Travelers on the road watched the trio curiously. Torne told his story many times, Jendara sticking her knife tip into Karigan’s back lest she speak out. Torne’s embellishments, Karigan thought, were getting a little wild, and if he wasn’t careful, he would one day betray himself. One afternoon he pulled aside an old trapper riding a mule.

“Down the road you’ll come to a terrible sight,” Torne warned the man. “King’s soldiers slain, every last one.”

The trapper rubbed his bristly gray beard, eyes wide. “All dead, you say? How?”

“Groundmites,” Torne said. “Surely you’ve heard of them raiding the borders.”

“Aye, but . . .”

“You will see. But see also, this girl.” Torne pointed at Karigan and the trapper followed with his gaze.

“I see her.”

“She is responsible.”

The trapper plucked at the laces of his coarse wool shirt. “Responsible? She is? For what?”

“The massacre.”

“I thought you said groundmites—”

“She led them there,” Torne said fervently. “She led the massacre, she slew many of the guards herself. And what she did to the captain . . . Unspeakable.” He shook his head.

The trapper raised a skeptical brow and cleared his throat as if to say something, then he eyed Torne’s sword and thought better of it.

“We take this girl, this traitor,” Torne spat the word, “for judgment in Sacor City. She eluded us at first, but we caught her, planning another raid with her groundmite cohorts on an innocent settlement.”

“Aye, well, must be goin’. Good day t’ya.” The trapper slapped his mule into a hasty trot trailing a plume of road dust behind him.

Torne beamed his gap-toothed grin at Jendara, pleased with his own performance. She groaned and rolled her eyes.

Some folk Torne told the story to were all too ready to believe it, and suggested a roadside hanging for Karigan. Torne protested and declared himself a good citizen willing to let the king’s law decide her fate. She wondered what king he was talking about.

Jendara was tiring of his stories as well. “Do you have to blather on to everyone we meet? I never took you for the minstrel type.”

“I am not a spineless minstrel. I am being neighborly. Besides, it unsettles folks to see a girl tied up by two warriors like us. Especially when she wears that green coat.” Karigan had refused to remove it, no matter how warm the weather, for fear Torne would discover her hidden caches of food and take it away from her.

“Well, I’m getting tired of the story. If you don’t watch yourself, you’ll overembellish and give us away. Your tongue is not nearly as glib as a true minstrel’s.”

“My sword work is what’s glib.”

Jendara looked away from him with a frown of disgust on her face.

Dusk shadowed the road. A mounted figure appeared ahead of them riding at a walk, his movements smooth and fluid. Torne squinted his eyes, then unexpectedly, whooped in recognition. He ran forward to greet the horseman. Karigan’s heart sank. Immerez? The Gray One Jendara and Torne murmured about?

In the hands of Immerez, her chances of escape slimmed considerably. But as the rider approached, she saw he wasn’t Mirwellian at all. He wore no scarlet, but a leather jerkin emblazoned with an eagle grasping a human skull in its talons. A mercenary.

“Garroty!” Torne cried. “What chance meeting is this?”

The other man grinned and the effect was grotesque. His face was misshapen by dozens of scars and a wad of tobacco stuffed in his left cheek. Gray-brown hair hung in a ponytail down his back. His arms were ropy with muscles and veins. The eagle and skull were tattooed onto his left forearm like an oversized bruise.

“The Talons have given me a fortnight’s leave and I’m traveling. Good to see you, Torne.” His voice was gravelly and low. “I see you travel still in beautiful company.” His eyes drifted first to a smoldering Jendara, then rested on Karigan. “And who is this?”

“A Greenie we’re delivering to the Mirwellians. For profit.”

“Ah, yes. Profit.” He leaned over his horse’s withers and spat tobacco. “You are a merc’s pride, Torne, seeking profit. But you were not very good at it when I took you under my wing when you fled the city, were you?”

“We’ve improved, I assure you.”

Garroty snorted. “Profit is of little meaning to you except if it helps sustain you in service to your master. This smells more like politics to me.”

“What do you know of politics?” Jendara asked. Her countenance suggested he knew nothing.

“I know who you work for, beautiful.”

Jendara bridled. “You will address me by my name.”

Garroty shrugged.

“Why don’t you camp with us tonight?” Torne asked eagerly. “We could catch up on things.”

“Why don’t you keep going?” Jendara suggested, an unfriendly smile on her face.

“I accept your invitation,” he said to Torne. He turned to Jendara. “Nothing could keep me away from your lovely companion.”

Karigan wished he would follow Jendara’s advice. The Weapon’s animosity toward him made her nervous. Garroty’s easy seat on his battle horse, his ugly grin, and all too interested glances, did not reassure her at all.

Torne and Garroty stayed up front, conversing about weapons and war, other mercs they had both known. Garroty remained arrogantly mounted while the others walked. Torne had to crane his neck to look up at his friend. Jendara strode behind with Karigan, leading The Horse in brooding silence. Karigan wondered what caused Jendara to loathe the mercenary so.