A short while later, under the stars and the low eastward crescent of Vidomni, the Barbadians entered the pass. There were twenty-five of them, and the Tracker. Six carried torches, which made things easier. Though not for them.

Alessan's arrow and Ducas's met in the Tracker's breast, fired from slopes on opposite sides of the defile. Eleven of the mercenaries fell under that first rain of arrows before Devin found himself galloping furiously down with Alessan and half a dozen other men out of their concealment in hollows in the pass. They angled to close the western exit, even as Ducas and nine men sealed off the eastern end the Barbadians had entered from.

And so on that Ember Night, in the company of outlaws in the highlands of Certando far from his lost home, Alessan bar Valentin, Prince of Tigana, fought the first true battle of his long war of return. After the drawn-out years of maneuvering, a subtle gathering of intelligence and the delicate guiding of events, he drew blade against the forces of a Tyrant in that moonlit pass.

No subterfuge, no hidden manipulation anymore from the wings of the stage. This was battle, for the time had come.

Marius of Quileia had made a promise to him that day, against wisdom and experience and beyond hope. And with Marius's promise everything had changed. The waiting was over. He could loosen the rigid bonds that had held his heart so tightly leashed all these years. Tonight in this pass he could kill: in memory of his father and his brothers and all the dead of the River Deisa and after, in that year when he himself had not been permitted to die.

They had spirited him away and hidden him in Quileia south of the mountains, with Marius, then a captain of the High Priestess's guard. A man with his own reasons for fostering and concealing a young Prince from the northlands. That had been almost nineteen years ago, when the hiding had begun.

He was tired of hiding. The time of running was over now; the season of war had begun. True, it was Barbadior, not Ygrath, whose soldiers drew blade against them now, but in the end it was all the same. Both Tyrants were the same. He had been saying that for all the years since he'd come back north to the peninsula with Baerd. It was a truth hammered into shape like metal on the hard forge of his heart. They had to take them both, or be no nearer freedom than before.

And in the Braccio Pass this morning the taking had begun. The keystone had been set in the arch of his design. And so tonight in this dark defile he could unbind his pent-up passion, his own long memories of loss, and set his sword arm free.

Devin, laboring to keep up with the Prince, rode into his first combat with raw panic and exhilaration vying for mastery in his breast. He did not shout as most of the outlaws did; he was concentrating as much as anything else on ignoring the ache in his wounded leg. He gripped the dark sword Baerd had bought for him, holding it with the blade curving upwards as he had been taught in wintry morning lessons that seemed unimaginably remote from this night's happenings.

He saw Alessan drive straight into the circled ranks of the mercenaries, unswerving as one of his arrows, as if to put behind him in this one act of direct response all the years when such a thing was not allowed.

Frantically, gritting his teeth, Devin followed in Alessan's wake. He was alone though, and half a dozen lengths behind, when a yellow-bearded Barbadian loomed up beside him, enormous on his horse. Devin cried out in shock. Only some blind survival instinct and the reflexes he had been born with saved his life. He pulled his horse hard to the left, veering for a space he saw, and then leaning back to his right, as low to the ground as he could manage, he cut upwards with all his strength. He felt a searing pain in his wounded leg and almost fell. The windrush of the Barbadian's blade sliced empty air where Devin's head had been. A heartbeat later Devin felt his own wickedly curved sword cleave through leathery armor and into flesh.

The Barbadian screamed, a liquid, bubbling sound. He swayed wildly on his mount as his sword fell from his grasp. He brought one hand to his mouth in a curiously childlike gesture. Then, like the slow toppling of a mountain tree, he slid sideways in his saddle and crashed to the ground.

Devin had already pulled his sword free. Wheeling his horse in a tight circle, he looked for adversaries. No one was coming though. Alessan and the others were ahead of him, pounding against the mercenaries, driving to meet Ducas and Arkin's group pressing forward from the east.

It was almost over, Devin realized. There was nothing, really, for him to do. With a complex mixture of emotions that he didn't even try to understand just then, he watched the Prince's blade rise and fall three times and he saw three Barbadians die. One by one the six torches dropped to the ground and were extinguished. And then, only moments after they had ridden into the pass, it seemed to Devin, the last of the Barbadians had been cut down and slain.

It was then that he saw what was left of the Tracker and realized how young he had been. The body had been hideously trampled in the melee. It lay twisted and splayed unnaturally. Somehow the face had been spared, though for Devin, looking down, that was actually the worst thing. The two arrows were still embedded in the child's body, though the upper shaft of one of them had been broken off.

Devin turned away. He stroked the horse Alienor had given him, and whispered to it. Then he forced himself to ride back towards the man he'd killed. This was not the same as the sleeping soldier in the Nievolene barn. It was not, he told himself. This had been open warfare and the Barbadian had been armed and armored, and he had swung his massive blade seeking Devin's life. Had the Barbadians and the Tracker come upon him and Alessan and Erlein alone in the wilderness Devin had no illusions, none at all, as to what their fate would have been.

It was not the same as in the barn. He said it within himself once again, as he gradually became aware of the eerie, disorienting calm that seemed to have descended upon the pass. The wind still blew, as cold as before. He glanced up, and realized belatedly that Alessan had quietly ridden to his side and was also looking down at the man Devin had slain. Both horses stamped and snorted, made restless by the frenzy just past and the smell of blood.

"Devin, believe me, I am sorry," Alessan murmured softly, so that no one else would hear. "It is hardest the first time, and I gave you no chance to prepare."

Devin shook his head. He felt drained, almost numb. "You didn't have much choice. Maybe it was better this way." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Alessan, you have larger things to worry about. I chose freely in the Sandren Woods last fall. You aren't responsible for me."

"In a way I am."

"Not in a way that matters. I made my own choice." "Doesn't friendship matter?"

Devin was silent, rendered suddenly diffident. Alessan had a way of doing that to you. After a moment the Prince added, almost as an afterthought, "I was your age when I came back from Quileia."

For a moment he seemed about to add something, but in the end he did not. Devin had an idea of what he meant though, and something kindled quietly within him like a candle.

For a moment longer they looked down at the dead man. Only a crescent, Vidomni's pale light was still bright enough to show the staring pain in his face.

Devin said, "I chose freely, and I understand the need, but I don't think I'm ever going to get used to this."

"I know I never have," said Alessan. He hesitated. "Either one of my brothers would have been so much better at what I was kept alive to do."

Devin turned then, trying to read the expression on the Prince's face in the shadows. After a moment he said, "I never knew them, but will you allow me to say that I doubt it? Truly I doubt it, Alessan." After a moment the Prince touched his shoulder. "Thank you. There are those who would disagree, I'm afraid. But thank you, nonetheless."