There were fat snowflakes in the air as Ivar appeared in the distance, coming from between two low hills. Delia’s heart sank, because it wasn’t even midmorning yet, and it was much too soon for him to be returning to the barges. What new horrible thing has he found that we need to deal with? was her first thought, as she signaled to Briada that she wanted to stop the baton drill and shaded her eyes with her hand, trying to see his face.

He doesn’t look worried.

In fact, he looks cheerful!

Surely he hadn’t found a place for them all to live out here? The landscape had not been promising: no sign of dwellings, or much of anything else. The rocks were twisted, when they came across outcroppings. Some were six barge-lengths tall, and all in layers that either formed skyward spirals, or had peeled off and smashed to bits. Some even stuck out of the river randomly. Furlong after furlong of scrub grass and brush fanned out in unexplained geometry behind the thin screening of trees lining the riverbank. Most of those were willows, but even they had odd colorations like sky-blue trunks or orange-spotted branches and roots. Enormous stacked fungi were hosts to what she hoped were only ant colonies. She was no expert, but despite the strangeness, and hopefully with a lack of toxins and monsters, this could be fine country for goats, possibly for sheep, and wintering. But without a mage to encourage grass growing it would not be good for cattle or horses, and at least to her eyes it didn’t look like good farmland, either.

“Amethyst,” Ivar said as soon as he was in range for easy talk. “Please tell Kordas and the rest that we’re going to have to consider whether or not we are going to stop for the winter now, and I think I have found a good place to do so.”

“It is done, Ivar,” Amethyst replied, and paused, shaking her head. Because the Doll was only cloth, stuffing, and fabric, there was nothing to melt the snowflakes that fell on her, and every so often she would shake her head vigorously to get them off her “hair.” “Kordas says to proceed to this place you have found, then report in practical detail. They will catch up. The lead of the convoy is less than a day behind us, because the convoy sections went through the forest so quickly.”

“I’ve found a good mooring spot that will hold all of the barges of the entire flotilla, if we stack them tightly with noses to the bank and build a heavy jetty just upstream. That many boats will cause noticeable drag on the current and nothing good will come of that, so a current-break would be vital or we’d be chasing down boats every day,” he said, and turned Manta around. He didn’t urge her into anything faster than a walk, however, and kept Manta shoulder to shoulder with Tight Squeeze, Buttercup, and Alberdina’s horse, Dandylion. “Sai!” he called, and Sai popped out of the door in the front of the lead barge.

“Did you find us another man-eating forest?” Sai asked. Delia shivered, and told herself that it was because of the cold. It wasn’t. Sai joked about something that could have taken her Kordas away.

“No, but I found a good place for all of us to moor up for the winter if Kordas wants to do that,” Ivar replied. “It’s the best I’ve found so far. It’s not ideal, but I think we can make it work.” Ivar turned his head a little sideways and looked up at the sky, which was gray from horizon to horizon. “In my opinion, we need to pick a spot, and soon.”

He wasn’t the only one with that opinion. Every morning for the last three, they’d had to break ice away from the barges before they left, and the lead barge—a fore-barge, to be more precise, because it was built to break the way for flatnosed barges with its pointed prow—now had a sharpened iron blade affixed to the prow to break through ice forming on the river. It wasn’t very sharp—you’d have had to work hard to cut yourself on it—but winter was definitely here, and it was only going to get colder and travel more difficult. They’d had it very easy, weather-wise, so far. It would not be a good idea to be moving during a blizzard.

“Well, we should make sure to get a good spot,” said Sai, and laughed. “Only the best spot for the Old Men!”

“The most comfortable place in the land, central to everywhere!” Endars chimed in.

“The Great Old Farts in their Fortress of Comfort!” Ivar added.

Delia surmised that what they would actually do was figure out how much of the bank would be taken up by all the barges in the entire convoy nestled side by side, moored to the bank, and stop only when they had passed that point. The barge with the rest of the Old Men would be in the lead of the convoy, so finally the Six Old Men would be reunited.

Well, Ivar will have us stop. He’s the one in charge of where and when we stop.

“Actually, I do have a good spot,” the scout told him, with half a smile. “There’s trees enough to cut the wind—trees as we know them, that is, despite having white bark—and a place that would make a good firepit, and even a spot for an earthen oven.”

“You just want something besides soup,” the old man chided, waggling a finger at him.

