The Thousand Names

Chapter Twenty

WINTER

“They found them on the rocks?” Winter said.

“Strapped to them, hands and feet,” Graff said. He looked a little gray. “Like they were still alive when they put them up there. And that’s not the half of it, sir.”

“Oh?”

Graff’s eyes darted to Bobby. “Not sure the boy should hear, sir.”

Winter winced. They were in front of her tent, in the midst of the Seventh Company camp. No one was obviously listening, but she had no doubt a dozen ears were pricked up nearby.

“Corporal Forester is a soldier like the rest of us,” Winter said, a bit too loudly. “In spite of his age.”

“Yessir.” Graff swallowed. “Well, begging your pardon, sir, it seems that the grayskins cut the. . ah. . equipment off them, stuffed it in their mouths, and left them to bleed out.”

“Equipment?” Winter said. She had an image of saddlebags or bandoliers.

“Cocks,” Bobby said flatly.

Graff, turning a little red, nodded. “Give-Em-Hell is goddamned furious, I heard. He said he was going to take his whole command to find the bastards that did it and give them the same treatment.”

“Which I’m sure is just what they want,” Winter said. “Hopefully Captain d’Ivoire or the colonel will have better sense.”

“The colonel will,” Graff said. “He’s a cold bastard, that one. Looked up at those poor men and never said a word. It was the captain who finally got ’em cut down and seen to.”

Folsom jogged up, straightened, and saluted Winter, who as usual had to suppress the urge to look over her shoulder for an officer.

“Orders from Captain d’Ivoire,” the corporal said. “Break camp and prepare to march.”

There was a chorus of groans from the unofficial listeners all around. The recruits had rapidly picked up a bit of the cynicism of the Old Colonials, and they’d been hoping that the brutal murder and mutilation of a half dozen men meant they might get a respite from the day’s march. Winter’s voice cut through the curses.

“You heard him! Get moving!” As the complaining men got to their feet and the camp started to bustle around her, she leaned close to Folsom. “Can you take care of Feor?”

The big corporal gave a quick nod. Winter had tipped one of the carters to let the Khandarai girl ride with the water barrels, and Folsom delivered her there every morning swathed in a spare army greatcoat. It wasn’t the best arrangement, but with the captain’s new directives that no surplus baggage or personnel was to accompany the column, it was all that Winter had been able to come up with.

Feor didn’t seem to mind. Since the night of the fire, she barely seemed awake. She walked when she was led, ate and drank when food was put in front of her, and when left alone curled into a ball and lay motionless for hours. It was as though something inside her had shattered after her confrontation with Mother, and nothing Winter did could reach her.

Folsom saluted again and went into Winter’s tent to fetch the Khandarai girl. Graff followed him with worried eyes, then looked back at Winter.

“You think we’ll catch them?” he said.

Winter blinked, distracted. “Catch who?”

“The Desoltai.” Graff pitched his voice low. “Only I heard some of the Old Colonials saying that nobody can catch them, not now that we’re into the desert. They know every rock and hidden spring, and they’ve got magic as well. And then there’s the Steel Ghost.”

“Let me guess,” Winter said. “You heard this from Davis?” That sort of malingering sounded like the sergeant’s style.

“No, sir. Someone in the Fourth. Apparently Captain Roston shares those opinions.”

“The colonel can catch them,” Bobby said. “If anyone can.”

Graff looked worried. “But what if no one can?”

Winter clapped him on the shoulder. “Then we’re in for a long march, aren’t we?”

• • •

The scouts they’d found without their manhood were the first evidence of the viciousness of the Desoltai, but far from the last.

Every day, Give-Em-Hell took his cavalry out to screen ahead of the column, their sturdy Khandarai-bred mounts struggling over rocks and sand. Every evening, they returned to camp empty-handed, and fewer in number than they’d been when they set out. And every morning, the missing men were discovered just outside the camp, having expired from whatever tortures the endlessly inventive Desoltai raiders had dreamed up for them.

By the fourth day Give-Em-Hell was mad enough to scream at the colonel when he once again turned down the cavalryman’s request to ride out in a body after the “cowardly scum.” Colonel Vhalnich bore the verbal assault calmly, in full view of half the First Battalion, then told the captain that he and his cavalry were relieved from their scouting duties and would henceforth ride in the center of the column, protecting the baggage.

