"Spear butt."

"Ouch."

"Better than a spear point, trust me." They started forward once more. He glanced over his shoulder. They were on a minor road, hardly more than a track, that ran along the opposite side of the river from the main one. Other gray-tabarded soldiers now rode all around them. "This is a bad time to linger out-of-doors. That Jokonan column we overtook is one of three closing in on the castle just at the moment, the scouts say. No siege engines sighted in their baggage trains yet, though. Can you hang on to me if we canter?"

"Certainly." Ista sat up straighter and brushed hair out of her mouth, she wasn't quite sure whose. She felt his legs tighten beneath her, and the white horse broke without transition into its long, rocking gait.

"Where did you find the troop?" she gasped, clinging harder to his slippery skin against the jouncing.

"You sent them to me, thank you very much. Are you a seeress, as well? I met them coming down the road even as I was galloping back to Porifors to raise them."

Ah. Dy Cabon had carried out his orders, then. A little early, but Ista was not inclined to chide him for it. "Only prudence rewarded. For a change. Did you see Liss and Cattilara, and Foix? We tried to send them on."

"Yes, they passed through us as we were making for the ridge to flank the Jokonan column. They should be safe within the walls by now." He twisted to glance back over his shoulder, but he did not kick his horse to greater speed, by which Ista concluded that they had, for the moment, shaken off their pursuit. The great horse's stride was shortening, its bellows-breath growing more strained; Illvin eased back in the saddle and allowed it to drop to a slow lope.

"What happened up there on the road?" he asked. "What struck you to the ground? Sorcery, truly?"

"Truly. Sordso the Sot is now Sordso the Sorcerer, it seems. How he came by his demon, I know not. But I agree with you—his dead sister's old demon must know. If we must face Sordso in battle ... does demon magic have a range, do you know? Never mind, I'll ask dy Cabon. I wonder if Foix knows by experiment? I wouldn't put it past him."

"Three sorcerers, Foix reported. At least," said Illvin. "Or so he thought he perceived, among the Jokonan officers."

"What?" Ista's eyes widened. She thought of the tangle of strange lines emanating like a nest of snakes from Dowager Princess Joen's belly. One had held its jaws clamped into Sordso, no question. "Then there may be more than three." A dozen? Twenty?

"You saw more sorcerers?"

"I saw something. Something very uncanny."

He twisted again to look over his shoulder.

"What do you see now?" Ista asked.

"Not Arhys, yet. Blast the man. He always has to be the last one out ali—the last one out. I've told him such bravado has no place in a responsible commander. It works on the boys, though, I admit it does. Bastard's hell, it works on me, and I know better... ah." He turned again, a grim smile of temporary relief tweaking up one corner of his bleeding mouth. He let his mount slow to a walk, and frowned; the horse was distinctly limping, now. But Castle Porifors loomed up almost overhead. A few last stragglers were streaming into the town gates from the country round about. The refugees' shouting sounded strained, but not panicked.

Arhys trotted up beside them on a Jokonan horse, presumably obtained by Illvin from the same convenient store as his sword collection. His white-faced page sat up behind, bravely not crying. Ista's inner eye checked the line of pale soul-fire pouring into the march's heart; clearly, Catti still lived, wherever she was. The flow was reduced from its earlier terrifying rush, but still very heavy.

Goram, Ista was glad to see, clung on behind another soldier, and Cattilara's distraught young woman behind a third. Of the barefoot manservant, she saw no sign. Arhys saluted his brother with a casual wave, as casually returned; his eyes upon Ista were grave and worried.

"Time to go in," said Illvin suggestively.

"You'll get no argument from me," returned Arhys.

"Good."

Their tired horses clambered up the switchback road to the castle gate and into the forecourt.

Liss bounded to receive Ista as Illvin lowered her to the ground; Foix followed, to offer her his arm. She leaned on it thankfully, as the alternative was to fall down in a heap.

"Royina, let us take you to your chamber—" he began.

"Where did you take Lady Cattilara?"

"Laid down in her bedchamber, with her women to take care of her."

"Good. Foix, find dy Cabon and attend upon me there. Now."

"I must look to our defenses," said Arhys. "I'll join you as soon as I can. If I can. Illvin... ?"

Illvin looked up from instructing a groom in the care of his injured horse.

Arhys's gaze flicked briefly toward the inner court, where his and his wife's chambers lay. "Do what you must."

"Oh, aye." Illvin grimaced, and turned to follow Ista. The wild excitement that had sustained him through the clash on the road was passing off. He limped like his horse, stiff and weary, as they passed under the archway to the fountain court.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CATTILARA'S CHAMBER HAD MUCH THE SAME AIR OF FEMININE refuge as when Ista had entered it on her first day at Porifors. Now, however, the marchess's women were upset rather than welcoming: either anxious and outraged or frightened and guilty, depending on whether they had been privy to the escape plan. They stared at the royina's present bloody, breathless, tight-lipped disarray with horror. Ista ruthlessly dismissed them all, though with orders for wash water, drinks, and food for Lord Illvin—and for the rest of her party, who had all tumbled out onto the road a lifetime ago this morning with no more breakfast than a swallow of tea and bread, or less.

Illvin went to Cattilara's basin and wrung out a wet towel; he glanced at Ista and politely handed it to her first. The red grime she rubbed off her face was startling. Nor was all of the blood from the horse, she realized as she dabbed gingerly at her scratches. Illvin rinsed and wrung out the cloth again and rubbed down his own bloody face and dirt-streaked torso, and accepted a cup of drinking water from Liss, draining it in a gulp. He then trod over to Ista's side to stare at Cattilara, laid down on her bed still in her traveling dress. The right sleeve had been removed, and a compress bound about the ambiguous wound in her shoulder.

She was lovely as a sleeping child, unmarred but for a smudge on her cheek. On her, it looked an elegant decoration. But Illvin's finger uneasily traced the new sunken quality around her eyes. "Surely her body is too slight to support Arhys's as well as her own."

And he ought to know. Ista glanced at Illvin's hollow cheeks and ridged ribs. "For weeks or months, no. For hours or days ... I think it is her turn. And I know who Porifors can least spare right now."

Illvin grimaced, and glanced over his shoulder at the opening door. Foix escorted an anxious dy Cabon within.

"Five gods be thanked, you are saved, Royina!" the divine said in heartfelt tones. "The Lady Cattilara as well!"

"I thank you, too, Learned," said Ista, "for abiding by my instructions."

He regarded the marchess's silent form with alarm. "She was not injured, was she?"

"No, she is not hurt." Ista added reluctantly, "Yet. But I have induced her to lend her own soul's strength to Arhys for a time, in place of Lord Illvin. Now we must somehow compel her demon to speak. I don't know if it was master or servant to Princess Umerue, but I am certain it was witness to—more, a product of—Dowager Princess Joen's demonic machinations. Illvin was right, yesterday: it has to know what she was doing, because it was part of what she was doing. Although it seems to have escaped her... leash." Upon reflection, an encouraging realization. "Joen's control is evidently not inviolable."