“Don’t you?” Ivar countered.

Sai didn’t answer, he just popped back into the barge where it was warm.

Wordlessly, Briada jerked her head at the door at the prow, and Delia nodded. She took both batons, and followed Briada inside.

It really was not too bad in here, with the soup filling the air with a pleasant herbal aroma—unfortunately, it smelled better than it tasted, but that was hardly Sai’s fault. He was doling out herbs and spices with great care, because once they were gone, there was no way to replace them. No one dared waste any.

Alberdina was in charge today of making sure the soup was stirred at intervals, and that the fire didn’t get too hot and burn the soup. Delia had already Fetched enough rabbits to feed everyone for luncheon tomorrow, so after her practice with Briada, it would have been her turn to keep an eye on the soup. Except it sounded as if they were going to moor up soon.

“Kordas wants us to stop at a place Ivar found and let the rest catch up,” Briada told the Healer before Delia had a chance to say anything. “I don’t suppose you’re Landwise?” She sighed. “It would be great if this turned out to be the place we’re actually looking for, but only someone Landwise can tell us that.”

“I’m not, but Endars is,” Alberdina replied. “I won’t lie to you, the colder it gets, the more worried I become that Kordas will push us past the point where it would have been wise to stop, and backtracking a fleet upriver feels like more than we can handle.” She put the lid back on the pot. “We haven’t even had to face rough water, much less a storm.”

Delia refrained from saying something like Kordas wouldn’t be that stupid or careless, because really, determining that involved a very big unknown. How soon would the river ice start seriously impeding progress? That was the real question.

If it hadn’t been so bleak out there, Delia would have gone back on deck to see where they were and what the landscape was like. But as sharp as her curiosity was, the wind was sharper, and she was happy enough to climb into her bunk and peer out the little window there instead. It was a limited view, but truly, there wasn’t much to look at.

To her pleasure, this side of the river looked more promising than anything she had seen so far since they left Crescent Lake.

I wish we had never had to leave the lake, she thought wistfully. We could have used all this time we’ve been traveling to prepare and stockpile for winter.

But she already knew there wasn’t enough farmland for everyone at the lake. It was just a fact, and there was no getting around it.

It appeared that this was a wide valley between two sets of hills. The hills on the far side of the river were closer to the water, and from here, it did look as if there were cave openings here and there. There were actually groves of trees close to the feet of the hills on their side, and instead of unprofitable scrub, weeds, and brush, there was grass, and plenty of it. It looked as if it would be waist high if it wasn’t frost-killed and a bit flattened. Well, where grass that tall would grow, grain and other crops could grow.

“There’s grass!” she said aloud, and Alberdina came into the rear to look through her window.

“So there is, and that’s a blessing,” she agreed, and went back to minding the soup. “Even if all we do is winter-over here, the mages can keep the grass growing all winter long, and the stock will do fine.”

The practice session had come to an end before Delia even got her muscles warmed up, so for once, she wasn’t sweaty and tired. As she lay curled up next to her window, peering out of it and very much liking what she saw, she realized that for the first time in more days than she could count, she was actually on her soft bed, in the warmth, and she didn’t have to do anything. This was the closest she had come to a lazy, do-nothing, cozy moment since they’d left the Duchy.

The barge didn’t seem to be going as fast as it usually did—not that the pace was fast, but it was certainly a brisk walk for long-legged horses like Tight Squeeze, Buttercup, and Dandylion. This was more like an amble. With a sigh, she jumped down out of her bunk to see if there was something going on she needed to know about.

Chunks of ice in the water, and ice about a third as thick as her thumb clinging to the bank, told her exactly what was going on. The river was slower and much broader here than it had been on the other side of the hills, and while the horses weren’t having to pull as hard against the current, the lead barge was definitely having to break through ice.

I think that this is our sign. The ice is just going to get thicker and harder to break through from this point.

Hopefully Kordas will see this, too.

For the first time since they had left Crescent Lake, Kordas, the Old Farts, and his informal Council of the head of his Guard, several mayors, and a couple of Healers were all together in the same place.

One could generously even call that place a “building.”

