“Excuse me, Baron,” Rose said, as Kordas stood on the bank and watched the first lot of barges jockeying around to get their strings in place. Although they were, indeed, going through in strings of eight, there was other positioning he was insisting on. That every eighth barge be a supply barge, for instance, because if the convoy got separated, or if there was truly hideous weather, he didn’t want all the food at the rear, or the middle, and out of reach. It wasn’t merely grain that was on those barges, although the bulk of the cargo was barley, oats, wheat, and rye. They’d weighed the advantages of having meat that was transporting itself on its own four feet against the disadvantage of possibly having to feed all those animals if forage ran out, and the disadvantage won out, so after a careful culling of everything that would have been slaughtered for winter back home, there was a lot of dried, salted, pounded, potted, smoked, and otherwise cured meats or preserved meats and bones as well as foraged and preserved or dried fruits, vegetables, mushrooms, herbs, and—anything remotely edible was on those barges as well.

He was interspersing all those barges full of weapons and ammunition among the rest as well, for the same reason. And also because, as his tactical lessons in the Games when he was a hostage had taught him, if some portion of the convoy elected to have a revolt, he didn’t want all the weapons to fall into their hands. And every fourth string of eight had with them a common kitchen barge, with ovens made from the fire-bricks potters had been carefully crafting all the time they had been here, then covered with clay mixed with fibers as a binder. He had given permission for these barges to be used as sleeping spaces overnight. But the only things to be stored in them were cooking implements, pots and pans, fire-handling equipment, and just enough food for that day. That way if there was a kitchen-barge fire, no one would be trying to save anything rather than give the priority to getting out safely, and no more food would be lost than a single day’s worth.

“What can I do for you, Rose?” he asked, not taking his eyes off the clumsy shuttling of barges around.

“It seems that now that we are leaving there are some individuals, not families, who wish to depart from their families and remain, and some from the local villages wish to join the convoy.” Rose’s matter-of-fact tone confused him for a moment, as did the statement. Why would—oh!

There had been quite a bit of mingling of the Valdemarans and the people from the surrounding villages in the moons since they had been there. Trade, for one thing; the villagers had been very willing to trade dried vegetables for meat during the cullings. And with a population of fifteen thousand—quite a heavy percentage of them marriageable age—there was bound to be mingling of another kind.

So now that the time has come to part, there are wails and sulking and “Father, I can’t bear to be parted—” I should have seen this coming. Do I make an official edict about this too?

No . . . he rather thought not. “There is no one true way” meant people should be allowed to make up their own minds about themselves and their families. Even if he personally didn’t like the decisions they made, it was strain that tested resolve. Begin as he meant to go on.

“Rose, let it be known that I will not interfere in parents’ decisions about children that are not adults. Nor will I interfere in the decision of a child that is an adult. And if they are old enough to make this kind of life-changing decision, they are certainly old enough to find a way to get on a barge. If someone wants to give space on their barges for a couple, fine. If someone wants to barter space on their barges for a couple, also fine.”

He thought about adding, Adults will be allowed to join or leave us now, but in the future, they are stuck with the path they chose. But . . . who was to say that they wouldn’t have another situation with a friendly village, and a lad or lass who wanted to stay, or persuaded a new lover to go? “That’s the condition, Rose. They have to find a barge of their own, somewhere, one that is not already earmarked as storage, or find room on someone else’s barge on their own. I can’t be spending my time going from one end of this lake to the other trying to organize a ride.” There were a lot of creative ways this could be done, but if the couple in question couldn’t figure this out for themselves, well . . . too bad. This was part of growing up.

“I will pass this on, Baron. It is a sound decision.”

He smiled a little to himself. Talking about herself as “I” and freely saying what she thinks. Rose must have taken the fact that he encouraged her to have opinions and think of herself as more of an individual to heart.

Of course, he had given the order that today was the day for people to start getting their strings in order and moving through the Gate, and as evidenced by the lines of people on both sides of the river, there were plenty who had been ready long before that order went out. This gave the laggards who waited until the last minute plenty of time to get themselves and their belongings to rights. And meanwhile, down at the very middle of the crescent where the ruins of that ancient town were, barges had already been hauled up out of the water, and their owners were pondering various ways of winterizing them. Those stone houses would be wonderful—next year. But winter was coming, and between a barge and a half-finished stone house, there simply was no comparison.

