thoughtful gaze, while the one with the roundest face had a markedly reddish-brown complexion. The one with pretty eyes and regular features kept glancing at Avisha in the way men had when they were thinking more of their strut than their manners. Not that these men need have manners. They carried weapons.
'Are you hunting down the outlaws?' she asked.
'Yes. We hunt them and we kill them.'
'Good!'
'Perhaps these are the ones who kill your husband?'
Grief caught her unexpectedly. Tears blurred her vision. 'Or ones like them.'
Three eagles glided past, and one turned in a great loop that took it out of sight over the trees before it dropped back and came to earth with a thump on the path, just where the eagle that had saved them had first landed. A reeve unfastened from the harness and picked his way down the muddy path. He looked over Nallo, Avisha, and the children, shaking his head as he halted beside the soldier.
'What have you found, Tohon?' he asked.
'Maybe these strong young women will agree to be wives to the Qin soldiers.'
'It seems you saved them from a gruesome fate. That might persuade them, if your charms can't.' The reeve was a good-looking
man, with handsome features and a sympathetic expression as he nodded by way of acknowledging her. 'I'm called Joss. I'm a reeve out of Argent Hall. You and your sister and the little ones look like you've been traveling for a while. That can't be good, not in these days.'
'It was an eagle killed most of those soldiers, not these men,' said Nallo irritably. 'I'd think that you being a reeve, you'd have seen it at once.'
'Would you? Aui! I am found out as a man with little wit and less observational skills.' But his smile took the sting out of the words, and anyway he seemed at ease laughing at himself. He seemed at ease, despite the brutal nature of his task, scouting for soldiers on the hunt for outlaws so they could kill them. If she hadn't recognized the men who were on the run as similar in dress and look to those who had overrun the village, she wouldn't have known who to distrust most. 'Listen, verea. We haven't much time, for as you can see we've urgent work at hand hunting down this army of outlaws. We can leave you on the road and let you go your way, or we can direct you to a sheltered spot where you can wait for the Olo'osson militia to escort you to a place of safety.'
'Does that include the offer of marriage?'
He looked at Tohon and laughed again. 'Are you making that offer to every woman you meet on the road?'
'No harm in asking,' said the other man. 'The young men will want wives. A man isn't complete without a woman. Nor can he fill his tent with children, and what is a man after all without children?'
'He might be something like me,' said the reeve without heat, 'so I think your point is well taken. What will it be, verea?'
Belatedly, Nallo realized that Reeve Joss was surely only a little younger than her husband, only he did not seem old as her husband always did. She said, 'I'm called Nallo. This is my husband's daughter, Avisha, and her brother and sister. My husband's dead.'
'Yes, I suppose he is. I'm sorry to hear it. Where are you from?'
'I'm born and raised in the Soha Hills. But the village where we lived lies along West Track, or it did, anyway, before it was burned down and half the folk murdered.'
None of these words surprised him. 'I've heard this tale too often.'
'Best we be moving.' Tohon sheathed his sword and gave Nallo a wink. 'These are good young men. They have discipline. They will treat you in the proper manner, with respect.' He fastened his helmet on his head, mounted, and called the advance. The young man with the pretty eyes raised a hand, in a parting gesture to Avisha, then followed the others up the path on the trail of the fleeing army.
'What do you mean to do?' asked the reeve.
'I would marry,' said Avisha suddenly. 'If they meant it. If they would take the little ones in, and raise them as their own. What other hope do I have?'
'Eiya! Don't go leaping before you've looked.'
'Are you saying they're not looking for wives?' asked Avisha desperately. 'Maybe they need a marriage portion. No matter what Nallo says, we have nothing and no hope for anything except to walk until we're starving and willing to sell ourselves into slavery. Or until we're caught on the road and raped and cut open and left like refuse in the brush.'
'It doesn't have to end that way. They're as good men as any others. Tohon meant what he said. There's two hundred or more, all looking for wives. They're far from home and hoping to make new homes here in the Hundred. Just… you're a pretty girl, and you're still young. If you'll trust me, and wait in the shelter I've promised, I'll see you get escorted to Olossi. There, you can see what the Qin will offer you to make a marriage with one of them. Just don't go making a bargain before you've seen the goods.'
Avisha began to cry. Nallo fumed, thinking of how the girl had boxed them in with her thoughtless words. To say differently now would sound heartless, not that she didn't have a lot of experience with being called heartless. The hells! Avisha was right. They had no better prospects in Sohayil or Sund, if they could even walk that far with outlaws everywhere.
'How long have you been on the road?' the reeve asked Nallo.
'I don't know. Fifteen or twenty days.'
He sighed. 'We're not just hunting outlaw soldiers. We also have a commission from the temple of Ushara by Olossi. We're looking for a man and a woman, a brother and sister as it happens, who cheated the temple. We're hoping to bring them back to face the I Iieros.'
She examined her dirty feet, caked with wet slop over dried mud over dirt, layers on layers, like deceit. She owed those two nothing. Then she happened to look over to see Avisha staring at her, lips pressed together to urge her to keep her mouth shut.
Nallo had never felt much allegiance to the gods because the gods had never been particularly kind to her, and because most of their priests were buffoons. Even the Thunderer's ordinands she'd spent her year's apprenticeship with had been self-important imbeciles, or tiresome bullies, or bored slackards going through the motions. Only the Merciless One had shown her kindness. She'd been welcomed into the arms of Ushara, the Merciless One, at her temple in Old Cross. Many a youth went there at the age of choosing, wearing a necklace of flowers, and was sweetly introduced to the embrace of the goddess. She held those tender memories close. She owed a debt to the Merciless One.
'We saw them down at Candra Crossing.'
'Nallo! How could you!'
He glanced at Avisha, curious at her outburst.
Nallo continued. 'They did us a good turn, helped us across the ford with the little ones. Otherwise we might not have made it. We didn't realize they were runaway slaves until after we had crossed.'
'How did you find out?'
'I overheard them talking. So they went their way, and we went ours. They must be days ahead of us. They had horses.'
'Many refugees walk the roads in troubled times.'
'He had the debt mark by his eye. Her name was Zubaidit.'
His eyes flared. Then he smiled. 'That's right. They were traveling on this track?'
'They walked the road out of Candra Crossing that leads into the Soha Hills. We walked that road for a few days, but I thought it would be safer to stay away from the main road.'
'You were right to do so. These outlaws are running scared. They've attacked villages and done worse.'
'Then we'd be foolish to keep traveling rather than taking an offer of shelter. The outlanders you're hunting with, they can't possibly kill all the outlaws, can they?'
'No.'
No decision she made now could possibly be a good decision, only the least bad decision. Although the reeve glanced now and again at the sky, and at his eagle, he otherwise showed no sign he was impatient to go. 'How do we know we can trust you?'
He winced, just a little, and laughed, just a little. 'Once, you would have trusted me simply because I was a