Ivar had commandeered a work crew consisting of a couple of mages who were part of the grass-growing crew, and a motley lot of strong, bored young folks, and had created this place around a dead hardwood tree, which formed the first of many structural columns. He got the mages to thaw and soften the ground, had the labor crew dig it down to about waist deep, then ringed the circumference with upright saplings and slim branches placed so closely together it would have been hard to put a leaf between them. Then he used dead grass with mud made from the earth that had been dug out, and plastered those saplings inside and out until they formed a strong wall as thick as Hakkon’s thigh. The mages worked on drying and strengthening that wall until Kordas was quite sure it would stand up to a Poomer attack. Then Ivar built a support structure for a peaked roof out of tree trunks about as thick as a good piece of firewood, working around the center pole of the dead tree. He laid more branches over that structure—some kind of pine, by the looks of it, with thick needles—and plastered over that with more mud and grass, but this time only as thick as Hakkon’s bicep. There was a hole in the middle of the roof to let smoke out. And right now, a roaring fire, ringed in stone, fed gray smoke up through that hole. Outside, Briada commanded a crew completing a rudimentary palisade—uneven, but a start. It could become firewood if needed, but as a defensive measure, it would help channel threats through its wider gaps or hold bigger things out.

It certainly wasn’t an elegant “building,” and it was nothing at all like the manor, but it was a place where a lot of people could gather in relative comfort. With night falling soon, it was a palace for everyone who fit inside.

People had dropped off various things that could be used as chairs here—mostly pieces of sawn tree trunk. Convenient if the fire needed feeding. But the Old Men were not minded to sit on uncomfortable pieces of raw wood, so the Dolls had each brought the sitting pillows they used back at the manor. And Isla had come up with a neat folding wooden chair for Kordas, brought by a clerk who had inherited it with his pen sets.

Probably the closest thing I am going to find to a chair of state right now.

“Well, I’ve had all the Landwise checking this place to see if it will do for a permanent settlement,” Kordas said, when everyone had settled. “And I’ll cut straight to it: it’s not.”

Groans came from those who were not yet privy to that information.

“It floods in the spring, every spring,” he continued. “If you’ve got good eyes you can see the water marks on the bluffs on the other side of the river. The Landwise say it should be all right over winter, but that we’ll want to get out before those floods come.”

The farmers among them nodded agreement. “Horses and cattle can’t take constant wet feet at all, even if it’s only standing water,” someone spoke up. “We’ll lose ’em to thrush. If the current’s slow, pigs and goats might manage to walk around in it if it’s knee-high to a man, but sheep—their fleeces will just suck up water and they’ll drown.”

“Well, shear—” began one of the mayors.

“And they’ll die of cold,” came the flat response. The speaker did not add don’t be daft, but it was certainly implied in the tone of the response. “Come spring, there’s no telling if it’ll be warm or drop snow. And night will still get cold.”

“On the other hand, this is a good place to winter,” offered Ceri. “We have plenty of forage, and we can haul the barges onto the shore and put them back in the water with relative ease here.”

“Spring flood might put ’em back for you,” observed the same speaker, who didn’t seem to suffer with awe for Kordas at all.

“I’d hope it wouldn’t come to that,” he replied. “And we do have a weather-witch or two to keep us apprised of what the weather is about to do. We can take our chances and continue on, but it will be with no guarantee we’ll even find a place as good as this, much less an ideal spot, before ice keeps us from going any further. We can also risk putting the barges on runners—”

“I thought that was the plan,” interrupted another of the mayors.

Sai snorted. “That was a contingency plan, Harkin. If we found ourselves with no prospects as good as this one.”

“The wind is going to cut right along the river,” Kordas continued. “There is a lot of open space, which is good for grass but bad for keeping warm. We don’t have barns for the animals to shelter in.”

“But if we go on,” Sai continued, “we still won’t have barns, we may not have grass, and the wind is still probably going to be wicked.”

They pondered this for a moment.

“I say we stay,” said the farmer who had spoken up first. “But!” He held up a finger. “Send Ivar and the Fairweathers downriver some more with one barge. If they don’t run into anything better within a couple days, they come back.”

Endars coughed. “I’m Landwise, and I can spirit-ride birds. I could—”

“Nay, lad,” said the farmer, who was not that much older than Endars. “I druther you rode that bird a-watchin’ for trouble.”

Kordas explained to anyone present who needed to know, “Spirit-riding an animal like a bird is delicate, sensitive work. Can’t be done while in motion, and takes preparation. If we settle in here, we can build a place to shelter and monitor him, and he can scout for us once in a while.”