In their place, Captain d’Ivoire ordered infantrymen to patrol by half companies, in order to prevent any more isolated disappearances. This meant the unlucky troops who’d drawn the job had to wake up hours before dawn and start walking, creating a buffer between the main column and the desert raiders who waited invisibly among the rocks all around them. The Seventh Company made such a patrol on the sixth day, and Winter fully expected a horde of enemy riders to suddenly materialize and massacre the lot of them. It was easy, especially in the predawn darkness, to people every crevice and shadow with watching eyes.

What actually happened was worse, in a way, although it happened on someone else’s watch. A company of the Second Battalion, walking a mile in front of the plodding column, surprised a gang of Desoltai watering their horses from a tiny rock spring. Eager for vengeance, the Colonials rushed after them, only to find all the nearby boulders sprouting armed men. Out of forty men, only nine escaped, and the screams of those who’d been unfortunate enough to survive echoed over the camp until well into the night.

The next day, the captain issued orders that the patrols were not to engage the Desoltai under any circumstances, but rather to fall back from any contact until more forces could be brought up. This kept the infantry patrols out of ambushes, but made great sport for the Desoltai, who rode up in twos and threes to fire a few shots and watch the entire column grind to a halt as the lead battalion started deploying for battle. The rate of march slowed to a crawl, which meant that those soldiers in the center and rear of the army spent most of the day standing idle under the blazing sun. April had worn into May, and the days were steadily warming toward the unbearable furnace of the Khandarai summer.

• • •

Ten days out from Nahiseh, the Colonials camped in the lee of a massive rock formation. The desert was changing as they marched farther west, Winter had noticed. The rocks were getting bigger, but also farther apart, and the stony ground underfoot was drier and sandier with every passing mile. Dunes had appeared, drifted against the rocks like huge gray snowbanks, and when the wind came up the men had to fasten handkerchiefs across their faces to keep their mouths from filling with flying grit.

Like the rest of the army, the Seventh had dispensed with tents. Setting the pegs was nearly impossible, since the ground was either too hard or too loose, and the effort of erecting the canvas was too much for the increasingly exhausted men. Winter hadn’t changed clothes in days, and her undershirt was stiff with dried sweat and chafed her raw where it was tightly bound. Worse, most of the men in the ranks had at least a week’s growth of stubble, since there was no water to spare for menial tasks like shaving, and she was starting to worry that her smooth face would be commented on. Bobby, at least, was young enough that she could still pass for a beardless boy.

Even campfires had grown scarce. What wood there was, gleaned from the pitiful local vegetation or carried on the carts, was reserved for cooking fires. For warmth, the troops had to make do with horse and ox dung, which they now collected and hoarded like gold. It burned well enough, but Winter found the smell cut through even the congealed stink of her own unwashed body, and she hadn’t bothered to kindle a blaze.

The neat lines of the tent city at Fort Valor, much less the barracks at Ashe-Katarion, seemed like a distant dream. Winter lay on her bedroll, with a thin sheet across her middle and her pack for a pillow, amidst a crowd of increasingly ragged men who’d simply thrown down their things wherever they finished their march. The men of the Seventh gave her a bit of extra room, as a nod to her rank. She wished they wouldn’t. It made her feel alone under the great river of stars that blazed overhead. As she stared skyward, the sounds of the camp seemed to fall away around her, leaving only a silence as profound as if she were alone in the world. Her hands clutched the edge of the bedroll to keep from falling up into that vast, endless ocean.

She thought about Jane. The dreams had left her, as though they knew that she had enough to deal with. Or, her traitorous mind supplied, perhaps they’d simply abandoned her in the end. She tried to call Jane’s face to mind, but all she could summon was a pair of green eyes, shining from within like the stars overhead. She remembered the warmth of Jane’s body, sweet and soft, pressed against hers, but all that did was make her feel the cold more keenly. She wrapped the sheet tighter around herself and shivered. How it could be so hot by day and still cold at night Winter never understood.

The crunch of sand beneath a boot made her heart jump wildly in her chest. The colonel had ordered a double line of pickets to defend the encampment, but there were still rumors that the Desoltai could get through, worming their way like shadows across the bare rock or blowing in with the sand. Every morning, they said, men were found dead with a single thin dagger wound to the heart, while all those around them had seen and heard nothing. Winter wasn’t sure she believed it, but she wasn’t sure she didn’t, either.

“Winter?” It was Bobby’s voice, a low whisper, as though she didn’t really want to be heard. “Are you awake?”

Winter sat up. Bobby was visible only as an outline against the stars.

“Sorry,” the corporal said. “I couldn’t get to sleep, and I thought. .”

“It’s all right.” Winter looked up at Bobby, but she couldn’t make out the girl’s expression. “Is something wrong?”

