Or were they? He'd seen the devastation at S'Vralna. He knew what this plague had done to the mighty Fal'Borna. The leaders of the Eandi must have known this as well. They were counting on the fact that the white-hairs were weak, their numbers depleted, their cities ruined. The Fal'Borna were no longer the formidable enemy they once had been.

There was hope for this invasion. And though Torgan had been intent on reaching the wash and the safety of Eandi lands, he now saw that the opportunity for the armies of Stelpana was also an opportunity for him. If this army could retake the Horn, they would reestablish an Eandi presence on the plain for the first time in more than a hundred years. The new Eandi outposts would need goods; they would need trade. They would need a merchant with knowledge of the Qirsi to help them provision themselves. They would need him.

Yes, there were risks. But he'd overcome worse in the past several turns. He'd escaped the Fal'Borna who held him prisoner, and more to the point, he'd thrown off his own cowardice. He still feared death, but he also feared living out the rest of his days as a pauper. He'd made plenty of enemies during his more prosperous days; many of them would delight in seeing him broken and humiliated. Regaining his wealth in Tordjanne or Stelpana or any of the other Eandi realms wouldn't be easy.

But as the first merchant in a new Deraqor, he'd be in a position to make a fortune. And traveling with this army, he'd be safer than he would be trying to complete the journey to Stelpana on his own.

As the idea took form in his mind, he became conscious of the men around him. He watched the marshal and the captains who rode with him, trying to determine which of them was most likely to help him.

He also watched the Mettai woman who had as much as called him a liar. He entertained no hope of winning her support, but he wanted to know what he was up against. And it became clear to him almost immediately that she was no threat at all. She and her people walked in the van, alongside the captains and Stelpana's bowmen. But in all other ways the Mettai clearly were outcasts in this army,. They didn't trust the Eandi, and they knew that they themselves were mistrusted.

That left him with one obvious enemy.

"Excuse me," he said to one of the soldiers marching beside him. "Can you tell me who that woman is riding with the marshal?"

"Tha's Tirnya Onjaef," the man said, in a voice that told Torgan that she was a woman of some renown. "She's th' marshal's daughter."

That much he had gathered.

"And she's a captain in his army?"

The man nodded. "Didn' think much o' her a' first. Bu' she's bett'r 'n most. An' she's good with a sword, too. Nearly beat old Enly hisself in this year's tournament."

Torgan nodded. "I see. And Enly is?"

The soldier pointed at another of the captains, a trim, dark-haired man. "Enly tolm. He's-"

"Ah!" Torgan said. "The lord governor's son."

"Tha's right."

"What else can you tell me about the Onjaef girl?"

The man narrowed his eyes. "Wha'chya wan' t' know?"

Torgan forced a smile. "Forgive me. I don't mean to seem disrespectful. I'm curious, that's all. It's not often that one encounters a woman like that leading an army to battle."

"She is a beauty, air' she?" the man agreed. "There's some wha' says tha' she an' Enly are a pair, if ya knows wha' I mean."

"Really?" Torgan said. "Is it true?"

The soldier shrugged. "Don' know. Don' really care. Long as they leads us right, th' rest don' matter t' me."

Torgan asked the man a few more questions, but though the soldier talked for the better part of an hour, he learned precious little about Tirnya Onjaef. They called her the Falcon, just as they had once called her father the Eagle. She had lost the Qalsyn battle tournament in the final match three years running. And each time she had been beaten by Enly. That did strike Torgan as useful information, though he wasn't yet certain how to use it.

After a while, he thanked the man and increased Trey's pace enough to pull ahead of him. He rode alone for the rest of the day, and when the army halted for the night and began to make camp, he did his best to stay out of everyone's way. He lingered near the marshal and at one point even caught the man's eye. But though the marshal nodded to him, he didn't approach or give Torgan any indication that he wished to resume their conversation.

"That was all right with Torgan. This was much like making a sale in the marketplace. He had something that the marshal might well want at some point. But if Torgan pushed too hard or seemed too anxious for the marshal to use it, he'd never close the deal. Better to wait for the man to come to him.

If he still had his wares and belongings with him he would have pulled out his flask of Qosantian whiskey and approached the captains. He'd never yet known a soldier to turn down a sip of the Qosantian brew, and over the years he'd found that it could loosen even the tightest of tongues. But he had nothing to offer these men or the marshal's daughter, and he wasn't sure what kind of reception he'd get if he tried to inject himself into their conversation. None of them seemed to give a thought to approaching him.

He sat beside a small fire at the fringe of the camp, savoring the full feeling in his belly while Trey grazed nearby. He listened to the quiet hum of the campground, catching snatches of distant conversation and laughter, or verses of battle songs sung slightly out of tune. And he waited. He felt reasonably sure that he wouldn't have to wait long.

She didn't like the merchant. Not at all. She couldn't say why; she just …I didn't trust him. Even now, sitting with the other captains, she could feel his one eye on them, on her. He kept a respectful distance, but he intruded with his furtive glances. He made her skin crawl.

Most of all, she was repulsed by his suggestion that they use the plague to attack the Fal'Borna. And she was deeply disturbed by her father's willingness to consider the notion.

All along she had been the one who had pushed Jenoe-the invasion had been her idea, as had the alliance with the Mettai. But in the past several days her father had changed. The Jenoe she knew would never have allowed his men to kill enemy warriors as they slept. He would have rejected out of hand Torgan Plye's offer of help. Leading this army had changed him.

Tirnya could hardly blame him. She had lost two men in a skirmish with road brigands and it had taken every bit of her courage and composure to face the parents of one of them. Jenoe had lost hundreds of men the last time they faced the Fal'Borna, and they had yet to encounter a white-hair force as large as their own army. She could hardly imagine the burden he carried.

She knew only that with each day that passed her father seemed more like a stranger to her, and that she herself was to blame. Her idea, her fault.

"You look troubled."

She looked up from the fire. Gries had come to sit beside her. Several of the other captains had left them, probably to go sleep. Enly sat opposite her, speaking in low tones with Stri and one of the captains from Waterstone.

"I'm all right," she said, smiling weakly.

"I see." Clearly Gries didn't believe her.

She brushed a strand of hair from her forehead and exhaled heavily. "It's the merchant," she told him. "I wish my father had sent him away."

"You must have known that he wouldn't."

Tirnya shrugged.

"If what he's saying about that basket he carries is true, he's offering us a powerful weapon. More powerful even than the wolves and eagles of the Mettai."

"So you think we should use it," she said, her voice flat.

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Enly was watching them, but she tried to ignore him.