"But if I should…"

Tip threw an arm about his friend. "All right. I promise."

"Good," said Beau.

They sat in morose silence a moment more; then Beau looked up through the leaves at the stars and said, "If by chance I should die, think only this of me: that in some corner of a foreign field in a foreign land is a place that forever will be the Boskydells."

"Oh, Beau, don't say such a thing," said Tipperton. "I'm sure one day you'll be in your beloved Boskydells again."

Beau looked 'round at Tip and sighed. "We can only hope, Tip. We can only hope. -But, say, you're coming too, aren't you? To the Boskydells, that is. There's plenty of need for millers." Tipperton glanced at his lute. "What about bards?"

"Them too, Tip. Them too."

The following morn they set out again northeasterly, aiming for the place where the River Nith plunged over the Great Escarpment and down into the Cauldron, some two hundred eighty miles away in all. Yet they had gone no more than a mile or so than they espied more tendrils of smoke rising into the sky ahead. Beau gasped. "Oh, my, is it another burning town?" "Nay, Beau, these are campfires," replied Loric. "But whether those of friend or foe, that I cannot say." Cautiously they moved forward, though swinging wide to the left, for should it be foe they would need give wide berth and pass beyond.

" Tis foe," hissed Loric.

The camp lay nearly two miles away.

Even so, both Tip and Beau could see the site held men like those who had passed in yesterday's cavalcade.

"Three flags fly," said Phais, "-nay, four: Hyree, Chabba, Kistan, and Modru's ring of fire."

"We must gauge how many are encamped," said Loric. "And take word with us to Wood's-heart."

Beau looked up across at Loric. "Wood's-heart?"

"The Lian strongholt in Darda Galion," replied the Alor.

"But the encampment goes to the other side of the hill," said Tip.

Phais pointed off at a rise in the land. "I'll move around and count from there."

Tip glanced at the Dara. "I'll go with you."

Loric raised an eyebrow, but Phais nodded in agreement.

They spent nearly all day observing, as cavalcades came and went, and now and again in the far distance black smoke would rise into the sky.

"They're burning farmsteads," said Phais.

Tip made a fist and pounded the ground in rage.

When night fell, at a far distance they began slowly arcing 'round the large campsite, seeking to pass it by, for it held nearly two thousand men in all, or so they judged. Now and again they would crouch down in the grass, for returning raiders would pass nearby on their way back to camp.

The camp was yet in sight when dawn came.

"We must rest," said Phais, cocking an eye at Loric, then looking casually at the flagging Waerlinga.

And so they spent a second day hidden within the grass atop a long low mound, alternately keeping watch and dozing throughout the flight of the sun.

And this day, too, cavalcades came and went.

That night they finally got free from sight of the camp, and yet leaving no trace of their passage they walked most of the next day, too, before stopping in the afternoon.

They rested well that night and the following day resumed their northeastward trek.

"How far have we come these past days of edging through the grass?" asked Beau, slipping his feet carefully among the tall blades.

"Twelve leagues or so," said Loric, glancing at the sun.

Tip sighed. "That's only ten or twelve miles a day. At this rate it'll take us two or three fortnights to reach Darda Galion instead of just one."

"On the morrow we'll pick up the pace," said Loric, "for we are enough away from the campsites of the raiders and their cavalcades that the chances of them cutting our track is remote."

"I say," said Beau, "what we should have done is steal some horses from that camp."

Phais smiled. "Horses know not how to hide their tracks, Beau. Yet could we have taken two or three swift steeds, we would have raced them across these plains, tracks or no."

The next day they set out at a swift pace, no longer trying to hide their wake. Even so, the grass was hardy, and Loric judged that in less than a day it would spring back to fullness and only a well-practiced eye would discern their passage-"… unlikely from the back of a moving steed."

Over the next several days they fared northeasterly, their progress slowed by the need to be vigilant and the need to hide, for often a cavalcade would be seen coursing afar, or at times a single horseman with two runners afoot crossing the plain, and the comrades would crouch down and watch, remaining still so as to keep from being seen.

And distant trails of smoke wreathed up into the sky.

And they came across another burned town, this but a small hamlet, and all things that had lived were slain. And they passed it by, pressing on toward the Great Escarpment and Darda Galion above.

"Why don't we rest by day and move by night," asked Tip at a stop, "when there's less chance of being seen?"

Phais looked at Loric and her mouth split into a great grin.

And so they fared at night thereafter.

And the dark of the moon came and went.

Yet the days were growing long and the nights short, and even though they made good progress under the stars, still when the sun came early and stayed late, their pauses between treks grew longer.

"We'll move through part of the day as well," said Loric. "Else as you once declared, Tipperton, it will take more than several fortnights to reach our goal."

And so in the days thereafter, they continued until mid-morn, and rested well through the heart of the day, and set out again in midafternoon.

"It looks like a burnt farmstead," said Beau.

Tip glanced at the sun, gauging it to be four hands from setting. "Our provisions are low," he said. "Let's go see can we find anything to take with us."

Down into the swale they went and past a destroyed corral, rounding the burnt hulk of a byre. Of a sudden Tip stopped, for there, bloated, maggots writhing just under the skin, lay the corpse of a woman, though the only way of knowing it was a female was by the clothing she wore. She was clutching the corpse of a child, bloated and infested too, skin swollen and ready to burst.

And the stench was unbearable.

Tipperton turned and vomited, and Beau sank to his knees in dismay, his eyes wide, his hands pressed to his mouth.

"Oh, Adon, what is it we see?" whispered Beau.

"Death," said Loric.

"War," amended Phais.

And soon they moved onward, striding into the grass again.

Rain fell down and down, and lightning stalked across the plains. And during the three days of the violent storm, little progress was made.

Streams became raging torrents, and often they would have to walk far ere they found a place to cross, and these dangerous to the Waerlinga as small as they were. Yet with Loric and Phais's help, across the roiling waters they went.

And when the skies finally cleared, they were far afield of their chosen path. Yet once again across the plains they went, now and then espying riding Hyrinians or running Chabbains or both and hiding whenever they did. And still they had to take wide detours to cross 'round waters yet wild.

And they ran out of food.

"We need to take a day to hunt, to forage, while we yet have the strength," said Loric. "Else we'll be too weak to reach our goal."

"On the morrow, then," said Phais, "we hunt."

The buccen strode back into the camp together.

"I feathered a fat marmot," said Tip, raising his bow in his left hand and the arrow-pierced burrower in his right.

"And I brought down a rabbit," said Beau, canting his head toward the long-legged, long-eared hare slung over his shoulder.