Some people had laid claim to a house anyway, by widening the doorway and having the barge hauled inside. And when some of the people remaining had come to him, indignant about the “theft,” he pointed out that they were not under his jurisdiction anymore, and they should talk to their own headman.

“But we don’t have one!” someone had protested. At his stern no-nonsense glare, they had amended, meekly, “So we’ll go pick one.”

Not my millpond. Not my otters.

He could have made it his business, of course, but that would have set a bad precedent for everyone.

Not being a complete monster, aside from whatever flocks and herds and seed-stock they had, he actually had ordered a couple of the grain barges to be hauled out for them as well. One of the older mages, not one of the Six Old Men, but a mage named Siman, and Siman’s apprentice, were staying with the new village. Kordas more than half expected that the news of this was what had changed the other villages’ opinion of the new one from “grudging” to “welcoming.” He didn’t blame them at all. A mage was a force-multiplier if anything nasty came after you. And if nothing nasty came after you, they were useful in so very many ways that it wasn’t often people in tiny villages like these got within seeing distance of one. But Siman reckoned that he could live out a comfortable old age here, with his apprentice handling the bulk of any work they were asked to do, and unlike the Six, who seemed to thrive on adventure and uncertainty, poor old Siman had not greeted the advent of their escape with any pleasure. But to remain behind meant the certainty of being scooped up by whatever power broker ended up on the Imperial Throne, and he’d liked that idea even less. This had turned out to be a happy compromise for everyone.

Well, watching people bumble barges around was getting a trifle irritating. The thwacking and thumping of vessels colliding sounded like a band of drummers dropping their instruments down an infinite staircase. Yelling—most of it unnecessary, which only made it more annoying (this shouting could have been a note!) seemed to run in waves up and down the staging area. Still, best not to have runners in action now, so, shouting it was. And yes, of course he could have called all the mages here and gotten them to do it magically—but magic was a manageable resource and one he intended to preserve until needed, and most of the people here had no idea just how many mages he’d collected under his roof. He had no intention of letting them find out. Firstly, he was certain there was at least one person out there who would be willing to sell them all out to the Empire if they thought they could get away with it and the pay would be enough, and he especially did not want the Empire knowing how many mages he had. People would be people. They will do what seems best for them at the time. It’s not that anybody would “turn evil” in an instant, it’s usually that someone ran out of good solutions at the same time an opportunity to do harm comes along. That can happen to anyone, and there is fear here, so let-downs and betrayals are inevitable. You don’t have to utterly trust them to love them. Secondly, if they knew how many mages there were, people would be coming to him all the time to try to get the mages to do with magic what they could very well do, albeit with difficulty, with their own hands and those of their neighbors. That was a bad habit to get into. Mages were people too, and people got annoyed, even angry, when plagued with too many petty requests. People got testy when overworked.

And the mages were of different specialties and all levels of strength and skill, starting with Jonaton and the old men at the top, down to Sai’s new apprentice Venidel. But Kordas had noticed more than once in the past that to most people a mage was a mage was a mage and they were all interchangeable.

Not unlike Dolls. Or servants. Or Dukes or Barons. People think of each other as what they can do for them first, and as individuals second. It’s not evil, it’s expedient. We don’t have a lot of time to be cozy.

So rather than find himself or his mages enmired in countless exercises in futility, Kordas and his staff just simply did not let people know how many magic wielders they had, nor who they were. The mages appreciated that; many of the ones he’d sheltered had suffered from fools, the thoughtless, and those who thought magic was “effortless”—even to their faces.

Even while trying to keep the idiots alive despite themselves.

“Well, this is going about as well as I’d expected, and not worse, which is a relief,” he told Rose. “So let’s get back to our own strings and see that we set an example about being organized.”

I almost wish there had been a way to siphon off some of that young Elemental’s magic and store it for later, he thought, as he and Rose got well away from the busy footpath around the lake and walked back to their section. It would have been more than useful. It would have made setting up the new Gates they were inevitably going to have to put up a lot easier.

But that would have been wrong, he decided. The poor thing was being tormented, and making use of what it produced in response to the torment would have made me no better than the Emperor. Maybe worse, because I, at least, know better, and I’d have taken it anyway. I could have justified it, too. Then again, thanks to the Dolls, we saved who we could, or so I tell myself.

