Bright light flickered on the tallest bushes and began to bleed downward. The sun was coming up at last. Durja called out again, this time hopping and flapping his wings.

"I care nothing for you or your customs," said Amira. "Be off before I become angry and turn you all into donkeys. I'll herd you to the nearest settlement and geld the lot of you!"

Durja raised a racket and would not stop. The Tuigan nearest to him, one of the bowmen, scowled and turned to him.

"Ujren!" he called. "Look here!"

The leader kept his eyes on Amira. "What is it?"

"The raven. He's standing on a bit of cloth buried in the dirt, and there's some silver."

"Silver?"

"Looks like a bit of necklace or something."

The leader gave Amira a hard look. "You buried your belongings, did you? Stay there. We will take our gift ourselves, then be off."

"I don't know what you mean," said Amira. "Ravens are hoarders.

Probably just a trinket he found on the steppe."

"You said this raven was your slave."

"He wanders." Amira shrugged. "One of the reasons I turned him into a raven. I can't abide a worthless slave."

Still keeping his gaze fixed on Amira, the leader said, "See it, Geshtai."

The bowman looped one finger round the arrow on his bow to hold it in place while freeing his other hand. He approached the ground where Durja was still keeping up his racket. The raven glared at the Tuigan, his cries becoming enraged. When the man was a few paces away, Durja hopped backward, his wings flapping. Finally, he gave up and flew a short distance before landing again and resuming his racket.

Chuckling, the bowman bent over, his free hand reaching out.

The ground at his feet erupted.

Through the spray of dirt Amira saw the glint of the new sun on a blade, and the bowman screamed as if he were being flayed alive. He went down, his shrieks increasing, and through the cloud of dirt, Gyaidun stood, a bloody knife in one hand and his long black iron club in the other.

Amira had an instant to decide-three swordsmen and a bowman facing Gyaidun in front of her and at least three bowmen and two others at her back. She chose.

Amira spun as she fell, whipping her staff around to face the four bowmen on the other side of the gully. She took a breath even as they raised their bows and pulled feathers to cheeks.

"Vranis!" she shouted.

Flames roared from the ground at the four Tuigan's feet, a gout of fire that turned grass to ash in a rush of breath, caught in the fur lining the men's trousers and continued its way up into their wool shirts-all in the time it took them to gasp in shock. Each man fell screaming to the ground, and their arrows flew harmlessly away. All but one, which skidded through the grass near Durja, who cried out and took to the air.

Amira returned her attention to the foes in front of her. She saw fear in their eyes, but also determination. They knew death was before them, and their only hope was to face it and fight.

Gyaidun had already made it to the first swordsman. With his comrades standing between him and the large warrior, the remaining Tuigan bowman pivoted and brought his aim to bear on Amira.

"No!" she shouted. She'd had no time to prepare any shields.

Her attention focused, becoming acute so that the scene before her seemed frozen. She saw the fingers of the bowman's right hand open, and the tension held in the bow relaxed. Amira took one step back and leaped, partly hoping she'd make it back into the gully and partly dreading the fall.

The arrow passed so close that she heard the buzz of the wind through its fletching as it passed over her. Her hip hit the lip of the gully, and she went down head first into the dry wash. The fall knocked the breath out of her, and when she opened her mouth to fill her lungs, her mouth filled with dirt. She rolled to her hands and knees, coughing and spitting. She could hear screaming, the clash of weapons, the fire from her spell still burning on the other side of the gully over her, and above it all, Durja raising a holy racket.

Though every breath felt as if she were drawing needles into her lungs, she forced herself to her feet and risked a look above the rim of the gully. Only three Tuigan were still standing, Gyaidun facing off against the leader and the other swordsman. The third had another arrow ready, and as she watched he pulled it to his cheek and took aim at Gyaidun.

Amira thrust one arm forward, pointed at the bowman, and forced out a single word-"Dramasthe!"

It was one of the first spells she'd learned as an apprentice, one of the first spells every apprentice learned for its simplicity and sheer effectiveness. A bright beam only slightly longer than the Tuigan's arrow shot forth from her finger and struck the bowman square in the chest. He flew backward as if struck by a hammer, his arrow streaking into the grass a few paces away and his bow falling to the ground where he'd stood.

Amira shifted her aim to the leader and struggled to draw in another breath.

Tuigan learned to fight from horseback not long after they learned to walk. As cavalry, few in Faer?n could match their ferocity. But fine swordsmen they were not, and these two relied upon superior numbers and brute force, charging Gyaidun together, one stabbing while the other swiped his blade at Gyaidun's midsection.

Rather than try to block both swords, Gyaidun simply stepped backward out of their reach.

Amira tried to speak the incantation, but it came out a harsh rasp that turned into a cough. Some of the dirt she'd been unable to spit out had gone down her throat and she couldn't form the syllables.

Gyaidun swiped at the leader with his club, but the Tuigan merely leaned away. Following through, Gyaidun brought the club back around.

Again the Tuigan leaned away, but this time Gyaidun let go of his weapon. The long shaft of heavy iron shot forward and slammed into the leader's face. Even over the crackling of the flames and Durja's racket, Amira heard bone crunch. The bandit leader collapsed like a newborn foal.

The handle of Gyaidun's club had about two paces of leather cord braided through it, the other end of which was bound to the big man's wrist. With a flick of his arm he brought the iron club toward him and slapped it back into his hand.

The remaining Tuigan stood alone against a larger foe and a wizard. Amira half-expected him to turn and run. But the Tuigan apparently decided-and rightly so-that it was kill or be killed, and he attacked with renewed ferocity.

Gyaidun blocked two slashes of the man's blade with his club and swiped at the Tuigan with his knife. He missed and the Tuigan lowered his blade and thrust. Gyaidun brought the full weight of his club down on the sword, and the steel blade snapped a hand's length above the hilt. Thrown off-balance, the Tuigan stumbled, and before he could right himself, Gyaidun's long knife swiped under his chin. Blood fountained outward in a long arc as the man fell back.

The Tuigan hammered the ground with his hands and heels. Amira could hear him trying to draw breath into his lungs, and she winced at the wet gurgle. The man coughed, blood and bile sprayed out of the gash in his throat, and Amira looked away. She'd seen worse. Many times. But never did it do anything but fill her with revulsion.

"Good," her old master had told her long ago. "That's good. Don't fight the horror. If you do, one day you won't feel the horror at killing anymore. On that day, put away your battle spells and retire to a life of scholarship. Cormyr needs warriors, not murderers."

The fight done, Amira rummaged through their belongings until she found her waterskin. She untied the knot, sloshed water through her mouth and spat, repeating until she could no longer feel grit in her throat. Then she took a long drink, tied the skin shut, and climbed out of the gully.