Well, he’s going to be our overhead watchbird for as long as we stay here, I think.

A mayor Kordas recognized, Hale Lorant, cleared his throat and got everyone’s attention. “This may not be the best place, but it’s a good spot. Now, I’d like some sort of shelter over the barges, and I’d like some sort of shelter for the herds, but other than that, this place looks good, and we’ve got enough food to see us all the way into high summer without starving. Come spring, this place might have grown on us, or we might find a way to keep back the floodwaters, but it’s good enough for now.”

Koto cleared his throat. “We’ve got ways of throwing up something that’s shelter against rain, snow, and wind in a hurry,” he said. “Or some of us do. We can have simple barns up in a few days.”

Well, that certainly got their attention. “How?” blurted about half a dozen people at once.

“The same way the Emperor’s mages build Ducal, Baronial, and Princely manors,” Kordas said, trying not to feel too smug. “It will be fast because I’ll have every mage working on that right now, and the walls won’t be but a fraction as thick as manor walls. They’ll be like tents, but rigid, and proof against a gale.” He didn’t bother to explain that the only reason they could do this was because there was a nice, steady ley-line right beneath them. It wasn’t as powerful as the one at Crescent Lake, but it could certainly empower his mages to create those shelters.

“There’s no fences,” argued someone else. “How are we going to keep the herds from wandering without fences?”

“The same way we keep them from wandering now. Are you daft, or just stupid?” Ponu snapped. He’d been one of the people building this earth shelter, and Kordas knew he had to be tired, hungry, and in great need of lying flat in a bed.

“But—”

And they were off. Kordas sighed, and reined in his temper, although Ponu threw up his hands and stormed off to his barge and his bed. This was not the first time he’d brought his “Council” together, and he knew from experience that they just had to argue each and every point to death before they’d finally look to him for answers, usually without another question.

But it was tedious, and he didn’t in the least blame Ponu for leaving. As usual, Rose was right at his elbow, and he touched her lightly so that she’d bend down to hear his whisper. “Would you see to it that the evening meal is brought here?” he asked. “And something besides water to drink, if we can spare it.”

She nodded without replying. I’m getting awfully fond of Rose. It’s going to be hard when I have to do without her.

But the arguing carried on for longer than he had anticipated, and his nerves were starting to stretch. A glance outside showed snowflakes in the gloaming.

Boom!

He literally jumped. Louder than the loudest thunderclap Kordas had ever heard, the sound shook the walls and sent dirt and dead needles showering down on their heads. What—?

Everyone else but the Six Old Men appeared to be frozen in place. He burst through the entrance—cleverly, it was L-shaped, so there was no way a cold wind could blow directly into the structure—and into the shock of the twilight cold. He could scarcely believe his eyes.

There was a Gate downriver, where the last of the scout-barges were moored. It was the biggest Gate he had ever seen in his life, rivaling even the Emperor’s cargo Gates at the former Palace.

A spike of genuine fear held him for a moment. The Empire. They found us, he thought. They’ve come to kill us.

The Gate was not framed by uprights. It was not framed by anything. It spanned an area of riverbank wide enough to fit six carts side by side, and was correspondingly wide on the river half. Its edges danced, not with the twitch and ebb of uneven magic, but with ribbons of light in diagrams and symbols. One was a series of bright dots: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17. The second ribbon was 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13. Whoever it is, they’re educated, Kordas thought. It’s not like the Empire to announce themselves like this. They go for “We’ll pound you into paste” as a first impression, not “Here’s how smart we are.”

He gaped at it for one stunned second before belatedly coming to his senses and gathering power from the ley-line beneath him. He wasn’t the only one.

Within moments, Hakkon, Ivar, the Old Men—including Ponu—and as many of his personal guards as had come to their senses assembled on either side of him, weapons drawn or hands at their sides, ready to respond.

The air stilled, and snowflakes the size of a silver piece drifted down around them. Nobody made a sound. Even the lapping of water from the river seemed muted and distant.

The Gate was opaque from Kordas’s side, and lights on its surface formed into designs. Circles, ovoids, triangles, and a series of patterns that Kordas identified as basic spell construction notation, though much different from what he knew. Fog—genuine fog, not illusory—blew through the edges of the Gate. At the top center, many small lights gradually collected into one bright one, forming beams that swept across, well, everything. They illuminated the entire flotilla, where people by the thousands were popping out to get a look at whatever had made that boom and then lit up the night.

