from tearing her captive's throat out and guzzling him dry. She was still in pain, and such a meal would speed her healing.
'Please,' he gasped, 'this is a mistake. I'm on Szass Tam's side.'
'No,' she said. 'You slipped away to betray him to the council. As he knew you would. As he intended.'
'I… I don't understand.'
'Since you were sincere, you were able to win a measure of their trust despite your history of treachery. But now that your task is accomplished, it's time to cement your allegiance where it belongs.'
'I swear by the holy fire, from now on, I truly will be loyal.'
'I know you will.'
'You made too much noise! The monks are surely coming even now!'
'I know that, too. I can hear them. But by the time they arrive, I'll be gone, and you'll explain how an assassin tried to murder you, but you burned the dastard to ash. They'll have no reason to doubt you, as long as you hide the marks on your neck.'
CHAPTER TWO
16–29 Tarsakh, the Year of Blue Fire
The griffon rider came running to tell Bareris that some of the legionnaires were violating the patrol's standing orders. The soldier found his immediate superior in consultation with Aoth.
When the two comrades investigated, they discovered a griffon crouching outside the hut in question. No doubt its master had stationed it there to keep anyone from interfering with the mischief inside. Aoth brandished his spear at the beast and it screeched, lowered its white-feathered aquiline head, and slunk to the side.
Bareris tried the door. It was latched, so he booted it open.
The round dwelling was all one room, with a stove in the center, a loom to one side, and a bed on the far end. Their faces pulped and bloody, a man and a woman sprawled on the rush-strewn earthen floor. Two of the soldiers responsible were holding a sobbing, thrashing girl-Bareris put her age at twelve or thirteen-spread-eagled atop a table. The third was tearing off her clothes.
The door banged against the wall and all three jerked around. Aoth could have simply snapped orders at the men, but he was too angry to settle for mere words. He lunged at one and struck with the butt of his spear. The ash haft cracked against bone and the man fell, tatters of skirt in his hand. The other two released the child and scrambled out of reach.
Aoth took a deep breath. 'You know the rules. No looting except for what an officer gives you permission to confiscate, no beatings, and no rape.'
'But that's provided the rustics are friendly,' said the soldier on the left. 'Provided they cooperate. These didn't.'
'What do you mean?' asked Aoth.
The warrior picked up a clay bowl from the table. Somehow, it remained unspilled and unbroken. The legionnaire overturned it, and a watery brown liquid spattered out.
'The villagers are supposed to give their best hospitality to the zulkirs' troops,' he said. 'Yet this is what they serve us. This slop! Isn't it plain they're holding the good food back?'
Aoth sighed. 'No, idiot, it isn't. Last year's harvest was bad, the winter was long and harsh, and they've barely had time to begin the spring planting. They'll go hungry tomorrow for want of the gruel they offered you tonight.'
The griffon rider blinked. 'Well… I couldn't know, could I? And anyway, I'm almost certain I heard one of them insult the First Princess.'
'Did you now?'
'Besides,' the soldier continued, 'they're just peasants. Just Rashe-' It dawned on him that he might not be taking a wise tactic in light of his commander's suspect ancestry, and the words caught in his throat.
'The two of you,' said Aoth, 'pick up your fellow imbecile and get out of here. I'll deal with you shortly.' They did as instructed, and then Aoth turned to Bareris. 'I trust you know songs to calm this girl, and to ease her parents' hurts.'
'Yes,' Bareris said. He applied the remedies as best he could, even though charms of solace and healing no longer came to him as naturally as they once had.
With the parents back on their feet and the girl huddling in her mother's arms, Aoth offered his apologies and a handful of silver. The father seemed to think the coins were some sort of trap, for he proved reluctant to accept them. Aoth left the money on the table on his way out.
'What's the punishment?' Bareris asked. As the miscreants' immediate superior, he was the one responsible for administering discipline.
'Hang the bastards,' Aoth replied.
'You don't mean that.'
'They deserve it. But you're right. Nymia would string me up if I executed two of her griffon riders just for mistreating a family of farmers, especially on the eve of a major battle. So five lashes each, but not yet. Let them sweat while you and I have a talk.'
'As you wish.' They'd already been talking when the soldier came to fetch them, but Bareris inferred that Aoth had something more private in mind. Sure enough, the war mage led him all the way through the cluster of huts and cottages. The men-at-arms watched as their officers tramped by.
Beyond the farmhouses were fields and pastures, which gave way to rolling grasslands that made up the greater part of Tyraturos. Bareris scrutinized the landscape stretched out beneath the evening sky, still banded with gold where the sun had made its farewell, and charcoal gray high above.
Earlier that day, they'd ascertained that the bulk of Szass Tam's army was marching well to the northwest, and it was unlikely that even the lich's scouts and outriders had strayed this far from the main column. Still, it paid to be cautious.
Aoth led his friend to a pen made of split rails. It held no animals, only a scattering of leprous-looking toadstools. The war mage heaved himself up to sit on the fence, and Bareris climbed up beside him.
'Well,' said Aoth. 'Ten years since I discovered you and Mirror hiking out of the Sunrise Mountains.'
Responding to his name, Mirror wavered into view. Maybe he'd been with them all along. For a moment, the phantom resembled the bard, then Aoth, and then settled into a blurred gray shadow that scarcely possessed a face at all. His presence chilled the air.
Aoth acknowledged the ghost with a nod. 'Ten years since we started fighting Szass Tam.'
'Yes,' Bareris said.
'Have you ever thought it might be time to stop?'
Bareris cocked his head. A strand of hair spilled across his eye and he pushed it up, noticing in passing just how matted and greasy it was. 'I don't know what you mean.'
'A griffon rider could be out of Thay before anyone even realized he'd decided to leave, and then, well, Faerыn's a big place, with plenty of opportunities for a fellow who knows how to cast spells or swing a sword.'
'This is just blather. You'd never abandon your men.'
'We'll invite them to come along. Think how much a foreign prince will pay to employ an entire company of griffon riders.'
'You must be tired if that unpleasantness back in the hut upset you as much as this.'
'It wasn't that. At most, that was the last little weight that finally tipped the scale. Do you ever ask yourself why we're fighting?'
'To destroy Szass Tam, or at least to keep him from making himself overlord.'
'And why is that important, when he has as much right to rule Thay as anyone? When the lords who oppose him are just as untrustworthy and indifferent to anything but their own interests?'
'Because they aren't. Not quite, anyway. Don't you remember? We made up our minds on the subject back in