“I don’t know.” Bobby held one arm awkwardly, gripping it with her other hand. “I cut myself earlier today, when we were climbing over those rocks.”

“Badly?” Winter said. “Do you want me to have Graff look at it?”

“No,” Bobby said. “That’s just it. It’s. . gone. When I unwrapped my sleeve to have a look, there was a little blood, but the cut was just gone. It hadn’t been five minutes.”

“Oh.” Winter looked into the darkness toward where Feor was sleeping. The Khandarai girl was invisible, too, huddled miserably under her sheet.

“I looked at it under the lamp,” Bobby went on. “The skin is there, but it looks-odd. Like. .”

“I know,” Winter said hurriedly, not sure who was listening. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “In the morning we’ll ask Feor. She has to know something.”

Bobby nodded miserably. Watching her, silhouetted against the carpet of stars, Winter found herself wondering how she could ever have mistaken her for a man. She was so small, slender-necked and thin-shouldered. With her head bowed and her shoulders hunched, she looked like a little girl trying to hide her tears. She was shaking, Winter realized.

“Bobby?” Winter ventured.

“It’s c-cold,” Bobby said, arms wrapped tight against her chest. “During the day it was so hot I thought I was going to die. How can it be cold?”

Winter shook her head. Then, impulsively, she extended her hand and took the girl by the arm, drawing her closer. Bobby looked up, startled.

“Come on,” Winter said. “Old soldier’s tradition, huddling together for warmth on cold nights. I read that when Farus the Fifth fought the Murnskai, whole companies would pack themselves tight to keep from freezing.” Winter smiled. “I always had trouble picturing that. A hundred big sweaty men, with the ridiculous mustaches they wore in those days-have you seen the paintings? The smell must have been awful.”

Bobby gave a weak chuckle. She folded her legs underneath her and sat on the ground beside Winter’s bedroll, and Winter put an arm around her shoulders.

“Mind you,” Winter said, “I can’t imagine I’m any better off at this point.”

“Me, either,” Bobby whispered. “I think I’d happily kill for a bath.”

“A nice hot bath,” Winter agreed. “Did you ever have bath duty at the Prison?”

Bobby made a face. “All the time. We hated it. Scrubbing all those tiles.”

“After a while I started looking forward to it.” That had been after Jane had initiated her into the joys of not doing as she was told. “I mean, nobody ever checks to see that the tiles are scrubbed, and the doors locked from the inside. I would mix up a big batch of soapy water, for the smell, then just fill one of the tubs and soak for hours.”

“Really?” Bobby giggled. “Did you ever get caught?”

“Not once. Mistress Dahlgren once complimented me on my attention to detail.” Winter squeezed the girl’s shoulder. “Come on, I’ll shove over.”

The bedroll was not really large enough, and Winter let Bobby have most of it, but she didn’t mind. And it was warmer, especially once Winter had twitched the thin blanket over them. Bobby’s body was tense against her, like a taut bowstring, and still shook with occasional shivers. Winter took the girl’s hands in her own and found them ice-cold.

For a long time they lay in silence. Bit by bit, she felt Bobby relax, uncurling like a clenched fist as the shared heat warmed her. Winter let her eyes close, and found herself on the point of drifting off.

I wonder what they’ll say when they find us in the morning. She couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Winter?” Bobby said. “Can I ask you something?”

“Only if I can ask you something, too.”

“Fair enough. You go first.”

“What’s your real name? You know mine.”

There was a pause. “I’ve always been called Bobby,” she said finally. “But it’s short for Rebecca, not Robert. And Forester was my mother’s last name. I never knew my father.”

“Oh. That’s convenient. At the Prison they called me Farusson, but that’s just the family name they give to orphans. I got Ihernglass from a book.”

“It’s a good name,” Bobby said. “Makes you sound soldierly.”

There was another pause.

“You wanted to ask me something?” Winter prompted.

“I just. .” Bobby hesitated. “I wanted to know the truth. About how you escaped. I’ve heard a hundred stories, but none of them sound right.”

“Oh.” Winter swallowed hard. “That’s a bit of a long story.”

Bobby wriggled, pressing against Winter a little tighter. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“I don’t. .” Winter trailed off, leaving a gaping silence. She felt a little tension return to Bobby’s shoulders.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” the girl said.

Winter blew out a long breath. “It’s not that. It’s just that I’ve never told anyone.”

“Of course not,” Bobby said. “Who else would understand?”