The large light was surrounded by a ring of blue light, which gradually erased itself. When it was gone, another set of bright lights appeared and flooded the shore with crisp, clean white light, and another blue circle appeared, dwindling like the previous one. When it vanished, fog formed everywhere that was lit. It was fog from an area of gradually building warmth, melting frost and snow away.

Another blue circle counted down. When it vanished, easily six hundred mage-lights streamed out from the Gate’s edges and took up positions over the flotilla. Another stream of mage-lights took up places six horselengths from the ground around Kordas and the Council, and the temperature was now noticeably warmer. In fact—it was now very lightly raining. Snow alighted on an invisible dome of energy over them, and became warm misting rain. Arcs of rainbow shone in circles around every mage-light, great or small, that was inside the perimeter of warmth and haze. A deep rumbling sound akin to an incredibly large horn came from the Gate. The Gate’s background color turned searing red, and the sound’s pitch went higher with each color change up to ear-piercing violet, then faded away. Dogs and other animals complained in response, and most of the people witnessing this strange show rubbed at their ears.

At either side of the Gate, colors changed in repeating patterns—rainbow colors, red to deep violet, Kordas numbly noted—while a blue circle counted down, and then there was another flash.

Kiyer! Kiyer! Kiyer! Kiyer!

He heard it the same time as he spotted it—a golden eagle, a huge bird, not the size of the terror-birds but surely twice as big as any eagle he had ever seen before, burst out of the Gate, just as it cleared to show what was beyond. Still blinking from the flash, Kordas witnessed more birds flying from the Gate into the night. Hawks, eagles, owls, falcons, ravens, and more. All unusually large, all calling an “I am here! I am here!” call for their species. As if orchestrated by a master, they all went into the sky at increasing heights, circling above the well-lit warm patch in a layered formation. The Gate’s opacity shimmered away.

Walking figures were silhouetted on the other side of the Gate by similar lighting on the other side, and as one, they stepped through.

Twenty people. Male, female, some white-haired, some dark, some half-and-half, some with extraordinary headdresses and hats. White hair from magic use? He’d heard that had happened to very powerful mages like the Six, but never as young as these people seemed to be. Golden skin, and costumes like nothing he had ever seen before—except maybe on those Dolls whose owners liked to dress them up in fanciful outfits. Or maybe one of Jonaton’s more outlandish get-ups. They walked unwary and unhurried, and something itself like a barge glided through behind them. In midair. It was clearly laden, but it was anyone’s guess as to what it bore. In midair, Kordas marveled. No horses or mules, and it’s in midair. More birds poured through the Gate, all of them at least twice the size of “normal” birds of their kinds, and they came to rest on the earthen building or the trees around it. It was very clear to Kordas that they had done so to put themselves in a watchful guard over the Valdemarans below them.

Or put themselves into a position to attack . . .

None of the men-at-arms still held their weapons up at this point. What good were arrows and axes against—that? The people strode through the Gate, bringing themselves within ten paces of Kordas.

One of the people at the rear of the group barked a single word and made a gesture in the air, as if he was closing his hand around something.

The Gate’s edges broke up into clouds of small lights, which then flickered up like embers from a bonfire to join the stars. When they had gone, the Gate closed.

One man, with silver hair and pale blue eyes, lips and eyelids painted to match his hair, stepped right up to Kordas. His outfit was made entirely of small pieces of brown leather sewn in an intricate pattern of patches and folds. Over his shoulders was a cloak made of bearskin, but it must have come from a bear bigger than anything Kordas had ever seen, judging by how deep the fur was, and how large the skin. The man could have used the skin as mattress and blanket, and not ever felt a draft.

Then again, they do grow things big around here, don’t they. Good gods. I don’t know what to say. He can’t know our tongue. I don’t dare touch him to learn his. How the hell am I going to keep two dozen insanely powerful mages from vaporizing us all in the next couple of moments?

“Greetings, Kordas, Baron of Valdemar,” the man said in a pleasant tenor as if he was a Valdemaran native. “We are the Tayledras. We have much to say to you.”

Kordas should have found that more chilling than the ice on the river, but instead, relieved, he found himself smiling.

