"May I go, Majesty?" Cape Chavel said stiffly.

"Yes, go," she said.

She heard his footsteps start off. "Wait," she said.

The footfalls stopped, and she felt a giddy sort of fear.

"I never said I didn't care for you," she said softly.

"Do you?"

She turned slowly. "Since we've met, I've been very…busy," she said. "I've had a lot on my mind."

"I know," he said.

"And as I've told you, I've been hurt before." She paused. "Not just once. And there is-was-someone else. I admire you, Cape Chavel. I like you very much."

"That isn't love."

"I've no idea what love is," Anne said. "But you're judging me too quickly. You're guessing. You will never know if I can love you unless you court me, and neither will I."

He held her gaze well past the point Anne found comfortable, which amounted to around three heartbeats.

"Majesty, now I have to ask if you are serious."

She suddenly wanted to make a joke out of the whole thing, explode the moment as she had done with Cazio and back away.

And what about Cazio? She was sure he had feelings for her. If something happened to Austra- No, she couldn't think like that.

And so she nodded in response to his question.

"Then I will court you," he said softly. "And hope I do not regret it. How should I start?"

"Ideally? Long walks in the gardens, riding, picnics, flowers and poetry. But as we're in the middle of a war and I'm sending you off to fight this afternoon, I think a kiss might be nice."

And so there was a kiss, and it was nice, and another, which was very nice, and so they spent the rest of the morning as the boats finished burning.

CHAPTER FOUR

ONE OF THE WYVERS folded its wings and dropped, hitting the man riding ahead of Aspar in the middle of the back with its wicked spurs. The fellow went flying over his mount's neck, and the horse reared in terror. So did Aspar's mount, and he cursed the loss of Ogre one more time. Ogre would rear only to attack.

Trying to control the beast with one hand, he jabbed his spear at the wyver with the other. To his satisfaction, he poked a hole right through its wing.

It screeched, hopped out of reach, and leaped skyward. The wounded wing still caught plenty of air, and in heartbeats it was up with its four brethren.

The attack had come as a surprise, because for bells the things had just been circling, following them. Fend's eyes in the heavens.

When they reached Ermensdoon, the flying creatures broke off their attack and went even higher in their coiling paths.

"We don't have long," Aspar said. "They'll be coming."

"We almost beat them," Emfrith muttered. His face was still tear-streaked. "If we could just find some way to kill the basil-nix. I hear Duke Artwair killed one down in Broogh, with fire."

"Maunt they may have another fox behind their ears," Aspar pointed out.

Emfrith nodded. "I won't argue with you again. We'll form up here only as long as it takes to evacuate the castle. Then we're off, wherever you say."

Aspar felt happier than he ought to at Emfrith's capitulation. It was the geos again.

Aspar knelt in the brush and looked down across the fields, gritting his teeth against the ache in his leg.

Leshya sighed almost silently and shook her head from side to side.

"I could have scouted alone," she whispered.

Aspar didn't answer. Fend and his monsters were just appearing over a low hill about ten bowshots away. He glanced at the sky, but he and the Sefry seemed to have been successful in sneaking away from the larger party without a winged escort.

There were more sedhmhari than ever. At this distance he couldn't make out what all of them were, but it looked as if there were at least twenty.

"Well, that's that," Aspar said.

They made their way back over the ridge to their mounts and turned them south.

"That should convince Emfrith not to fight again," Aspar said.

"Aspar, where are we going?" Leshya asked.

"A place in the Mountains of the Hare."

"The Vhenkherdh?"

He nodded curtly.

"But you'll lead Fend right to it."

"If it's really Fend back there. Anyway, Fend's been there. He nearly murdered me there. It's no secret to him." He glanced over at her. "That's where you wanted to go, isn't it?"

"Yes. But…"

"What?"

"The child Winna carries is yours, yes?"

"Yah."

"And Winna was waurm-poisoned. She nearly died of it, as I understand."

"Yah."

"Then you must know that what she carries probably isn't human."

"I cann that, too," he snapped.

"But she doesn't, does she? She doesn't know what we know, and you haven't told her."

"No."

"Why?"

"Because I can't."

Leshya's eyes thinned to violet slits. "Can't or won't?"

"Can't," he replied, hoping she would get it.

But she just blinked and took her horse to a trot. "We'd better catch them," she said.

They caught up with Winna and the rest a few bells later.

"They're half a day behind us," Aspar told them. "They've also got reinforcements: twice as many beasties as before the bridge fight."

"Sceat," Emfrith said. "Where do they come from?"

"They're everywhere now," Leshya said. "He calls, and they come."

"Why don't we leave the road?" Emfrith suggested. "With those wagons of his, he'd have a hard time following us."

"He's already slower with the wagons," Aspar said. "When we leave the road, he'll abandon them, and then they'll be a lot faster. So I think we stay between the ruts as long as we can."

"Why hasn't he already done that?" Winna asked. "The greffyns could catch us, murder us all, and be back at the wagons in a bell."

Yes, but Fend doesn't want all of us dead, Aspar thought. Me, maybe, but not you. If he sent the greffyns, they'd slaughter everyone.

"I can't say what's in Fend's mind," he said. "For whatever reason, he doesn't seem to be in a big hurry. I reckon he doesn't think we can get away."

"My concern isn't just for us," Emfrith said. "There's a village less than a league up ahead, Len-an-Wolth. We can't lead an army of monsters through there."

"He's right, Aspar," Winna said.

"Werlic," he agreed. "We'll go around, then. I'll ride ahead and warn them, though. Fend's booygshins will want to feed, and they'll probably find the town, anyway."

"Aspar," Winna pleaded, "let Emfrith send someone. You just got back."

"I'd better do it myself," Aspar said, and kicked his horse into motion.

Every moment he spent away from Winna was a moment he didn't have to lie to her.

As it turned out, they needn't have worried about Len-an-Wolth; the little market town was already empty of human life, although he saw plenty of bones scattered about. What had killed them? Slinders, bandits, monsters? It didn't matter to them, did it?

It had never been a big place. There was a smallish church, thirty or so houses, and a little tavern whose clapboard proclaimed it "Sa Plinseth Gaet." Underneath the lettering was a picture of a goat dancing on its hind legs and holding a beer in one forehoof.

He looked inside and in a few of the houses, calling out as he did so, but there was no answer. The buildings were all fine except that a few of the roofs needed to be rethatched.

He was just getting ready to go when a familiar voice called his name.

Fend.

He put an arrow on the string and peered around the corner. It was Fend, all right, with one of his Sefry companions and three beasts that would have looked something like a combination of wolf, horse, and man if they hadn't been scaly.

Well, sceat, he thought. I should have kissed Winna good-bye.