Rynthala raised both hands, controlling ber horse with her knees. One hand lifted over her head, halting her scouting party; she held the other out at an angle, thumb and forefinger apart. That brought Tharash out of his saddle and up to her stirrup, albeit at his own graceful, leisurely pace.

Tharash (his full name was only just shorter than a gnome's) was an elf, from his dark coloring almost certainly of Kagonesti blood. He admitted to being seven hundred years old, although he did not look it, even by elven standards. In any case, Rynthala's parents could account only for the last forty or so of those years.

They did not care. He was the best tracker and the most indefatigable huntsman and ranger they had ever known. Rynthala, wise beyond her years in such matters (thanks largely to Tharash's teaching) was willing to take their word for it.

She had even been willing to take Tharash on this ride south and west; for all she knew, it was a trick to get her away from Belot. Her parents trusted her trailcraft and courage; they did not trust her temper with the elven messenger. Since they could not offend him by departing with her, they had sent Tharash in his old role as foster father. They were accompanied by a dozen of the best woodsmen and riders at Belkuthas.

"Yes, Lady Rynthi?" Tharash said. He now put a "lady" in front of her pet name, and no longer patted her knee. Otherwise his manner toward her was unchanged from when she had been seven and spent her first night in the woods with him.

"Judge for yourself, but is that not smoke beyond the ridge-the one with the red outcropping-to the southwest?"

Tharash needed only a single look. "Your eyes are sharp, lady."

"Who honed them?"

"Guilty. But your tongue is your own creation."

"Need you follow that trail? My parents have already worn it fetlock-deep."

But Tharash was not listening. After looking around to see that none had overheard, he knelt and put his ear to the ground. He managed to look graceful even in that awkward pose, but was swift to stand afterward.

"Unless my ears are failing-"

"Your ears will fail long after I am dead," Rynthala said gently, then wanted to apologize to the frowning face beside her.

She had spoken only the truth. A fourth part of elven blood might give her a century of life or a bit more, but Tharash would still be following trails when her ashes rode the winds of Krynn. It was a price that few elves were willing to pay for associating with humans, and for this Tharash deserved more honor, or at least fewer reminders.

"My ears tell me that not far off are no less than three bands of good size, two of them at least largely mounted."

The elf's courtesy kept him from adding, Is it wise to go on? but Rynthala could hear it in his voice.

"One of them could well be Lauthin's embassy. If so, we should seek them out and ride north with them."

"Will they welcome us? I am not Silvanesti, so folk like Lauthin are as strange to me as kender, and not nearly as amusing."

"They already seem ready to think the worst of us Belkuthas folk. If we send them a guard of honor, it can do no harm."

She did not add, unless we encounter a foe too strong for our fourteen bows, because she could also hear those words in the elven ranger's voice. Indeed, she could think of nothing to say, nor anything to do except give the signal to remount and move on.

For three days, the united company of Free Riders and Solamnic warriors had been casting back and forth across the country between them and Belkuthas. This was a compromise between, on the one hand, splitting the band to search out Zephros's army and, on the other, marching straight for the citadel.

Neither chief had favored dividing the company. At least three other armed companies, not counting the kender, were within a day's ride. All remained as invisible as if they had burrowed into the rock like dwarves. Dividing the riders increased the chances of intercepting one of these bands, but also of falling to them if they were strong enemies.

Threehands himself spoke strongly in favor of riding straight to Belkuthas. Pirvan disagreed.

"The folk at Belkuthas are friends to all, or at least foes to none who come in peace. But we will have a warmer welcome if we gather knowledge of who else comes. More than Zephros are coming on, I think."

Threehands clearly found that probability about as agreeable as draining an oasis dry, but acknowledged Pirvan's wisdom. So they began their wandering path, which left them farther toward Belkuthas at the end of each day but meanwhile let them search the land well to either side of the direct road.

Now it was the last halt of the third day's march. Pirvan squatted cross-legged. In this pose and garbed as he was, one would have had to look twice to see that he was not a free rider. Haimya lay on a scrap of rawhide, her head in Pirvan's lap, while he combed the sand out of her hair.

There was more gray in that hair than there had been even as recently as their departure for the desert. But it was still thick, springy, and a delight to run his fingers through. He wished earnestly that a night would soon come, when he and his lady could pitch a tent and withdraw into it.

A shadow fell across them. They looked up to see Hawkbrother.

"Pardon if I intrude-"

Haimya smiled. "You look too much in earnest to be sent away, regardless of what you say."

"You are more gracious than I deserve. Ah-how much longer shall we expose Tarothin to the perils of this land?"

