If all Gerrard's crew could fight like Tahngarth, they would win. Takara and Sisay came damned close, with three fallen Mercadians at each of their feet. Hanna did her best with a trident she'd wrangled from her single victim. Squee darted about, tripping any Mercadian he could reach. But the rest of the crew were falling like grass.

Gerrard suddenly remembered the dry grass thrashing at the edge of the graves he had dug… How many more graves after this hopeless fight?

"We surrender! Stop the fight! Ground arms!"

The guard captain barked out similar orders.

The combat quickly faded. Swords froze in the air. Tahngarth let the latest Mercadian slump from his horns. Karn released the Jhovall, who backed away, hissing and spitting, its pelt standing all down its back. In moments, Gerrard and his crew were surrounded by grim troopers, their weapons bristling. He looked around for his interpreter.

"Takara!" he called.

The woman emerged from beside a pile of dead. Her eyes glowed with the same fiery light as her hair. She wore an angry grin and wiped her bloodied blade lazily on one of the dead Mercadians. "Do you think they'll be more likely to listen now that we've killed some of them?"

"Perhaps not, but the fight was hopeless. They wouldn't have listened if we were all dead."

Gerrard drew her to his side and directed her attention to the guard captain. The man was even dustier after his fall from the Jhovall, but there was no blood on his saffron robes. He had never rejoined the fray.

Gerrard said to Takara, "Tell him we submit. We'll lay down our weapons and go with him on condition that our sick will be treated-well treated-and our dead buried with proper ceremony."

Takara translated.

The captain bowed his head in acceptance. In the common tongue, he said, "You honor my master, the chief magistrate, with your decision. Order your folk to disarm."

Brow furrowing, Gerrard said, "Do as he says."

Most of the crew flung down their weapons with alacrity and raised their hands. Tahngarth was more reluctant. His curved crystal sword was one of a kind, and the assortment of daggers in his belt had taken years to accumulate. He flung each to the ground, where they stuck and shuddered angrily. The sound almost covered the minotaur's curses.

Meanwhile, Mercadian soldiers unpacked lengths of shackle and chain. They carried the shackles among their prisoners, fastening them over wrists. One whole set was wrapped about Karn, his arms bound to his sides and his legs connected so he could take only short steps. The crew members were chained in pairs to whomever was closest, so that they could ride jhovallback in tandem.

"You have killed just enough of our folk to each have a ride to the city," the captain said biliously as a soldier handed him the ring of shackle keys. He hung the ring on his belt and said with a flourish, "A fair payment for your fighting prowess. For my losses, I confiscate your weapons, to be kept or sold, as I will it." He gestured to another soldier, who gathered the swords and knives from the ground. The man scurried especially quickly as he snatched up Tahngarth's blades. He bundled them all together with rope and stowed them atop the captain's saddlebags.

Sitting aback their respective Jhovalls, the crew at last received medical aid. Gerrard's shoulder was bandaged, a cut over Hanna's eye was cleaned and dressed, and Sisay's dislocated shoulder was reset rather brutally. Squee claimed to have gotten foot fungus from one of the soldiers he had tripped, and two Mercadians assiduously checked over his feet.

Gerrard watched them quizzically. He spoke over his shoulder to Takara, who sat behind him on the same Jhovall. "They seem eager to live up to their end of the bargain. Look how they treat Squee."

"There's something else going on," Takara replied. "Look how they treat the dead." She nodded toward the bloody ground.

There, teams of Mercadians unceremoniously dragged away the dead-soldiers and sailors and six-legged cats. The workers grabbed whatever appendage presented itself and pulled. Heels, hips, backs, and faces rubbed the rocky ground as the bodies were dragged to a nearby ravine. The corpses were flung or rolled or kicked down the steep bank.

"What are you doing!" Gerrard roared at the guard captain. "I said due ceremony-"

"In Mercadia, we do not bury our trash, we dump it," came the bland reply.

"They aren't garbage! The deal is off!" Gerrard shouted, struggling against his chains. A trident jabbed beneath his neck, piercing shallowly. Gerrard stilled to keep the points from digging deeper.

"The deal is off?" the captain sniffed. "Your shackles would say otherwise. No, the bargain is good. The wounded are treated. The dead are disposed of. There is no more cause for delay. Off to Mercadia."

The procession wound across the land to the north. In all his travels aboard Weatherlight, Gerrard had never seen a place so utterly barren. There was no water anywhere, and what plants survived in the bare, hard ground grew in the myriad dry cracks that crisscrossed the land. It was as if a great plague had blasted almost every living thing from the soil. For hundreds of miles, the land stretched out flat. Only the distant wedge of Mount Mercadia broke the horizon. Throughout the afternoon it had loomed, dark and impossible against the lemon-colored sky.

Then a dust storm rose, obscuring the view. Similar clouds could be seen in the distance, moving with slow majesty back and forth across the hard, flat ground. This one roared straight for them. The guards did not hesitate, only lifting yellow hoods, buttoning cloaks, and veiling faces before they rode straight into the brown eddy. The riders were quickly obscured. The storm grew thicker and darker. The chain leading back from them dragged Gerrard's Jhovall into the dust storm.

Gerrard shielded his eyes and looked back. Takara sat just behind him, and blind Starke hunched against her. A chain led back to the next Jhovall, where Hanna and Sisay rode. The navigator was bent almost double in her saddle, her hand pressed against her eyes. Her blonde hair was turning a dirty gray. Beside them strode Karn, who was forced to march forward with short, shuffling steps. This storm could well freeze his joints with grit. On the third beast rode Tahngarth. He used his great white bulk to shield Squee. The rest of the crew stretched out across the prairie, armed Mercadians riding in columns to either side.

The maelstrom thickened until Gerrard could see only the beasts beside his own. Gritty winds hissed and sighed. Tan ghosts swirled in the air. Dust drained the breath from his lungs, scoured his face, packed his pockets, trickled down his collar, up his sleeves, and beneath his bandages. It was maddening.

Gerrard shouted over his shoulder to Takara. "How is your father?"

She shook her head. "We must find shelter soon."

Gerrard motioned to the guard riding alongside him. The man reluctantly guided his Jhovall up beside Gerrard's. "How far to shelter? We'll die in this storm."

Takara translated and then listened to the man's shouts. "He says there's no place to shelter here and that we will be at our destination soon."

That wasn't possible. They had ridden only a dozen miles from the farm. Before the storm, the inverted mountain of Mercadia was at least forty miles distant. "He's lying."

Takara shrugged. "Does it matter? We've no other options."

Even as she spoke, the wind diminished. Gerrard felt a large presence looming before him. He looked up.

A vast shadow rose out of the wind and dust to blot out the sky-the mountain.

Gerrard stared, rubbed bloodshot eyes, and stared again. It was still there, still impossibly there-Mount Mercadia. He leaned back in his saddle and looked up through clear air. The mountain was at least five miles wide at the top but barely half a mile wide at the bottom. It was perfectly balanced, like a gigantic spinning top frozen in place.