"Aye, go, but keep your cocks out of mischief." Like a lot of people, the Algarvian ran what had been a good joke into the ground. He laughed again, louder than ever. Skarnu smiled. Amatu kept on looking mutinous. The Algarvian cavalrymen dug their knees into their mounts' barrels and flicked the reins. The unicorns trotted on down the road.

"Cocks!" Amatu snarled when the redheads were out of earshot. "I ought to put a curse on theirs."

"Go ahead and try, if you want to waste your time," Skarnu answered. "You're no trained mage, and they're warded against all the little nuisance spells, same as we were. You want to kill a soldier, you have to blaze him or cut him."

That wasn't strictly true. Sacrifice enough men and women- Kaunians from Forthweg, say, or Unkerlanter peasants- and you could power a spell that would kill plenty of soldiers. Skarnu knew as much. He preferred not to think about it.

Amatu's mind traveled along a different ley line, one that ran straight toward the sewers. "The way you talked to those fornicating whoresons, anybody would think you wanted to suck their-"

Skarnu knocked him down. When Amatu surged to his feet, murder blazed in his eyes. He rushed at Skarnu, fists flailing. He had courage. Skarnu had never doubted that. But, as a dragonflier, Amatu had never learned to fight in the hard and ruthless school of ground combat. Skarnu didn't waste time on fisticuffs. He kicked Amatu in the belly instead.

"Oof!" Amatu folded up like a concertina. Skarnu did hit him then, with an uppercut that straightened him again. Amatu had grit. He didn't go down even after that. But he was in no condition to fight anymore. As he stood swaying, Skarnu hit him once more, a blow he could measure carefully. Now Amatu crumpled.

He tried to get up again. Skarnu kicked him in the ribs, not quite hard enough to break them. So he gauged it, anyhow. If he was wrong, he wouldn't lose any sleep over it. Amatu still tried to get up. Skarnu kicked him yet again, rather harder this time. Amatu groaned and flattened out.

Skarnu kicked him once more, for good measure, and got another groan. Then he bent down and took away Amatu's knife. "We're through," he said evenly. "I'm going my way. You find yours. If you come after me from now on, I'll kill you. Have you got that?"

By way of reply, Amatu tried to hook an arm around Skarnu's ankle and bring him down. Skarnu stamped on his hand. Amatu howled like a wolf. When the howl turned into words, he cursed Skarnu as vilely as he could.

"Save it for the Algarvians," Skarnu told him. "You came back across the Strait to fight them, remember? All you've done since you got here was make trouble for everybody else who's fighting them. Now you're on your own. Do whatever you bloody well please."

Amatu answered with a fresh flurry of obscenities. He aimed more of them at Krasta than at Skarnu. Maybe he thought that would make Skarnu angrier. If he did, he was wrong. In Skarnu's mind, he'd been calling his sister worse things than any Amatu came up with ever since he found out she was sleeping with an Algarvian.

"I'm leaving you your silver," Skarnu said when Amatu finally flagged. "As far as I'm concerned, you can buy a rope and hang yourself with it. It's the best thing you could do for the kingdom."

He walked away from Amatu even as the returned exile reviled him again. However much Amatu cursed, though, he didn't get up and come after Skarnu. Maybe he was too battered. Maybe he believed Skarnu's warning. If he did, he was wise, for Skarnu meant every word of it.

When Skarnu went round the bend in the road from which the Algarvian cavalrymen had come, he looked back over his shoulder one last time. Amatu was on his feet by then, but going in the opposite direction, the direction the men on unicornback had taken. Skarnu nodded in somber satisfaction. With any luck at all, he would never see Amatu again.

He also tried to make sure luck wouldn't be the only factor involved. Whenever he came to a crossroads, he went right or left or straight ahead at random. By the time evening approached, he was confident Amatu would have no idea where he was. For that matter, he had no sure idea where he was himself.

A couple of big, rough-coated dogs ran out from a farmhouse and barked at him. His hand went to one of the knives on his belt. He didn't like farm dogs, which would often try to bite strangers. Here, though, they subsided when the farmer came after them and shouted, "Down!"

"Thanks, friend," Skarnu said from the roadway. He glanced at the sun. No, he couldn't go much farther before darkness overtook him. He turned back to the farmer. "Will you let me chop wood or do some other chores for supper and a night in your barn?" He hadn't intended to end up here, nor anywhere very close to here.

The farmer hesitated. Skarnu did his best to look innocent and appealing. A lot of people didn't trust anyone these days. If the fellow said, "No," he'd have to lie up under a tree or wherever else he could find makeshift shelter. But the farmer pointed. "There's the woodpile. There's the axe. Let's see what you can do while the light lasts."

He didn't promise anything. Clever or just tight-fisted? Skarnu wondered. Aloud, he said, "Fair enough," and got to work. By the time the sun went down, he'd turned a lot of lumber into firewood.

"Not bad," the farmer allowed. "You've done it before, I'd wager." He brought Skarnu bread and sausage and plums and a mug of what was obviously home-brewed ale, then said, "You can stay in the barn tonight, too."

"Thanks." Skarnu chopped more wood in the morning, and the farmer fed him again. Never once, though, did Skarnu set eyes on the man's wife and whatever children he had. That saddened him but left him unsurprised. Things worked so these days.

He grimaced. Over by Pavilosta- not so far away- he had a child himself, or would soon. He wondered if he'd ever get to see it.

"Setubal!" the conductor shouted as the ley-line caravan slid into the depot at the heart of Lagoas capital. "All out for Setubal, folks! This is the end of the line."

To Fernao, newly arrived in the great city after months in the wilds of southeastern Kuusamo, that was true in more ways than one. He'd been staring out the window in astonished wonder ever since the caravan began gliding through the outskirts of Setubal. Were there really so many people, so many buildings, in the whole world, let alone in one city? It seemed incredible.

Leaning on his cane and carrying a carpetbag in his other hand, he made his way out of the caravan car. He knew no little pride in managing so well. His bad leg would never be what it had been before he was injured down in the austral continent, but he could use it. Aye, he limped. He would always limp. But he could get around.

Noise smote him like a bursting egg when he got down on the platform. "Powers above!" he muttered. Had Setubal always been like this? It probably had. No, it surely had. He'd lost his immunity to the racket by going away. He wondered how- and how fast- he could get it back. Soon, he hoped.

Through the din, he heard someone calling his name. His head turned this way and that as he tried to spot the man. He looked for someone waving, but half- more than half- the people on the platform were waving.

And then he did spy Brinco, the secretary to the Lagoan Guild of Mages. They fought their way toward each other through the crowd, and clasped each other's wrists in the traditional style of all Algarvic peoples when they finally came face-to-face. "Good to see you moving so well," Brinco said. A grin stretched across his plump face. More often then not, Fernao knew, the jolly fat man was a myth. In Brinco, the clichй lived.