He quickened his pace. He did not want to be caught outside the gates. The cart and chicken baskets clattered along the dirt road as he went. He watched the shadows and trees. He kept an eye on the fields. He prepared himself, at the first sign, to run.

He passed two large wicker creels on the bank of the river. One had toppled over. Its lid hung loose, and a tangle of fat, brown eels wriggled their way back toward the water. The sight raised the hackles on the back of his neck, and Talen began to run.

Down the dirt road he went, and then it was over the bridge. On the far side of the bridge, one of the chicken baskets bounced off, but Talen paid it no mind and let it lie in the grass on the side of the road. He didn’t stop until he stood outside the gates.

The Mokaddian guards up on the wall were not looking out-they were looking in. The beef-heads were not going to see any threat coming that way. “Hoy!” Talen called.

The three guards turned.

One was that maggot Roddick, the cartwright’s son who had tormented Talen with rotten plums when he was a boy.

“Let me in,” said Talen.

“You,” said Roddick in disgust. “Stay right where you are!”

3

Technically a Mokaddian village couldn’t refuse entrance to Talen just because he was a Koramite. Even though the Koramites had been conquered and paid tribute to their Mokaddian masters, they still maintained some rights, and refuge was one of them. But that didn’t mean they would open to him. Roddick yelled down to those within.

This village had fallen once, before it had a wall. The Bone Faces had rowed two of their small galleys up the river to a bend at the edge of the fields. They attacked just before dawn, setting the homes ablaze, running many good men through with their curved swords, and stealing anything of value, including fifteen young girls. The next year, the village built the wall.

The wall had been made by digging a wide ditch and throwing up an embankment of earth about three times the hight of a tall man. Timber spikes had been planted into that steep slope and at the bottom of the ditch. Grass and tall thistle now hid many of the spikes, but any host charging up that hill would find the spikes’ power to impale undiminished. And if the host reached the top, they’d face a timber palisade and tower. The timbers had been new when Talen was a boy. Pale yellow lichen now clung to much of the wood, but it was sturdy nevertheless.

He expected they’d be happy to give him a bow and set him up on the wall with Roddick. But there were no raiders, no sign of any struggle whatsoever. So why had they closed the gates?

The crossbar that held the gates closed scraped. Then the gates swung open.

Out walked a dozen Mokaddian men holding their scythes, sickles, and forks like weapons. About half had shaved their heads and dyed their scalps with henna, bearing witness that they’d performed their harvest worship.

Talen glanced over his shoulder, fearing the Bone Faces had decided to attack, but there were no Bone Faces, only the river glistening in the sun and the fields of grain beyond, rolling with the breeze. When he turned back, one of the beef-heads on the wall was stringing his bow.

“It’s one of Hogan’s half-breeds,” said farmer Tilth. He held his hay fork before him as if Talen were the Dark One himself. “What are you doing here, boy?” asked Tilth.

“I’ve come to trade with Mol,” said Talen.

“He’s spying!” Roddick called from above.

Spying?

“Cast your weapons from you,” Roddick commanded. “Then lie down in the dirt.”

“You bum brain!” Talen yelled up at Roddick. “Who would want to spy on you? And I don’t have any weapons. Unless you think I might kill someone with these chicken baskets.”

“Give yourself up,” said Tilth.

Long Lark, the cooper’s son, stood next to Tilth. He tied a cattle noose at the end of one rope.

Talen looked at the men. There were the Early brothers, the one-eyed tanner and his two sons, and the young hayward who had killed a wurm not two weeks ago and received the intricate tattoo around the wrist of his right hand that signified he was no longer a boy, but a man of the Shoka clan.

These people knew him.

The men began to fan out.

“I’m honored,” said Talen, “but isn’t this a bit much for a runt like me?”

“He’s going to run,” Roddick called.

“I’m not running,” said Talen.

“Come on, son,” Tilth said.

They approached him like one might a boar caught in a trap: careful and bent on injury.

A flash of orange caught Talen’s eye, and he spotted a tall, bald man with an enormous black beard standing in the gateway. He was an official, wrapped in the blue and orange sash of the Mokaddian Fir-Noy Clan.

Fear shot through him, and Talen took a step back.

The Fir-Noy had shed plenty of Koramite blood over the years. That was not to say the Koramites hadn’t defended themselves. But everyone knew that Koramite and Fir-Noy didn’t mix. Lords, Fir-Noy didn’t mix with half of the Mokaddian clans, especially not the Shoka of Stag Home.

But there stood that Fir-Noy official, acting like he owned the place, and here the Shoka village men had their tools pointed at him as if he were a rabid dog.

By law, if a Koramite heard a Mokaddian cry out for help and did not run to the Mokaddian’s aid, the Koramite would be punished. Depending on the urgency of the situation, he might be whipped. The law, however, did not go both ways. Talen’s cries to be rescued from these madmen would go unheeded.

“I’m here for chickens,” he protested.

It was then that Long Lark broke from the pack and set himself to throw his noose.

Talen hesitated for a fraction of a second.

Long Lark adjusted his grip on the noose.

By the farting lord of pigs, Talen thought. I’ve done nothing. Nothing at all.

Koramites had been dragged behind horses before. Not here, of course, in a Shoka village. Not yet. But these were Mokaddians, after all. Fir-Noy, Vargon, or Shoka-did it matter which clan they belonged to?

He looked into their eyes and saw it did not. Talen took a step backward.

Long Lark swung his noose.

In his mind’s eye, Talen saw himself hanging from the village wall with that noose around his neck. The thought jolted him. And despite his earlier protestations, he turned tail and ran.

A shout rose up behind him so full of menace that it almost loosed his bowels.

He stretched his stride, expecting that noose to fall about his shoulders or to catch an arrow in his back. He ran like a thief, like a rabbit coursed by dogs. He ran with the speed only fear and bewilderment bring.

He sprinted back over the bridge and thought he saw the flash of an arrow out of the corner of his eye. He needed to make the woods, the only place where he might have a chance to lose these madmen. Back up the road he ran, the dirt hard under his bare feet.

Talen was not the fastest runner in the district, but he wasn’t the slowest either. He knew he should measure his pace, but he’d seen that lazy-eyed Sabin among them, him and his shaved head and violent speed, and Talen sprinted for all he was worth.

He could hear the men behind him and pushed himself until his breath came in ragged gasps and his head felt dizzy. But it did not last. By the time he reached the oat field the rogue cows had broken into, his lungs and legs were burning, and he had to stop. He panted and turned.

Sabin, a look of murder in his eyes, was almost upon him.

Movement farther up the road drew his attention: a rider galloping toward him on a horse. They were boxing him in.