Eventually she turned and walked back to where her company slept. She'd return her father's cloak in the morning.

Grinsa jal Arriet had never imagined that he would return in disgrace to the sept of E'Menua, the Fal'Borna a'laq who had made him and his family captives of the Qirsi clan. He and the men with whom he had journeyed-two Eandi merchants and Q'Daer, a young Fal'Borna Weaver of the sept-had been sent to find a Mettai witch and defeat the curse she had created, which was spreading across the land, killing Qirsi and destroying their villages. Upon completing these tasks, Grinsa, his wife, Cresenne ja Terba, and their young daughter, Bryntelle, would be free to leave. And the Eandi merchants, Jasha Ziffel and Torgan Plye, who had been condemned to die for having sold cursed Mettai baskets to the Fal'Borna, would be spared and released.

Grinsa was a Weaver himself, a Qirsi who wielded all varieties of magic, and who could bind the magic of many Qirsi into a single powerful weapon. Against great odds, he had survived a war in the Forelands, where he'd spent most of his life, and had defeated a renegade Weaver who sought to conquer the Eandi realms of that land. He had saved the life of an Eandi noble falsely accused of murder. He was not at all accustomed to failure.

But he and the rest of his company had failed miserably in this undertaking. Yes, the witch, a woman named Lici, had been killed, but not by them. Rather, it had been her own Mettai companions, Besh and Sirj, who had defeated her. Besh had also found a way to overcome the woman's curse, only barely in time to save Grinsa's life and Q'Daer's. But Jasha was dead, killed by Torgan. And Torgan had escaped with a scrap of cursed Mettai basket that might still be used to sicken unsuspecting Qirsi.

At this point, Grinsa had little hope that E'Menua would allow him and his family to go free, particularly now that war had come to the plain.

He and the others-Q'Daer, Besh, and Sirj-were still several leagues from the sept, and they were making poor progress southward. Grinsa remained weak from the plague that had nearly killed him. Q'Daer had been sicker than he, and was still suffering as well. And Besh, though spry for his age, was old to be braving the cold winds of the late Harvest.

As soon as they received word that an Eandi army was gathering on the eastern bank of the Silverwater, and that a Mettai force was marching with them, Grinsa had encouraged Besh and Sirj to leave Fal'Borna lands. They had been declared friends of the Fal'Borna by another a'laq, but the Qirsi of the plain were fierce warriors and showed little mercy for their enemies. That declaration would mean little now.

But Besh had insisted that they remain and help other Qirsi combat the plague that Lici had loosed upon the land. And Grinsa had his doubts as to whether the two Mettai could reach the safety of Eandi territory without being found and killed by the Fal'Borna. For better or worse, their fates were now tied to his.

The four of them said little as they rode, Grinsa and Q'Daer on horseback, Besh and Sirj on the cart that had once belonged to Lici. Besh had a blanket about his shoulders. Q'Daer sat wrapped in a rilda skin, and Grinsa wore a woolen riding cloak he had brought from the Forelands. He pulled it tighter now, as another gust of cold wind made the grasses bow and dance. Only Sirj seemed immune to the elements.

"It must be good to be young and never feel the cold," Besh said, as if reading Grinsa's thoughts.

Grinsa glanced their way. Both men were looking at him, wearing grins. "I wouldn't remember," Grinsa said. "It's been too long."

Besh laughed. "If you're old, Forelander, then what am I?"

Q'Daer looked back at the rest of them, a frown on his youthful, square face, but he didn't say anything and a moment later he faced forward again.

Grinsa would have preferred to steer his mount to Besh and Sirj's cart and ride alongside them for a while. But it seemed that something was bothering the Fal'Borna Weaver. He spurred his horse to catch up with Q'Daer.

"You seem troubled," he said, pulling abreast of the man.

"They're slowing us down," Q'Daer said, staring straight ahead.

"This pace is best for all of us. You and I are just a few days removed from having almost died. We're lucky to be riding at all."

"We could go faster."

"I'm not sure-"

"We could ride faster," the man said, turning to face him. His pale yellow eyes looked almost white. "We could take short rests, but more of them. They're slowing us down, Forelander. And we need to get back to the sept."

Grinsa could have argued the point further, but he'd learned that reason rarely worked in discussions with Q'Daer. He was too young, too stubborn, too much a Fal'Borna. Better simply to get to the point.

"What would you suggest?"

"They should leave, go hack to their own land."

"You know how dangerous that would be for them. We owe them our lives, and I think it's up to us to protect them until it's safe for them to return to their homes."

"They won't be welcomed in the sept. The Mettai have made themselves enemies of the Fal'Borna. They should leave us now, while they can."

"The time for that has passed," Grinsa said. "They chose to remain with us so that they could protect the Fal'Borna from Lici's plague. We've no choice now but to guard them, be it from other Fal'Borna or from E'Menua himself."

Q'Daer twisted his mouth sourly, but after a moment he appeared to acquiesce. "Then we should abandon their cart and have them ride. That at least would be quicker. We have Jasha's horse still. They can ride together, or one of them can ride with us."

Grinsa didn't think that Besh and Sirj would like this idea. He hadn't seen either of them on a horse, and from what he knew of the Mettai they didn't seem to be riders. More to the point, they might well object to leaving Lici's cart. By all rights it was theirs now, as was the horse pulling it.

"What about their animal?"

The young Weaver glanced back at the cart horse and frowned, as if he hadn't thought of this. The Fal'Borna revered horses. Q'Daer would have been more reluctant to put the beast in peril than to endanger the two men.

"She'll be able to keep up without that cart behind her," he said. "We won't be able to go as fast as I'd like, but it would still be an improvement."

"All right," Grinsa said, the words coming out as a sigh. For all the time that Torgan and Jasha had been with them, he had served as intermediary between the Fal'Borna and the merchants. Torgan and the young Weaver had hated each other, and more than once Grinsa probably had kept Q'Daer from killing the one-eyed merchant, something he'd since come to regret. Now he found himself caught between Q'Daer and the Mettai. "I'll speak with them. Maybe they can have Torgan's cart or Jasha's, assuming that the a'laq hasn't burned them yet."

"Yes, maybe."

Grinsa turned his mount once more and rode back to the Mettai. Both men eyed him with curiosity as he approached and fell in beside them. "What's wrong?" Besh asked.

"Q'Daer thinks we're going too slowly, and he…"

"He thinks we're slowing you down," Besh said.

Grinsa nodded. "I'm not sure I agree with him. I'm still weak from Lici's plague. I don't know how much faster I can ride."

Besh stared ahead at the Fal'Borna, the expression on his round face revealing little. "What's his solution to this?"

"He wants you to leave your cart here. One or both of you can ride Jasha's horse, or ride with one of us."

"You want us to ride?" Sirj asked. The younger Mettai rarely said much, and when he did it was usually to the point and insightful. Grinsa couldn't remember hearing him sound this unsure of himself.