Kelmith ducked her head till it nearly touched mine. “Lady,” she whispered, in her fear addressing me as if I were a noble instead of a wanderer, “what should we do?” Soon the soldiers would ford the creek and enter the yard. I gazed out at them, and I thought about my own options. I could turn back, flee for the capital’s walls and hope I arrived before they overran me. I could turn north to the mountains, or cut south across the plains, but both ways were raw wilderness for five hundred miles. I’d been headed east, to view the fabled spires of Vethos. I wasn’t ready to give up that journey just yet.

  “Hide your children,” I said, “and I’ll stay with them.” She nodded, ducking back inside and calling Bessem to move the skins and rugs aside from the trap door. While he did so, she went to the back room and returned with my sword.

  “Take it,” she said. Then asked, “Can you truly use it?” There had been an argument when I arrived—Kelmith’s husband had insisted I surrender the blade before entering their home. Kelmith, for her part, had taken one look at me and declared me harmless and her husband a paranoid fool. As a halfling I stand only as high as her lowest rib, and her muscled upper arm is as large around as my entire waist.

  “I can,” I said.

  ~o0o~

  Kelmith bustled me down the ladder with Bessem and his tiny sisters Iora and Lett, and I watched while their mother implored them to silence for the sake of their lives. The hidden room was little more than a cube hewn from the earth, its ceiling propped with stout beams and its bare floor swept. Bessem and I sat in the dirt, he with his arms around each of his sisters, and the girls’ eyes soon drooped and closed. Together in the dark, we listened.

  The first sound we heard after a long silence was the door opening, and then the sounds of boots and indistinct voices. Not Kelmith’s voice. Silva, her husband’s; he had been out in the fields. And a man I couldn’t understand, for he wasn’t speaking Nemmik. I listened more carefully, but he wasn’t speaking Vethi, or Lembros, or Anarak either. If he’d come from Estwyllel to the east, he should have been speaking Vethi. Should have been—

  I squinted as the light got brighter. Someone was shoving the rugs aside. I had only time to grip Bessem’s hand tightly before the trap door opened.

  A soldier’s head appeared in the opening, back-lit so that he was only a silhouette. He said something, pointed down at us. Bessem’s hand gripped mine so hard it hurt.

  I heard Kelmith weeping.

  “It’s all right,” I told Bessem. “Be calm and don’t move suddenly.” I tried to say, “They won’t hurt you,” but my throat closed up on the words.

  The solder motioned us up. I went first and stood blinking by the hearth fire. The shutters had been drawn—outside, it was night.

  Two soldiers grabbed me, one on either side, and held my arms. I did not resist. My head hardly reached their belts.

  Besides the two holding me, one other soldier stood with Kelmith and Silva, and when the children had come up behind me the room seemed terribly crowded. The two at my sides wore armor of steel and lacquer, with curved swords strapped to their hips. Their helms had been placed on the chopping block, and their long locks shone yellow in the firelight. They were clean-shaven, fair of skin, and grim of mien. The third was obviously their captain, for he wore a helm with a plume, and a long cape hung from his shoulders.

  The captain looked at me long and hard, then advanced and knelt before me. Without a word he removed my sword belt. Then he rose and addressed me in a rough voice, in his own strange tongue.

  “I don’t understand,” I said in Nemmick. Then, in Vethi, “Do you speak Vethi?” They came from the east. They should speak it.

  But the captain only looked at me.

  My stomach sank. I tried Anarak, the language of pirates and sailors from the south, but not even a flicker of recognition passed his face.

  He nodded at his soldiers and they let me go. Then he motioned me and my hosts into the back room, where Kelmith and Silva’s bed and belongings were, and closed us in. The family lay down on the straw-mattress bed together, Kelmith no longer weeping, her mouth set in a determined line. The youngest child cried openly. I settled myself on the rough floorboards in the corner and wrapped my cloak around me. They had treated us kindly so far; I could only hope they didn’t mean to harm us.