He exhaled strongly, pulling himself off of that well-trodden path of thought. For now, if he had followed his own wishes, he would have been with the scouts, as one of the mages there to protect them. All anyone knew, including the people who lived around Crescent Lake, was that the further north and west you went, the more magic and danger you were likely to encounter.

But—I can’t do that. He couldn’t take Isla and the boys with him, and he didn’t want to leave them. For the first time, ever, they were allowed to be a family, and he was enjoying that. In fact, except for the danger and uncertainty facing them, this was the happiest he had ever been in his life. Now that his family’s plan was in motion—

Well, Isla had put it best. Good leaders know how to let go and let competent people do their jobs. Leave petty grievances and squabbles among neighbors to their own headmen. Leave cooking and figuring out rations to the quartermasters, former housekeepers, former Seneschals, and cooks.

Leave scouting to the scouts. Leave leadership to those who can’t escape it.

And with that in mind, he stepped up his pace.

From where Delia stood on the stern of the first barge in their string of five, the land on this side of the Gate didn’t look much different from Crescent Lake. Wooded, almost up to the riverbank, but at least there was enough open space on either bank to act as a towpath. Some of the trees she recognized, most she didn’t, and she didn’t know the names of any of the bushes, but that was mostly because she didn’t know much about plants that weren’t growing in a garden. The chief difference was that this part of the country must have been hit with a hard frost at some point in the very near past, because the evergreens stood out like doleful sentinels against the flaming reds, oranges, and yellows on either side of the river. It was breathtaking; back home the trees didn’t burst out into colors nearly this bright.

I need to stop thinking of it as “back home.”

Grass on this verge was up to a horse’s knees, but the horses weren’t being allowed to snatch mouthfuls on the way. They’d all had a nice grain meal this morning, they’d get a chance for some green stuff when they stopped for a rest and water at noon, and they’d be allowed to graze all night. Letting them mosey along, snatching up grass as the mood dictated, did two bad things, at least according to Stafngrimr: the horses would slow down to nothing to stuff themselves, and they’d get the bad habit of expecting you to cater to their whims when they wanted to eat. “Snacks on your terms, not theirs,” he’d said. “Or they are the leader, not you. And you don’t want a horse thinking he’s the one in charge.”

And besides, letting them eat with a bit in their mouths meant you’d be spending hours cleaning mucky, nasty bits and bridles.

A couple of the mages’ mounts had objected to not being able to do as they pleased, but the former Imperial Sergeant, Briada Fairweather, had stopped the entire group for a moment, gone and cut some willow switches in full view of all the animals, and then—making sure each mount knew she was handing a switch to its rider—dealt them out.

“If you beat these nags, I’ll beat you,” she said flatly, as she got back on her horse. “But now they know that if they disobey you, there’ll be consequences, and if Stafngrimr is half the horseman I think he is, they all know about those consequences. Put your heels to them if they won’t stay with the group, and just give their rumps a little flick with the switch if they don’t keep up after that.” She smiled at Delia. “Don’t need to hurt them, just get their attention.”

Since the mounts all immediately behaved themselves, it appeared that Briada was right.

The Sergeant’s two cousins were in the lead, both with hand-crossbows and a Spitter, as well as an eye-opening number of knives, and axes that looked well used. Ivar’s huge black mastiff Bay ranged on ahead, but not that far; if his master called him back it would take him two breaths to be at their side. The dog worked his way in a zigzag from one side of the path to the other. Once in a while he stopped long enough to sniff in the air or the ground, but evidently he didn’t find anything to alarm him, because he went right back to his own version of scouting.

Ivar brought up the rear, also with hand-crossbow and Spitter, also with an axe instead of a sword, and two knives almost as long as Delia’s forearm instead of a lot of smaller ones. Next to him was the Sergeant, armed with a sword instead of an axe as her cousins were. Delia guessed that when they had deserted the Imperial Army, they had taken their arms with them. They had armor, but it wasn’t obvious. It was underneath the enormous knitted wool tunics they all wore. That had been Briada’s idea.

“Baron said we aren’t an invading army, so don’t look like one,” she’d explained to Delia. “Man makes sense. We want to get through territories peacefully. If we’ve got weapons, that’s only good planning. If we’ve got armor, well, you don’t armor up against boars and bears, and that makes it look like we’re looking for trouble.”

