The trail was familiar from the day before, but much slower now. She was drained, physically and emotionally, the urgency was past, and the trail was mostly uphill. In late afternoon they were still short of Laurel Notch.

It was Tomm's responsibility to keep alert, thus she'd let her mind wander. She imagined him dead and her slipping through the gate at Ferny Cove. And finding Curtis: She visualized it happening at the farm in Indiana. He'd be overjoyed. They'd hug and cry and kiss, then run together into the house and make love, and the terrible months in the Tiger barracks would be forgotten.

For now, though, Tomm padded a few strides behind her. He hadn't tied her hands, for which she was grateful. Probably he would when they stopped to sleep. She'd been walking slowly, and so far he hadn't hurried her. He was tired too.

Tall clouds had built and a wind had risen, swooshing the trees overhead, and she considered suggesting they look for shelter. Thinking about that, she missed the sound of the arrow that struck Tomm. Then men were all around. Tomm, a feathered shaft protruding from his chest, tried to stand, and one of them raised his sword to finish him. Varia screamed, and lunged reflexively to stop it, but strong hands grabbed and held her. The blade chopped down, taking Tomm through the back, and she screamed again. Then her knees buckled, but whoever held her, kept her upright.

"You're all right," another said. "You're safe now."

She looked around to see who'd spoken. A tall man… No, a tall ylf, his eyes tilted like hers but blue, his skin fair, his hair raven black. His eyes and coloring and magician's aura all gave him away: an ylf, though he stood before her in the fringed and greasy buckskins of a fur hunter. "We know who he was, and who you are. A tomttu told us. He was afraid for you, the tracker was so close behind."

Safe now? Did he mean it? Hope surged. "Am I free then? Free to go?"

He looked long at her without answering. "Free of him," he said at last. "Free of those you fled from."

"Not truly free then? Just new captors?"

"There are things we need to learn from you."

"I heard how you questioned my Sisters at Ferny Cove." Her words were little more than a hoarse whisper now. "When your army raped sixty of them repeatedly before you killed them. In front of the people there."

"No," he said quietly. "Not the army."

"Who then?" The question was defiant.

His expression was bleak. "The Kormehri. Men and boys of the town. Farmers of the district."

"You lie!"

He shook his head. "General Quaie ordered it. The original plan had been to capture all the Sisters and their children, or as nearly all as might be, and bring them to the Empire. Unharmed so far as possible. But your magic was more powerful than we'd supposed, and most escaped. So those we caught-" He paused, took a deep breath. "Those we caught, Quaie required the local men to rape publicly. Even the dogs that afterward destroyed the victims were war dogs of King Vertorus. They'd been useless against us, against our magic. Now Quaie made his own use of them. The story would spread, Quaie said, and no one in the Rude Lands would ever regard the Sisterhood as they had before. They'd see a Sister and remember them humiliated, raped by a line of men like themselves, their magic broken. Then torn-even eaten-by dogs.

"He didn't even bring one home to question. Said it was needless. Pointless. That the Sisterhood was finished, and the lesson of Ferny Cove was best taught his way."

The ylf's face had twisted as if the words were bitter in his mouth. He stopped, breathed, stabilized. "That was Quaie's reasoning," he went on, "and to some degree it worked as he'd said. But the business was vile, and on our return, the Emperor dismissed him, both from command and from his seat on the council." He shrugged. "And as the story spread, it has harmed us everywhere. As I warned Quaie it would when he gave the orders."

Varia stared. "You were there!"

He nodded. "I was there."

She looked around and saw six others. Except for the leader, they were men. Or no-half-ylver who could pass for men. Six that she could see; there might be others. Her voice became little more than a whisper. "What will you do with me?"

He looked down at her from his six-feet-four, and shook his head. "Not that. Nothing like that, I promise you. But we have to take you with us. To be questioned."

"Take me where?"

"To our own country. The Empire."

Again her tears sprang silently. Truly there could be no more hope.

Tomm's cloak was taken from his pack, and put over Varia with its storm hood up to conceal her telltale Sister's face. Then bronze manacles were put on her wrists, manacles with a twelve-inch chain that allowed some use of her hands. Meanwhile the storm had begun, flashing and booming, but the rain passed in a minute, a spattering of large cold drops with wind and a smell of ozone, to blow off northeastward. Then her captors set her on one of their spare horses and started northward. They would travel by night now, albeit the nights were short in that season.

Varia scarcely noticed. Her mind was numb. On their brief stops, she neither ate nor drank. Finally, as dawn paled, they left the trail, set sentries and cooked. A military camp, for despite their clothing, these were soldiers. One of them led Varia a little distance off, gave her cloth and a pan with water, to use after relieving herself, removed her manacles and left her in privacy. After a bit he reappeared and took her to the others. She accepted food-a thick, honey-sweetened corn meal mush, and cheese-and drank from a cup that was offered. There was more in it than water or brandy-some potion-and she fell quickly asleep.

They rested through the day, ate again as the sun set, and moved on. Before dawn they'd passed the first farms. Meanwhile she'd grown more alert, and begun thinking of escape. To her it was obvious that their leader had set a spell to help them ride unnoticed. Not an invisibility spell-that wasn't practical for a traveling party-but a spell that made them easy to ignore, to pay no attention to. It would hardly cover an uproar though. Perhaps, she thought, she could make an outcry, screaming and struggling, when they passed through some town, or met some large party of travelers.

But the two villages they passed through that night were tiny and fast asleep, too small to waste what would undoubtedly be a single chance. Nor did they pass any travelers. And as if her captors knew her thoughts, the next evening she was gagged before they broke camp. Apologetically it's true, complete with explanation, and not brutally as Idri had gagged her, but still firmly gagged. She glared as the leader tied it.

In camp she was left ungagged and mostly unchained, but somewhat segregated from most of the party. One of the half-ylver had been assigned as her guard and companion. His name was Caerith, and when they camped, he talked to her. By the third day her reserve had softened, and his occasional brief monologs had become limited, intermittent conversations. This had been a reconnaissance party, she learned, sent to explore the territory where reportedly the Sisterhood had relocated. Not that there was any intention to make war, he insisted. For one thing, the new location was in a dwarf kingdom. This had been simply a matter of intelligence-gathering. What they'd do with such intelligence, Caerith didn't know.

After the third day, with the country increasingly peopled, they turned to one of the pack horses and replaced their buckskins with more civilized travel clothing. Oddly, there was even a set which more or less fitted Varia, though she continued to wear Tomm's too-large cloak for concealment.

They continued to travel only by night. Varia knew the pole star, and saw that their road took them more northwestward than north. Ferny Cove was northwesterly. Each time she thought of it, she felt a pang of desperation. Thus, in camp after the fifth day, she went to the leader.