"Forgot about laundry," Ramiro finished, admiration in his voice. "Perhaps even forgot that you were missing."

I shook my head. Dannelle would have to be a fool to follow anyone into the prospects we faced. But it made no difference: With her gossip and veiled knowledge, and with my history of misdemeanor, the girl had me, and had me without options.

So I resolved to make the best of it. After all, the night would come soon enough. And after all, there was room beneath my trail blanket for two…

Possibilities, impossible and unthinkable under the watchful eyes of Robert and Bayard, now loomed inviting in the cloudy night.

We were there until late the next morning, despite my coaxings and urgings. Ramiro lolled over a dozen eggs and three loaves of bread until the sun was high, when he finally seemed to remember that we were not off on some May Day outing but fully intent to go somewhere and do something.

It was only then that our huddled little party took to the road. Dannelle, Ramiro, and I rode at the head of the column, with the squires forming a bedraggled line behind us. The ride was tedious and silent, for Ramiro and I were equally hostile and equally quiet. The only sounds were the movement and murmurings of the horses and an occasional grunt or uncomfortable sigh from Alfric.

Ahead of us spread the highlands like a wide, grass-covered bridge. Almost a mile across, they formed the only dry thoroughfare between the drenched Solamnic plains and the foothills of the Vingaard Mountains. Even so, the water was standing an inch deep on the ground beneath us.

The grass blades swam in a dark pool.

"People are assuming an awful lot on this expedition, Dannelle," I exclaimed when we stopped late in the afternoon. She, Ramiro, and I were still mounted, our horses nose to nose as the three of us waited for the squires to build a fire. As we spoke, a silent, efficient Oliver and a grumbling Alfric gathered whatever nearly dry wood they could find in this drenched terrain. Soon, on a damp spot under a thick-leafed vallenwood, with a horse blanket spread over the low-hanging branches as a sort of makeshift canopy, a smoky, halfhearted fire burned sullenly, while the rest of us smoldered on the rainy road.

"I mean, first of all it was you, stowing away in full sight of everyone," I nagged. "Then it was Ramiro, intent on perpetual dinner last night, and no doubt thinking of a ruse to keep us here until late tomorrow morning. I suppose the squires will tell me soon that they have appointed me to take care of our armor, and the horses will claim they assumed that I had volunteered to carry each of them. My authority is eroding rapidly around here, and-"

"Keeping the shimmer on your authority is not high on the list of my duties, Sir Galen," Ramiro interrupted, flashing a big, gap-toothed smile at Lady Dannelle. "Indeed, you might know from the Measure that 'it is the duty of subordinates to anticipate the wishes of their commanders,' and I assumed only that your authority would be… somewhat sensible about our travel and provision."

"Wait just one minute, Ramiro!" I snapped coldly as both of us bristled and preened before the female of the species. But at that moment, there was a noise from the woods, shrilling through the dusky air like the cry of something haunted and forlorn. Ramiro's head snapped up, and he reached for his sword.

The troll emerged from the forest.

I had never seen such a creature as this, and I hope devoutly never to see more of them.

From a distance, it looked like a moving stone, dappled gray and green and old-moss brown. It emerged from the landscape behind us as though the ground itself had swelled and erupted something fierce and unnatural. The troll was a good nine feet tall at the shoulders and had the strides you would expect from such a monstrosity. Rapidly it closed the distance between us, loping over the wet highland ground in a low crouch, at a speed most frightening because it was not at all human. Halfway to us, it dropped onto all fours to move even faster.

For an instant, things resembled those terrible moments in dreams when you cannot move as quickly as your attacker. Only alert little Oliver, the only one of us who was not preoccupied with Dannelle, saved us from being waylaid and disemboweled and eaten on the spot. Before Ramiro had his hand on the pommel, Oliver had mounted and reined his black horse toward the troll, his sword gleaming blue-white in his hand, a warning cry on his lips.

For a moment, the troll slowed down, almost paused. The sight of a boy on horseback, armed and challenging, was enough to be distracting, though the thing was probably too dim-witted to be frightened. The monster gaped, its large, fanged jaws dropping open stupidly like faulty drawbridges. From where we sat on horse, only a dozen yards away, I could see its black, beady eyes widen.

That was all the time we needed. At once, Ramiro broke from the column, guiding his stallion in a wide circle around the creature. It took his rather heavily burdened horse a few moments to close on the troll, but once Ramiro had waded into combat, there was little prospect that anyone would ask him to wade out. A quick sword stroke downward, followed by half the big man's weight, crashed into the troll's right arm and sliced on through effortlessly, severing the limb at the shoulder.

The creature cried out-a breathless, dry crackling scream that sounded like the splitting of a monstrous vallenwood. I would have thought dismemberment was sufficient. It usually is, in polite circles. Of course, that shows you how much I knew about trolls. With its good left arm, it clawed at Ramiro, who stopped the onslaught neatly with his shield. Still, the big Knight shivered and rocked in the saddle, and the shield came away dented and misshapen.

Nor was this some kind of last desperate surge of strength. Injured but by no means daunted, the troll turned slowly to face Ramiro, its little black eyes glittering with rage. The two of them locked into a careful, almost stately dance of violence, each one sizing up the other as Ramiro guided his horse in circles around the turning troll.

In the lull and balance before conflict resumed, Oliver dismounted and, creeping behind the troll, scurried within a stride or two of the monster. I started to cry out, to call the boy back, but he was moving so rapidly that had I shouted or spoken, my words could have done nothing but alert the troll to his whereabouts. Rushing across the muddy ground, the boy stooped, grunted, and lifted the severed arm to his shoulder. Staggering only a second under the considerable burden, Oliver sprang out of reach before the troll turned around.

Even as he carried it, the arm was sprouting a new shoulder, the shoulder widening and spreading toward the enormous torso it would regenerate in a matter of minutes.

The neck and head began to form and assemble, mottled gray ears and nose arising from the writhing flesh like a shape emerging from water or stone. With a last, heroic surge of strength, Oliver hurled the thing into the campfire, where the flames leapt hungrily over the knotted skin of the thing.

Alfric, Dannelle, and I let out a collective gasp. Safe on our horses, a gallop away from sword or fire, we stared at one another in consternation. Almost at once, my mind raced to more urgent questions.

Such as what earthly good I was serving Ramiro at this fainthearted distance.

There was no telling how long my indecision would have lasted had not Lily started and kicked out violently, almost throwing me into the mud; then, before I could do anything, she lurched forward into the mill of claw and tooth and metal that was rising again in front of me, as Ramiro wheeled his stallion and came at the troll again, sword raised.