Delia could easily pick out some of the Valdemar horse lines by eye. Manta, Ivar’s horse, was a Charger out of the Bearheart line. The three Fairweathers all had Chargers too, but out of a slightly smaller line, the Grimjack line. Chargers were specifically bred and trained for war; you could brandish a sword around their ears and they wouldn’t turn a hair. They were also trained in harness, so the big chestnut Tow-Beast, Tight Squeeze, could get some rest if he ran into terrain that made him labor. Hakkon had his very own Valdemar Gold, Skydancer. Jonaton was mounted on a mule, since speed was not going to be needful, but steadiness was. He and his mule Carrot knew each other very well, and she wouldn’t blink if he started performing magic on her back.

Sai and his apprentice also rode mules and so did a mage Delia didn’t know well, named Endars; apparently mules were the mount of choice for a mage when fast travel was not required.

Alberdina and Delia’s mounts were not what Delia had expected; they were False Golds. At two years old, they were not their full size yet, but they were up to bearing the weight of the smaller women. The important part was that they had been trained to follow where Hakkon and Manta went, and they were gentle and strong. They could also haul the boats at a pinch, and Delia’s Buttercup was doing just that alongside Tight Squeeze.

The last member of their party did not actually have a mount, because she didn’t know how to ride: the Doll Amethyst. Someone had done a beautiful job with this doll, embroidering a lovely, stylistic face with beadwork surrounding an amethyst cabochon in the middle of her forehead. She hadn’t spoken much to Delia, and she didn’t seem to speak much in general.

Just look at us. It’s easy to dwell on danger and homesickness, but just look at us! Each of us strong, competent, and ready for whatever lies ahead. She wondered if anyone but her took a minute to simply take in how they looked. She, for one, felt reassured by it in ways she couldn’t put words to.

Delia found her spirits rising—despite the fact that the distance between her and Kordas increased with every passing moment—and couldn’t help but take in deep breaths of the crisp, clean air, slightly bitter with the scents of leaves dying. She hadn’t quite realized how much smell there was around the lake, what with cooking and sweating animals, sweating people, and the very occasional whiff of a latrine trench the mages hadn’t gotten to yet. The sun shone over the trees to the east, thanks to her warm clothing she wasn’t in the least cold, and if only the rest of their trip could be like this—

Well, it won’t be, she thought, resigned. So I had better enjoy the good part.

“Delia!” called Hakkon. “How much can you pick up with that Gift of yours?”

She hadn’t been spending the last several moons practicing for nothing. “As much as I can lift myself,” she said, a little proudly. “About fifty pounds.”

“Can you skip back to the fourth barge, look for deadfall at the edge of the trees, and drop it onto the deck and the roof? That’ll save us a lot of time we won’t have to spend looking for firewood when we camp.”

“Oh! What a good idea!” It pleased her on several levels. She was going to be obviously useful from the start. She’d be able to save camping time, and Hakkon thought enough of her ability to just ask her to do something to begin with, rather than ignoring her as a supposed burden or a card to be played.

“And if you see ducks or geese or pheasants, bring them down. Three please,” said Sai. “That will give each of us a quarter bird for supper, and the bones and extra quarter can go in the pease-porridge to cook overnight for breakfast in the morning.”

Pleased enough to feel a little giddy, she began looking for deadfall, not just in the grass at the feet of the trees, but for dead branches still in the trees that she could snap off. It was just about as tiring as it would have been to go to where the branch was, pick it up, and carry it herself to the boat, but she was prepared for that. When she began to feel winded, she stopped Fetching wood and began breaking it up with a hand axe and arranging it in neat stacks on the deck between the railing around the edge of the barge and the oblong bulk of the upper half.

It was very nearly noon by the sun when Bay suddenly alerted, stopped, and looked back at his master. Ivar stood up in his stirrups, shaded his eyes with his hand, and peered ahead. “Flush!” he ordered the dog, who bounded ahead, barking. A moment later there was an explosion of geese from the water upstream.

Most of them flew in their opposite direction, but a smaller part of the flock came toward them.

Delia “grabbed” one out of the air; it appeared at her feet, dazed and disoriented. And before she could feel guilty about what she was about to do, she took a full swing at its head with the back of her little hand axe.

