Emil turned to the dark flock of birds. “Ravens, what time is it in the garrison?”

“An hour to dawn,” a raven replied.

“What is happening there?”

“Clement is eating.”

“Have the raven ask to be let out the window. I hope he’s recovered enough to fly.”

They waited. The raven said, “It has been done. The raven can fly.”

“The raven is to fly to the gaol and watch over the storyteller.” Emil sighed. “At least Karis will be able to answer her own questions.” He leaned over her curled, limp form. “Karis, I’m sorry, you must wake.”

This gentle approach had no apparent effect. Emil resorted to vigorously shaking her. Eventually, Karis sat up and gazed dazedly at Medric, who crouched at her feet now, talking rapidly though not very coherently. She put her arms through the new linen undershirt that Garland offered and tugged it over her head. She said, “Garland, do you know what happened to my boots?”

“A cobbler’s been working on them. They’re out in the kitchen.”

“Can you find my coat, too? And my toolbox?”

Emil said worriedly, “Tell me what you’re going to do.”

She lifted her big hands, and examined them, minutely, with a certain puzzlement. “I’m going to get a tool. And I’m going to do something with it.”

Medric uttered a grunt of laughter. He said to Emil, “I’m going to go put some clothes on.”

“But what…?”

Medric looked blurrily but intently at Emil over the top of his lenses. “Oh, Emil, this is the easy part. Don’t try to understand. Just follow her.”

The hall outside Cadmar’s room was crowded with people, none of whom had any business there. At Clement’s approach, a babble of voices rose up. “Lieutenant General, we can’t put an edge on the weapons.” “We can’t repair the guns.” “The gate won’t…” “General Cadmar…?”

“I’ve had a full report from Commander Ellid,” she said. “I am entirely aware of our situation.”

Someone insisted, panicky and desperate, “But they’ll attack us at first light!”

“There’s not going to be an attack.”

“Then why are we waking up the day watch already, an hour before dawn?”

“You mean people were actually able to sleep?” She looked at them, eyebrows raised, until a few of them, at least, managed crooked smiles. “Now what are all of you doing here? You think you’re the only ones who are worried? And that if you could just talk to someone in charge, something would be done about it?”

Their lingering mutter of voices fell silent. She said, “We’re in a bad position; there’s no doubt about that. Those people at the gate yesterday, they wanted to make an impression, and they’ve made one. But what kind of strategy is that? To hit us hard and then walk away? They don’t intend to fight us! They’ll be coming back, but now we’ve had time to think, they’ll be wanting to talk again. Should an entire garrison go into a panic over a simple conversation?”

After a silence, one of the frightened soldiers said, “What kind of conversation?”

“Hell, I don’t know. But I cantalk–you all know that.”

There was a startled silence, and then a burst of laughter. The soldiers began to leave, but they wanted to touch her first, as though she were some kind of luck charm. It took some time for the hall to empty. When they had finally dispersed, Clement opened Cadmar’s door and went in. She said to the startled medics, “I just want to see him. I won’t touch him.”

A window had been cracked open despite the cold, but it didn’t do much to relieve the ungodly stink of the room. Cadmar lay quiet in a neat bed, garishly illuminated by bright lamps. Everyone loses at least one battle,thought Clement, looking down at the fallen mountain of a man. Perhaps Cadmar had forgotten that, or had chosen to never know that one day he would be completely outmatched. “By a flea, eh?” she said soberly. “I guess I’ll have to take that as a warning.”

A medic said, “There are never any fleas at midwinter, because of the cold. It’s very strange.”

“Very strange,” she agreed.

Cadmar struggled for a breath and then lay still again.

She reminded herself again that he had helped her, taught her, and supported her rise. But it all seemed long ago. She turned away.

“I’ll be waiting in the hall,” she said.

The light was rising. The ravens flew up in a crowd, uttering sharp cries that seemed like curses. They wheeled into the paling sky. One by one, as people followed the ravens out the narrow door, they looked up to check the time and weather. Garland thought it looked to be a fair day, tolerably cold but bright for once. Leeba, still half asleep in J’han’s arms, peered up at the sky like everyone else. “Where is the sun?” she asked.

“It’s coming up over there.” He pointed eastward.

She looked towards the east in sleepy amazement. “Why?” she asked.

Karis was already walking away down the street, bare‑headed, with her coat unbuttoned. In her right hand she held a gigantic hammer, its handle worn to fit her hand, scorched black by the heat of the metal it had shaped over many years. She wore no gloves. There was no time for Garland to run back in and find some for her.

At Karis’s elbows, Norina and Emil took big steps to keep up with her. The others crowded along behind: the Paladins, adjusting their weapons and tightening up their buckles, Medric, waving ink‑stained fingers and talking excitedly to no one in particular, J’han, attempting to explain the sunrise to his daughter, and Garland, with his pockets crammed with apples and biscuits and a nice wedge of cheese, in case anyone became hungry.

They turned onto the main street. Citizens still in their night‑clothes peered out their front doors at them. People who had kept watch on the street corners all night trotted up to talk with Mabin, and then ran off, on what errands Garland could not guess.

The city smelled delicious, of roasted meat, onions, pastry crust, cinnamon and burnt sugar.

J’han said vaguely, “But this isn’t a feast day.”

“It’s a new feast day. The feast of following without knowing why.”

“Rabbit wants to walk,” Leeba declared.

“We’re practically running,” J’han said to her, more than a little out of breath. “Tell your rabbit to be patient.”

“Rabbit knows.”

“Well, tell the lizard, then. I don’t think heknows.”

Leeba held the wooden lizard, and the stuffed rabbit peeked out of the front of her coat. She shook the lizard roughly and told him to be patient and to stop complaining.

The trotted down the street. As they drew close to the garrison, the dawn bell began to ring.

Clement had set a chair under an unshuttered, east‑facing window and had watched as the darkness became light. The signal‑man squatted nearby with his back against the wall. The bugle hanging around his neck began to gleam, as though it were collecting every bit of this winter dawn’s sparse light.

The dawn bell rang. Clement stood up abruptly and paced down the hallway, cursing under her breath.

That Clement’s first words to the G’deon would be an explanation of why and how the storyteller had died in their custody was intolerable. What Emil had said about the necessity of the woman’s death had made no sense and did not matter.

Cadmar’s door opened. A haggard medic looked for her. “General Clement,” he said. “General Cadmar is dead.”

“Come with me!” she said to the signal‑man. And she ran down the hollow hall, out the door, down the ice‑slippery steps and into the road.

The garrison was awake. She felt it: coiled, alert, listening.

The snow that was piled high on either side of the road made the path through seem like a cave, a tunnel, paved with extraordinarily slippery stones. Somehow, Clement managed not to fall.

In the distant yard that abutted the outer wall, four soldiers stood. In the middle of their circle, a slim gray figure knelt and obediently lay her head upon the block.