Pirvan started to bristle, but Haimya put a finger to his lips. "We shall cease when Tarothin bids us, and not before," she said. "He is an old friend as well as a potent wizard, and this is probably his last quest. We cannot take honor from him by wrapping him like a babe."

The word "honor" did not have its usual near-magical effect on a Free Rider. Pirvan realized that more was called for, and tried to keep his voice light.

"We do let him use a tent of nights. He has proven he can wake from a sound sleep, shred a tent, jerk pegs and poles out of the ground, and put out fires-all of it using little or no magic."

"At least once," Hawkbrother said.

"Once is all he will need. After the first attack, we ride straight for Belkuthas to bring warning."

Hawkbrother nodded, but seemed to have unspoken words dangling like overripe berries from his lips. Pirvan's hands ceased their work in Haimya's hair.

"What truly afflicts you, Hawkbrother? If you do not tell the truth, I shall forbid you to see Eskaia!"

Hawkbrother's face told Pirvan that this was no proper jest, even before Haimya pinched her husband's inner thigh so hard that her fingernails nearly met in his flesh. The Gryphon warrior looked enraged enough to draw steel and humiliated enough to weep.

"Your pardon, though I realize my ill-spoken jest may not deserve one," Pirvan said. Haimya's pinch turned into a caress.

"It does, for you are my sworn chief and have a right to speak as you wish."

"Even as a father who forgot that his daughter is a woman grown and not his to command?"

"Even that," Hawkbrother said, and he smiled. "You and my father should sit down over wine some day and trade stories of how you gave your children commands that they would not obey. I am sure it would console you both."

"When that day comes, I am sure it will," Pirvan said. "But your father is far away, and your brother is close. Does he wish to end our search?"

Hawkbrother's look told Pirvan that he had guessed aright. Haimya's told him that if he was so shrewd, why had he made a witless jest, insulting to both Hawkbrother and their daughter?

"Well, if your brother speaks plainly of the matter-"

"He will not, Chief Pirvan. But he feels himself a stranger here, facing battle with other strangers in a far land where no Free Rider may pass his grave mound for a century or more."

Pirvan thought of all the Knights of Solamnia who had ridden out on their appointed duties and vanished forever, to be recorded on the rolls only as "Missing, presumed fallen with honor." How many of them had doubted the wisdom of being in the place where they fell-and still faced death with courage?

He remembered an adage from his days of training as a Knight of the Crown: "Honor is not a contest. Set no man a test you would not be ready to face yourself."

That would guide him with Threehands. The Free Rider would not be tested past tomorrow's moon rise.

Then Solamnic trumpet and Gryphon drum together sounded the call to mount up.

Horimpsot Elderdrake was the first to sight the band of sell-swords waiting in ambush. This nearly ignited an argument with his companion, who disliked the thought of his eyes being dimmer than the younger kender's.

Fortunately, Imsaffor Whistletrot was the first to sight the mounted column heading north toward the kender's perch. And both simultaneously sighted the lookouts settling into position at the head of the pass to the east.

"This is going to be a wonderful fight," Elderdrake said. "It should last all the rest of daylight, and then we can go down and do what we please on the field."

"No, we cannot," Whistletrot said. He spoke with a solemnity more commonly associated with White Robe clerics than with kender. "We need to warn the riders."

"Oh, and if they are grateful, then we can-"

"We need to warn them because they are not Zephros's men. Every band in this land who is not Zephros's may in time fight him. It is not what they will do for us, it is what they may do to Zephros."

"But how are we to warn them before they are in bow shot? Those sell-swords look strong."

"What kind of a judge of human warriors are you?" Whistletrot snapped. "I have been among them more years than you have been on your journeys."

"And their horses have been horses more years than you have been alive, and they are still horses!" the younger kender all but shouted.

Whistletrot did not dignify that outburst with a reply. Instead, he stood up and dropped pack, pouches, and weapons on the rock. Then he ran out into the open, toward a slope where he would be in plain view of the sell-sword band.

A moment later Elderdrake heard his companion's voice rise in shrill mockery.

"Hey, you silly gut-bags up there! The sun will parch you in time, but right now you stink! Go somewhere else and make the air foul!"

The taunting rapidly grew worse.

Elderdrake did not wait long before he, too, stood up and dropped most of his pouches. He did not let go of his hoopak, however.

His friend had gone out there to taunt the sell-swords without more than the clothes on his back. By kender code, any other kender around had to join Whistletrot, or their memories would be taunted.

He ran out into the open, adding the drone of his whirled hoopak to a few well-chosen words about how seldom the sell-swords bathed. He went on to describe what this did to their skins, beards, hair, tongues, digestions, and chances with women. By the time he had run that line of taunting to an end, Imsaffor Whistletrot had come up with a few new ideas of his own.

