"How do you know so much about him?" Macurdy asked.

"We traveled together now and then," Kithro said. "I used to go from place to place making fine boots. And when you travel together and stay in inns together, you talk a lot. He and I got pretty close. I've made boots for him and his servants-traded them for books."

Macurdy nodded thoughtfully, not as tired as he had been. When his visitors were done, they left. By then the smell of smudge fires filled the camp, mosquitoes being out in force for the first time that spring. He'd killed several on his face and neck already, and decided to try a spell Arbel had taught him-one he hadn't had a chance to use before: creating a repellent field to keep them away. Briefly, as he muttered the formula, his hands moved, weaving something unseen.

It worked; the mosquitoes stayed too far away to hear. As he lay waiting for sleep, Macurdy thought about what Kithro had told him. He'd planned to get together with the commander of the other group anyway; now it seemed he had someone besides Wolf who could vouch for him.

A few hours later he awoke, slapping and scratching. The field had worn off. He wove another and fell asleep again, but the bites he'd already gotten still itched, troubling his dreams.

Macurdy spent another day helping the company get started in its new training mode. To his surprise, Melody was sharing a tent with the woman who'd changed from sex slave to recruit. He somehow found that gratifying; he'd expected her to be sharing one with Jeremid. Macurdy, he told himself, that's a lousy attitude. If she was with Jeremid, they'd both be happy.

On the next day, leaving Jeremid in charge, he left to meet Wollerda, accompanied by Kithro, Wolf, and Yxhaft Vorelsson Rich Lode. He'd chosen them to make a good impression: Kithro was Wollerda's old friend, and Wolf one of his rebels, and surely he'd respect the dwarves. Recommendations, Macurdy felt, would be important; he was a foreigner with his front teeth missing or broken, and a face that Melody told him still showed the pale green and yellow of old bruises.

A brawler, that's what I look like, he told himself. Another thug like Orthal.

The day had dawned to rain, not hard, but steady and cold, and they didn't talk much as they rode. Blue Wing had started out with them, but was seldom in evidence, flying high, and perhaps from time to time, far. Occasionally checking on their whereabouts though, Macurdy hoped, for the new leaves were almost full-flushed now. Men riding in forest would be harder to spot from the air without a good idea of where to look.

They rode north awhile, then stopped at a small village where Kithro spoke to several older men, opinion leaders instead of potential recruits, telling them about Macurdy's Company. One called a son in, a well-built lad who Macurdy guessed at seventeen. Yes the boy was interested. He'd have joined up sooner, except his father disapproved of Orthal.

"Who do you know that can take us to the Saw Pit Road?" Kithro asked.

"I can," the youth answered. "I've ridden and hunted all through these hills with my friends. We know every creek and trail."

"That far east?"

"Sure. We hit it last fall, after a troll raided a farm over above Berol's Run. A bunch of us spent more than a week hunting him."

"Did you get him?"

"Nah. Struck his tracks a couple times though, his or some other's the same size. Seems like he was just traveling through, instead of moving in. Maybe went on east to the Granite Range. It's really wild over there; no farms at all."

Kithro nodded to Macurdy. "Well, then," Macurdy said, "if you want to join us, get your rain cape and bow, and wrap something to eat. Your first job is to guide us to the Saw Pit Road."

The lad scrambled. In ten minutes he was saddling his horse. Then they set out more or less eastward through rugged hills, picking their way along trails some of which were little better than game trails. Here and there, a tree had been blazed with esoteric marks that meant something to the hillsmen, but nothing at all to Macurdy. Twice the boy swore and they backtracked a ways, but they had no real difficulty. It occurred to Macurdy that he himself had only a vague notion of how to find his way back, if it came to that.

The rain stopped late the first afternoon, so they didn't have to camp in it.

Soon after sunup on the third day, they reached the Saw Pit Road, an actual road with the tracks of wagons and carts. Kithro said it crossed over into the Big River drainage to the north, but they turned south. Now it was Wolf who took the lead. By late morning, the creek beside the road had grown considerably, and the draw it cut had become a narrow valley, with clustered farms. At one of these they left the road, riding eastward on a wide, well-beaten trail. Blue Wing came down then, calling to Macurdy, and they stopped to wait. There were men ahead, he said, "waiting with bows, in a place where many trees have been cut down."

Wolf nodded. "The commander had trees felled to block the woods," he said. "Any king's men can only come in on the trail. Men will stop us when we come to it, and ask questions, but there'll be other men watching us before we ever reach the woods."

They rode on. Shortly the trail left the cleared land, entering another forested draw. After a quarter mile, they saw abatises ahead, one on either side of the trail, presumably extending to the steep slopes that flanked the draw.

Macurdy had never seen or heard of an abatis before. Many trees had been chopped down, to lie on top of or diagonally across one another, their tops pointing more or less westward toward possible intruders. No one could ride through them. Even walking would be impossible, he told himself, for anything much bigger than a weasel. Anyone riding through the draw would have to keep to the trail, which could be defended by a handful of spearmen backed by archery.

When they reached the abatises, two men stepped out from behind trees; one of them ordered the travelers to halt. He talked with Wolf, whom he recognized, and got Kithro's name, then sent the second man trotting on foot up the road. A minute or so later, Macurdy could hear the dull thud of hooves ahead, galloping off eastward.

Half an hour later, a dozen well-armed men arrived on horseback, to escort and more or less enclose Macurdy's party. Six in front and six behind, herding them farther down the trail. They're organized all right, Macurdy thought, and trained, by the way they do things.

Less than a mile farther on the draw widened, and they entered an oblong basin. Three or four hundred acres had been cleared for pasture, some of it planted now to corn and potatoes, the rest a drill field. The grassy look of the surrounding woods told of livestock pasturing there, too. The rebel camp was at the near end, eight longhouses, and more under construction. Wollerda occupied an old log cabin, which served as both headquarters and living quarters.

The commander himself stood in front of it, waiting for them, and as they approached, Macurdy recognized him-the man who'd eaten with them once at an inn, and asked Tossi about dwarf swords. He was medium-sized and maybe forty years old, Macurdy guessed, and fit-looking, though not as physically hard as the escort he'd sent.

Wollerda recognized him, too, but it was Kithro he gave his attention too, pumping his hand as the two exchanged good-natured queries and comments. Now Kithro half turned, looking at Macurdy. "Pavo," he said, "I've brought someone I think you'll be glad to meet: Curtis Macurdy. He's taken over Orthal's band. We call it Macurdy's Company now."

Macurdy and Wollerda stepped up to one another and shook hands, Wollerda examining him. "Macurdy and I have run into one another before," he said to Kithro, then spoke to Macurdy. "How did you get rid of Orthal? From what I've heard, he wasn't someone who'd step down."