That was true, Winter reflected. She was unlikely ever to meet another graduate of Mrs. Wilmore’s peculiar institution. She certainly never intended to return there. But forcing herself to speak still took an immense act of will, as though she were stripping off a final layer of armor in the face of enemy fire.

“There was a girl,” she said, “named Jane. She was brought to the Prison when I was fourteen, or maybe fifteen, I don’t remember. At the time I was-well, not a model prisoner, but not far from it. When I first saw her-”

“How long had you been there?” Bobby interrupted.

“Since before I could remember. I couldn’t have been more than six when I arrived.”

“How wayward could you have been at six?”

“They throw little girls in there when their parents have been bad,” Winter said darkly. “I assume my father was a criminal of some sort. Or my mother, I suppose.”

“I see.” Bobby shifted against Winter’s side. “All right. You met a girl named Jane.”

“We didn’t get along at first.” Winter smiled, invisible in the darkness. “She was a hellion. Tried to escape three times in the first month, and the third time she bit one of the mistresses. Mrs. Wilmore whipped half the skin off her back for that. God only knows how I got to be friends with her.” Winter could barely remember how it had happened. She and Jane had come together like a pair of magnets, propelled by some strange internal forces. “But I did. We were. . close.”

There was a pause. Winter swallowed.

“Do you know what happens to girls from the Prison when they get too old?” she said, after a moment.

“If they’re reformed enough, they get married,” Bobby said. “Or else they get sent off to Murnsk to take holy orders.”

“Married,” Winter said, pronouncing the word with distaste. “That’s one way of putting it. Do you know how that actually happens?”

Bobby shook her head, her smooth cheek pressed against Winter’s shoulder.

“When some farmer out in the country needs a new wife for himself or one of his sons, and doesn’t want to go to all the bother of courting a girl, he sends a letter to Mrs. Wilmore. She writes him back with the. . the stockbook, who’s ready for marriage and each girl’s disposition, and the farmer chooses the girl he likes as if she were a side of beef in a market stall. Then he comes and picks her up.”

“Oh.” Bobby was quiet for a moment. “What if the girl says no?”

“She doesn’t have a choice. The Prison is a royal institution, which means that we’re all nominally wards of the king. Until we’re of age he can give away our hands to whoever he likes. Not that most of the girls would think of saying no,” Winter added bitterly. “Most of them look forward to it.”

Another pause. Winter cleared her throat.

“In any case. Jane was a year older than me, and a man named Ganhide decided she would be ideal. He was a real brute, bigger than Folsom and meaner than Davis. When we heard about it, Jane and I decided we had to run away.”

Jane had tried to run away before, of course. It wasn’t really very hard to get out, but the problem was staying out. Everyone within a hundred miles knew Mrs. Wilmore, and that she paid a bounty on runaways. And even if a girl could get to the city, without a proper identity all she could ever be was a thief or a whore, and that would land her right back at Mrs. Wilmore’s, or worse.

Winter took a deep breath. “Jane came up with a plan to run away and stay away. She was always the one with the plans.

“Only Mrs. Wilmore was one step ahead this time. They knew Jane would try something, so they locked her up. It took me ages to find out where they were keeping her, but I managed to get to an outside window. It was behind the old building, you know, with all the brambles?” Winter shook her head. “I tore my dress half to pieces.”

“I once chased a fox in there,” Bobby said. “I lost a shoe and never did find it again.”

“Jane had a plan,” Winter went on, “as usual. She told me how to sneak in through the kitchens, and where she thought the proctors would be. And she told me”-Winter’s throat grew tight-“to pick up a knife, one of the big ones, while I was there.”

“Why?”

“In case I ran into Ganhide. He was due in that evening, you see. There was a rumor going around that Mrs. Wilmore had promised him his ‘wedding night.’ The other girls were laughing about it.” Winter’s hands clenched into fists. “I told her that if I found him, I’d. .”

“Take the knife,” Jane said, as though instructing a friend in how to carve a roast. “Put the point of it about here”-she raised her head and put a finger on her throat, just under her chin-“and press in, upward, as hard as you can.”

“What happened?” Bobby said.

“I found the knives in a locked cabinet, but I broke it open with the back of a ladle. It wasn’t hard getting into the main building after dark. There were hardly any lights, just a candle here and there so the proctors wouldn’t break their necks when they did their night rounds. Jane had gotten nearly everything right, except-”

“Ganhide was there?” Bobby said in a strangled squeak.