Council and Hawkbrothers alike retired to the shelter. Or rather, Kordas numbly led the way; the Hawkbrothers called down their extraordinary birds to special perching-staffs retrieved from the floating skiff, and followed him into the days-old building. The Councilors, or at least, those who managed to overcome their trepidation at being in the presence of these folk, followed behind them.

And the moment Kordas ushered them inside the rough shelter with its pounded earth floor and ceiling that rained a bit of fine dust down over them all as the birds outside settled on it, he felt acutely ashamed. Whoever, whatever these people were . . . they were powerful, sophisticated, and he felt like a cowherd at an Imperial banquet. He cleared his throat. “I’m terribly sorry, but—”

The leader stopped him with a gesture. “Don’t be. This is a proper building for someone who is not going to remain long. It serves the purpose, and when you are gone it will melt into the land again.”

Kordas looked around for some place where the newcomers could sit, but before he could say anything, a stream of Dolls poured into the building, carrying skins, small rugs, cushions, stools, chunks of tree trunk, cushions—they must have raided every barge nearby for seating arrangements. And once they had placed their objects at the side of the fire where smoke was least likely to blow into a person’s eyes, they streamed out again, as silently as they had arrived. With quiet murmurs of appreciation, the Hawkbrothers arranged themselves on the ground, and the Councilors—rejoined by Ponu—worked out seating on what had become Kordas’s side of the fire. And as soon as everyone was in place, the Dolls appeared again, with food and steaming jugs and a motley assortment of mugs and cups.

The leader raised his cup to Kordas. Kordas raised his in return and sipped.

Well. Someone broke out the good mead. And someone else broke out the spices and mulled it. Isla. It had to be.

He looked up to gauge his guests’ reactions. Nods, slight smiles, and murmurs in a language he could not understand, but which sounded appreciative.

“More light, I think,” said the leader. “And perhaps heat.”

Each of the Hawkbrothers held out a hand, palm up. A mage-light the size of a child’s ball appeared in each of those waiting palms. As one, the lights rose into the air and formed a circle over the heads of the crowd, with the center formed by the roof centerpole. They went high enough that no one was dazzled by the light, which shone down on them all like the light from a clear morning. And as soon as they were in place, something more came from those spheres. Heat. Very, very welcome heat. Soon it was as warm as a fine spring day inside the shelter.

“I trust you realize we have come in peace,” said the leader, with a wry lift of his left eyebrow.

“If you hadn’t, I suspect you could have done something quite fatal to myself and my Council without ever opening that Gate,” Kordas responded, echoing the other’s lifted brow.

The leader of the Hawkbrothers chuckled. “Well, we probably could, though to be honest, it would be much easier to let the land itself whittle you away to nothing. You have been lucky so far. The wyrsa who followed the fading taste of the charms you put on the beasts you left with Haymouthton are inbred and dying out. The maka’ar you drove off your caravan are as well. But you are venturing into territory much more dangerous.”

He paused, and Kordas heard his Councilors whispering to one another. His mind buzzed with uneasy thoughts. Were they telling the truth? Were they lying? But that forest . . . if it had awakened while one of our groups was in it . . . are there more places like that ahead? What did they want? If they were telling the truth and the territory ahead was going to chew them up and spit out the pieces, then why come to warn the Valdemarans—

“We have been watching you since you . . . drew our attention with your Gate that brought you into the remains of that ancient city destroyed by the armies of the tyrant Ma’ar. It was a rather noisy arrival,” the leader added wryly. “And we were concerned. Very. But you engaged in none of the behavior that we feared, and you determined to leave behind you only so many of your folk as the lake and land could comfortably bear. So we were heartened by this, and we set a watch and a few spies on you.”

“The arrows!” exclaimed Ceri, snapping his fingers. “The arrows that killed the snake-dogs—wyrsa, you call them? The ones of unknown origin!”

“Even so,” agreed the leader. “You drove off the maka’ar rather handily, and we did not need to assist. But the Blood Forest . . .” He shook his head. “You were lucky. Very lucky. Lucky that it had gone into winter sleep. Lucky that when you did awaken it, you were mostly through it. There are many, many more things worse than that ahead of you, if you stay on this river.”

Kordas’s heart sank.

“What’s to stop us settling here, then?” said Wymat Rai, not a little belligerently.

