"I'll expect a report, Legate Taudit," the commander said.

Legate Taudit nodded crisply. She was a dry, reserved, uncommunicative individual, impossible to get to know. "You'll get one. Trouble in our region. Marshal wants all of us back, to be one group to face it. We're leaving now, while there's still an afternoon's flying to be had. The heavens are clear. No telling when the rains will start getting hard. We'll send a report when we can." She made brusque courtesies, opened and closed the door, and was gone.

"I must leave, too," said Garrard. He gazed at the blank door, the unadorned walls, the quiet room, the commander, and the other four legates. His fingers tapped his knees, making him seem quite nervous. "I am sick in my heart," he added, more softly. "There are shadows everywhere, and I am blind. I can't see through this to a time of peace and order."

"What of your halls?" the commander asked, looking at the other three legates: Iron Hall, Gold Hall, and Bronze Hall.

The proper strength of a reeve hall was six hundred eagles and six hundred reeves, but no hall was ever at full strength. By tradition, each sent a small contingent together with a legate to Clan Hall, switched out at intervals. Eagles departed for months or, in rare cases, years to breed in the unclimbable and vast wilderness of the Heaven's Ridge mountain range, where their nesting territories lay. Reeves too old to fly regular patrol must be accommodated. Old eagles died, and fledglings needed training and the long process of accommodation to the presence of other eagles in overlapping patrol territories. New reeves must train as well, a laborious process in its own right. Eagles must recover from injury, molting, disease. When its reeve died, an eagle would fly off, and none could predict when it would return to choose a new reeve-or if it would return at all.

No hall ever stood at full strength, not even now when full strength was so badly needed. Yet even at full strength, they would not have been able to do everything that was now needed.

"We're holding," said Bronze Hall's legate. "We've had little trouble in Mar, I must tell you. But we hear rumors. We're patrolling the coast and our borders, and keeping our eyes fixed. For now, we need not recall our contingent that's here in Clan Hall." She smiled at Joss. She was a twelve-year younger than he was, another Ox. Two years ago, when she'd first come, they'd spent a lot of time together in bed and out before parting amicably at her request.

Gold Hall's legate shook his head. His hair was cropped almost to the skull, in the style of the delvings, although he himself was human, a short, thin man who was much stronger than he looked. "Beyond the borderlands of the Arro Mountains we have trouble. Within the mountains, none dare threaten us. Zosteria lies at peace, for the moment, but there have been incidents along the coast and in the hills. Half of Herelia was under our watch and we don't fly there now, so we know how the worst can spread. We remain vigilant. Nothing has changed since my last report."

Iron Hall's legate was a man who, like Joss, had been made legate to get him out of the hall, in his case-so rumor had it-away from the friction of personal relationships gone sour. "I've had my orders. Iron Hall will keep a half contingent here, but the rest have to go back."

"Why?" asked the commander.

"Because they're needed at Iron Hall! You're not the only ones with trouble! We've lost reeves to transfer, or to death. Even a pair who went missing and never returned, them and their eagles both, yet we have had sightings, and we don't think they're dead. Just… fled, more like. Run away. Cowards. There's strange goings afoot up on the plateau, although we've had no particular trouble in Teriayne yet. Some trouble in the upper reaches of High Haldia. Outlaw bands thieving and causing other trouble. The worst of it is bands of young men traveling from one place to another, scrambling in groups out of Heaven's Ridge and vanishing up into the plateau, or back again, not whisper or shout to be heard from after. You can't bring a man to trial who's done nothing but walk along the roads seeking work, not if he's caused no trouble and had no complaint brought against him. So-that's that. That's my orders, and my report."

"Very well," said the commander. "Copper Hall has recalled five of its reeves but leaves me the rest. That leaves Clan Hall with-" Like most of those who had served their apprentice year as clerks in one of the temples dedicated to Sapanasu, the Lantern, she could calculate on the page. She freed a scrap of paper from an untidy stack on her table, turned it over to the rough side, and brushed marks to calculate numbers departing, numbers staying, and, it seemed, a few stray reeves actually being sent to Clan Hall.

"Under strength," she said. "We'll be able to fill out only three flights, including our retired and our fledgling reeves."

"Don't look at me!" cried Iron Hall's legate. "It isn't my fault!"

But of course she wasn't looking at him. She was looking into the unknown, gauging risk, danger, certainty, the angle of the wind, the timbre of the air.

"I do fear," she said, looking at each legate in turn, "that we are not yet facing the worst. Oh no. This is only the beginning."

" PLEASANT OF HER to say so," said Peddo that evening at the Pig's Bladder after Joss recounted the whole of the meeting.

"You saw nothing unexpected on your escort duty?" Joss asked.

"Eiya! I did indeed. I saw a farmer who had the handsomest chest I have ever done seen, I will admit to you."

"You're drunk."

"He rejected me! I need more wine to drown my sorrow. Whoop! Look there!"

A trio of young men with the brawny shoulders and flat caps of the firefighting brigade pushed into the room.

"Can't you ever stop?" Joss asked.

The serving lass brought a pitcher, and poured a new round for the two reeves.

"You're new here," said Joss with a smile, admiring her fresh youth, her lithe body, her light bearing and pretty eyes.

"So I am, Uncle," she said, shifting herself just out of range of his hands, not that he was moving a finger.

Peddo snickered, miming an elderly man leaning on a cane.

"Where's Mada?" Joss asked the girl, feeling stung.

She settled the pitcher on her hip, took a good, long look at the young firefighters, then returned her attention politely to Joss. Exactly the way a well-brought-up girl would tactfully oblige a garrulous but boring old uncle.

"You didn't hear? Her parents made a good bargain. She's getting a legal contract, marriage to a lad out of Wolf Quarter, although they won't be living there naturally. His aunts and uncle are in the building trade, roofers. She'll join the business. It's a good bargain for her. If you know her, you might have seen him around. Nothing splendid to look at, I'll grant you, but decent enough, and a good business to work in. That's worth a lot more than looks."

She went on awhile in this vein while Peddo ogled the firefighters, and Joss sipped at his drink. In honor of the young year, the cordial had been flavored with the dried and crumbled petals of baby's-delight, which made it ever sweeter. Too sweet, really. In the last few days, since he'd crawled through the ruins of River's Bend, he'd lost his craving. The smell of stew bubbling wafted in from the inner court, melding with the eye-watering smoke of pipes, and he blinked back a tear. After a while, the young men called to her, and she sashayed over, a little too obviously, swinging those hips as though to smash errant chairs out of her path. Whew.

"There was one thing, though," said Peddo, staring with sudden interest into his empty cup. "I spotted areas that were trampled, as though a company had camped there. But cursed if I ever saw any such groups roaming. Jabi would see things off in the distance, beyond my sight, but by the time we got there-and he's fast, you know how fast he is-there'd be nothing to see. But cover to be had, if you take my meaning. Once I surprised four lads, who were hiding from me in the scrub. Jabi flushed them out, could see them moving, and they got nervous and tried to bolt. But they were only laborers, out looking for work. It puzzled me. I felt there was always something going on just out of my range of vision."