Winter nodded. “Right in front of her room. He must have only just arrived. He was trying to unlock the door. I think he was drunk. When I saw him, I must have made a noise, because he turned around. He was right there, right in front of me, stumbling and half-blind in the dark. It was like he was offering me his throat, and all I had to do was reach up. .”

Winter’s fingers had gone very tight on Bobby’s arm. It must have been uncomfortable, but the girl made no complaint.

“I couldn’t do it,” Winter said, after a long silence. Her eyes were closed, but she could feel the tears leaking through. “I just couldn’t. I’ve thought about that moment a thousand times since then. I couldn’t bring myself to kill a man, a brute who was going to take my best friend and. .” She swallowed. “And then I came here, and since then I’ve killed God only knows how many people just because they were fighting on the wrong side, people who probably had families and children who cared more about them than anyone ever did about Ganhide. It doesn’t make any goddamned sense.”

There was another, longer pause. Bobby, finally stirring from her silence, whispered, “What actually happened?”

“What?” Winter blinked away tears. “Oh. I dropped the knife, and it clattered on the floor and I got scared and ran for it. He didn’t get a good look at me, so nobody ever found out. But the next day he took Jane off and I never saw her again. I couldn’t even watch when they led her out of the building. I just hid in my bed and cried.”

“That’s horrible.”

“I thought so at the time.” Winter closed her eyes again. “But it was nothing out of the ordinary, really. I mean, there are hundreds of girls in the Prison, and most of them go on to marry someone. They probably all have. . friends who are broken up when they leave.” In the darkness behind her eyelids, two points of green light stared at her. Can you be haunted by someone who isn’t dead?

• • •

They lay in silence for another interval. Eventually, Winter cleared her throat. “Sorry. That’s not really the story of how I escaped, is it?”

“You don’t have to go on if you don’t want to.”

“To be honest, the rest of it isn’t much to tell. Jane and I had planned everything, and a couple of friends of mine helped out. I put together a knapsack, climbed the fence, and spent two very hungry weeks walking through fields and stealing food where I could. Eventually I got to Mielle, where I knew the sergeants recruiting for Khandarai service sometimes came. I made myself up as a boy so I could work on the docks, and made a little money. When the sergeant did come by, I told him I’d run away from my father because he was a drunk, and gave him everything I had to take me on without proper papers. I nearly got caught on the crossing, but-”

“Shh,” Bobby hissed.

She rolled over, and suddenly they were face-to-face, only inches apart. For a single frozen moment, Winter thought Bobby was going to kiss her. Her protest froze in her throat.

The corporal sat up, tossing the sheet aside.

“I heard someone moving,” she said.

“Someone getting up to take a piss,” Winter mumbled, still slightly in shock. “Or have the Desoltai finally come to slit our throats?”

“Feor,” Bobby said. “Where’s Feor?”

Winter rolled over herself. The other bedroll was empty. She looked up, and just caught sight of a slim figure moving cautiously through the tangle of sleeping men. Winter surged to her feet, kicking the blanket off, and swore viciously. Then, with Bobby just behind her, she set off in pursuit.

• • •

“She can’t have gone this way,” Bobby said. “The sentries would have stopped her.”

“We’d have seen her if she doubled back,” Winter said. They’d lost sight of the Khandarai girl as they’d approached the edge of the fitfully lit camp. Feor moved easily over the sandy ground and past the sleeping soldiers with more grace than Winter would have given her credit for. “Besides, the sentries will be looking out, not in.”

“But there’s nowhere to go!” Bobby said. “It’s just rocks and sand.”

“God only knows what she’s thinking, but we’d better find her. The guards will probably shoot her if she tries to get back in.”

With more confidence than she felt, Winter walked through the ring of empty ground that separated the camp from the ring of guards. No doubt it would have been possible to slip between the sentries, as Feor apparently had, but she preferred not to risk it. Creeping around outside the sentry ring was a good way to draw a shot in the back. Instead she picked out the closest guard and headed in his direction, calling out when she judged he was in easy earshot.

“Coming out!” she told him. The man, a soldier from Captain Roston’s Fourth Battalion, turned around with a belligerent glare. This faded when he got a good look at Winter. After the incident in the barracks at Ashe-Katarion, she’d made a point of having the lieutenant’s stripe sewn onto her uniform. The sentry saluted stiffly.

“Sir!” he said. “I’m sorry, sir, but my instructions are that no one is to leave the camp.”

“Good man,” Winter said, trying to bluster. “That’s the problem, in fact. One of mine has gone wandering off this way. Have you seen him?”

“Seen him? No, sir. No one has gone through.”