  ~o0o~

  I slept poorly, and when a guard prodded me with his foot in the morning I was already awake. They gave us a bit of water and bread. Then they called me out, alone, and closed the bedroom door behind me.

  Five soldiers plus the captain now occupied the room. I had not seen the captain without his helm before, and his appearance startled me, for he had hair as black as a raven’s wing, shorn close to his skull, and a flat nose, and the skin I’d first taken for tanned like mine I now perceived to be of a different shade entirely, brown with an undertone of gold. I had traveled much, but I had never seen anyone like him.

  The other soldiers stood restlessly, as if anxious to be on their way. One polished his sword with an oilcloth.

  The guard who’d fetched me tied me to an oaken chain with a stout rope. His hands were neither rough nor gentle, and I realized these were not the raw youth I’d seen inducted into the king’s army in Eirloch. They were experienced soldiers, veterans. I did not ask myself where they were marching to, for I had already answered that myself. To the capital, and from what I had seen here, the gods protect those inside the walls.

  The creak of hinges interrupted my reverie. A woman entered; at the sight of her the soldiers stood at attention.

  She looked much as they did. Her yellow hair hung in two plaits over her shoulders, and was streaked with gray. She also wore a steel breastplate with robes beneath, the robes woven throughout with runes and symbols. She crossed to where I sat bound, my feet dangling above the floor, and made a brief sign over my head. Then she touched my ears lightly, one after another.

  “I believe you shall now find,” she said “that you can understand our speech, and answer in kind.”

  “Who are you?”

  “We shall ask questions. Who are you? You are not one of these.” She gestured to the room that contained the farmers and their children.

  I told the truth. “I am Mista, a wanderer. I was heading to Estwyllel to see the silver spires.”

  “You are armed.”

  “All go armed who wander the countryside alone.”

  Her eyes flicked to the captain, and they exchanged a glance. He nodded.

  “The Captain thinks you might be useful to us, Mist Wanderer.”

  She had mis-spoken my name, and so it took a moment for the meaning of the rest of what she was saying to sink in. When it did I stuttered, “I’m just a wanderer, great one. I cannot fight well, and know no magic—”

  My head snapped back before I felt the sharp pain of the blow. The captain had slapped me with his gauntleted hand. I felt blood trickle into my eye.

  “Do not,” said the woman, “lie to us.”

  Without a word, the captain produced my harp. He set it on the floor between us and looked at me long and hard.

  “That’s not my magic,” I said.

  “But you can use it.” It was not a question.

  “Yes, mage. I can use it.” And that was it, then, really. The harp could calm an angry mob, or create a mob from a crowd. It could make a miser generous or a generous soul a miser. I normally didn’t use the magic, for it left an unpleasant aftertaste in the mind of the listener; but that did not mean I had not used it. One, twice, thrice or more.

  This army could use a weapon like that. They would never let me go while I possessed it.

  I nodded, defeated.

  The captain stepped forward. “You will come with us. You will not speak unless spoken to. I will arm you so you can protect yourself against my men. When we reach the capital you shall follow my orders to the letter, or I shall have you killed. If you disobey me at any time, or cause any trouble, I shall likewise have you killed.”

  I nodded, mute.

  “We are from Uurd,” said the mage, “on the Eastern sea. You are our harper now. Understand it.”

  ~o0o~

  The soldiers had been disciplined, I saw, as they brought me out with them. The garden had not been completely stripped, and the fields that had not been trampled or used for camping still contained the harvest. But thousands of men leave their mark on a land. It would be a hard winter for these folk, this far north.

  I doubted they would all survive it.

  A shove from behind set me moving again. I turned to see the mage, her face set and her eyes on the horizon. By a hand atop my head she steered me to a horse. A fine horse, chestnut and tall. She lifted me into the saddle and got up behind me.

  From that height, I saw the captain’s mount.

  It was, as the boy had said, an eagle and a lion in one creature. A griffin. As I watched, the captain approached and petted its head. The sight of it dried my mouth with fear, for griffins are the scourge of the plains, eaters of horses, and all rightly fear them. How the captain had tamed such a beast, I did not know.

