He flinched away from my touch, pressing his face cruelly hard into the rock. "He wouldn't leave her." He said. "I tried, and he wouldn't leave her. It's my fault, my fault, my fault."

"Shh," I said.

"You told me to protect her, and I couldn't. It hurts, it hurts…" he moaned.

I was in pain myself, and it distracted me. I almost didn't catch the import of his words. "Trying's enough," I said, my throat tight. "Do you hear me, Oreg? Trying is always enough. I don't expect that you'll be able to protect her from everything."

I'd told him to protect her, I remembered. He had to follow my orders. I hadn't realized there would be consequences if he could not. At my words, his body relaxed, and he quit banging his head into the stone. After a moment, I realized he was unconscious. The pain that the Tallvenish god had inflicted on me seemed to have settled into the sort of muscle aches I got from training too hard. Resigned, I pushed myself to my feet and gathered Oreg over my shoulder for the walk back to camp.

I found Axiel, Penrod, and Tosten at the fire. Neither of them commented when I set Oreg on his blankets and covered him up. When I came up to the fire, Tosten walked pointedly back to his blankets and rolled up in them, his back to me.

Axiel watched him, then said, "I told Penrod what happened. Bastilla and Ciarra seem to be sleeping now. Hopefully, they'll wake fine after they've slept it off."

"I wish we could get them out of Menogue," I said. "I won't feel safe until we're well away from here."

Penrod nodded.

"Did Aethervon tell you anything helpful before I got there?" asked Axiel.

"No," I answered. "All he told me was something about the heart of the dragon rotting—as if I haven't known that Hurog is in trouble." He'd revealed that the stories about Axiel were true, though. Pushing aside my smoldering anger at the suffering of Oreg and Ciarra, I thought more carefully. "He said something about the return of the dragons if I choose carefully."

Penrod shook his head, but Axiel stiffened to alertness, like a hound at the sight of a leash. A small, satisfied smile touched his face.

After everyone went to sleep, I cupped my hands and stared at them for several minutes. At last a small silvery light hovered, cool and bright, a few inches above my fingertips—a child's exercise in magic. Untrained as I was, I could do no more with my magic. But it was my magic once more.

My father always said that you knew you were in Oranstone when the wind picked up and it began to rain.

Tallven, through which we'd been traveling, was mostly flat with a few rolling steppes, good grain country. Oranstone was more like my native Shavig in that it was rocky and edged in mountains. But Shavig had never been this wet.

Axiel slowed his horse until I was riding beside him. Mud-spattered, he looked nothing like the son of a king. He hadn't said anything about being a dwarf prince, so I'd left it alone.

"If the land's flat, and there's no road through it, likely it's marsh. We'll have to stay on the road until we reach the mountains," he said.

Penrod, on my other side, nodded. "Just wait until night falls and the mosquitoes come out," he said cheerfully.

As we started down the old road through Oranstone, the wind picked up, and it began to rain. About midday, wet and miserable, we passed by the first village.

I sneezed. "We're short on grain. Penrod, you and Bastilla bargain, and we'll set up camp just down the road. Get news about the raiders, if you can."

Penrod nodded, and the rest of us continued on. We found a stand of trees in a rocky outcropping (as opposed to marsh) and set up our tent for the first time. Because we didn't carry tent poles, we had to find two trees the right distance apart so we could stretch the tent between them. I left Axiel and Oreg to it and had Ciarra help me with the horses, who were as miserable and wet as we were.

I'd just taken off Pansy's saddle when he stiffened and stared down the trail. After a moment, I heard someone coming at a thunderous gallop.

Penrod beat Bastilla into the camp, but it was Bastilla who called, "Bandits. In the village—a dozen or so."

"Saddle up," I commanded, and I threw the saddle back on Pansy and tightened the cinch. I hadn't expected to run into bandits this far from Vorsag, which was stupid of me. Any land as neglected as Oranstone was sure to be rife with raiders, Vorsagian or otherwise. Pansy, sensing my excitement, danced and tossed his head as I swung my leg over his back. I'd often hunted bandits with my father, but this was my first time being in charge.

As the rest of them mounted, I said, "We'll stay together until I tell you differently. Be careful of the villagers—if you're not sure if the man you've got is a villager or a bandit, don't kill him. Anything I've forgotten Axiel?"

"No, sir," he said.

"Penrod?"

"The men must be working elsewhere, because the only men I saw were bandits," he said. "The main street is cobbled under loose dirt. The horses won't have good footing there. Don't be afraid to dismount and fight. These aren't Vorsagian troops, just poorly armed common bandits. The likelihood of any group of thieves being as well trained as even young Ciarra is almost nothing."

"Ciarra," I said, reminded of her presence. "You stay in your saddle. You don't have the weight to go up against a full-grown man, no matter how poorly trained." I wanted to tell her to stay here, but Penrod was right: As long as these were normal bandits, she would be fine. More importantly, she wouldn't have stayed if I told her to. Stala always said that a good commander never gave orders he knew his troops wouldn't obey.

I glanced around and made sure everyone was mounted, then said, "Let's go."

So we galloped back to the village. There was no one in the streets as we entered, but a woman screamed, and we followed the sound as we wove between a row of huts.

There were, perhaps, fifteen bandits, scruffy and dirty. One man held a crude bow that wouldn't have hit a keep wall at twenty paces; the rest were armed with battered swords that looked as though they'd looted them from a fifteen-year-old battlefield. They'd been distracted by the entertainment, and hadn't even heard the horses until we were upon them.

The bandits had the village women gathered in a tight group. In front of it, on the bare, cold ground, lay a young girl held by a pair of men while a third was untying his breeches.

I forgot to give the signal for attack. Pansy charged into the fray, and with the force of his speed I beheaded the would-be rapist with the first stroke of my sword. The body fell on the girl, but that couldn't be helped. Following my lead, if not my orders, Axiel got another of her attackers, but the rest of the bandits scattered.

"No mercy," I called and set Pansy after one of the men.

It was butcher's work. None of the men I killed even tried to parry, let alone attack. After I killed the third man, who was old enough to be my grandfather, I couldn't find anyone else to chase. Most of my people had scattered with the bandits. The only one nearby was Penrod, who'd dismounted and was throwing a body over his horse's back.

I rode to him but had to sit through Pansy's tantrum at being asked to halt when he was having such fun. "Why take the body back?" I asked. With Penrod there was always a reason.

"We need to search them and return anything belonging to the village," he said. "Then we should burn the dead, Oranstonian fashion, so their spirits don't linger here."