“We’ll just be going out to have a look for him,” Winter said.

The guard hesitated. By the slump of his shoulders, he was nearing the end of a long shift, and wanted nothing more than to seek a few hours’ sleep in his bedroll before morning. Still, orders were orders.

“You must be mistaken, sir. Respectfully. If he’d come this way, I would have seen, and-”

“He might not have come past your patch,” Winter said, trying to let the man off the hook.

“But my orders-”

Bobby spoke up. “So you let the lieutenant through, and make sure to note it in your report.”

The sentry sagged, apparently satisfied with this compromise. “Yessir. Be careful, sir. Plenty of Desoltai crawling around out there.”

“Thank you. We won’t be going far.” I hope.

When they’d passed beyond the ring of sentries, Winter risked a smile at Bobby. “Thanks. Has anyone ever told you that you’d make a good sergeant?”

Bobby patted her stomach. “Haven’t got the gut for it, sir. As I understand it, a sergeant’s got to be able to drink any man in the company under the table.”

Winter laughed. As they hiked on, though, her smile faded. Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, and the brilliant march of stars overhead provided at least a modicum of light, but the landscape was still a mass of looming rocks and deep shadow.

“We’ll never find her in this,” she said. “If she’s gone to ground somewhere. .”

Bobby pointed to a rock outcropping a few hundred feet ahead. “Up there. We should be able to get a good view.”

“Right.” They started walking again. “Do you think there really are Desoltai out here?”

“Could be, sir. We know they watch us pretty closely.”

“Are you armed?”

Bobby was silent for a moment, as though she hadn’t considered that point until now. “No, sir.”

Winter grimaced. She hadn’t even thought to snatch up her belt knife. For a moment she wished she’d been a little slower to follow, or had paused to round up Graff and a few reliable men. There was no helping it now, though.

“Best to stay quiet, then,” she whispered. Bobby nodded.

By the time they reached the crest of the little mound of rocks, Winter was surprised to find that she could see quite a distance. Away from the torches and low-burning fires of the camp, the cold brilliance of the stars seemed to fill the world, and they drew gleams from the rocks and painted the sand blue-white. She hoisted herself up onto a low boulder and scanned slowly in a circle, looking for movement.

“Anything?” Bobby hissed.

“I’m not sure.” Winter blinked as something caught her eye. She scrambled down again and pointed. “Look over there.”

Bobby followed her finger. Another hill, a good half mile off, was a looming black shape against the skyline. The corporal started to ask something, but Winter waved her into silence, waiting. Then light blossomed again, very briefly. A flash of orange-yellow, campfire light, looking like a firefly at this distance. It flickered once, twice, then again after a short pause, and then went dark.

“That looked almost like musket fire,” Bobby said.

“No,” Winter said. “We’d have heard the shots by now. Besides, musket fire is a bit pinker.”

“Think it’s the Desoltai?”

“It has to be. They’ve probably got their campfires screened off somehow.” It sounded like a desert nomad trick. “They’re a long way off, thank God.”

“Not that far,” Bobby said. She peered into the darkness. “There’s a little hill over that way. I bet they’re on top of it.”

Winter squinted, but she couldn’t make anything out through the shadows. “You’ve got good eyes.”

“Not really,” Bobby said. “I’ve always-” She paused, and stiffened. “There’s someone out there. Heading for the Desoltai.”

“So they really are spying on us at night?”

“I don’t think so,” Bobby said. “A Desoltai would be mounted, wouldn’t he?”

“Probably.” Winter glanced at Bobby in alarm. “You don’t think-Beast’s Balls, of course it’s her. Come on.”

Bobby fell behind briefly as Winter scrambled down the rocky slope, moving dangerously fast in the dim light, but quickly caught up when she reached the bottom and started running across the sandy ground.

“What the hell does she think she’s doing?” the corporal managed, as she drew alongside.

Winter grimaced. “I think I’m getting the idea.”

• • •

She’d started running on pure instinct, without any kind of a plan other than a vague hope that she might intercept Feor before the girl reached the hill. It quickly became apparent that this was not going to happen. By the time she and Bobby had crossed the flat ground between the two promontories, Feor-even Winter could see her now, a moving shape against the larger darkness-had started clambering up the slope toward the spot where they’d seen the light. Winter cupped her hands to call out, then thought better of it and kept running.

They were only twenty yards away when a patch of shadow unfolded from the lee of a boulder and took hold of Feor by her still-splinted arm, hauling her off her feet. The Khandarai girl’s scream was piercingly loud in the nighttime stillness, and even the Desoltai was momentarily surprised, letting her go and dropping his hands to his weapons.