To her relief—relief that almost brought tears to her eyes—she killed it instantly. She looked back at the geese in the air rapidly moving away from them, honking as they flew, and made a second grab for one. It was a strain, but it appeared at her feet and she killed it the same way she’d killed the first one. Delia didn’t like to think of herself as a killer. She didn’t like killing. But all those heroes in stories had to eat something, and in matters of survival, the mathematics of it made sense—meat comes from somewhere, and everything alive more often than not consumed something else alive. She was as thoughtful about it as one could be—quick deaths and usage of everything taken from the target’s life and body. She knew she’d better get used to this. One day she’d pass her thousandth kill without even knowing it, and every time, she would give the game a pause of respect before dressing it out. It was that it was an involuntary sacrifice to her needs that made her squeamish, she decided. That made her feel dirty, that she’d ended a life so abruptly and now their story was done, by her hands. She could only sigh about it and carry on.

“Pluck and clean them now or later?” she called to Ivar, who was in charge of their group—at least unless or until they encountered an armed threat, in which case Briada was in command.

“Now,” he said. He didn’t have to tell her to save everything. That was a given. She exerted herself and Fetched an empty sack from the storage barge under her, a ceramic pot with a lid from the barge where she was sleeping, and finally a cooking pot from where Sai had stored the cooking things. Of all things tedious, plucking a goose had to be the worst, but by the time Ivar signaled the Fairweathers to halt for lunch, the birds were bald, beheaded and gutted and in the big pot, the liver, gizzard, and heart in there under them, the heads, feet, guts, and lungs in the ceramic pot with the lid on, and the feathers in the sack. All but the wing feathers; those were saved out separately.

And she had put back the pot full of geese in the pantry in Sai’s boat, the wing feathers with the archery repair gear, and only the pot full of entrails was still in her hands. Which fact she proudly announced as her barge got moored up to the bank and she hopped off.

“Well, that’s quite a budget of work for one morning,” Sai said, pleased.

“I thought Bay should have the guts,” she said to Ivar, who grinned at her.

“So he should. We can give him the heads and feet for his supper,” Ivar agreed. “Of course, if he catches himself a rabbit, we can just save them for his breakfast. Oh! That reminds me. If you spot a rabbit, or he does, and you can drop it at his feet, he’s trained to do a quick, clean kill, then bring it to me.”

Another relief. It was hard enough killing those poor geese and ducks, and they didn’t have big, soft eyes, adorable twitchy ears, and a plush coat. She could eat cooked rabbit without a qualm, and had on innumerable occasions, but nothing could make her kill one. At least not right now. Maybe if I am starving.

Venidel made a fire. Sai brewed everyone tea, and passed around small loaves of bread stuffed with sausages. “Enjoy these while you can,” he said. “Once these are gone there won’t be any proper bread. Grain doesn’t spoil like flour does, so I won’t even be making flatbread unless we have time enough for me to grind some up in my hand mill, or we find a village with a mill and we can somehow trade for some.”

Delia sighed, but didn’t complain. It was unlikely that anyone else in the entire convoy was going to be making bread either; all they had were hand mills, and the barge kitchens were not set up to do anything but make stews and porridges.

They slipped the bits on all the horses—Jonaton “shortened their tethers,” as he put it, altering the charm on them so they would not wander more than thirty arm-lengths from the barges, not even if they were startled. That allowed the horses to happily tear up huge mouthfuls of the grass they had been eyeing all morning.

Amethyst simply stood quietly to one side of the fire, and Delia admired the beautiful needlework on her face, the careful way in which what were usually mitten-like hands had been sculpted with separate, and apparently working, fingers, and the clothing she had been dressed in. She was clearly still wearing what she had fled the Imperial Palace wearing: soft, sueded deerskin tunic, boots, and trews that had been embroidered with black and gold thread in an abstract pattern. In addition, she had been wigged with what looked like horsehair, braided into thousands of tiny braids, each one ending in an amethyst bead. Amethyst seemed to sense her regard, and turned to face her.

“May this one serve you in any way, Lady Delia?” she said in a soft, breathy voice much like Rose’s.

Delia flushed with embarrassment. “It’s just Delia, Amethyst, and no, I was just admiring your face, your hair, and your clothing.”

“This one was a rare gift to Lady Meriposa from the Emperor,” said the Doll. “She found it amusing to dress this one as she had her childhood toys. It is fortunate that on the day the Capital fell, this one was garbed in one of the more practical outfits. Trains six feet long and sleeves that swept the floor would not have fared well during the escape, or later.”

“Was she—kind?” Delia asked. Somehow, the answer seemed important. Maybe because she didn’t want to think that someone who could create something of beauty was in her heart cold and cruel.

