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early dawn, bringing the column to an instant spontaneous halt. Inyx leapt from his pony, whipped round his little polished cavalry shield, and flashed an acknowledgement. Around me men leant forward: many of the phalanx veterans could read mirror signals too.
    â€œFindtar...” someone muttered at my shoulder, “. . . burnt. Oof! Garrison... east. Evacuation... what in the Four is—?”
    â€œDislocated,” rapped another voice. “Sarras—” “He runs Gesarre—” “... fallen back on Kelflase. Fire reported—to his... south!”
    â€œFour!—” “Shut up!—” “Scouts lost... delayed... last report—”
    â€œSmoke in the... Perfumed Vale. Finish. Luck.”
    In the deep dull hush, someone else muttered, “Thanks.”
    Beryx had been sitting utterly still, a carven cavalryman on a carven horse. Now he turned his head. He and Inyx exchanged a half-dozen staccato sentences and he wheeled his horse. The merriment was gone. His face was as honed and planed as a sword bared for the thrust.
    â€œForced march.” His voice matched his face. “Squadrons close up. At the trot.” And swinging his mount from the paven roadway, he jumped the ditch and headed in a bee-line for the north-east.
    â€œAin’t the pace—worries me,” panted a tall Stiriann, as we towed our grunting horses over yet another limestone scarp. “Beryx always—gets along. It’s these four-footed bladder-bags—we gotta tow behind. Here, harper. Give’s its head. Now belt it, Asc!”
    My horse came up with a bound, my Gebrian acquaintance lumbered after it, and we slid slantwise down a scree fit to capsize goats. In the ravine bottom, the banner-bearer was girth-deep in stones and foam. On the further brink Inyx’s pony reappeared, black with sweat but tossing its head in a clear question, What’s keeping you? As Beryx put his horse to the climb, I could not help asking, “Surely the road would have been quicker?” which brought a snort from Asc.
    â€œGeneral’s playing scout. We’ll be headed for the Perfumed Vale quick as morvallin fly.”
    We ate noonday bread and cheese on the march, watered in mid-afternoon at a river Asc called the Velketh, and bivouacked on the northern side of a valley paved with the world’s hardest stones, amid the glorious confusion of our first picket lines. I was almost too weary to walk. Beryx was everywhere: adjusting hobbles, hammering halter stakes, checking head-ropes, hooves, and backs, all with a crisp urgency worlds from his former merriment. The men did not seem to mind. They leapt to obey his orders. They even leapt with alacrity when the trumpet sounded before Valinhynga brought up the dawn.
    That day was easier, since instead of running athwart the Raskelf we angled down the Pirvel valley’s wooded river-flats, often moving at the trot. “Four send we find this lizard,” growled Asc, rubbing his backside as we walked at noon, “before my rump wears out.” The horses, hard-ridden by inexperienced men, were white with salt and beginning to flag, yet Beryx still pressed the pace. Errith the Stiriann, also unconcerned, predicted, “Drop these clumpers soon.”
    The valley widened, a long vista of a green and silver-gray north, with Kelflase somewhere in its folds, but our mirror signals brought no response. Then the slopes of Saeverran Slief began to rise on our left, pale blonde upland grasses that the Stirianns named with nostalgia as they bumped: but that too was devoid of life. In mid-afternoon we struck the Saeverran road. As we swung onto its deeply rutted wagon tracks, Beryx reined up.
    â€œGeneral!” he called. “Do you smell smoke?”
    A hundred yards in front, Inyx wheeled his horse. I heard his wide-nostrilled Snff! And as the weary column slowed, a northern air drew it over us: a vile, choking waft of