I was not sure I overheard that last remark. He spoke very softly.

He was right. The kid was slipping away. I could not stop it.

I looked hard at Lady, who had shown no sign of getting ready to do what had to be done. I told her, “You need to come. Following Tobo you’re our best gate mechanic.” I offered a hand.

Murgen, I noted, was paying his son’s instructions no attention. He was getting ready to travel, too.

Lady’s expression hardened. She accepted my hand. Upright, she stared northward. The fires in Runmust’s camp were not visible now. Rain was falling between here and there.

Several others, including Willow Swan, quietly began getting ready to travel, too. No names were named, no orders were given. Those who needed to go or thought their presence would be useful began packing. Nobody grumbled. Nobody said much of anything at all. We were all too tired to waste energy doing anything but what had to be done.

No fingers got pointed, either. It took no genius to understand that Tobo had been swallowed up by his own workload, with people wanting something more from him every minute. Sleepy bore the heaviest responsibility. It was her job to see that everything got done. She should have had a checklist. But she had been singleminded in her desire to move faster than resistance could coagulate in front of her.

For that she could not be faulted. The Company had seen no fighting yet, though nearly a quarter of the Taglian empire could be accounted disarmed. It was the most remote and lightly populated quarter but the strategy remained sound.

The wealth Sleepy had brought off the plain would let her exploit the territories we held far more effectively than would Soulcatcher’s capacity for generating terror allow her to exploit what she held.

Of course, if the shadowgate collapsed all that would be moot. Our world would be in greater danger than Khatovar. Unlike the Voroshk, we could not defend ourselves.

Tobo did not bother collecting the few bamboo fireball throwers left. If we became desperate enough to need them that handful would not do any good.

There were eight of us. Tobo and his father, me, Lady, Willow Swan, and Thai Dei because Murgen never got out of rock-throwing range of Tobo’s uncle. Then there were two older-than-average hardcases from Hsien, solid veterans of the warlord conflicts. One we knew as Panda Man because his real name sounded like that. The other was Spook. He was Spook because he had green eyes. In Hsien demons and haunts are supposed to have green eyes.

The Unknown Shadows refuse to conform. Every one of those haunts that I have actually seen had the more traditional red or yellow eyes.

Many of the Unknown Shadows traveled with us. At night, under the moon when it made its infrequent, shy appearances, the ground surrounding us seemed to be a sea in motion. Tobo’s pets did not mind being seen just now.

Before long my two ravens rejoined me. I had seen nothing of them since shortly after we had left the shadowgate.

Tobo told me, “I’ve sent scouts ahead. Now I’m going to ride ahead, too.” He was mounted on Sleepy’s superhorse. “The rest of you follow me as fast as you can.”

He surged ahead. Most of the churning darkness went with him, though we retained enough shadowy outriders that no danger would take us by surprise.

“I’m sorry,” I told Lady.

“Not your fault this time.” She was not happy, though.

“You gotten anything out of Kina yet?”

“No. Nothing but a few infrequent touches while we were up there with Sleepy. They were pretty faint and probably just because we were close to Booboo.”

Damn. “You think we can get back to the gate in time?”

“You think Longshadow will fight for life if he knows that the only thing he can accomplish is to save the people who pulled him down and turned him over to his oldest enemies?”

That was not the answer I wanted to hear.

Runmust and Iqbal rode northward slowly, at a pace their whole band found comfortable. Life would not be too hard until the Captain caught up. She would be put out because the rangers did not meet her as soon as possible. She would get over it.

The prisoners were given no opportunity to enjoy life, but they were not tormented directly. The Singhs would not have allowed that even had they known that Sleepy would not mind.

There was no formal arrangement between the Singhs and the dark spirits out of Hsien but Unknown Shadows paced them always. Communications remained crude. Runmust generally just got a really bad feeling when it was time to watch out. The problem was his. A religious failing. He was allowed no congress with demons. His innate human knack for rationalization had not yet exonerated the Unknown Shadows from being spawn of darkness.

Runmust began to have one of those bad feelings. It grew worse fast. Iqbal’s uneasiness said that he had been touched, too. Even some of the soldiers were becoming troubled.

Quick hand gestures. The ranger team halted. Everyone dismounted. Scouts crept forward while the men assigned the duty for the day began moving the prisoners and horses into a gulch off the road.

The warriors of Hsien could be remarkly quiet and patient. Runmust admired their skill in using the available cover in terrain, boasting only tangled, scrubby brush, rocks and lots of gullys. He could not do what they did. Of course, he was twice the size of the biggest and a decade older than the oldest.

Minh Bhu, one of the best, intercepted him in his slow advance, after signing for absolute silence.

Minh brushed leaves aside and smoothed a patch of dirt. He used a forefinger to sketch the ground ahead, indicating the approximate positions of a well-chosen ambush site.

Runmust signaled a general withdrawal. He looked for crows or other creatures traditionally associated with the enemy. He saw nothing. “How could they know we were coming?” he asked when he was far back enough to whisper. “How many of them are there?”

Minh shrugged. “We’re not going to get a head count. There are a lot more of them than there are of us. And as for how did they know, from that hilltop you can see all the country we crossed the last two days. They were probably just sent out to see if this is the route north the Captain picks.” He pointed back south. The dust and sparkle of the main force were obvious.

“Why an ambush?”

“They can see there aren’t many of us. It would look like a chance to take some prisoners.”

“Uhm.” Runmust scanned the slope. Could he turn the tables on those people? He wished he had developed a more intimate relationship with the Unknown Shadows. “Iqbal. Talk to me.”

“We’re outnumbered, we should back away. There’s no reason to get in a fight. Or even make contact. We’ve got important prisoners to protect. So let’s stay away and wait for the Captain.”

Iqbal was a married man. He did not favor major risks.

Even so, Iqbal was right. Withdrawal was the only course that was not crazy. Runmust asked, “What would they do if we did stroll into their trap?” He wished he could catch a couple of them. A few questions answered would tell a lot about enemy plans and what the other side thought was happening.

“They see Sleepy coming. They’ll pull out pretty soon.”

“Why do I keep getting more and more nervous?” Runmust knew the Unknown Shadows wanted him to know something and he just was not hearing it.

In the hills ahead horses began screaming. Men cursed. Several dozen arrows rose into the air, fell where the enemy evidently thought the rangers were hidden. None of the arrows came close.

Muttering curses himself, Runmust waved his men back again. They began slipping away. Wildly sped arrows fell all across the slope. “Idiots,” Runmust muttered. “Recon by fire.” The Protector’s soldiers would charge any outcry. Or any other obvious reaction. They were an opportunity to inflict disaster just waiting to happen.