'I'll take a look out back. Madam; don't disturb yourself.'

She settled back, not calm, but bidden to remain and obedient.

In the ochre-walled yard ten men were gathered behind the log fence that markedthe range; a hundred yards away three oxhides had been fastened to theencircling wall, targets painted red upon them; between the hides, threecuirasses of four-ply hardened leather armoured with bronze plates were proppedand filled with straw.

The smith was down on his knees, a crossbow fixed in a vice with its ownerhovering close by. The smith hammered the sights twice more, put down his file,grunted and said, 'You try it, Straton; it should shoot true. I got a handbreadth group with it this morning; it's your eye I've got to match...'

The large-headed, raw-boned smith, sporting a beard which evened a roughcomplexion, rose with exaggerated effort and turned to another customer, juststepping up to the firing line. 'No, Stealth, not like that, or, if you must,I'll change the tension -' Marc moved in, telling Niko to throw the bow up tohis shoulder and fire from there, then saw Tempus and left the group, handsspreading on his apron.

Bolts spat and thunked from five shooters when the morning's range officerhollered 'Clear' and 'Fire', then 'Hold', so that all could go to the wall tocheck their aim and the depths to which the shafts had sunk.

Shaking his head, the smith confided: 'Straton's got a problem I can't solve.I've had it truly sighted - perfect for me - three times, but when he shoots,it's as if he's aiming two feet low.'

'For the bow, the name is life, but the work is death. In combat it will shoottrue for him; here, he's worried how they judge his prowess. He's not thinkingenough of his weapon, too much of his friends.'

The smith's keen eyes shifted; he rubbed his smile with a greasy hand. 'Aye, andthat's the truth. And for you. Lord Tempus? We've the new hard-steel, though whythey're all so hot to pay twice the price when men're soft as clay and even woodwill pierce the boldest belly, I can't say.'

'No steel, just a case of iron-tipped short-flights, when you can.'

'I'll select them myself. Come and watch them, now? We'll see what their nerve'slike, if you call score ...'

'A moment or two. Marc. Go back to your work, I'll sniff around on my own.'

And so he approached Niko, on pretence of admiring the Stepson's new bow, andsaw the shadowed eyes, blank as ever but veiled like the beginning beard thatmasked his jaw: 'How goes it, Niko? Has your maat returned to you?'

'Not likely,' the young fighter, cranking the spring and lever so a boltnotched, said and triggered the quarrel which whispered straight and true tocentre his target. 'Did Crit send you? I'm fine, commander. He worries too much.We can handle her, no matter how it seems. It's just time we need ... she'ssuspicious, wants us to prove our faith. Shall I, by whatever means?'

'Another week on this is all I can give you. Use discretion, your judgment'sfine with me. What you think she's worth, she's worth. If Critias questionsthat, your orders came from me and you may tell him so.'

'I will, and with pleasure. I'm not his to wetnurse; he can't keep that in hishead.'

'And Janni?'

'It's hard on him, pretending to be ... what we're pretending to be. The mentalk to him about coming back out to the barracks, about forgetting what's pastand resuming his duties. But we'll weather it. He's man enough.'

Niko's hazel eyes flicked back and forth, judging the other men: who watched;who pretended he did not, but listened hard. He loosed another bolt, a third,and said quietly that he had to collect his flights. Tempus eased away, heardthe range officer call 'Clear' and watched Niko go retrieve his groupedquarrels.

If this one could not breach the witch's defences, then she was unbreachable.

Content, he left then, and found Jihan, his de facto right-side partner, waitingastride his other Tros horse, her more than human strength and beautybrightening Smith Street's ramshackle facade as if real gold lay beside fool'sgold in a dusty pan.

Though one of the matters estranging him from his Stepsons was his pairing withthis foreign 'woman', only Niko knew her to be the daughter of a power whospawned all contentious gods and even the concept of divinity; he felt the coolher flesh gave off, cutting the midday heat like wind from a snowcapped peak.

'Life to you, Tempus.' Her voice was thick as ale, and he realized he wasthirsty. Promise Park and the Alekeep, an east-side establishment consideredupper class by those who could tell classes of Ilsigs, were right around thecorner, a block up the Street of Gold from where they met. He proposed to takeher there for lunch. She was delighted - all things mortal were new to her; thewhole business of being in flesh and attending to it was yet novel. A novice atlife, Jihan was hungry for the whole of it.

For him, she served a special purpose: her loveplay was rough and herconstitution hardier than his Tros horses - he could not couple gently; withher, he did not inflict permanent harm on his partner; she was bom of violenceinchoate and savoured what would kill or cripple mortals.

At the Alekeep, they were welcome. They talked in a back and private room of thegod's absence and what could be made of it and the owner served them himself, anavuncular sort still grateful that Tempus's men had kept his daughters safe whenwizard weather roamed the streets. 'My girl's graduating school today. LordMarshal - my youngest. We've a fete set and you and your companion would be mostwelcome guests.'

Jihan touched his arm as he began to decline, her stormy eyes flecked red andglowing.

'... ah, perhaps we will drop by, then, if business permits.'

But they didn't, having found pressing matters of lust to attend to, and allthings that happened then might have been avoided if they hadn't been out oftouch with the Stepsons, unreachable down by the creek that ran north of thebarracks when sorcery met machination and all things went awry.

On their way to work, Niko and Janni stopped at the Vulgar Unicorn to wait forthe moon to rise. The moon would be full this evening, a blessing sinceanonymous death squads roamed the town -whether they were Rankan army regulars,Jubal's scattered hawk-masks, fish-eyed Beysib spoilers, or Nisibisi assassins,none could say.

The one thing that could be said of them for certain was that they weren'tStepsons or Sacred Banders or nonaligned mercenaries from the guild hostel. Butthere was no convincing the terrorized populace of that.

And Niko and Janni - under the guise of disaffected mercenaries who had quit theStepsons, been thrown out of the guild hostel for unspeakable acts, and werecurrently degenerating Sanctuary-style in the filthy streets of the town thoughtthat they were close to identifying the death squads' leader. Hopefully, thisevening or the next, they would be asked to join the murderers in their squalidsport. '

Not that murder was uncommon in Sanctuary, or squalor. The Maze, now that Nikoknew it like his horses' needs or Janni's limits, was not the town's true nadir,only the multi-tiered slum's upper echelon. Worse than the Maze was ShamblesCross, filled with the weak and the meek; worse than the Shambles was Downwind,where nothing moved in the light of day and at night hellish sounds rode thestench on the prevailing east wind across the White Foal. A tri-level hell,then, filled with murderers, sold souls and succubi, began here in the Maze.