“Soulcatcher stopped playing with us. She had to be controlling those circles somehow. Otherwise they would’ve killed her own soldiers the first time they retreated. But that isn’t working anymore. What’s changed? What’s happened?”

Suddenly, the vultures above the wood all spiralled down rapidly, as though planning to attack something.

I said, “Let’s see what Sleepy is up to.”

Sleepy was sending scouts to explore the limits of the danger. So far no death flower had bloomed on our far flanks.

The vultures stopped their descent just above the treetops but continued to look more like raptors than carrion birds. One suffered an impulse to descend a little farther.

A golden-brown urine-colored strand darted up like a gigantic toad’s tongue. A splatter of light surrounded the bird. It seemed to become a black cutout of a vulture. The cutout shattered into a hundred fragments. Those fluttered down like falling leaves.

The remaining vultures chose to take their business elsewhere.

Nobody but me seemed to notice what was happening.

Where were my damned ravens? I could send them to see what was happening while keeping my own sweet ass high and dry. What was the point of taking on a mythic character if I did not get to do mythic kinds of things?

Moments later Tobo and Howler were above the woods, dropping prosaic firebombs on the Taglian forces.

Lady joined us before Sleepy’s scouts had found out if we could safely slide around the ends of the killing zone. She had a map she presented to the Captain. One glimpse told me my sweetie had not wasted her time aloft. She had charted the deadly circles. And a pattern was apparent. The positions of those not yet tripped were evident. Unless Soulcatcher had been aware of our airborne capacity. Then the death circles would be there solely to herd us into something far more gruesome and cruel.

Sleepy summoned her battalion commanders immediately.

Soulcatcher’s soldiers fought stubbornly for a while, along the edge of the wood, but had been too badly mauled already to last long under determined attack by our professional bloodletters.

Most of the Taglians had no desire to see their wives and children lose their husbands and fathers. Sleepy gave orders to let anyone who abandoned his weapons go.

Any Taglian economy inherited by the Prahbrindrah Drah would be better off if it was not crippled by a great slaughter of the empire’s young men. It was only now recovering from the horrible losses suffered during the Shadowmaster and Kiaulune wars.

“It wasn’t anywhere nearly as eloquent a victory as I’d hoped. But I’ll take it,” Sleepy said. “Despite our casualties. This war may have been won today.”

That earned her a lot of bewildered or disbelieving looks. Soulcatcher was still out there, in a really foul temper now. More unpleasant surprises could be expected.

“But if we keep after her she’ll be distracted when she reaches Taglios.”

Mogaba’s plans were a longshot. I said so. “And whatever sweet nothings his conscience whispered to him a couple months back, he’ll be a whole lot more worried about saving Mogaba’s skin once he has old enemies pounding on his door for real.”

Sleepy started to say something about Aridatha Singh but thought better of it.

A carmine flash appeared on the killing ground. Using Lady’s chart Tobo had triggered a booby trap by bombarding it from the Howler’s flying carpet.

Sleepy told Runmust Singh, “After Tobo’s done I want you to march some prisoners back and forth through there. I don’t want any of those things left active. Some kid might wander in there and get himself killed.” Like the countryside was swarming with stupid children.

I said, “I’d be more pleased if we could grab a few of those things for our own use. If Mogaba had something like that he might stand a chance of killing Soulcatcher.”

Lady ruined the fun. “She’d smell it out. She created those things. There’ll be safeguards so they can’t be thrown back at her.”

A whole lot of shouting started in the woods. Tobo and Shukrat darted that way, in case the soldiers needed help. Moments later Howler’s carpet streaked back our way.

Tobo did not bother to dismount. He just announced, “They’ve found the Daughter of Night. She’s in a cage. Soulcatcher ran off and left her.”

Lady and I exchanged looks. That seemed completely unlikely. Unless the girl was bait in a truly deadly trap. Which might be. Soulcatcher had sown the field of death that had consumed our soldiers without the Unknown Shadows noticing her doing it.

The cage was inside a halfway collapsed tent. Several fireballs had ripped through the fabric but had failed to set it afire. I told everyone, “Be extremely careful here. If there was ever a time when Soulcatcher would try to spring something on us this would be it.”

Sleepy had her henchmen push curious soldiers back. We were already closer to the tent than Lady liked—though that had as much to do with who we expected to meet here as it had to do with concern about sorcerous deadfalls.

Nobody had yet been able to sense anything active in that line.

Lady told Tobo, “Go over everything three more times. Then check it again. Howler, you go over it, too.” Of no one in particular she asked, “Where’s Goblin?” When she got no answer she turned on the men who had found the tent, all of whom were in perfect health despite having taken time to scrounge souvenirs before they reported their find. “Where’s the little man? The one who got away at Nijha.”

Shrugs. They might not know what she was talking about. But one brave soul did say, “There’s another cage under there. It’s tipped over and broken. Maybe he got away.”

Lady and I exchanged glances. Why would Goblin leave without the girl?

He would not.

Tobo called out, “There’s no danger here.”

Howler tried to concur but his voice gurgled off into a scream.

I said, “Something definitely ain’t right. Tobo, send your unseen pals out to scout around. We especially need to know where Goblin and Soulcatcher are. As soon as we can. We have to keep after them.”

Sleepy nodded irritated agreement.

Lady and I approached the tent warily.

Booby traps come in many forms.

As we had been warned, one broken cage was empty. The other lay on its side, door downward. One fine-looking woman lay sort of splattered all over inside, wearing not a stitch.

Lady stunned me by starting to rush forward saying something about her poor baby. I caught her arm. “Easy.” The body looked, to me, like it had been posed. It would excite Soulcatcher’s sense of humor for decades if she could get us to jump to our deaths over a child who had no more feeling for us than she did for the horses, cattle, and whatnot that passed through her life.

Lady paused but would not remain patient long. “What?”

“That isn’t Booboo. I don’t think.” But that naked flesh could not be an illusion, could it? Goblin used to do that sort of thing... But Tobo said nothing magical was going on.

I squatted, groaning as my knees creaked, reached through the bars and pulled dark hair away from the woman’s neck, which it had concealed.

I pulled Lady down beside me. Her knees popped as badly as mine had. “Look there. I do pretty good work, don’t I? You can hardly see the scars.” I exaggerated. The scarring was ugly. But not all that ugly for somebody who had had her head sewn back on.

“Check the foot. Which foot got hurt? The right one, wasn’t it?”

I uncovered the woman’s right foot. The injury done by Goblin’s booby trap, and Soulcatcher’s own crude self-repairs, were immediately obvious.