtfully at his drink.

“He’s the cause of all this, him and his ideas about slavery.” He waved his arms about, indicating the empty room. “Me with no slaves to work the place. Not that it matters. Got no customers anyway. Half the population doesn’t even have homes anymore.”

“I saw all the people outside. They looked like they’re on the move.”

As the innkeeper continued to speak, he became more agitated. “City’s not safe. No walls. The humans ride in and do whatever they want and ride back out again before the guard even rouses itself.”

“Where will they all go?” Bakrell was beginning to be sorry he’d ventured into Thorad, information or not.

“Humans’ll slaughter most of them on the trails. Damn fools don’t know what it’s like out there. Think they’ll be better off running away. Others’U starve when they get to Takar and Bloten and find they’re not wanted there either.”

“But surely they’d be welcome in Takar. The Ruling Council-”

“Ruling Council! Pahhh!” He spat again, with as much animosity as when he’d spoken of Igraine. “They’re sitting behind those walls, safe and warm. Don’t care if their own starve. Why would they want any more?”

Bakrell sighed heavily, pushing his cup toward the Ogre for a refill. “How did things get so bad, so fast?” he whispered. He felt, suddenly, a desperation to find Khallayne and Jelindra and get away from the mountains as quickly as possible.

Lyrralt stood on the shore, digging his bare feet into the sand. The breeze off the water was bitterly cold. The sand was cold between his toes, and grainy.

Reaching the Courrain Ocean, the great body of water to the north of the continent, had been a joyful moment. They had been camping nearby for almost a week, and many of the Ogres still ventured down to the beach despite the cold. They had spread out in small family encampments all along the seaside, among the sandy, grassy hills.

Children played near the water’s edge, laughing and shouting, mixing their voices with the cries of the seabirds and noise of the surf. He heard all, saw nothing.

“You shouldn’t be walking around without your shoes,” Tenaj called cheerily, crunching her way across the sand toward him. Igraine was with her, just back from a trip into Schall, a human city two days to the west. Lyrralt recognized him from his scent.

“How was your trip?”

The smile on Igraine’s face vanished.

Tenaj tucked her arm through Lyrralt’s, but waited for Igraine to speak. Igraine grimaced. “Disappointing. I’m afraid the reputations of our brethren have preceded us. We were most unwelcome. I’ve brought plenty of supplies, but I think we need to move on soon.”

“Before the humans decide to attack?” Lyrralt guessed.

“Yes.”

“Is there no place where we can be safe?” Tenaj asked, her voice suddenly depressed. “I’m tired of running. I’m tired of always looking over my shoulder.”

“Perhaps there is a place.” Lyrralt turned her toward the ocean. “In Schall, were there sailing vessels?” he asked Igraine.

“Yes. I saw sails near the waterfront.”

“Large enough to carry us? All of us?”

“I don’t know.”

Tenaj was trembling. “Where?” she whispered. “Where would we go?”

Lyrralt pointed out over the water.

“How do you know this, Lyrralt?” Igraine’s voice was caught by the wind and tossed back to him so that it seemed to come from very far away.

“There’s an island somewhere to the north. It’s… It’s calling me.”

Igraine turned into the ocean breeze, feeling the salt spray on his face. He tried to quiet his thoughts, putting away the worries of caring for so many Ogres, feeding them, sheltering them, keeping them alive. Yet he heard no song, no call from across the ocean waves. As always, when he allowed the mask of day-to-day worries to fall away, he felt only grief, the overwhelming sorrow and loneliness that had permeated his soul since Everlyn’s death, a heartache almost too strong to bear.

Darkness, dank and dripping. Scuttling of claws on stone, somewhere in the shadows. Light from a smoky, oily torch, showing flashes of moldy walls, of grayed, chewed lengths of bone.

There were doors, recessed, so thick and heavy that they might never open. One door was open, and Khallayne backed away from it, instinctively knowing that she didn’t want to know what lay out of range of her torchlight.

She was in the dungeons beneath the castle. The guard who had come for her volunteered no information, and he responding to her questions with only, “I’m following Lord Jyrbian’s orders.”

Lord Jyrbian. Lord Jyrbian had, so far, been as good as his word. He had organized the troops. He and Kaede had drilled them until they were ready to drop, then Kaede had drilled them more, made them fight each other with pikes, with swords, with fat maces, like the humans used, on foot and on horseback. And they loved him for it. The first supply train guarded by his troops had come through unscathed, and now everybody loved him.

Khallayne and the guard passed a deep doorway, and in the flash of torchlight she saw an unidentifiable mass, disintegrating cloth that might have been a pile of rags, or might have been a body. A lump of clothes, flesh all but gone, with wispy blond hair sticking up like straw.

She gasped softly, drew back. Had this always been here, this suffocating, dark place, below the rooms where she danced, ate, made love?

“In here, Lady,” he said, stopping before a door, deep-set in granite. “Lord Jyrbian is waiting.”

She froze, suddenly sure that if she went through the door, she would never leave the cell alive. She would spend the rest of her life eating unidentifiable food passed through a slit, living in the darkness until her skin was leeched of all color, her mind of all sanity.

The door swung inward, and yellow light spilled into the corridor. The warm air that came rushing out hinted at a scent musky yet somehow familiar. After the chilly dampness, the light and warmth pouring through the door should have been welcome.

It wasn’t. Her intuition told her so.

Jyrbian was just inside the door. His lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear the words.