barrow, she and her party were doomed. Worse, if they looked closely at Casberry, they’d know for certain she was no child. The three of them would end up with the prisoners they had come to liberate.
The sergeant had only begun to feel among the blankets when he suddenly stepped back, a look of disgust on his ruddy face. He fanned his nose with one hand.
Helbin made a gagging sound, but Zala cooed loudly, “Poor Cassie! Do you need changing?”
“She needs burying!” the corporal replied catching a whiff.
The sergeant gestured vigorously for them to pass. “Go! Pass on, at once!”
Once in the city, Zala wheeled the barrow quickly into a dark alley and whisked away the blanket. Casberry sat up, tugging the bonnet from her head.
“Faw, what did you do?” Zala hissed, as Helbin continued to make retching noises.
“Kender learn many things, wandering the world. For example, a sprig of frogbone root, snapped open, gives off a remarkable stench.” She held up a dry bit of broken twig.
“Throw it away!” Helbin gasped, waving a hand desperately. The queen flicked the offensive root into the gutter.
They shucked their disguises and retrieved their weapons from the barrow. Zala’s cotton undershirt was thin and sleeveless, which felt good after the sweaty confinement of her long dress.
Helbin would have left them at this point, but Zala pulled him up short. He insisted he must go and find other Red Robes.
“No,” she said flatly. “You’ll stay with us until the prisoners are freed.”
Away from the well-patrolled streets just inside the city wall, Caergoth was busy. Refugees and leaderless soldiers prowled the wide lanes seeking diversion. As there weren’t enough taverns to accommodate the flood of newcomers, enterprising residents had set up pushcarts and peddled bread rolls, cold meat pies, and a variety of cheap drinks: raw young wine, cloyingly sweet mead, and fizzy beer. In some of the lesser city squares, where the press was especially thick, Casberry mourned the loss of her frogbone. Its odor would have cleared a path through the throng in no time. Helbin shuddered at the memory of the loathsome stench.
For her part, Zala paid close attention to the people around them. The general mood was one of disgruntlement. The refugees had been driven away from their farms, forges, and shops into a city that had no use for them. They wasted their days drinking, gambling, and fighting. Theft was common, as was Governor Lord Wornoth’s harsh justice. For a first offense, a thief lost a finger. Second offenders lost a hand. Anyone caught a third time lost his head. Many heads decorated the high wall of the citadel.
Soldiers in the crowd were bitter. As Riders of the Great Horde, they were used to sweeping all enemies before them. Now, having been defeated by a swarm of barbarian nomads, they were reduced to cowering inside stone walls. It was no life for a warrior. More than a few times Zala heard Wornoth cursed as a miserable coward. The emperor in far-off Daltigoth had forgotten his loyal hordes, so they rotted in the peasant-choked streets of Caergoth.
Zala and Casberry kept Helbin between them, to be certain the wizard wouldn’t be tempted to use his Mockingbird Cloak to evade them. Casberry sampled a pocket or two on the way, but found the pickings uninteresting. The refugees were as poor as they complained they were.
Luin’s Field was lit by clusters of torches, set around the vast cage complex in its center. Pairs of guards on foot stood watch by each set of torches, while mounted warriors circled the fence. The smaller cage by the temple of Corij, which held the condemned, was better illuminated. In addition to the torches, bonfires burned at each corner. Zala doubted anyone in the cage could sleep with the glare of light and constant noise.
She wondered how they were to get close to the prisoners. Helbin offered to go, but the half-elf quickly vetoed that idea.
“You don’t know my father, or the Dom-shu,” she pointed out.
“I know Miya, wife of Lord Tolandruth.”
An argument threatened, but Casberry put an end to it by giving Zala a shove.
“Get under that cloak, girl, and both of you go!” she hissed, then turned away, melting into the shadows beyond the firelight.
Helbin was slightly taller, so Zala stood in front of him while he drew the Mockingbird Cloak around them. The intimacy inside the cape would have been disturbing had she been sharing it with Tylocost or Lord Tolandruth, but Helbin radiated nothing but indifference.
“Walk very slowly,” he whispered. “The cloth must have time to adapt to its surroundings.”
At a snail’s pace they moved toward the condemned cage. The ensorcelled fabric gradually took on the bloody orange hue of the bonfires. Peeking through the open slit in the front of the cape, Zala saw the dark outlines of sleeping prisoners inside the pen, which smelled worse than she remembered.
When they were near enough, she parted the cloak. As loudly as she dared, Zala called her father’s name.
“Shut up,” said a voice from the mass of unmoving captives.
“I must find Kaeph the Scrivener!”
“He’s here. Keep talking so loudly, and you’ll be in here with him.”
Helbin whispered, “Is that Miya?”
One of the shapeless mounds stirred. It was indeed Miya. Moving slowly, as though languid with sleep, she sat up. Although she acted sleepy, her voice was clear and her ears sharp.
“There are two of you,” she said.
“Yes. We’re here to get you out.”
“Just two of you?”
“No, there are forty kender here, ready to help.”
Miya stiffened. “Forty kender? May the gods have mercy.”
She leaned forward and prodded the figure in front of her. He snorted and woke, grumbling noisily. Miya clapped a hand over his mouth, and hissed, “Quiet, all! Guards!”
A pair of foot soldiers approached. Their hobnailed boots struck in unison as they marched along the length of the cage. Zala drew the edges of the cloak together again. She and Helbin stood motionless.
“…out of beef, they said,” one guard was saying. “So I put my knife to the innkeeper’s throat and told him if he didn’t have beef, he could give us his daughter!” His partner joined him in rough laughter.
The men’s voices drew closer. Zala held her breath and wondered if they would bump right into her.
As the men passed, one brushed lightly against Helbin’s back.
“What was that?” he asked, stopping abruptly.
“What was what?” said his comrade.
“Something touched me.”
Zala flexed her fingers around the grip of her short sword. At close range, she could take both men down, if they weren’t wearing heavy armor.
“There’s nothing here but stinking prisoners. Come on. We’re off duty.”
In spite of his comrade’s urging, the first guard drew his saber and swept the air around him. The flat of the blade struck Helbin in the back. The wizard stumbled forward, throwing Zala against the bars of the cage and out of the cloak’s protection. Instantly she was revealed, and out came her sword.
Both guards shouted, tearing the cloak from Helbin’s back. More soldiers came running in response to their yells.
“So much for being rescued,” said Miya sharply.
“Wait,” Zala hissed. “We’re not done yet.”
The Ergothians quickly ringed the wizard and huntress in a wall of swords and halberds. An officer on horseback demanded Zala lay down her weapon. Instead, she cut the air with her blade. The soldiers started to close in.
Miya and the Dom-shu rushed toward the bars, shouting. The sudden movement distracted the guards. Zala thrust the pommel of her sword through the bars to Miya. “Free yourselves!” she said. “Run, wizard!”
Helbin tried. He got about ten steps before soldiers tackled him, knocking him down on the grimy pavement. Zala proved more elusive. When she felt fingers snag the back of her undershirt, she spun, gripped her pursuer’s arm, and used his own momentum to send him flying. Then she took off in a new direction.
The houses along the eastern side of Luin’s Field had been turned into barracks for hundreds of soldiers. As