“Very. She knew that the Emperor had his eye on her and intended to add her to his kept women as soon as he had rid himself of some of the older ones. In fact, her parents had sent her to Court as a hostage with that intent. She was very brave about it, and confided much to this one.” Amethyst raised her head ever so slightly, as if with pride and defiance. “So when the Dolls were included in Baron Kordas’s plan of escape, this one obtained a Gate pass to the Temple of Diony the Tale-Weaver, and set aside a casket of the Lady’s most valuable jewelry where this one could snatch it up quickly. When the alarm was sounded, the Lady froze. That enabled this one to seize the casket and the Lady, press the pass into her hand until she grasped it, run to the nearest Gate, and thrust both her and the casket through it. Then this one followed the rest of the Dolls to Crescent Lake.”

By this point everyone around the fire was staring at the Doll with mouths agape. Amethyst had not said five words in total since she had been assigned to them—and now this extraordinary story!

Slowly, Briada began to clap. Her cousins followed. Then Hakkon and Ivar and all the rest joined in. Amethyst straightened a little more, obviously pleased with their response.

“Now I see why Kordas picked you out. You are very good at quick thinking, Amethyst, and at planning.” Briada smiled. It wasn’t a grin, but it seemed genuine. “Why do you say ‘this one’ instead of ‘I’?” Briada asked.

“‘This one’ refers to the habitation of this body by my self. We were not willingly placed into these forms, so we do not refer to them as ‘ourselves.’ This one is Amethyst, to all of you, which is simpler and accurate enough.”

Suddenly Amethyst froze. “There has been a development,” she said. “It seems we are not alone.”

It took longer than Kordas had hoped to get the first strings organized and lined up properly, make sure the load wasn’t too much for the horse, and get them through the Gate. At least once we get them all on the move we won’t have to do all this all over again, he thought with a touch of exasperation. But really . . . they’ve known for moons this day was coming. Couldn’t they have at least practiced a little?

The scouts should have been an example to them all, but of course, no one was paying attention when barges were colliding, people were shouting and swearing at each other, and the horses waiting to be hitched up watched all this with—he could have sworn—looks of impatient disdain.

By the time the first of the strings was actually through the Gate, the sun was much higher in the sky, and he was fairly certain that the scouts were several leagues away and completely out of sight. Well . . . that really didn’t matter, now, did it? They were supposed to be well ahead of the rest.

“Rose, how far are the scouts from the Gate?” he asked anyway.

“Amethyst tells me they are quite out of sight, and that she is not very good at judging distances.” Well, that confirmed that he was right. At least it meant the scouts were making good time. “But we have a more immediate problem,” she continued. “It seems we are not alone on this river, and the first barges are being detained. Your—”

“Never mind, I’m on my way!” He vaulted into Arial’s saddle and urged her into a canter, very conscious of the hand-crossbow and Spitter at his side and hoping he would not have to use them.

After the timeless point of disorientation that Gate-passage always subjected him to, he found himself about to run full-tilt into the haunches of a Tow-Beast, and pulled Arial up short.

His heart dropped, and he went cold all over, as he saw what Rose had meant.

The couple of guards he had, and the clearly rattled Valdemarans, faced off against what looked like a group of armed farmers and hunters. There were bows in plenty, all of them at the ready, some nasty-looking pitchforks and mattocks, and even a couple of wicked pruning hooks and boar spears.

He drew himself up as tall as he could, knowing that at least he had the advantage of height on them, being as he was on a horse, and walked Arial up to the front line of the mob.

“Might I inquire what the matter seems to be?” he asked, in the local dialect—or at least the one that was local to Crescent Lake.

One big man in a blacksmith apron—those seemed to be universal—stepped up to the front, eyed Kordas while hefting one of his hammers, and replied.

Well, it was similar to what the people at Crescent Lake spoke, but the accent was so thick it was hard to understand. Oh, not the alarm masked with anger, that was easy enough to read. But the words were almost unintelligible.

Quickly, because he didn’t want anyone to have time to react to what he was about to do, he looked straight at the man, gathered his magic, readied his spells, and uttered the trigger words for the first.

“Be still.”

The blacksmith froze. Kordas nudged Arial up to him before the others could realize what he’d done, and touched the man’s forehead, triggering the second spell.