One of the strangers’ number drew a folding fan and passed it to the leader, who thumbed it open. By some magic, it unfolded itself to form a paper map, upon which the leader traced and tapped positions. “Nothing. But this plain floods every spring, and it is no gradual rising of the waters. There is a place upstream, here, that forms an impressive ice dam. Spring meltwater from the warmer south builds up behind it. When it inevitably breaks the dam, a wall of water taller than a man comes sweeping through this valley.” The leader tilted his head to one side. “I can show you, if you require.”

“No need,” Sai replied before anyone else could answer. “We’ve seen the marks on the bluffs.”

“And how do we know we can trust any of these people? They’ve enacted espionage upon us already, and revealed themselves in a way clearly meant to impress us with their power,” demanded the lone member of the Duchy’s highborn on the Council, Lord Ashbern. It was a good question, of course. And even though Kordas winced a little at Ashbern’s blunt demand, he was glad someone had asked it.

A Tayledras woman in green and black openly laughed. “That wasn’t a show of power.”

“Why, because you have the Truthseekers among you, bound into cloth-and-wooden forms,” said the leader, gesturing to Rose, who stood patiently at Kordas’s elbow. “What say you, Truthseeker? Is not all I have said thus far nothing but naked truth?”

“It is,” Rose said in her high, clear voice.

Once again, the Councilors whispered urgently together. But Kordas sensed a change in their attitude. After all this time of having the ever-helpful Dolls among them, the people of Valdemar had come to trust them, and rely on their word when they said that something was true.

“And that is the last reason why we have sought you out, and come to speak with you,” the leader continued. “As I said, we have kept a close watch on you, and it is what people do when no one is observing that tells what they really are made of. You are not the ones responsible for their imprisonment. You have made sure they are treated well, and fairly. You have promised their freedom once you learn how to free them. You, Kordas, Baron Valdemar, could have chosen many paths once you arrived at the lake. You did your best to choose the path that did the most good—or at least, the least harm. And so—here we are.”

“Well, pardon me for saying this, but . . . where is that, exactly?” Kordas asked carefully. “We don’t know anything about you, and you certainly seem to know a great deal about us.”

“Then let me rectify that. I am Silvermoon k’Vesla, leader of my clan. These are all of the Elders of k’Vesla. This place you have stopped will be safe enough, if uncomfortable, for the winter. But you are looking for a home, not merely a stopping place. We may be able to supply you with that home.”

Well, that certainly set the ferret loose among the bedsheets.

Silvermoon—and Kordas—waited patiently for the hubbub to die down. Kordas thought he even caught Silvermoon giving him a tiny nod as the Baron said nothing. Meanwhile the Hawkbrothers remained quiet, calm, as serene as their leader. Finally all of Kordas’s people talked themselves out, or hoarse, and settled again.

“There is always a price for everything,” Kordas said into the silence. Of course he knew that. Everyone who had ever been under the Imperial thumb knew that. Favors were contracts in which the expense could be raised later. He caught all of the Six Old Men and eventually the rest of his Councilors nodding.

“And you want to know what the price will be,” said Silvermoon, and it appeared, at least to Kordas, that none of these Hawkbrothers took the least offense at his rather blunt statement. “We know all about prices, we Tayledras. You are wise to ask. It will, I think, not be a price that you will find onerous. But—for now, we ask if you are ready for a leap of faith.”

“A leap of faith?” Kordas asked cautiously.

“And one into the dark—and we know that this is no small thing we ask of you.” He stood up, and all his people stood up with him. He held out his hand. “Come with us, Baron Kordas. Come with us, and bring your chosen experts. If you do not care for what you learn, you are free to continue your journey. At the very least, what we offer you is a more secure place to spend the winter than this valley.”

It was not to his Councilors that Kordas turned now. They knew no more than he did, and he was not altogether certain of their emotional state at the moment. They were looking to him to lead them.

But he needed one specific answer.

Rose and the Dolls trusted me, and I think their trust was not misplaced. Now it’s time for us to trust them.

“Rose,” he said. “Are these people benevolent to our needs?”

“Yes,” she said simply. “In this and other matters. Make an ally of them if you can. Cross them never, and let no one mistreat them.”

Engage by heart, he thought. Trust your judgment.

He stood then, and took the Hawkbrother’s hand.

“Open your Gate again,” he said, his voice as steady as his own feelings were unsteady. “Without the teeth-rattling noises this time? We will come with you.”