  I rode with the mage on her horse all day, at the back of the column of men. She said not a word, and did not let me from her sight. When we stopped for the night at the edge of a wood, she held me by the collar as she barked orders at the men who set her tent.

  Once inside, she tied me to a chair that she conjured from nowhere. She set my harp in its wrappings on a fur, and for a while we both looked at them. I wished she would cast the spell again that would let me speak with her. I hated silence of all kinds.

  Soldiers brought food, and we ate. She lit a brace of candles. Night fell.

  The mage’s tent was a little away from the others; I heard the sounds of men talking, perhaps rolled dice, and laughter. I thought she might join them, but she only sat and stared at the harp, and at me. I felt like a mouse beneath a hawk’s gaze.

  Then she drew a knife. I struggled mightily in my bonds, but there had been too little warning. In a flash she stood beside me, the knife at my throat. She leaned in very close, and spoke low in my ear.

  “Do not speak yet. If anyone comes in, you are terrified.”

  I was terrified. But she’d spoken in Vethi, the language of the eastern kingdom. Although the knife bit my skin, the realization we could understand each other made my heart leapt with hope.

  “Nod if you understand me.”

  I nodded fractionally, and she eased the knife back.

  “Then I must know—are you loyal to the king in Eirloch? What price would you pay to save this land? You may speak.”

  The question caught me off my guard. “This land?” I said. “No price. You kidnapped the right person, for this is not my king nor my country.”

  Silence, stretching on as the candles guttered.

  Finally: “I must show you something. It is fine for you to quail in terror when you see it, for I have a reputation of treating captives harshly.”

  “What—”

  A line of pain as the knife cut my flesh. “Silence. You will not speak until I bid it. I will show you this thing in the morning.”

  I froze, trembling. Questions battered my mind like surf upon a headland, assaulting me with my own powerlessness, but one leapt to the fore: Was this mage disappointed that I had not sworn my enmity to her army?

  She untied me, and I rubbed my wrists until the feeling returned to my hands. She showed me a bedroll and I lay down upon it.

  Later, a scream woke me in the night. A soldier’s scream. Then silence.

  ~o0o~

  But the next morning, the mage was called away to the front of the column, and I rode her horse in the rear, alone. I was not bound, and she gave me back my sword, though not my harp. If I’d been tied and slung over the saddle I would have been less frightened, for I would not have had to control the beast, which was far too large for me, and also it would have meant she had faith in the soldiers not to harm me. The captain had said something like that, too: “I will arm you so you can protect yourself against my men.”

  Those men had seemed honorable so far, and more disciplined than any army I had heard of.

  What should I fear?

  I scanned the faces of the men near me. If I had not been made hyper-aware by the mage and the captain, I would have seen only resigned soldiers on the march. But there was something else—many of them looked fatigued and wary. Their eyes flicked right and left; some of them hunched their shoulders as if against a blow. Those who did not show open signs of fear had deep worry lines etched into their faces.

  But a few marched with almost a swagger, their shoulders thrown back. I studied one of them, trying to figure out why my stomach knotted in fear at the sight of him. His face was turned away from mine, but suddenly, as if sensing my gaze, he turned. For a brief moment our eyes locked, and he smiled.

  In that smile was a depth of cruelty I could not comprehend. My breath hitched in my chest, and I stopped like a hart frozen before the hunt. I dragged my eyes away from his and sat in the saddle, my breathing ragged, waiting for the terror to pass. I knew cruel men were sometimes drawn to the warrior’s life, but this—

  A hand settled on my thigh, high up, and in one movement I had drawn my sword and leveled it.

  It was him. He should not have been able to cross the distance to me in such a short time. My voice shook as I said, “Remove your hand at once or I shall cut it off.”

  He laughed. Then he spoke in unaccented Nemmik, “I should relish that. Perhaps tonight.”

