He continued, “I have a little more to say, and then I’d like to hear what you are thinking. The mystery of Rees is this: the Paladins there followed the strategies that have worked for all of us for fifteen years, but in Rees they did not work. The company could not avoid the confrontations they knew they could not win. The company could not take the Sainnites by surprise. The company could not successfully hide from the enemy. So we need new strategies, and we need to use the old ones cautiously, without expecting that they will succeed. Above all, we need to be prepared, to expect that this year will not be like every other year.”

As quietly as he had begun, Emil ended his address, and sat down to hear the debate that followed. He did not speak again, except when he was directly asked for more information, questions he often could not answer.

The discussion lasted late, and then broke up into smaller de‘ bates, some of which continued even after Zanja lay asleep with Annis curled companionably against her back. In dreams, she heard people argue about the logistics of food and shelter, about battle tactics, ambushes, and bolt‑holes. In dreams she returned to Rees, but this time it was she who hid in the woods, demoralized and terrified. Towards dawn, she began to dream about the massacre of her own people, and in her dreams she thought it was possible to prevent it this time, if only she could find a spare moment to read the book someone had handed her: not Mabin’s Warfare, but a different book, with different rules.

She awoke thinking that there had been a mistake, that this was not her life at all. But, unfortunately, it was.

Chapter Nine

Annis began Zanja’s education in a covert lead mine, where Zanja learned to recognize and extract lead ore, and practiced smelting it, and eventually poured her own pistol balls. The gunpowder lesson proceeded in much the same way. Not until Zanja had filled her cartridge pouch with rounds of ammunition made by her own hands from ingredients she herself had found did she finally learn to load and shoot her pistols.

With the rains over, the company was to gather in the woods, in a place they felt confident no one could find for the first time without a guide. Even Annis could scarcely find it, for the place was undistinguished and what landmarks existed were practically as hard to find as the place itself. At last, with the sun setting, they arrived at a natural rocky clearing surrounded by thick forest, just in time to fill their porringers with pieces of roasted chicken and lumps of hard black bread. Living in the rough hills, Zanja and Annis had eaten little more than ground corn, so this meal looked like a feast.

She looked up from the feast to find Emil behind her, with a basket over his arm. She had been reciting people’s names to herself while pretending to be interested in their eager discussion of the lives and loves of people she had never met.

“Can I help you with that basket?” she asked.

“It gets lighter all the time.” He handed out pieces of apple cake to her companions, then sat beside her on a convenient stone. “I promised Daye I’d give you the bad news myself. The company will divide into three units, to give the enemy smaller and faster moving targets, and you’re to be under Daye’s command, at her request.”

“That is not bad news,” she said.

“You will be responsible for collecting bread from the farmholds, and distributing it to the company.”

“I see. Well, sir, I’ll do my best.”

“The next time you call me ‘sir,’ I’ll demote you.”

“But how would it be possible to demote me further?”

“Zanja, it was a joke.”

After he left, someone said kindly, “Bread is important.”

“It is a child’s job,” she retorted. No one contradicted her.

“At least your face will become familiar across South Hill.”

Zanja suspected that the commanders had another advantage in mind: They wished to obscure the links between the company and the farmholds, but without bread they could not survive long. So they gave the duty of collecting food from the farmholds to a stranger, who had no relatives to be executed in retaliation, and who could legitimately pretend to have never heard of South Hill Company. It was a sensible decision.

Still, Zanja went to bed angry, and woke up angry in the middle of the night, with a dull headache and a full bladder, and a vague sense of dread that seemed related to the dreams she could not remember. She crept past her sleeping companions and went a little way into the woods. She had re‑buttoned her breeches and stood wondering why she wasn’t going back to bed, when a voice spoke in the leafless branches overhead. “Zanja na’Tarwein.”

A dark shape flapped against the stars, leading her further away from the clearing. She followed, with her heart in her throat. The night gave a sigh, as a brief breeze lifted and then fell still. The raven dropped out of the branches and stalked at her feet like a restless rag of night sky.

Zanja sank into a squat. “What are you doing here?”

The raven said, “You were more courteous when you thought I was a ghost.”

“But now I know you are just a messenger, and that your messages are not supposed to be for me.”

“Ha!” the raven cawed. “Norina thinks I serve at Karis’s will, but you should know better.”

“Should I? What do you serve, then, if not her will?”

“I serve her secret heart.”

The raven god of the Ashawala’i was an amoral trickster, so Zanja found herself unable to believe entirely in this raven’s honesty. She said, “Well, perhaps you can ignore Karis’s promises, but I have to honor promises of my own. I am certain Norina would forbid me to talk with you.” She rose to her feet to leave, though she was not certain she could walk away.

The raven said, “This evening, as the sun set, I saw a thing that might surprise you.”

Zanja often had wished she could see from above, like a bird. She said politely, “What did you see, good raven?”

“I saw Samnite soldiers creeping through the woods.”

Zanja’s vague dread sharpened. “Are they creeping towards this encampment?”

“Oh, yes. They approach you from the west, spread out, to catch you in a net of soldiers as you try to flee.”

“Then should we flee due east?”

“Northeast,” the raven said. “The forest is not so thick there, and the land grows steep and rocky. It seems a good place to defend yourselves.”

“Do you know if they outnumber us?” Zanja wondered, then, if the raven could even count. She could scarcely believe she was discussing battle tactics with a bird, and had to keep reminding herself that the raven shared Karis’s intelligence.

“They are greater than your company, but not by much.” She heard the dry sound of the raven running a wing feather through his beak. “Zanja na’Tarwein,” he added, and she could have sworn it was the god that spoke to her, “you can be drearily punctilious.”

He spread his wings, and, only mildly offended, she said hastily, “Well, tonight I appreciate your lack of punctiliousness. I’ll try to leave some food for you in the camp.”

She found Emil with no little difficulty, finally locating him by his gear: the box that contained his tea set, and the camp stool that was never out of reach. He awakened at her touch. “Zanja?”

“I think we are in danger.”

He sat up, and seemed to consider, or perhaps to consult his own talent for prescience. “Yes, we are indeed in danger.” He reached for his boots. “It is the Sainnites, of course. I wonder how they found us.”

“That I don’t know. But I think they are to the west, spread out in the woods.”

“Yes,” he confirmed, in some surprise. “There’s a place to the north and east where we might stage an ambush. What do you think?”

“Why not?”

She gave him a hand up, and he grunted as he put his weight on his bad leg. He held her hand for a moment longer than necessary. “Two fire bloods,” he said thoughtfully. “This is an advantage I had not considered.”