have spread, so it was best to be cautious.
'Krokes and snakes, too, I suppose,' joked Joss. 'Best to be cautious.'
They chuckled. Krokes and snakes fled fire; they'd have departed for cooler waters. Still, they tested their ground and eyed eddying waters, just in case; he followed in their wake, careful to step exactly where they had also set their feet. They waited for him to catch up, then forged forward again. Forgi might warble like a bird; Ussoken might point, and Forgi would confirm with a nod, but whatever they acknowledged remained invisible to Joss. Once he glimpsed a ripple in a dark channel of water, but since the scouts ignored it, he assumed it was not dangerous.
Soon, they fell silent, and he asked no more questions. Every seed and dry leaf he brushed against adhered to his skin; although they came across no open swaths of fire, soot ran in streaks on his bare arms and powdered his leathers. A tiny five-pointed leaf fledged with hairlike spines stuck to his hands, and when he tried to wipe it away it left an inflamed patch of red. Forgi and Ussoken showed no sign of discomfort, although they too were smeared with ash.
Sloughs of water turned to isolated pools. Pine trees rose on dry islets. They were coming to the mainland. Abruptly, Joss realized he'd lost sight of Ussoken. A birdcall trilled within the trees. Forgi gestured for Joss to stand still. A muddy pool densely grown with reeds opened to one side, leaves from drooping branches skimming the surface of the water. Forgi moved sideways and, with a wicked big knife in hand, adjusted his body until it seemed he was part of the forest, almost fading before Joss's eyes.
The heavy foliage drowned distant sounds. They might have been alone in all the wide world.
Forgi let out a screech as he sprang toward the muddy shore
of the pool. A figure Joss had not perceived rose out of the reeds, lifting a bow, but before the arrow could be launched Ussoken reared up behind the man. He grabbed the enemy scout's hair and yanked his head back, slit his throat so deep the head folded backward as the body convulsed. Ussoken shoved the body away and got out of the pool as it thrashed, a sure signal to wandering krokes. They moved on quickly, passing another freshly slain body, killed in a similar fashion. Flies swarmed on the open gash, their hum deafening. Eihi!
Yet Joss had seen worse things as a reeve. He knew what violence folk were capable of.
The ground began to rise and the foliage thinned, but now there were more thorns and entire thickets of those nasty five-pointed leaves. On the wind shuddered a drumbeat, a repetitive rhythm: five quick taps, three slow, five quick taps, two slow and a pause. Joss was glad to get the swamp out from under his feet but the scouts grew anxious, dropping to their bellies to crawl up a slope. Joss bellied up after them, arms red and scratched, although his leathers protected the rest of him.
'Whsst!' Forgi dragged Joss under cover of branches swollen with a profusion of yellow bells. The ground gave way, and Joss rolled onto his back, staring up through leaves and flowers. Sunlight flashed overhead, but wasn't it still morning?
Aui! A cloak circled over the camp as if he'd just come from scouting. His cloak glittered with the strength of the sun's fierce golden blaze. Forgi tapped his arm, but Joss kept staring, trying to follow the Guardian's path. How had this Guardian crossed into the shadows? What choice had he made? Must it happen in time to every Guardian?
Yet the Lady of Beasts had only said that one among the Guardians would betray her comrades. If Marit's story was true, Atiratu's prophecy had already come to pass, and an outlander would save them.
The drums beat, accelerating their punch, as Anji marched his army closer to battle. An answering clamor of drums rose like a challenge.
A man coughed. 'Hsst! There he is!'
A spear jostled the branches. The hells! While he'd been lying here dreaming, a cadre of enemy scouts had rolled up and over the crest. Forgi was gone.
Joss spun sideways under the thicket and sprang up on the far
side. Thorns ripped at him as he forced a way through brambles, leading with his baton. An arrow thwacked into stout vines. Others passed over his head as he bolted for the swamp.
'Got him!' A figure bowled into him, throwing them both to the ground.
Joss rolled up first, planting the length of the baton along the side of the man's head. He scrambled back as he shoved his baton into its leash and drew his short sword. The cursed enemy had gotten between him and the tangle of the swamp forest. He backed up the slope toward the crest. They were driving him into their encampment.
'Capture the reeve alive!' a man called, although Joss could not see him. 'Lord Radas wants all reeves brought to him.'
That gave him one advantage, then. He leaped to the left, stabbing, and the soldier he probed at stumbled aside, caught himself on his spear, and lunged. Joss skipped back, to stand backed up to the thorny bramble. A man was cutting through the vines. Upslope, men advanced. Aui! Eight — neh — nine men. A burly man wearing a sergeant's badge stepped into view.
'No use fighting us. That'll only get you killed. Come along with us, and you'll not be harmed.'
Joss laughed. 'Can you truly say so and expect me to believe it? Lord Radas's army has been killing reeves for twenty years, as I have reason to know. Even if you take me to him alive, so he can interrogate me, how can you expect me to believe he'll allow me to live afterward?'
The sergeant shrugged. 'Agree to serve him, and he might let you live.'
'We could use some cursed reeve scouts,' shouted the man who'd knocked him over, wiping blood from his nose. 'It's like we're cursed blind!'
'Enough!' The sergeant cut off a murmur of agreement with his roar. He raised his sword. 'Surrender. Or we'll kill you now. It's really that easy a choice.'
'It's never that easy a choice, ver. I've been a reeve for a long time. Folk may say things are simple, but they rarely are. Let me assure you of that. Better you let me go, or better yet, follow me into the swamp and save your own lives before this battle finds you all dead.'
'This battle?'
They laughed heartily.
The sergeant nodded magnanimously at him. He was a reasonable man, his nod suggested, and reasonable men listened to each other. 'You lot from Nessumara are on your last legs. The lord commander says so. You may have won a respite with your fires, but you've got thin forces on the ground. We've scouts who've told us you've got a cohort riding up the causeway, but when your militia hits our shields, they'll be crushed. And we've got two cohorts marching up from Saltow to join us, and another come in yesterday from over the river. It'll be all over for you lot in another day. We'll rule the north. So decide if you want to be among the winners or the losers. Tell you what, friend. I'll meet you in a fair fight, no weapons. I toss you, you come quietly. You toss me, you come quietly.'
The men laughed.
Joss had a hells lot of experience as a reeve dragging out a tense confrontation until help arrived. You never knew when an extra mouthful of time might mean the difference between success and failure.
'I'll gladly spar with a big man like you, someone up to my weight. But I have to warn you, if I win, I'll have to arrest you all.'
They were laughing, relaxing, because he seemed relaxed. Because he knew how to joke; he had the power of a glib tongue and a charming smile that worked equally well on men as on women. He unbuckled his gear, set his knife down next to his baton, and waited, hands at his sides, as the sergeant handed his weapons to a soldier. The big man approached, hands raised, bobbing a little, ready to take a punch.
Joss danced back, pretending to throw a punch or two, keeping his distance as the soldiers jeered and called him names. Dared him to close in. But he waited. And waited. For the flicker of the eyes, the moment when the other man's attention wavered. He ducked in and shifted sideways, got the man's beefy arm around and then up behind him, fingers back until the pain drove the big man to his knees with a shriek of surprised pain. He jammed his knee into his back and shoved him forward into the ground as the soldiers hesitated. They knew the law of fighting. There were a lot of awful things a man might do, but to violate that law seemed extreme. The sergeant slapped a hand on the dirt twice.
Joss had him. Now what in the hells was he going to do, with eight men brandishing spears and swords ready to stick him from all sides?
