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The fight around the horses was brief and the outcouards are not ahly skilled warriors

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Sparhawk bellowed at Talen as the boy pulled his rapier out of the body of one of the Cynesgans

‘Stragen’s been giving me lessons,’ Talen replied ‘I just wanted to find out if he knehat he was talking about Watch your back’

Sparhawk spun, knocked aside the spear of a charging border guard, and cut the man down He turned back just as Talen deftly parried the thrust of another, deflecting the curved blade off to one side Then the young h ‘Neat, wouldn’t you say?’ he s off – and don’t take so long to recover fro’

‘Yes, revered teacher’

What little question there had been about the outcohts were in their saddles Things ended abruptly when the obnoxious captain, who had been shrieking, ‘You’re all under arrest!’ broke off suddenly as Sir Bevier coolly swung his lochaber axe and sent his head flying

‘Thron your weapons!’ Ulath roared at the few survivors ‘Surrender or die!’

Two of the guards, however, had reached their horses They scraallop One stiffened and toppled from his saddle after about fifty yards, with Berit’s arrow protruding from between his shoulder-blades The other rode on so desperately at hisof Khalad’s crossbow

‘Good shot,’ Berit noted

‘Fair,’ Khalad agreedtheir weapons away

‘You run a good fight, Sparhawk,’ Vanion coood teacher Kalten, tie them all up and then run off their horses’

‘Why me?’

‘You’re handy, and there’s that other matter as well’

‘I didn’t breakabout it’

‘What’s this?’ Vanion asked

‘There’s a lady involved, entle?’ Aphrael asked sharply She had raised her head fro suspiciously at Sparhawk

‘Are you with us again?’ he asked her

‘Obviously What are you doing?’

‘There was so followed – chased, actually’

‘I can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I, father?’

‘It was more or less unavoidable Have you finished hatever it was you were doing?’

‘For the ti’

‘The town of Edek is just ahead, and we’ve probably got a brigade of Cynesgan soldiers right behind us Do you suppose you could move us on ahead a ways?’

‘Why didn’t you do it yourself? You kno it’s done’

‘Sephrenia wouldn’t let me’

‘His attention wanders at critical moments,’ Sephrenia explained ‘I didn’t want him to put us down on the reed ‘Why don’t we justbetween here and there but open desert, you know’

‘They were expecting us at the border,’ he replied ‘It see the way that we’re coarrison of troops at Cynestra, and I’d like to feel h the situation there before I blunder into souess that makes sense – sort of’

‘How’s yourherself enorht now, and you kno lad she’s happy You’ll have to tell us about it, but let’s get past Edek and outrun that Cynesgan brigade first I don’t like having people snapping at et Vanion’sthis tiet used to that,’ Kalten shuddered after they had covered fifty leagues of open desert in a single gray-blurred moment

‘Your map’s not very precise, Vanion,’ Aphrael said critically ‘We were trying for a spot on the other side of that peak’ She pointed at a jagged spire rearing up out of the desert

‘I didn’t draw the map,’ Vanion replied a bit defensively ‘What difference does it h, aren’t we? We cao’

‘You’d have found out howaround near a large body of water,’ she said tartly ‘This is just too imprecise’

Vanion looked back over his shoulder toward the west ‘It’s alet back away froot a problem with this, let’s find a quiet place where we can work it out’

Sparhawk ser the Pandion Preceptor, Vanion auto about what he believed to be his changed status Sparhawk didn’t reallyorders from Vanion, and his friend’s assu details of command

They rode out into the desert a couple of ht in a dry wash behind an up-thrust jumble of weathered boulders Unlike the Rendorish desert, which was ravel, rusty-brown and sterile The ave an illusion of life Cynesga was dead Stark, treeless peaks clawed harshly at the sky, and the vast eravel and rock was broken only by flat, bleached white beds of alkali

‘Ugly place,’ Ulath grunted, looking around Ulath was used to trees and snow-capped peaks

‘I’ of selling it to you’

‘You couldn’t give it to ht side It almost never rains here’

‘I think that’s part of the probleh’

‘Really?’

‘Snakes, lizards, scorpions – that sort of thing’