Winter covered the last few yards at a dead sprint and threw herself at the nomad in a shoulder-first tackle, bowling him off his feet. She’d hoped he’d crack his head on a rock, but no such luck. He grabbed her arms and started to roll her over before they’d stopped moving. Winter slammed her elbows into his ribs, twisting to try to get the leverage to bring her knee up into his crotch. Anything to keep him off balance, so he wouldn’t realize he was fighting a girl half his weight. The Desoltai was good, though, squirming out from underneath her and wrenching her into a half crouch with her arms pinioned at her sides. She got a glimpse of a fierce, bearded face, eyes wild in the starlight, before his forehead met hers with a sound like billiard balls colliding at speed. Stars of brilliant pain exploded behind her eyes, and her stomach filled with bile. For a moment her vision narrowed to thin tunnels.

Bobby, coming up behind the nomad, was short on technique but long on momentum. She swung her heavy army-issue boot into the side of his head as though she were punting a handball, and Winter felt his hands spasm and let go of her arms. She collapsed to the side helplessly, her head still throbbing with violent pain. It took all her strength not to vomit. From behind her there was a brief further sound of a scuffle, and then silence.

A timeless interval of agony passed, during which Winter found herself looking forward to the Desoltai coming over to slit her throat. Eventually she heard someone calling her name, as though through thick cotton earplugs. She rolled over, fighting another wave of nausea, and saw Bobby’s silhouette against the stars.

“Winter? Sir? Can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” Winter croaked. “I’m. . I’m okay.”

That was a bald-faced lie, but she felt obliged to tell it. Her hands came up to explore her face and found it surprisingly intact. The nomad’s head butt had been slightly off target, or else it would surely have broken her nose. Her right eye was already puffy to the touch.

“Where’d he go?” she managed.

“Dead,” Bobby said. “And Feor’s okay.”

Winter sat up.

The Desoltai was indeed sprawled motionless nearby. The hilt of a long knife, presumably his own, stuck up from his throat, just above his collarbone. Nearby sat Feor, huddled protectively around her injured arm.

“We have to get out of here,” Winter said. She grabbed Bobby’s outstretched hand, and between them they managed to get her to her feet. “Everyone for a mile around heard that scream.”

Bobby glanced at Feor. “I’m not sure she’ll walk, sir.”

“Then we’ll fucking carry her.” Pain still throbbed in Winter’s temples, and she could barely open one eye. “Come on.”

The Khandarai girl didn’t look up as they approached. Bobby prodded her shoulder cautiously, and got no response.

“What was she thinking, coming all the way out here?” Bobby looked up at Winter. “Was she trying to go over to the Desoltai? I thought they were going to kill her.”

“They would. Which, I think, is what she wants.” Winter switched to Khandarai. “Stand up.”

“No.” Feor’s voice was tiny. “Leave me.”

“I told you to stand up!”

When she didn’t obey, Winter nodded to Bobby and they hauled Feor to her feet. She hung between them, limp as a rag doll.

“I don’t understand,” Bobby said. “You think she wants-”

“To die,” Winter spat. “Just as her Mother ordered.”

“Oh.” Bobby was silent a moment. “If she’s going to kill herself. .”

“She can’t kill herself.” Winter gave a vicious chuckle. “Suicide is a terrible sin by Khandarai lights. But she can try to get herself killed.”

“Just leave me here,” Feor whispered. “If the Desoltai do not return, it will not be long before the desert takes me.”

“The hell I will,” Winter said in Khandarai. “I need you. We need to know what’s happening to Bobby.” She paused for a moment, then continued in a softer tone. “Besides. Your brother gave you your life back, didn’t he? Are you going to throw that away?”

“I. .” Feor choked back a sob. “He should not have done that. It was not proper.”

“Who cares what’s proper? You’re really ready to roll over and die just because some old woman told you to?”

“She is our Mother,” Feor said. “We sahl-irusk would not live at all, except by her grace. She provided us with our lives, our purpose. We owe her everything.”

“Just because she gave you a place to live doesn’t mean she owns you.”

“It’s more than that.” Feor shook her head. “You are Vordanai. I do not expect you to understand.”

Winter nearly spat at her. “That’s right. I’m just a barbarian, and I’ve given my word I’ll take care of you. Now am I going to have to drag you back to camp, or are you going to walk?”

Feor climbed shakily to her feet. “I will walk.”

