were no longer protected behind walls, the garrisons retreated back south and east without even putting up token resistance.
This place, however, would prove a harder nut to crack.
Below Lan, tucked into a flat space about halfway down the mountain, was what had begun its life as a robber-baron's stronghold. Built stoutly of stone, kept even safer within high stone walls, it must have taken a very clever plan to capture it in the past. Subsequently, it had become a farm; mainly raising sheep, goats, and mountain ponies. Then the Karsites took it for themselves, and it became the platform from which they could prevent any passage through the pass below.
'Look, yon,' Wulaf said, pointing at the largest building in the complex, with a round, squat construction beside it. 'That war yon barn an silo, an' reckon they hain't took out fodder an' th' like, nan?'
'Huh. Hay burns,' Lan replied, shading his eyes to get a better view. 'And their main gate is wood. I can take that out, and leave them without a way to keep attackers out.'
'Aye that,' Wulaf agreed. 'Reckon ye burn all what hain't stone, they canna stay. Burn gate, food, beddin', clothes.... Start wi' barn, belike, an' silo.'
Lan narrowed his eyes, held tightly to the dragon's bonds with both mental hands, and allowed it to wake—a very little.
He projected the power past the slate roof of the round towerlike silo, sending a little spark into it to find tinder.
He sensed it catch.
Then the mountainside beneath him shook with a deafening roar!
The mountain trembled; he and Wulaf clung to their rocky perch and stared at each other; Wulaf s pony locked his legs in place but screamed with fear, tossing his blunt head upward, his eyes wild beneath his shaggy brindled forelock. Beneath them, a fountain of rock, dust, and snow blew out in an extravagant plume from the spot where the farm had been.
'Get cover!' Wulaf shouted, far quicker of wit than Lan; he and his pony scrambled back beneath the safety of an overhang, while Lan and Kalira followed—and just in time, as a rain of rocks, some half the size of the pony, plummeted down on the mountaintop. For a few moments, all they could do was cower as boulders crashed all around them, chipping ice and rock from their protection, landing nearly at their feet. Every time one crashed near them, the rock under their feet vibrated.
When the last pebble ticked down, a heavy silence descended. The haze of dust hanging over everything made Lan cough.
'Wha' the de'il hoppened?' Wulaf asked rhetorically, and sneezed, his eyes as round and big as prize whortleberries.
'I—don't know,' Lan said, who had heard him only through a ringing noise in his ears. He made his way to the edge of the precipice on his hands and knees, testing each step before he took it, and looked down.
The fortress was gone. Where it had been was a tumble of rock shaken down from the mountain above it, a tumble that continued down the side of the mountain and into the valley, seen imperfectly through a thick cloud of dust. Lan's jaw dropped; Wulaf appeared beside him, and whistled.
'Way-ell. That be a nest'a snakes we hain't to handle,' Wulaf said, with a studied air of disinterest.
But Lan could only think that once again, the dragon had feasted on blood, for no one in that fortress could have escaped.
They found their way down the mountain with some difficulty; in many places the path was blocked by boulders or small landslides and they had to backtrack to find another route. When they finally reached the scouts, however, they found that the mood was one of elation—and there was no question
'It was a farm, you see?' Diera said as Lan and Wulaf waited for someone to enlighten them. 'You must have ignited the grain dust in the silo.'
Lan's complete bafflement prompted more of an explanation. 'The dust from grain—powdered chaff, pulverized grain, bits of straw—can build up in a silo. And the silage at the bottom can ferment and give off fumes, too—sometimes farm workers drink the stuff to get drunk. Set a spark to
'Oh,' was all that Lan could think of to say. 'Were there any captives in there? Women? Children?'
'Probably not,' Diera replied, dismissively. 'And even if there were, all you did was set a spark to what would have gone off eventually anyway. Anyone poking around with a lamp, a candle, or a torch would have done the same, and they were obviously too ignorant to prevent it from happening.'
Lan didn't answer; instead, he turned to Kalira for comfort. He was doing that more and more as the days passed, going into a wordless communion with her whenever he was troubled. Somehow she managed to make him feel that his guilt was no greater than anyone else's, and that he must go on, for the greater good of everyone in Valdemar. He found reassurance in her that he could not extract from anyone or anything else, and a bond of love that was beyond anything he had ever dreamed of. It was not that she loved him unconditionally, it was that she knew the very worst of him and loved him despite that knowledge.
One of the scouts rode back to tell the rest of the army that the way was clear; the rest of the scouts pitched camp where they were, for there could be no safer place to spend the night than one where they had cleared they enemy out beyond question.
Lan went about his chores mechanically, most of his attention bound up in Kalira. Not surprisingly, he was in charge of the fire, and he and Tuck had the task of gathering wood and water. The scouts did not use tents, so a fire was all the more important to their camp; they camped rough, often supplementing their dried rations with game hunted as they moved.
A wind sprang up above them and carried the dust away in a long, trailing plume, but nothing could hide the ugly scar down the mountainside. Lan was grateful for the evergreen trees, for their thickly needled branches hid that scar from him.
When he brought back the first load of wood, he added it to what Tuck had brought and the others had
