An owl hooted a long, angry cry in the trees ahead.

Linsha started upright in her saddle. Owls did not usually call in daylight. If there was one out in these woods, then it could only be… The lady Knight dug her heels into the mare’s sides. Windcatcher sprang forward.

“Varia!” Linsha called. The owl cried again, a long, shivering note of anger and sadness.

Windcatcher cantered down the trail between the trees and through the undergrowth.

A brown shape swooped out of a large sycamore and soared by Linsha’s head, wailing softly. “Linsha, I hoped you would come this way. Follow me!” the owl cried. She banked to the right, away from the path and toward a copse of smaller, denser pine. Linsha had to slow the horse to a walk in the thick growth of vines, shrubs, and small trees. When she reached the copse, she had to dismount and tie the mare to a tree limb, then continue on foot. She pushed into the thick stand, and the dark evergreens closed in around her.

“There, under that young pine. Do you see him?” Varia directed her.

Linsha shoved a branch out of her face and came into a slight clearing in the middle of the pine trees. Evening sunlight barely penetrated the heavy growth and the deep shadows that cloaked the forest floor, but there was just enough light to gleam on a patch of bright red, a red that had no place among the stand of trees. Linsha hurried forward. She came to two black boots lying among the crushed grass. Her gaze followed the boots up to the red breeches trimmed in black and the red tunic of a Governor’s Guard. A man lay on his belly in the shade of the pines, a man who looked unnaturally still.

Linsha took in his dark blond hair and strong build, but she didn’t recognize him until she rolled him over and saw his face. “Captain Dewald,” she gasped. Commander Durne’s lieutenant stared up at the sky with clouded, sightless eyes.

“What happened to him?” she asked the owl as she knelt beside the body.

“I don’t know,” Varia hooted. “I came to the woods, hoping to meet you. While I waited, I did a little hunting and there I found him. He has been here a while, for ants have already discovered him.”

Linsha pulled her hands away and used only her eyes to examine the body. She tried to disregard the lines of ants that crawled around his open eyes, nose, and mouth. “Oh, wait. There.” She pointed to a dark stain and two small rips on the chest of his tunic. “He’s been stabbed twice, by a stiletto, I’d wager, but there’s no blood on the ground. He was probably killed somewhere else and dumped here. No one but an owl could have found him in this undergrowth.”

Varia sat on a branch close by and craned her neck to see the man clearly. “Linsha, I know this man,” she said.

“Really. How?”

“I have seen him with Lady Annian.”

Linsha’s anger boiled up. “What? He’s a Knight?”

“No, no,” the owl hastened to reassure her. “I think he’s only a paid informant. I have seen him with Lady Annian in the streets. Enjoying the taverns… and things. I think he was her contact in the court.”

“She knew I was joining the guards. Why didn’t she tell me?” Linsha said furiously.

“Maybe she didn’t want to jeopardize his safety by putting him in contact with you. He wasn’t a trained Knight, remember.”

“I’d say his safety has been jeopardized with or without me.” She brushed the ants off Captain Dewald’s face and closed his eyes. Not that the closed lids would stop the ants and flies for long, but it seemed a respectful thing to do. “I wonder who caught up with him, and why.”

Varia fluffed out her feathers and hooted softly. “I will tell Lady Karine tonight. She can tell Annian. The news will grieve her.” She sidestepped along the branch until the limb drooped under weight, bringing her close to Linsha. “Tell me what happened to you.”

“Looters,” Linsha sighed. “One caught me with a knife.” She rubbed a finger over Varia’s brown and white barred wing.

The owl hopped gently onto Linsha’s wrist. “I am glad you were not seriously hurt. A healer closed the wound?”

“Mica. He and I were collecting records to take to the temple.”

“Ah, the grumpy dwarf.”

Linsha’s face became thoughtful. “Commander Durne said something to me that I thought was strange. He told me to watch my back around Mica, that Lord Bight doesn’t trust him.”

“Doesn’t trust his own healer?” Varia repeated dubiously.

“Yes.” She pursed her lips. “Keep a watch on Mica when you can. If you see him leave the temple at odd hours or do something out of character, let me know.”

“As you wish. What are you going to do about him?”

“Mica?”

“No. The captain.”

Linsha sat back on her heels and said, “I can’t lift him onto Windcatcher alone. He’s too big. I’ll have to report this. Commander Durne may want to see this place before they move the body.”

She carefully rolled his body back the way she had found him. Feeling tired to the bone, she climbed to her feet and, still carrying Varia, returned to her horse.

“You came out to meet me,” Linsha remembered. “Was there something else you wanted to tell me?”

Varia bobbed her head. “Lord Bight heard from one of his spies that the Dark Knights are going to raid the farms again. He took off like an avenging dragon with most of his men.”

“I saw them on our way back. Commander Durne wouldn’t let me go with them.”

“He cares about you. I suppose that is one thing I like about him.”

“You don’t like him?”

The owl turned huge eyes on her. “I did not say that.”

“But you don’t like him,” Linsha persisted.

“I do not know him well enough to decide,” Varia replied. “But I do not trust him. I cannot see past his facade, and that bothers me.”

It disturbed Linsha, too. Varia was a superb judge of character and preferred to spend her time with creatures who were generally good. If Varia couldn’t look past Ian Durne’s social masks to read the makeup of his character within, she would never come to like him. It bothered her also that Durne shielded himself so well that even Varia’s perceptions couldn’t sense him. What did he have to hide?

She tucked the thought away in her memory for later and led Windcatcher back to the trail. “I will come to the barn tonight if there’s time.”

With, a powerful thrust, the owl launched herself off Linsha’s arm and winged into the trees. “Until then,” she called and was gone, a whisper on the wind.

Heavy of heart, Linsha rode to the palace and reported to the officer of the watch. The lieutenant’s face paled, and his hand worked, open and shut, on the pommel of his sword while he shouted orders and organized a squad to investigate the murder.

When they were ready, Linsha led them back to the captain’s body and explained how her normally staid mare had bolted from a snake and charged into the undergrowth close enough to the grove of pine for Linsha to catch a glimpse of red.

The lieutenant, a stranger to her, eyed her suspiciously, paying special attention to her bloody shirt. She told him about her duty in the harbor district and the run-in with the looters. She suggested he talk to Mica and Commander Durne.

Still, the lieutenant took no chances of making a mistake in this murder of one of their own. He ordered Linsha to stand by until Lord Bight returned, then he posted guards by the body and Linsha and sent to the temple for Mica.

The dwarf, he was informed, had gone back to the city and was not available.

When she heard this, Linsha clenched her teeth and suppressed the oaths she wanted to utter. Maybe Varia had seen him and was following.

The nearly full moon rose and sailed placidly to its zenith before Lord Bight and his men returned from the farmlands in the vale. They rode slowly, bringing many wounded and three riderless horses with them. The officer of the watch met them at the front gate. He quaked inside, seeing Lord Bight was already in a towering rage, but he stood straight and delivered his bad news.