“Where’s someone to fight?” demanded ’Gren.

Usara flexed his hands, tongue between his teeth as he concentrated. “I can’t find anyone close at hand, that’s something at least.”

“Just find the main bulk of their forces,” ordered Darni.

Usara looked up over his shoulder. “This would be a great deal easier without you breathing down my neck. I’ll manage my scrying as I see fit, thank you all the same.” He scowled. “I can’t be sure if their cursed aetheric magic is baffling my scrying.”

“Try it with this.” I dangled the Sheltya bitch’s paring knife over the bowl and smiled sweetly at Usara. “Isn’t your scrying much more certain with someone’s possessions?”

Usara narrowed his eyes at me but took the knife and dropped it into the water with an expressive flick of his fingers. I grinned at Sorgrad and ’Gren.

“Here we are,” said Usara suddenly. We all moved to look over his shoulder, jostling each other but careful not to jog the mage.

Green light rose from the water, soft and fragile in the sun. The silver of the knife blade glittered for a moment before disappearing as a little image floated on the surface of the water. It was the woman, in a rekin somewhere.

“I wouldn’t say all you Mountain Men look the same but your homes sure as curses do!” I murmured to Sorgrad. The woman was standing by a long slate table that could have been cut from the same slab as the one in the Hachalfess. As I spoke, the Sheltya woman crossed the cluttered living hall of the rekia. She went outside; Gilmartin caught his breath while the rest of us swore.

The compound was thronged with men and activity. Sheaves of arrows were being handed out from a workshop, swords strapped over mail-shirts and helms buckled beneath determined chins. The woman went from group to group, leaving each man grim-faced with hatred or bright-eyed with a hot rage that only vengeance would quench.

“You should have used the bluesalt, my girl,” said ’Gren without pleasure. He pointed out a head darker than the rest, gray Sheltya robes over workday leathers. It was the Elietimm enchanter and I cursed vilely.

“We’ll get him next time,” Sorgrad murmured. “See how he copes with a sword through his guts.”

I managed a thin smile. Usara’s spell drifted above the compound and we watched as the crowd ebbed and flowed, people spilling out onto the hillside below the great gates.

Mules laden with nameless bundles were tracking up the long haul, unidentifiable people trailing up after them. The broad valley was cut by myriad workings, old and new scored into the land around like the gouges of giant claws. Stone mills and limekilns sat huge and squat, the fess and the rekin almost insignificant, huddled among sprawling heaps of spoil. The mountains dwarfed everything, reaching upward into the blue sky, the color mirrored in Sorgrad’s eyes as he studied their summits and scarps.

“Someone’s planning a war,” Darni said with grim satisfaction.

“Show me the peaks,” asked Sorgrad abruptly.

Usara’s breath was laboring now, thin shoulders hunched, but he wheeled the image around and lifted it to the mountains high above the fess. A sharp-edged ridge of bare rock ran up to a snowy field of white, ice defying the summer sun in the hollow breast of the mountain. The ridge split into two, one spine running up to a ragged summit of tumbled rock, the other to a higher crest, notched and dished like a well-worn knife. Two mighty peaks dominated the head of the valley, one a thrusting spearhead clad in ice, riven down one face with deep clefts, the other dark and brooding, tolerating no snow on sides that the summer sun struck with the sheen of a raven’s wing.

“Teyvasoke,” said Sorgrad with utter certainty.

“You’re sure?” demanded Darni.

Sorgrad looked at him, face impassive. “I’m sure. You were taught the streets and houses of your hometown as a child? We are taught the peaks of all the ranges, east, west and middle.”

“Teyvasoke.” Darni tried the unfamiliar name on his tongue. “Where are we in relation to it?”

“About twelve days or so from here, traveling fast and light. I’ll draw you a map,” murmured Sorgrad. “If they don’t get here first.”

We looked down on a sizeable number, all intent on their various tasks. Tents were being set up, some in circles, others in neat rows, a few on their own. People were bringing in arms of brushwood and stubborn thorn, stacking the fuel by fire pits while others ferried water and slops. Chainmail gleamed in the sunlight and a few people hurrying to and fro without the burden of armor were dressed in the anonymous gray of the Sheltya. I stifled a faint shudder.

We watched for a while and nothing much happened but then the gates of the fess swung open and a small group emerged, catching up the curious as they headed for an open space in the valley. Everyone sat in a half-circle on the dry ground while the man who’d come out of the fess stood up to address them. He was stocky in build but with a face Niello would have paid good coin to model for an actor’s mask. Wiry golden hair was swept back from a broad forehead above a proud nose. The man’s jaw was square beneath a close-trimmed beard and, given his gestures, his mouth was as eloquent as it was handsome. He turned from side to side, hands expressive as they were spread in appeal, clenched in determined oration and finally raised to the skies in impassioned exhortation. The crowd stirred, soon nodding and echoing his movements as his words spurred them on. When he finished whatever it was he was saying with a flourish of his sword, his audience sprang to their feet, waving and visibly cheering, eagerness bright on every face. My frustration at not being able to hear this charismatic leader’s words was mirrored on everyone else’s expression as they gazed down at the face framed in the bowl while Usara bent all the spell’s attention on the man.

“We’d need ten times the men we’ve got here to stop them,” growled ’Gren.

“Who’s to defend these, if we take everyone who can stand and hold a weapon?” Darni glowered at the children, the elderly and the infirm.

“That would be a legitimate use of wizardry,” offered Gilmarten.

“Wouldn’t you be more use fighting?” Sorgrad countered. “A lightning bolt in the right place could do more damage than half a Tormalin cohort.”

“We’re going to have to be very careful where and how we fight.” Darni was ignoring this byplay. “Picking the right ground is going to be crucial.”

’Gren was watching the tiny figures drifting away from the speaker. “I don’t think he’s managed to rouse any complete soke. If this was a true host, like the old sagas, every fess would have its own fire, its own standard.”

“So who’s behind him?” I looked closer, trying to discern any difference worth the name in the multitude.

“Exiles, those driven out for some crime, real or imagined,” suggested Sorgrad with a thin smile.

“Younger sons from hungry lands,” offered ’Gren. “Sons of those that married out and lost their blood claim?”

“ ’Sar, I need you to scry all the closest valleys,” decided Darni. “See if they are all taking up arms or whether this is a limited rising, stirred up by Blondie there.”

“I don’t know what difference that makes,” muttered Usara rather testily. “There are scores of them, all with swords, and they’re heading this way.”

“Not necessarily,” Sorgrad shook his head. “They could head out into the Gap just as easily as swing south toward us.”

“All the more reason to try and put a stop to this good and fast.” Darni looked at Usara with ill-disguised impatience. “Look beyond the reach of your own hands, man!”

This was soldiers’ talk. But I’m not a soldier, never have been, never want to be. On the other hand, on a very few, desperate occasions in my early years on the road, hunger had forced me into lurking in alleys, cudgel in one hand and heart in my mouth. I’d always looked for some man careless in his drink with a well-filled pouch that I could follow and relieve of both senses and purse. At a head shorter than any potential mark and half the heft, I wasn’t about to take on anyone in an equal fight. A footpad goes for the head, not the arms.