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escort, who would remain, supplementing the garrison of an outlying Akkadian fortress.
    After this, it would only be Joscelin and me and our guide Tizrav.
    “I must be out of my mind,” Amaury Trente said ruefully, embracing me in farewell. His breath made plumes of frost in the air. “Elua bless and keep you, Phèdre nó Delaunay.”
    “My lord.” I was shivering despite Valère L’Envers’ marten-skin coat. No matter where I went, it seemed there must always be winter, and mountains. “Why are you here?”
    “Why?” He gazed across the foreboding landscape, an absent smile on his lips. “I don’t know, my lady. Here is as good a place as any.” He looked back at me then, and his expression changed. “I rode behind Ysandre de la Courcel into the heart of Percy de Somerville’s army. You remember. You were there. She never looked back, do you know that? Not once. If she had, she would have seen me. I was there, and the Queen’s Guard behind me. But she never even needed to look.” He laid one hand on my shoulder. “If you look, my lady, we will be here. Right here, where you left us, guarding your back. Whatever fool’s errand you’re on this time, I reckon Terre d’Ange owes you that much.”
    “Thank you,” I murmured, tears pricking my eyes. It was not enough, not enough by a long sight, but more than I could have asked. “I am grateful, my lord.”
    “Well.” Lord Amaury smiled and withdrew his hand. “‘Tis little enough, when all is said and done. But if anyone’s going to emerge alive from the heart of darkness, it’s you and that half-mad Cassiline.”
    I swallowed. “We will try, my lord.”
    And then we were on our own.

Forty-One
    A DRUJANI border patrol found us the first evening.
    It was twilight, just shy of nightfall, and we had made our encampment in a shallow gully out of the wind. Doubtless they were drawn by the light of our campfire. Tizrav had assured us it was folly to think we could cross Drujan in stealth. Better to allow them to find us, he said; we would die quickly, or not at all.
    There were five of them, and they melted out of the shadows like apparitions, silent men on tough, shaggy ponies, armed with short, curving horsemen’s bows. Joscelin was on his feet the instant they appeared, placing himself between me and the Drujani. Firelight glinted red along his vambraces, his crossed daggers. I wondered if he could block five arrows fired at once. I didn’t think so.
    “The wolves of Angra Mainyu are mighty hunters!” Tizrav greeted them in Old Persian. “Will you share our fire? We have beer,” he added, hefting a skin.
    “Why do you enter Drujan?” The leader lowered his bow a fraction. The others did not.
    “Why?” Tizrav grinned. “This fine D’Angeline lordling has got himself in trouble and finds he has nowhere left to flee. Go and see, if you do not believe me. The guard at Demseen Fort has doubled and the lady’s angry kinsmen are waiting. But my lordling here would sooner give her to the Mahrkagir if he will accept his sword in service.”
    The Drujani conversed among themselves in low tones, and my ear for Old Persian was not yet keen enough to decipher what they said. One of them laughed and rode forward. “Why should we believe you, Akkadian lick-spittle?” he asked, stroking Tizrav’s cheek with the point of a nocked arrow. “Why should we ride to the border, when there is sport to be had here?”
    To his credit, Tizrav did not flinch, even when the arrow’s point scraped against his leather eyepatch. “My ancestors ranged these mountains when the House of Ur cowered in the deserts of the Umaiyyat. Do you disdain me for the sake of a line drawn on a map, son of darkness?”
    Another of the Drujani spoke from the shadows beyond our campfire. I could not make out his face, only that he wore a girdle of bones about his waist, human finger-bones. Raising one hand, he pointed at me.
    “Stand aside,” Tizrav muttered urgently to Joscelin. “Stand aside!”
    He paused, and then did, offering a sweeping Cassiline bow to the Drujani. Tizrav approached me where I knelt beside fire.
    “Forgive me,” Tizrav said under his breath, yanking back my veil.
    The firelight was brighter without the sheer panel of silk before my eyes and I blinked against it, gazing up at the Drujani. Two of the riders startled; one laughed. The one who had pointed fingered his girdle of bones, and a slow smile spread across the face of the leader. It was not