“Good.” Winter turned to Bobby, who’d watched uncomprehendingly throughout the argument. “She’s coming. Let’s-”

She was interrupted by the shattering bang of a pistol at close range. Winter ducked, instinctively but uselessly, and heard the whine of the ball going wide. The shot had come from up the slope, but the flash had ruined her night vision, and all she could see against the starlight was two dark shadows charging down the hill. More obvious was the glitter of the faint illumination on drawn steel.

“Die, raschem!”

The lead man closed with a shout, headed for Feor. He charged right past Bobby, and Winter realized that the Desoltai must be as near-blind as she was. The corporal bulled into the raider as he passed, pushing him sideways off his feet. She managed to get her hands around his wrist, keeping his sword out of the way, but he grabbed her shoulder and pulled her down to meet a vicious knee to the stomach. Bobby grunted but hung on.

Winter, meanwhile, blinked away the afterimages of the single shot and dove for the spot where the corpse of their first assailant lay. He had a sword at his belt, too, and after a panicked second of scrabbling she wrenched it free. The second Desoltai had closed in on Bobby, his own sword drawn, but he was wary of striking his comrade. He reached out with his free hand and grabbed the corporal by the back of the collar, wrenching her free and tossing her roughly to the ground.

That left the first raider stumbling backward, off balance, and Winter surged to her feet and went after him. He barely saw her coming in time to bring his blade around in a desperate attempt to parry, but Winter threw the whole weight of her body behind the thrust, wielding the curved Desoltai weapon like a lance. It struck the raider high in the chest and sank half a foot of steel in him, and he went down without a sound. His own weapon dropped from nerveless fingers, and Winter abandoned hers and snatched it up.

She looked up in time to see Bobby on her feet again, backing away from the other Desoltai. He advanced cautiously, burdened by some kind of heavy leather pack, but when he finally understood that she was unarmed he charged. Bobby tried a feint to one side, then dove the other way, but the raider followed with a swordsman’s grace and intercepted her with a vicious overhand slash. The girl hit the ground with a spray of blood.

Winter wanted to scream, but she didn’t have the breath. She came up fast behind the Desoltai. His pack blocked her from a straight thrust into his back, so she went low, swinging two-handed for his legs. The weighted Desoltai blade bit deep, and the force of the blow snapped the bone and took the leg out from under him. He fell on his face with a muffled shriek, sword spinning away. Winter wrenched her blade free and circled him, lining up carefully on the back of his neck, and chopped down hard. The blade bit deep and refused to budge, and so she let go and took a step back while the man’s convulsive throes subsided.

“Shit,” she said, when she had enough breath to speak aloud. Then, louder, “Shit.” She skirted the dead man and hurried to where Bobby had fallen.

She lay on her stomach, surrounded by a dark stain on the dusty ground. Winter knelt and rolled her over, already dreading what she would see. The heavy downward cut had opened her from collarbone to navel, and the tattered edges of her torn uniform fluttered loose, already soaked in gore.

But, underneath the blood, there was something else. Light was seeping out, a soft white glow tinted with aquamarine, all along the cut. It spread as Winter watched, as though Bobby had starlight in her veins instead of blood. Mild at first, it swelled quickly to an actinic glare almost too bright to look at, then began to fade. Bobby twitched, arching her back, fingers scrabbling in the bloody sand; then she drew a long breath and let it out, and her body went limp. The breath caught in Winter’s throat for a moment, but the girl’s breathing was slow and regular, and the flow of blood had stopped entirely.

“Obv-scar-iot.” Winter hadn’t heard Feor approach, but the girl spoke from just behind her shoulder. “She truly has become the Guardian. I did not think. .”

She trailed off. Winter tore a piece from Bobby’s shirt and mopped carefully at the blood, until she could see the flesh beneath. Somehow she knew what she would find. Where the Desoltai weapon had done its vicious work, the flesh was now whole, the skin unbroken, but with the color and glittering black specks of marble.

“She’ll be all right?” Winter asked Feor. When the girl nodded, Winter let out a shaky breath. “Will she wake up soon?”

“I do not know.” Feor frowned. “She is no servant of our gods. I thought that the spell would reject her, in the end. But now. .”

Another sound, rolling across the plain, drew Winter’s attention away. It was like distant thunder, or the skirl of a company full of drummers barely brushing their instruments. She turned to look back toward the campfires of the Vordanai encampment and found that the night was alive with tiny flashes. They were white, tinged with pink, and she could already see columns of smoke rising against the stars.

“You see?” she said, to no one in particular. “That is musket fire.”