Cathan grabbed his arm. “What if they’re still up there?” he asked, wondering who they were exactly.

Gareth gave him a look, then shook off his grasp and kept climbing. Cathan followed, his arms and legs burning as he pulled himself up the slope.

They stopped again just short of the hilltop, and Gareth peered over the crest. A heartbeat later he ducked down again and started tightening the straps of his shield around his arm. His sword hissed as he drew it.

“What is it?” Cathan breathed.

“Four of them,” Gareth replied. “Scatas. Blood on their swords.”

“Four? But-”

Before Cathan could say more, however, Gareth rose and strode up the last few paces to the tor’s scrubby crown. Swallowing, Cathan unsheathed his own blade and hurried after.

There they were, standing beneath a stand of cone-heavy pines, talking together in hushed, clipped voices. There were indeed four of them, clad in riding leathers and the blue cloaks of the imperial army. Their bronze helms glinted, plumes fluttering in the wind. So intent were they on their conversation that they didn’t look up until Gareth raised his sword and clanged down his visor. When they saw him they glanced at one another, not sure what to do.

Gareth rushed them while they were still making up their minds, leaving Cathan stunned behind him. The four Scatas drew themselves up in surprise then ran forward as well, swords held high.

Cathan had seen Lord Tavarre spar with Vedro and others. He had seen the captain of Govinna’s guard cut Embric down. Now, though, as he watched the Knight storm into battle, he knew he was looking at something else entirely, a man who fought with precision and grace, even when weighted down with mail. Gareth spun to his left, letting two of the men barrel past, then smoothly ducked beneath the lashing blade of a third and raised his shield to block the fourth. The clash of metal filled the air and was still ringing among the hilltops when Gareth shoved the fourth Scata back, neatly driving his sword into the man’s stomach. The soldier screamed and crumpled as Gareth jerked his blade free.

Taken aback by their comrade’s sudden demise-it had taken little more than a heartbeat-the other three Scatas fell back, watching Gareth with narrowed eyes. As they did, Cathan stepped up beside the Knight, his sword-hand sweating inside its glove. Gareth gave him a nod.

“You take the one on the right,” the Knight said. “The others are mine.”

“But-”Cathan began, but it was too late to argue.

The soldiers attacked again, and then he was parrying, turning away a blow aimed at his knees, pivoting aside as a sword point flashed toward his eyes, catching another stroke that would have cut him in half. The smash of blade against blade rang up his arm, numbing his shoulder as he shoved his attacker back.

Beside him, Sir Gareth fought two men at once, lunging away from one man’s clumsy stoke while he batted the other man back with a sweep of his sword’s flashing blade. The man stumbled, then regained his footing and hurled himself back into the fray. Gareth raised his shield, hammering the charging man in the face with its rim. The Scata’s head snapped back with an awful sound-neck or skull, Cathan wasn’t sure- then dropped in a heap on the ground. Gareth kicked him, making sure he wasn’t faking, then turned to his last foe, both men with bloody swords at the ready.

Cathan’s opponent lunged in again, stabbing at his heart- a good, quick blow he couldn’t parry in time. Instead he twisted, rocking on the balls of his feet, and a hot line of pain raced across his back as the blow scored him. He gasped, his tunic tearing, then felt a tug as the blade snarled in his cloak. Instinct taking over, Cathan whirled, tearing the weapon from his opponent’s grasp. Pulled off-balance, the Scata staggered to his knees. Cathan turned back, afire with pain now, and slid his sword between the soldier’s ribs. The man choked, spitting blood, his wide eyes fixing in his head as he slid off the blade. Gasping, Cathan wheeled to go to Sir Gareth’s aid.

Sir Gareth needed none. He had laid into his opponent, driving him back with a flurry of swift, measured blows. The Scata gave ground frantically, looking for somewhere to run, but Gareth didn’t relent, battering away until finally the soldier missed a beat. Steel met the man’s neck, and his head flew free, an expression of shock frozen on his face as it tumbled into the furze. Blood sprayed as the rest of him made a wet, terrible sound and collapsed.

The Knight saw to the other Scatas, making sure they weren’t playing at being dead, then inspected the cut across Cathan’s back, peeling back his bloody tunic. He prodded at the gash, bringing a groan from Cathan’s lips.

“You’ll live,” he said, then nodded at the bodies. “Outriders, them-dispatched to clear away lookouts. Now let’s go see what’s raising that dust.” He waved his bloody sword at the cloud that hung in the air, very close now and drawing nearer every moment.

Crouching low, they hurried across the hilltop. The pain in Cathan’s back flared with every step, and he had to bite his lip to keep from crying out as they wormed along on their stomachs. Closing his eyes, Cathan took a deep breath, then raised his head, looked out into the valley below, and gasped.

He’d been expecting a large patrol-maybe five hundred men-but the force on the Highroad was much greater, a mass of footsoldiers clogging the path as far as he could see. There were thousands of them, an ocean of blue cloaks beneath a forest of glinting spears. Among them, here and there, he made out the colors of clerics-the gold robes of Kiri-Jolith’s war-priests, the blue of Mishakite healers, and the white of Revered Children of Paladine. Horn players and drummers walked with them too, though from here the wind’s howl drowned out the music. Standards bearing the triangle and falcon floated above the rest, leaving no doubt: this was the Kingpriest’s army, marching to war.

“Mother of the gods,” Cathan breathed.

“Indeed,” Gareth replied, beside him. The Knight didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised by what he beheld. “A Droma, at least. It seems Lord Kurnos wants a war.”

Cathan continued to stare at the army below. He’d never seen so many fighting men in one place. The rebels who had taken Govinna were a rabble beside this great mass. The pain in his back disappeared. He was too numb with fear to feel it.

“Wh-what do we do about them?” he stammered.

“Do? Nothing, yet,” Gareth replied, pushing himself up and striding back the way they’d come. Cathan hurried after. “We must return to Luciel at once. Lady Ilista and your baron will want to hear about this.”

Chapter Sixteen

Ten mounds of earth disturbed the courtyard of LuciePs keep where Lord Tavarre had once lived. It overlooked the town, perched on a cliff that plunged hundreds of feet to the jagged rocks below: small fortress, invisible from the town below. Its simple, stone curtain wall surrounded a stable, a granary, and a two-storey manor, which had housed a dozen people, before the plague came.

Ilista hesitated as she emerged from the manor’s upper doors, standing on a bridge that led to the battlements. The baron had given the keep over to her and Beldyn, and to Sir Gareth and his Knights as well. He himself refused to sleep within its walls any more, and Ilista couldn’t blame him. There were too many ghosts there, for the ten mounds had once been his household, of whom only he and his man Vedro remained. The rest were victims of the Longosai, from its earliest days. Most were servants and retainers, but two graves stood out among the rest, marked with stones where the others were bare. In one lay Ailinn, once baroness of Luciel and Tavarre’s beloved wife; in the other, his son Larris, who would have been ten years of age that summer.