"Days," Collurio echoed. He seemed in something of a daze himself. "Why would anything with wings want to go after Pouncer? He'd be a handful even for something the size of an eagle."

"Well, I don't know that anything would. But I don't know that anything wouldn't, either," Lanius said, which seemed to go a long way toward persuading Collurio that he had no business wandering around loose. The king went on, "The fewer chances I take, the happier everyone's likely to end up. Everyone on our side, I should say."

"Our side?" Collurio's gaze sharpened. "This does have to do with that dreadful dream the Ban -"

"Don't say the name," Lanius broke in. "I don't know that it makes any difference, but I don't know that it doesn't, either. So don't say it, not while you're here. Better safe than sorry, eh?"

"I would do – or not do – whatever I have to so I don't ever have another one of those dreams again," Collurio said earnestly.

"I understand that. I not only understand, I agree with you," Lanius said. "I don't know if this will help, but I know it can't hurt. In the meantime, shall we walk through here? I want to show you just what you'll be teaching Pouncer to do…"

The Menteshe called the river where Grus had stopped his advance the autumn before the Zabat. Hundreds of years earlier, it must have had a proper Avornan name. King Grus had no idea what that was, though. Lanius might have been able to pull it out of the archives, but Grus had no intention of asking him to. If Grus talked about the Zabat, people knew what he meant. That was all that mattered, as far as he was concerned.

It was a much wider river than it had been the last time he looked at it. Hirundo saw him eyeing it and said, "You see, Your Majesty?"

"Well, what if I do?" Grus said gruffly. Hirundo only laughed at him. The king went on, "All right – we didn't have much trouble from Menteshe raiders coming up out of the south. We had a pestilence instead. Between you and me, I'm not sure we got the best of the bargain."

"Since you put it that way, neither am I," Hirundo said. "But it won't be long before we're ready to go see what's on the other side."

At the moment, three or four Menteshe horsemen were on the other side of the Zabat. They weren't doing anything but watching; they wanted to see what the Avornans were up to. Grus had his army do as much as it could out of sight of the nomads on the southern bank of the river. He hoped that would help.

And he knew what lay well on the other side of the Zabat – Yozgat. This year, he thought. This year we get there. He could feel the hunger in his belly. Was that the Scepter of Mercy calling – or was it the Banished One, trying to lure him to destruction? How could he know? All he could do was go on. The other choice was giving up and heading home, and that would be unbearable.

As though thinking along with him, Hirundo said, "One good thing – Korkut and Sanjar are still at war with each other. From what our men down here heard, they fought a big battle over the winter. Korkut's still holding Yozgat, though, and that's what counts as far as we're concerned."

"Yes." Grus let it go at that. If he didn't let it go, he would show how hungry he was. Hirundo already knew, of course, but Grus didn't want to be too open, not here in the south where the Banished One had so many eyes and ears.

A man came toward the king. Grus' guardsmen got between him and this fellow who had to be a freed thrall. "I mean no harm," the man protested.

"Then you'll understand why we take no chances," a guard answered.

The man thought about that, shrugged, and finally nodded "Smash em up!" he called to Grus. "Smash 'em all up, those horse-riding pigs!" He probably hadn't been free very long-otherwise he would have come up with something juicier to call the Menteshe.

Grus appreciated the sentiment even if it could have been expressed more forcefully. "That's what I intend to do," I said. "Tell your friends. Tell everybody you know." He wasn't keeping that a secret. The Menteshe had to know he was coming. When and how and exactly where – those were different questions.

"I'll do it," the man said. "By the… gods in the heaven: I'll do it." Grus caught the brief hesitation. He knew what meant. The local had almost sworn by the Fallen Star, the name the Menteshe gave the Banished One. If a thrall had any reason to think of a supernatural power, he thought of the Banished One, not the gods. But things were changing here.

And if we lose, they'll change back again, too, Grus re minded himself. Things had gone well so far. That didn't mean they would keep on going well. One way to make sure the; didn't was to assume they would.

"We need to talk," the king told his general. "We need to figure out where we're going once we cross the river, and when the Menteshe are likely to try to stop us."

"If we're not going to Yozgat, Your Majesty, somebody's been talking to you while I wasn't looking," Hirundo said. Grus sent him a severe look. Hirundo ignored it with the fortitude of a man who'd known worse – and he had.

"How are we going to get there?" the king said, as patiently as he could. "What will we run into on the way?"

"Menteshe?" Hirundo suggested. When Grus looked severe again, the general spread his hands in affable innocence. "You said so yourself."

"Well, so I did," Grus answered with a sigh. "But where? How many? And what are they likely to try against us?"

"We need to talk about that." Hirundo sounded altogether serious. Grus didn't pick up a rock and hit him over the head with it. That proved only one thing – years on the throne had given him much more tolerance than he'd ever imagined.

Lanius nodded to Collurio. "Put him through his paces."

"That's what I'm going to do, Your Majesty," the animal trainer replied. They stood on the outer wall of the city slice Lanius had built out in the country. It was twenty-five or thirty feet high; Lanius could see for a long way. Above the stand of trees to the south was a smudge on the sky that marked where the city of Avornis lay.

Collurio waved to his son, who'd come out to help him. The younger man was on the ground out beyond a dry ditch. The youth picked up a pole about as thick as his thumb. He swung it up and over the ditch until the end of it came to rest on top of the wall not far from Lanius and Collurio.

Then Collurio's son – his name was Crinitus – opened a door to a wooden cage by the base of the pole. Out came Pouncer. The moncat saw the pole and swarmed up it, holding on with all four clawed hands. No ordinary cat with ordinary feet could have done it. For the moncat, it was as easy and normal as walking along a palace corridor would have been for Lanius.

Once at the top, Pouncer looked expectantly at the king and the trainer. Collurio gave the moncat a piece of meat. Lanius said, 'This isn't so good. Nobody will be around – nobody who would give Pouncer anything, anyway."

"We'll take care of it, Your Majesty," Collurio answered easily.

He did, too. The next time Pouncer did the trick, the trainer and Lanius stood well away from that stretch of the wall. They'd left a reward behind, though. The moncat ate it and then looked around as though considering what to do next.

Collurio smiled when he saw that. "He knows he'll get something he wants if he does what we want him to do. He knows. You were right, Your Majesty. These are very clever animals."

"Is he clever enough, though?" Lanius said.

"Clever enough for what?" Collurio asked.

"For what you need to teach him," the king answered.

Collurio let out an exasperated breath. "I wish you would tell me more, Your Majesty."

For his part, Lanius wished he'd never told the trainer which city this was a slice of. "Do you? Do you really?" the king said. "Do you want more visits in the night from…?" He did not name the name.