There was a moment of dizziness. His eyes glazed, then cleared, and he backed Arial up. “Awake!” he said, breaking the spell.

The blacksmith swayed a little, came back to himself, and paled. “What didja do to me, warlock?” he roared in anger and alarm.

Anyone with weapons on them reached for them.

“Peace!” he shouted before anyone could move. “I was just making sure we could understand each other!”

“You—” The blacksmith froze. “Wait—!” he shouted to the others, then turned toward Kordas, looking distinctly shaken. “A moment ago ye was speakin’ jibber-jabber!”

“I know, I know,” Kordas said soothingly. “I just needed to touch you to use magic to learn your tongue. The last thing I want is for us to start hacking at each other over nothing!”

That just made the blacksmith angry. “Nothing? Ye set up yon uncanny door, ye start bringin’ people into our lands, and then ye start bringin’ boatses full of gods only know what, and ye say that’s nothing? Nothing to you maybe, but it’s us that’s got the opinion that matters!” The mob behind him growled.

“It’s a misunderstanding,” Kordas replied, keeping his tone quiet, and not matching the blacksmith’s anger with his own. “We’re just passing through, following the river. We’re looking for a land to live in that doesn’t already have people in it. Now that we know you’re here, we aren’t going to leave the river. Truly.”

He had to say this quite a few times, paraphrasing it each time so he wouldn’t sound like he was mocking them. In between he added little things like “Our land wracked with war,” and “Evil men were pursuing us, but we got away,” being very, very careful to phrase these things so that they were, at least, technically true, just in case one of them had a power like the Dolls did to tell what was true or false. Each time he repeated what he wanted them to hear, they did calm down a little more, and the anger slowly turned to suspicion and something he suspected was plain old dislike of the stranger. He couldn’t blame them, especially if they had never seen a Gate before. It was obviously powerful magic, and the people who could do things like that were rightly to be feared.

It took a lot longer than he wanted to, and the entire time he couldn’t help but think of all those Poomers and Spitters back there on the other side of the Gate, and how much easier it would be to just bring them through and clear these people out—

Well, he wouldn’t actually use them on anyone. All he’d need to do was to scare the living hell out of them, and a barrage of Poomers turning the trees behind them to splinters would certainly do that.

But it wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be ethical. We’d be acting just like the Empire had: coming in, displaying force, and intimidating everyone we encountered. And if a display of force failed to get the desired results, how tempting, how easy it would be, to just use that force on whoever was there. The Empire was always assured of having “more,” no matter what. Resist the army once, and five times more respond, and if they met opposition, twenty times more would come next. Records weren’t kept of what cultures were in an area before the Empire expanded. Soldiers returned from “defending the territory,” meaning, the territory just conquered. When no natives were left, after all, the land was protected from them. Besides, “defense” sounds so much nicer around the homelands than “invasion force,” a term that could scare people. “Defense” implies there were omnipresent, powerful enemies to defend against, and everyone likes thinking of themselves as the victim when they have defenders.

So Kordas coaxed, and cajoled, and promised, and eventually, grudgingly, the natives consulted with each other and the blacksmith turned to give him their verdict.

“Tha’ can pass through. But no stoppin’ and no stayin’—”

“I can’t promise that,” Kordas countered. “There are a great many of us, and we’re going to have to stop for the night. The horses can’t safely tow the boats if they can’t see. But I promise we won’t go more than a few lengths away from the river, and we’ll move as quickly as we can.”

They looked sullen.

“Look,” he finally said, as some children decided that they didn’t want to stay inside the barges when there were exciting things happening on the riverbank. “We’ve got children with us! Would anyone sane risk their children by fighting?”

It might not have been the best answer he could come up with, but the sight of those curious faces must have caused some thawing, because finally the blacksmith nodded. “Aight,” he said. “Stoppin’ for the night. But no longer.”

With that assurance, Kordas waved to the front group, which started off—slow as a snail at first, as the horses strained against the weight they were being asked to haul, but speeding up as the barges got momentum.

There was a Doll standing next to the Gate to relay messages back through it to Rose and the rest. He looked at the Doll and nodded. As the first barges cleared the Gate area, a pair of mule heads poked through the shimmer of the Gate and slowly their barges emerged.

Great. Part one of the negotiations. And as soon as they get some idea that there are a lot more of us than they thought, and that begins to rile them up all over again, I’ll begin the part of the negotiations where they actually get something out of this.