  And he was gone. He slipped behind the nearest soldier and where he should have stood was just a terrified-looking young man with a long red welt on his face. I looked at him and he lowered his eyes, as if ashamed.

  ~o0o~

  I broke the mage’s rule that night. As soon as we were alone and dinner had been served I whispered, “Who are they?” The fear I heard in my own voice only added to my fear. I had ridden the rest of the day flinching at every brush of breeze or snap of twig and my nerves were frayed and my body exhausted.

  The mage, who had been reading from a tome by candlelight, turned her eyes to mine. I could not read them.

  She came over and knelt before the chair in which I was bound. Spoke a few soft syllables and placed her hands on my temple. I felt her rummaging through my thoughts, but I could not muster the will to fight or even be frightened. She soon found my memory of my interaction with the soldier; she turned it this way and that until I thought I would die of remembered terror, then released me.

  Then she took my chin in her hands, like a mother addressing a daughter. “If one of them should rape you,” she said, “do not bear the child.”

  “Don’t leave me alone,” I whispered.

  Her face, which had opened almost to softness, closed up again. “I am the captain’s mage. Where he orders me to be, I am.”

  A sudden storm of red fury swept me. “You cannot do this,” I said. “I am a free woman. You have no right.”

  “As am I,” she said. “Yet here I remain.”

  “How dare you compare us.” She had power and I none. She was a soldier and I a commoner. If that man touched her she could probably burn him to cinders. I turned my face away, and she spoke no more to me that night.

  ~o0o~

  But the next day, as we rode together once more, she struck me open handed so that the blow landed across my right eye.

  And I saw the truth of the captain’s army.

  Towering over the other soldiers, perhaps one in fifty, marched creatures made from smoking flame and darkness. They stood seven feet or more. Great curved horns grew from their brows, and wings from their shoulders. These were disguised as men, but they were not men. They were demons.

  I did not speak, nor did she. I forced myself to look at those demons and to accept their reality. I was in the midst of something truly terrible, something I did not understand, something I would probably not survive. The only thing left to me was to retain my sense of self, to not let the terror that choked me turn me into a person I would die being ashamed of.

  ~o0o~

  That night in the tent I once again broke the silence. “Why did you show me?” It would have been better if I had not known. I was not afraid to stab a soldier, a man, no matter how monstrous.

  “Because Captain Sunnan does not know.”

  I didn’t answer at once. The knowledge hit me like a glancing blow that only slowly reveals its consequence. If the captain didn’t know, then the demons weren’t in his thrall. Would he care when they wreaked destruction in Eirloch beyond any harm a man could do? I nurtured the thought that he would be horrified, because I wanted to believe the captain was an honorable man.

  “Are they yours?” I asked finally, though I was afraid she might say yes, thus turning the closest person I had to an ally into a deadly enemy.

  “No.”

  The tiny bright droplet of relief felt huge. “Whose then?”

  The mage had tied me once again to the chair. Where she’d struck me to work her sight magic my cheek was abraded and weeping. Now she came close and grabbed a fistful of my shirt, putting her face close to mine.

  “That’s what I mean to find out. Tonight. But I need your help to do it.” Her dominating demeanor was an act; her whispered words, asking for my alliance, were the truth. She was my ally.

  “How?”

  “I will lay out a ritual to see the truth in the center of the lie. But while I do it I will be vulnerable. You must guard the tent and protect us from harm.”

  “I’m just a traveler!”

  She looked down on me long and hard. “That harp,” she said, “I’ve studied it. I think you can use it to get the captain to heed me when I tell him what danger we’re in. But I need to find out where the danger comes from before we fall more deeply into the trap. Once I’ve found out what I can, we’ll go straight to him. Until then, you will be a warrior because you must be one. No one carries a sword such as yours if they cannot fight.”

  She left me bound while she drew runes with her finger on the rugs, runes that burned bright white and then faded. Next she drew two circles, both with gaps, and brought inside the center one her heavy tome, and herbs, and bottles inside of which were other stranger things I could not name. Then she came and loosened my bonds.