Exile's Honor

toward the oncoming horde, and after an initial reaction of alarm, several of the children recognized her, and dropped the bundles they were carrying to race toward her, cheering as they went.

:Kantor—:

:I've told them,: Kantor replied joyfully. :They're putting on some speed.:

By the time Alberich and Kantor got to the front of the mob, Laika was engulfed in children, all babbling in that strange polyglot tongue she had told him about. He remembered what else she had told him as they rode on the way—that these poor children were starved for adult attention, that she used to tell them stories, and had made herself a kind of extended grandmother to a great many of them. The dry, bare bones of her narrative did not prepare him for seeing this, and he felt his eyes stinging with tears. At least he had had his mother, lonely though his childhood had been—

He felt a tugging at his sleeve, and looked down at a little girl who had the features of one of his own hill folk. 'Aunty Laika says you were of the people of the Sunlord,' the child whispered in Karsite, peering up at him hopefully. 'And that you are of the White Riders of the Ghost-Horses now—'

'I am both,' he told her, immediately dropping to the ground to put his eyes on a level with hers. 'This is my Ghost-Horse; his name is Kantor.'

:Ghost-Horse? Where did she come up with that? I like that a great deal better than 'White- Demon' or 'Hellhorse,': Kantor said, lowering his nose to touch the hand she stretched out to him.

'Have you really come to take us somewhere safe?' she asked, as he marveled that a child of Karse should ever reach toward a Companion without fear.

'We have—but who told you of all this?' he asked, trying to make sense of the puzzle. 'Who told you about Ghost-Horses and White Riders?'

If it was Laika, he was going to have a few choice words with her. That sort of story could have gotten her killed and the other three Heralds exposed.

'Oh, it was Kantis, of course,' the child told him blandly, in a tone that put the emphasis on of course. 'Kantis has told us about the White Riders forever, and he promised us that some day they would come and take us where there are always good things to eat and a soft bed to sleep in, and no one would make us walk when we're tired, and that we'd all have a mum and a da, though we'd have to share—'

Before he could ask her who Kantis was, much less where he was and how he had come up with this unlikely tale and convinced them it was going to be true, she caught sight of something past his shoulder, and with a squeal of glee, ran off.

He looked around; what she had seen, and what had set the rest of the children running, was the first lot of Heralds and wagons topping the hill, brushed by the scarlet and gold of sunset. And in a moment, he was nothing more than a rock in a flood of children who found a little more energy in their weary bodies to run. They flowed around him like the largest flock of sheep in the world, faces transmuted by hope—and it was all he could do to hold back his tears.

And of course, faced with this oncoming flood of children screaming, not in fear, but with delight, the Heralds and Healers and teamsters reacted just as any decent human beings would—tumbling out of the seats and off their mounts to open their arms and their hearts, to open the boxes and bags of provisions they had brought, to stuff little hands and mouths with food and drink and toss little bodies into wagons padded with blankets, even as more little bodies were helping even littler ones to climb up as well. They couldn't understand what the children were saying, but they didn't need to know to understand what was needed.

And many of them were smiling with tears in their eyes. How could they not? After leaving that grim scene of battle aftermath behind them, how could they not want to ease their own aching hearts with the warmth of a joyful child?

And it was all sorted out in a remarkably short period of time. Those carts that had been drawn by children were fastened to the backs of the wagons. With the children themselves sharing out the provisions in a generous way that made Alberich marvel, everyone got enough to fill his empty belly. The few camp followers who had come with the children rather than fleeing, burdened with abandoned infants, were provided with seats and clean linens for the babies, and in lieu of milk, sugar-water for them to suck to at least stop their crying and ease their hunger. The last of the teamsters, finding no need for their empty wagons, asked permission to go on under guard and see what they could get out of the abandoned camp. After a moment of thought, Alberich gave his permission—although, with unchildlike forethought, the little ones were all carrying loot in their bundles: whatever was small, valuable, and light.

They gave it up to the Heralds without a second thought, and that pained him. Did they think they would have to pay for their rescue?

'No,' Laika said, when he asked her that. 'No, this is just something that this mysterious Kantis told them to do.'

He relayed that information back to the army via Kantor, along with his recommendation that at least a portion of it be kept in trust for the children themselves. That was all he could do about it, but they seemed far more interested in eating and sleeping than in the jewelry and coins they'd lugged along, so he dismissed it from his