In between taunts, the kender listened for the sound of sell-swords breaking cover, drawing steel, or nocking arrows. They could now hear easily, almost over the sound of their own voices, the approaching rattle and thump of the mounted column.

Sir Darin, riding in the lead, raised the alarm in a most irregular fashion.

"Why are those idiot children dancing up there?" he exclaimed. Then, in a different tone, he called, "Sir Pirvan! Threehands! I think we've found our kender!"

Then, as the westering sun glinted on the helmets and weapons of armed men leaping from cover, Darin shouted: "Attack!"

Some of those riding behind took it as a warning, some as an order. The library of Dargaard Keep was filled with books chronicling battles and campaigns gone awry or even turned into disasters by ambiguous orders. Pirvan spurred his mount forward, shouting to Haimya and Grimsoar to keep their company in hand and guard Tarothin. He would have a few words to say to Darin, who was not fighting his first battle and should have had more sense!

Then Pirvan realized that Darin had, largely by chance, contrived exactly the right tactics. A good many of the Free Riders and a few of the Solamnics were closing on him, eager to be led up the slope to battle.

All the rest were maneuvering their mounts into a defensive formation-while from the right, a motley array of foot and horse was spilling from a narrow gap in the rock. Pirvan knew that it was his duty to parley with the newcomers and try to keep the peace with them, but if he failed, his fighters below would be well placed to stand against them.

He would still have words with Darin, but they would be fewer and milder. Also spoken after he had dealt with the men now barely out of bow shot to the right.

Pirvan turned his horse, discovered that Hawkbrother was riding with him, thought of asking the Gryphon warrior to withdraw, then thought the better of such folly. He had insulted Hawkbrother once already today; if he did so again and Hawkbrother did not survive the battle, Eskaia would never forgive him.

"Remember, young chief!" he called. "We give them a chance to speak, and if they speak peace, we give it."

"Oh, I obey," Hawkbrother called back, shouting over the rising battle din. "But they shall speak quickly, or my sword shall reply!"

The sun flashed on his scimitar as he drew and flourished it.

"That is a battle," Tharash said, pointing ahead.

Rynthala shaded her eyes against the sun, then nodded. But her voice held doubt. "It is not where we both saw the smoke."

"It is sun on steel, or I am an owlbear cub. That means battle, or at least warriors. I doubt that any travel this desert wearing armor and weapons to entertain the sandstingers."

Rynthala realized she had just been gently reproved. Remembering what Tharash could say when he did not wish to be gentle, she hoped she would never again have the experience.

"I hope Lauthin and his friends are nowhere near," she said. "I would like to lead in my first battle without a Silvanesti high judge watching."

Tharash managed to put eloquent agreement into a simple nod. Then Rynthala stood in her stirrups and, with hand signals, motioned the riders into battle array.

They would remain mounted as long as the enemy or the ground allowed. All except her and Tharash carried two bows, a long one for work afoot and a shorter one for work mounted, with arrows suited to each. So they could shoot as fast if not as far from the saddle, and keep the rider's power to advance, retreat, or charge to close quarters at will.

Now, if she and her people could just avoid sticking their heads into a noose that they would not recognize until it had already pulled tight ...

Her hands dropped together in the final signal: Advance, at the center.

Pirvan would have liked to throw an occasional glance at the slope now on his left. He hoped Darin was rallying his attacking column, turning it from an eager mob into a disciplined body.

Hope was all he could do. He would lose an important advantage over the men before him if he appeared worried. He had to command himself before he could command the situation.

"Ho!" he called when he thought his voice would carry and knew it would not come out a rasp or a squeak. "Who comes here?"

"Who wants to know?" one of the advancing horsemen replied. He seemed to be well mounted, although his horse was thin-flanked, while he had both broadsword and mace slung on his saddle.

"It's the Solamnics!" somebody screamed from behind the rider. "Kill them, and none will know we are here!"

Pirvan had a moment's leisure to reflect that whoever led this band would have to be truly witless or utterly vicious to deserve such idiots in his company. He had this leisure because the rider made a desperate effort to turn his mount sideways and block the onrush of the foot, pricked into action by the fool's outburst.

The horse reared. One of the footmen thrust a spear up into its belly. Screams and spraying blood filled the air, and horse and rider fell, to be trampled out of sight in the rush.

One man darted out in front, determined to be the first into action. Pirvan hoped he was the witling who had brought on the battle. He drew his sword and spurred his mount onward.

One day his speed would desert him, and then it would be a race between the end of his fighting days and the end of his life. But for now, the Knight of the Sword who had once been a master thief in Istar could, in his new profession, rely on the same speed and agility that had been so precious in his old one.

Unfortunately for both Pirvan and the bold opponent, Hawkbrother was even faster.