So, despite sane cautions, they unlatched the gate, their horses drop-tiedbehind them, cut the hawkmask's ankle bonds and walked him to the door. His eyeswent wide above his gag, pupils gigantic in the torchlight on her threshold, then squeezed shut as Ischade herself came to greet them when, after knocking thrice and waiting long, they were about to turn away, convinced she wasn't homeafter all.

She looked them up and down, her eyes half-lidded. Straton, for once, wasgrateful for the shimmer in his vision, the blur he couldn't blink away. Thehawkmask shivered and lurched backwards in their grasp as Crit spoke first:'Good evening, madam. We thought the time had come to meet, face to face. We'vebrought you this gift, a token of our good will.' He spoke blandly, matter-offactly, letting her know they knew all about her and didn't really care what shedid to the unwary or the unfortunate. Straton's mouth dried and his tongue stuckto the roof of it. None was colder than Crit, or more tenacious when work wasunder way.

The woman, Ischade, dusky-skinned but not the ruddy tone of Nisibis, an olivecast that made the whites other teeth and eyes very bright, bade them enter.'Bring him in, then, and we'll see what can be seen.'

'No, no. We'll leave him - an article of faith. We'd like to know what you hearof Jubal, or his band - whereabouts, that sort of thing. If you come to think ofany such information, you can find me at the mercenaries' hostel.'

'Or in your hidey-hole in Shambles Cross?'

'Sometimes.' Crit stood firm. Straton, his relief a flood, now that he knew theyweren't going in there, gave the hawkmask a shove. 'Go on, boy, go to yourmistress.'

'A slave, then, is this one?' she asked Strat and that glance chilled his soulwhen it fixed on him. He'd seen butchers look at sheep like that. He halfexpected her to reach out and tweak his biceps.

He said: 'What you wish, he is.'

She said: 'And you?'

Crit said: 'Forbearance has its limits.'

She replied: 'Yours, perhaps, not mine. Take him with you; I want him not. Whatyou Stepsons think of me, I shall not even ask. But cheap I shall never come.'

Crit loosed his hold on the youth, who wriggled then, but Straton held him,thinking that Ischade was without doubt the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen,and the hawkmask was luckier than most. If death was the gateway to heaven, shewas the sort of gatekeep he'd like to admit him, when his time came.

She remarked, though he had not spoken aloud, that such could easily bearranged.

Crit, at that, looked between them, then shook his head. 'Go wait with thehorses, Straton. I thought I heard them, just now.'

So Straton never did find out exactly what was - or was not - arranged betweenhis task force leader and the vampire woman, but when he reached the horses, hehad his hands full calming them, as if his own had scented Niko's black, whomhis grey detested above all other studs. When they'd both been stabled in thesame barn, the din had been terrible, and stallboards shattered as regularly asstalls were mucked, from those two trying to get at each other. Horses, likemen, love .and hate, and those two stallions wanted a piece of each other theway Strat wanted a chance at the garrison commander or Vashanka at theWrigglies' Ils.

Soon after, Crit came sauntering down the walk, unscathed, alone, and silent.

Straton wanted to ask, but did not, what had been arranged: his leader's sourexpression warned him off. And an hour later, at the Shambles Cross safe haven,when one of the street men came running in saying there was a disturbance andTempus could not be found, so Crit would have to come, it was too late.

What they could do about waterspouts and whirlpools in the harbour was unclear.

When Straton and Crit had ridden away, Niko eased his black out from hiding. Thespirit-track he'd followed had led them here; Tamzen and the others were inside.The spoor met up with the pale blue traces of the house's owner near the Sow'sEar and did not separate thereafter. Blue was no human's colour, unless thathuman was an enchanter, a witch, accursed or charmed. Both Niko and Janniknew whose house this was, but what Crit and Straton were doing here,neither wanted to guess or say.

'We can't rush the place. Stealth. You know what she is.'

'I know.'

'Why didn't you let me hail them? Four would be better than two, for thisproblem's solving.'

'Whatever they're doing here, I don't want to know about. And we've broken coveras it is tonight.' Niko crooked a leg over his horse's neck, cavalry style.Janni rolled a smoke and offered him one; he took it and lit it with a flintfrom his belt pouch just as two men with a wagon came driving up from Downwind,wheels and hooves thundering across the White Foal's bridge.

'Too much traffic,' Janni muttered, as they pulled their horses back intoshadows and watched the men stop their team before the odd home's door; thewagon was screened and curtained; if someone was within, it was impossible totell.

The men went in and when they came out they had three smallish people with themswathed in robes and hooded. These were put into the carriage and it then droveaway, turning on to the cart-track leading south from the bridge - there wasnothing down there but swamp, and wasteland, and at the end of it. Fisherman'sRow and the sea ... nothing, that is, but the witch Roxane's fortified estate.

'Do you think - Stealth, was that them?'

'Quiet, curse you; I'm trying to tell.' It might have been; his heart was farfrom quiet, and the passengers he sensed were drugged and

nearly somnambulant.

But from the house, he could no longer sense the girlish trails which had beenthere, among the blue/archmagical/anguished ones of its owner and those of men.Boys' auras still remained there, he thought, but quiet, weaker, perhaps dying,maybe dead. It could be the fellow Crit had left there, and not the young scionsof east-side homes.

The moon, above Niko's head, was near at zenith. Seeing him look up, Jannianticipated what he was going to say: 'Well Stealth, we've got to go down thereanyway; let's follow the wagon. Mayhap we'll catch it. Perchance we'll find outwhom they've got there, if we do. And we've little time to lose - girls or no,we've a witch to

attend to.'

'Aye.' Niko reined his horse around and set it at a lope after the wagon, notfast enough to catch it too soon, but fast enough to keep it in earshot. WhenJanni's horse came up beside his, the other mercenary called: 'Convenience ofthis magnitude makes me nervous; you'd think the witch sent that wagon, evensnared those children, to be sure we'd have to come.'

Janni was right; Niko said nothing; they were committed; there was nothing to dobut follow; whatever was going to happen was well upon them, now.

A dozen riders materialized out of the wasteland near the swamp and surroundedthe two Stepsons; none had faces; all had glowing pure-white eyes. They foughtas best they could with mortal weapons, but ropes of spitting power came roundthem and blue sparks bit them and their flesh sizzled through their linenchitons and, unhorsed, they were dragged along behind the riders until they nolonger knew where they were or what was happening to them or even felt the pain.The last thing Niko remembered, before he awoke bound to a tree in somefeatureless grove, was the wagon ahead stopping, and his horse, on its owntrying to win the day. The big black had climbed the mount of the rider whodragged Niko on a tether, and he'd seen the valiant beast's thick jowls piercedthrough by arrows glowing blue with magic, seen his horse falter, jaws gaping,then fall as he was dragged away.