Besides, dreams without visible sign were just dreams, not omens.

The visible sign might have been the boots beneath the study drapes- just the scuffed tips of them showing-but Thorin never looked in that direction. His eyes were fixed on the bottle beside his favorite chair. Drinking claret at five in the morning was no sort of habit to get into, but this once wouldn’t hurt. He’d had a terrible dream, for gods’ sake, and after all-

“Tomorrow’s Reaping,” he said, sitting in the wing-chair on the edge of the hearth. “I guess a man can jump a fence or two, come Reap.”

He poured himself a drink, the last he’d ever take in this world, and coughed as the fire hit his belly and then climbed back up his throat, warming it. Better, aye, much. No giant birds now, no plaguey shadows. He stretched out his arms, laced his long and bony fingers together, and cracked them viciously.

“I hate it when you do that, you scrawny git,” spoke a voice directly into Thorin’s left ear.

Thorin jumped. His heart took its own tremendous leap in his chest. The empty glass flew from his hand, and there was no foot-runner to cushion its landing. It smashed on the hearth.

Before Thorin could scream, Roy Depape brushed off the mayoral nightcap, seized the gauzy remains of the mayoral mane, and yanked the mayoral head back. The knife Depape held in his other hand was much humbler than the one Reynolds had used, but it cut the old man’s throat efficiently enough. Blood sprayed scarlet in the dim room. Depape let go of Thorin’s hair, went back to the drapes he had been hiding behind, and picked something up off the floor. It was Cuthbert’s lookout. Depape brought it back to the chair and put it in the dying Mayor’s lap.

“Bird…” Thorin gargled through a mouthful of blood. “Bird!”

“Yar, old fella, and trig o’ you to notice at a time like this, I will say.” Depape pulled Thorin’s head back again and took the old man’s eyes out with two quick flips of his knife. One went into the dead fireplace; the other hit the wall and slid down behind the fire-tools. Thorin’s right foot trembled briefly and was still.

One more job to do.

Depape looked around, saw Thorin’s nightcap, and decided the ball on the end would serve. He picked it up, dipped it in the puddle of blood in the Mayor’s lap, and drew the Good Man’s sigul-

–on the wall.

“There,” he murmured, standing back. “If that don’t finish em, nothing on earth will.”

True enough. The only question left unanswered was whether or not Roland’s ka-tet could be taken alive.

3

Jonas had told Fran Lengyll exactly where to place his men, two inside the stable and six more out, three of these latter gents hidden behind rusty old implements, two hidden in the burnt-out remains of the home place, one-Dave Hollis-crouched on top of the stable itself, spying over the roofpeak. Lengyll was glad to see that the men in the posse took their job seriously. They were only boys, it was true, but boys who had on one occasion come off ahead of the Big Coffin Hunters.

Sheriff Avery gave a fair impression of being in charge of things until they got within a good shout of the Bar K. Then Lengyll, machine-gun slung over one shoulder (and as straight-hacked in the saddle as he had been at twenty), took command. Avery, who looked nervous and sounded out of breath, seemed relieved rather than offended.

“I’ll tell ye where to go as was (old to me, for it’s a good plan, and I’ve no quarrel with it,” Lengyll had told his posse. In the dark, their faces were little more than dim blurs. “Only one thing I’ll say to ye on my own hook. We don’t need em alive, but it’s best we have em so-it’s the Barony we want to put paid to em, the common folk, and so put paid to this whole business, as well. Shut the door on it, if ye will. So I say this: if there’s cause to shoot, shoot. But I’ll flay the skin off the face of any man who shoots without cause. Do ye understand?”

No response. It seemed they did.

“All right,” Lengyll had said. His face was stony. “I’ll give ye a minute to make sure your gear’s muffled, and then on we go. Not another' word from here on out.”

4

Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain came out of the bunkhouse at quarter past six that morning, and stood a-row on the porch. Alain was finishing his coffee. Cuthbert was yawning and stretching. Roland was buttoning his shirt and looking southwest, toward the Bad Grass. He was thinking not of ambushes but of Susan. Her tears. Greedy old ka, how I hate it, she had said.

His instincts did not awake; Alain’s touch, which had sensed Jonas on the day Jonas had killed the pigeons, did not so much as quiver. As for Cuthbert-

“One more day of quiet!” that worthy exclaimed to the dawning sky. “One more day of grace! One more day of silence, broken only by the lover’s sigh and the tattoo of horses’ hoofs!”

“One more day of your bullshit,” Alain said. “Come on.”

They set off across the dooryard, sensing the eight pairs of eyes on them not at all. They walked into the stable past the two men flanking the door, one hidden behind an ancient harrow, the other tucked behind an untidy stack of hay, both with guns drawn.

Only Rusher sensed something was wrong. He stamped his feet, rolled his eyes, and, as Roland backed him out of his stall, tried to rear.

“Hey, boy,” he said, and looked around. “Spiders, I reckon. He hates them.”

Outside, Lengyll stood up and waved both hands forward. Men moved silently toward the front of the stable. On the roof, Dave Hollis stood with his gun drawn. His monocle was tucked away in his vest pocket, so it should blink no badly timed reflection.

Cuthbert led his mount out of the stable. Alain followed. Roland came last, short-leading the nervous, prancy gelding.

“Look,” Cuthbert said cheerily, still unaware of the men standing directly behind him and his friends. He was pointing north. “A cloud in the shape of a bear! Good luck for-”

“Don’t move, cullies,” Fran Lengyll called. “Don’t so much as shuffle yer god-pounding feet.”

Alain did begin to turn-in startlement more than anything else-and there was a ripple of small clicking sounds, like many dry twigs all snapping at once. The sound of cocking pistols and musketoons.

“No, Al!” Roland said. “Don’t move! Don’t!” In his throat despair rose like poison, and tears of rage stung at the comers of his eyes… yet he stood quiet. Cuthbert and Alain must stand quiet, too. If they moved, they’d be killed. “Don’t move!” he called again. “Either of you!”

“Wise, cully.” Lengyll’s voice was closer now, and accompanied by several pairs of footfalls. “Put yer hands behind ye.”

Two shadows flanked Roland, long in the first light. Judging by the bulk of the one on his left, he guessed it was being thrown by Sheriff Avery. He probably wouldn’t be offering them any white tea this day. Lengyll would belong to the other shadow.

“Hurry up, Dearborn, or whatever yer name may be. Get em behind ye. Small of yer back. There’s guns pointed at your pards, and if we end up taking in only two of yer instead of three, life’ll go on.”

Not taking any chances with us, Roland thought, and felt a moment of perverse pride. With it came a taste of something that was almost amusement. Bitter, though; that taste continued very bitter.

“Roland!” It was Cuthbert, and there was agony in his voice. “Roland, don’t!”

But there was no choice. Roland put his hands behind his back. Rusher uttered a small, reproving whinny as if to say all this was highly improper-and trotted away to stand beside the bunkhouse porch.

“You’re going to feel metal on your wrists,” Lengyll said. “Esposas.”

Two cold circles slipped over Roland’s hands. I here was a click and suddenly the arcs of the handcuffs were tight against his wrists.