The hulking thing roared and let Jhesrhi drop so it could slap at the fire as it floundered backward. It reeled into the barricade. There was little chance of the thorns piercing its thick hide to any great effect, but Gaedynn supposed every little bit helped.

Jhesrhi rounded on her horse just as the animal lunged to follow the mare back down the trail. She rattled off a brief incantation, and the paint froze, his momentum nearly pitching him forward onto his nose. Even though Gaedynn wasn’t the target of the spell, for an instant his muscles bunched and locked as well.

Jhesrhi darted to the gelding and grabbed her staff. The rawhide lashings around the wrapping unknotted themselves.

A pair of kobolds rushed Gaedynn. He smeared the first one’s eye down its face with a stop cut and balked the second by chopping the steel point off its javelin.

Then he scrambled to interpose himself between Jhesrhi and as many of the enemy as he could. Now that she was belatedly making herself useful, it was his task to keep the kobolds off her while she cast her spells.

He landed a cut to a kobold’s flank, then twisted aside from a javelin thrust. Almost nimbly enough-the steel point ripped his jerkin and shirt and grazed along a rib. Because shiftless poachers, Glasya take them, didn’t wear brigandines. He killed his assailant before it could pull the weapon back for another try.

Behind him, Jhesrhi chanted a rhyme. For a heartbeat iridescence shimmered through the air. Rain fell upward, leaping from the puddles toward the clouds. A point of red light flew past Gaedynn into the mouth of the burrow-where, with a roar, it exploded into flame. The blast ripped the kobolds that were just emerging into burning, tumbling limbs.

Jhesrhi rattled off another spell. Rumbling and thudding in big chunks and little pellets, earth fell from the roof of the opening. The collapse didn’t quite fill it all the way to the ceiling, but no more kobolds would be coming out that way.

When the reptiles who’d already emerged saw what Jhesrhi could do, they hesitated. Panting, Gaedynn wondered if he and his companion could get past without having to fight the rest of them.

Then the big creature bellowed. Gaedynn glanced around just in time to see it launch itself at Jhesrhi. Its face was a charred, oozing mass. But the fire was out and had spared the brute’s eyes.

Jhesrhi spoke a word of command and stabbed with the tip of her staff. A fan-shaped flare of yellow flame leaped from the staff. It seared her attacker, but the creature kept charging, war club raised for a bone-shattering blow.

Gaedynn was too far away to interpose himself between the officer and Jhesrhi. So he hurled his sword.

He was no expert knife thrower, nor was the blade balanced for throwing. Tumbling, it hit with the flat, not the point, and did no more harm than if he’d tossed a stick.

But perhaps it startled the brute, for it looked around. And maybe it was that momentary hesitation that gave Jhesrhi time for one last spell. She stamped her foot, and the ground split beneath the officer’s feet. It howled as it plunged into the chasm. It released the club and snatched for the edge but failed to grab hold.

Whipping out the hunting knife he wore on his belt, Gaedynn spun back around to face the remaining kobolds. It wasn’t much of a weapon for a man battling multiple opponents, but to his relief, the reptiles looked even less inclined to keep fighting than they had a moment before.

One of them spoke in their own harsh, hissing tongue. Then they retreated, at first backing away with weapons leveled, then turning and scurrying into the rain.

Gaedynn watched to see if their withdrawal was a ruse. It didn’t appear to be.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Yes,” Jhesrhi said, looking around for creeping kobolds like he was. “You?”

“Scratched.” And the graze was starting to sting, now. “Some healer’s salve would be a good idea. What happened to you?”

“It won’t happen again.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“But it’s all I have to tell you.”

“Curse it, woman, it was my life in danger too.”

Her voice was ice. “It won’t happen again!”

“How deeply reassuring.” He took a breath. “Do you know a charm to help us catch the horses?”

The Brotherhood had conducted its first successful raid into Threskelan territory. Now they were bringing their plunder into Soolabax. Laden with sacks of flour and seed, the carts squeaked and rumbled. The skinny sheep baaed, and the goats bleated.

As Aoth watched from the battlements atop the gate, it occurred to him that his men had just condemned a bunch of peasants to hardship if not starvation. They’d left the wretches with nothing to eat or plant, with no better justification than that the farmers happened to live on the wrong side of the border.

For a moment, he felt guilty. Which was stupid, since he’d given the same order many times before and, if Lady Luck smiled, would give it many more. This kind of predation was just a part of war.

Better, then, to focus on the reaction of the people in the street below. Watching, grinning, chattering to one another, they seemed happy that someone had finally hurt the Threskelans as the Threskelans had injured them, even if it had taken a war-mage to lead the way.

Aoth waved his hand at the scene below. “You see, milord, with griffon riders scouting from on high, we can find what we want, hit it, and get away before the dragons and such even realize we were there.”

Hasos’s lip curled. “You were lucky your first time out, Captain. It doesn’t mean your overall strategy is sound.”

If anything, the baron seemed even colder than before. Maybe he felt that the sellswords’ quick success pointed out his own shortcomings as a soldier.

If so, then Aoth agreed with him. But he didn’t want Hasos to resent him. It would make his job harder. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see much to do about it, except keep offering the noble the chance to participate in his endeavors and so earn a share of the credit.

“Be that as it may,” Cera Eurthos said, “to me this seems a portent of greater victories to come.”

Short, snub-nosed, and pleasingly plump, Cera was one of several dignitaries who’d climbed to the top of the gate to watch the plunder come into town. With curly hair as yellow as her vestments, she seemed a fitting high priestess for the sun god.

She had a warm, sunny smile too, although, after his experiences with Daelric Apathos, Aoth was surprised to find it shining in his direction.

Hasos inclined his head. “With respect, Sunlady, perhaps that’s why you’re a cleric and not a soldier.”

“Oh, very likely, milord. Captain, now that you too are what passes for a notable in this sleepy little town, we should become better acquainted.”

Aoth inclined his head. “You honor me.”

“Perhaps we can start with a stroll along the wall.”

He looked out to the end of the column and beyond, making sure no one was in pursuit. Nobody was. “That sounds nice.”

Seeming more a coquette than the wise mistress of a temple, she reached to take his arm, then smiled at her own awkwardness when she noticed something was in her way. He shifted his spear into his other hand, and they set off down the wall walk. He fancied he could feel Hasos’s glare boring into the back of his skull.

Cera looked at the blue sky above the fields speckled with blades of new green grass. “Here in Chessenta, we have a saying. ‘Precious as a sunny day in Tarsakh.’ ”

Aoth smiled. “The gods know sellswords have reason to dislike this time of year. You have to come out of winter quarters and start making coin. Of course, you want to anyway. You’re half mad with boredom and confinement. But you always end up marching through storms and mud.”