“What are you glowering at, girl?” Torne demanded.

“You look hungry. Didn’t they teach you wilderness survival in mercenary training?”

Torne’s eyes blazed. “Jendara and I were soldiers of the highest order. We had no need.”

Karigan raised a brow. “What order might that be?”

“We weren’t always mercenaries, girl. It’s none of your business.”

Karigan guessed they had not been mercenaries for very long, and the fact they were no longer a part of this “high order” was a sore point, at least for Torne. She thought hard about what the two could have been before they became swords for hire. Guards, she supposed, but even guards were subject to survival training . . . unless they never left a specific post, or were of so high an order they were waited upon by servants.

“The Mirwellian fools told us you can disappear,” Jendara said. “When are you going to disappear?”

Despite the mercenary’s mocking tone, Karigan perceived a hint of uncertainty. It wouldn’t hurt to play on it, but it also renewed her concern for the brooch. Torne had taken to wearing it on his cloak. “I’ll disappear when I’m good and ready to.”

Torne guffawed. “Those idiots lost her in a heavy fog. Disappeared, indeed.”

“Immerez is no idiot,” Jendara said quietly, “though he thinks it was some Greenie trick, not a spirit rider.”

“Is that so, Greenie girl? You know some Greenie tricks?”

“Maybe. You might not take me as a spirit rider, but a spirit rides with me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Karigan shrugged innocently, a twinge of pain tugging at her ribs.

“I won’t have any of this spirit stuff!” Torne was over to Karigan in a bound, and he cuffed her across the face.

She fell to her side and shook her head, tasting blood from a cut lip. What was left of her midday meal was a mess of crumbs on the ground. She forced herself back into a sitting position.

“You’re nothing but a ruffian,” she told Torne, “and a coward.”

Torne only laughed. Karigan had the satisfaction, however, of knowing she had planted a seed of uncertainty in his mind. If only she could get her hands on that brooch. At present, however, it did not seem likely.

They passed through numerous settlements cut out of the woods. They were too small, really, to be called villages. Woods folk in plain dress worked about their cabins. They hung laundry in the sweet spring air, tended gardens where enough sunlight crept through the forest canopy to nourish vegetables, and they split wood.

Torne used some of the coppers he had taken from Karigan’s pockets to purchase meat and bread, boasting all the while to the settlers about the thief he and his partner had snared. More often than not, food was offered the mercenaries for free when they heard this fabrication.

Karigan received nothing except scowls and curses about thieves who preyed on law-abiding Sacoridians who were trying to scrape out a living in the wilderness. Some looked her up and down, disbelieving one so young and innocent looking could be a notorious thief.

“That’s part of her method,” Torne explained at one settlement. “She seems innocent, but when you are not looking . . .” He spread his hands wide, allowing the settlers to come to their own conclusions. “Do you see this horse, and the coat she wears? Murdered a Green Rider, she did.”

Disturbed exclamations passed among the settlers. Just about everyone in the tiny community stood around the mercenaries and their captive. Visitors came seldom and they were hungry for news.

Karigan guessed these were all very decent folk, and she couldn’t blame them for their accusing, if not fearful, expressions. They had probably been victims of brigands more than once. Seldom did the king’s law pass through these isolated spots, except at tax time.

Torne was an adept storyteller, too. Despite the blatant lies, Karigan didn’t dare breathe a word. Jendara held her close with a dagger tip digging into her back. It was frustrating having people so close who could help her, but they had been turned against her by Torne’s words.

“Bad ’nough with groundmites crossing the borders,” one man muttered. He removed his leather cap and smoothed his hair back. “Don’t need our own kind killing and thieving.”

“Groundmites?” Jendara asked in surprise, echoing Karigan’s own thoughts. “Crossing the borders?”

“Aye,” the man growled. “Killed a family not five miles from here on the Putnal Trail. And not a sign of king’s soldiers anywhere. We sent one of our lads to the city to find help. The rest of us sleep uneasy with what weapons we have close at hand, and keep watch during the night.”

“Wise precautions,” Jendara said. “Groundmites crossing the borders . . .”

“Aye, worse still, some of our hunters found the carcass of an unnatural creature and its spawn.” Karigan snapped to attention as she listened. “We wouldna believed it were they not our finest woods folk who found it, and honest to the core. Whatever slew the creature must be even more dangerous. Sank its great fangs into the creature’s belly, it did. Makes you wanna believe the old minstrel tales of Mornhavon and the Blackveil Forest.”

Karigan wanted to laugh out loud. Maybe she ought to name her plain saber “Fang” the way the great warriors named their blades, or carried blades bearing long lineages and ancient names. If they only knew who had really slain the creature!