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open-mouthed awe; eagles must feel thusly, gazing down from on high. The Falls were as wide as the river itself, far too wide to bridge, and formed a sheer drop of a hundred feet or better. Water cascaded off the edge in a solid sheet, churned white as foam, plunging impossibly far, down and down and farther still, until it plunged into the greenish waters of the basin below with such force as to raise a constant mist, sun-shot and shimmering with rainbows.
    “Name of Elua!” Joscelin whispered.
    I swallowed and pulled Imriel back from the edge, as he clambered over moss-covered rocks for a better view.
    ’Tis a poor description I have given of the Great Falls, but it is not something words can compass. The raw force and beauty of it are too great. And so we stood for a time, all of us, drinking in the sight of it, the roar of the falling water filling our ears. Even at this height, windblown spray dampened our faces.
    I daresay if the Falls had not been so stunning, we would have heard the hunting-party.
    They were Shamsun, although I did not know it at the time; Tifari Amu told me, after. There were ten of them, armed with crude bows and javelins; agile and strong to a man, with skin the color of ripening olives and hair braided close to their skulls. Hunters-and bandits. It needed no one to tell me that. I saw it in the way the leader’s gaze flicked over our laden mounts and donkeys.
    And the way it flicked over me, astonished and avid, his tongue wetting his lips. In a swift motion, he nocked an arrow and drew his bow, aiming at Joscelin, who made the tallest target. The others followed suit, and I drew Imriel behind me.
    “Hold,” the Shamsun leader said in a recognizable dialect of Jeb’ez, addressing Tifari Amu and Bizan, who’d already begun to fan out. “Let us take what we will, and no one will die.”
    “What will you have?” Tifari called, his sword half-drawn.
    “Your goods. Your weapons. Whatever you have,” the Shamsun replied. Let it be that, I prayed; let it only be that. We are near enough now that it makes no difference. There is water, and fish, if we can catch them-surely the Habiru laws of hospitality must hold true in Saba. The leader’s gaze slid over me again, and I saw his breath quicken. “And the woman.”
    Joscelin had learned enough Jeb’ez for that.
    It took them by surprise when he bowed, his crossed vambraces flashing in the verdant light. It took them harder when he straightened with daggers in his hands, throwing both in quick succession.
    He missed with the left. Not the right, which killed the leader.
    Arrows filled the air. I flung myself down on top of Imri scarce in time, feeling a line like a red-hot poker scored across my back. Pain, unexpected, blossomed in me like an old acquaintance come to visit, the scent of crushed ferns filling my nose. Imriel made a muffled sound of protest and I moved cautiously off him, turning my head to see the mêlée.
    It wasn’t pretty. If the Shamsun had been farther away, they’d have held their advantage, but after the first rain of arrows, it had gone to hand-to-hand combat. Bizan had the shaft of an arrow standing out from his thigh, but he fought undeterred, hobbling fiercely and swinging his sword. One of the bearers had managed to free Tifari’s camelopard shield from the baggage, and I got a glimpse, then, of the full skill of Jebean soldiery.
    And Joscelin ... Joscelin had blood pouring in a stream down the right side of his head. For all that, he fought as calmly as if he were at his exercises, wielding his two-handed sword with careful grace. Not like he had before, no. But he was right. He could still do it.
    The Shamsun had come prepared for a hunt, not a battle. It was over in minutes. The last one, who tried to flee, Tifari Amu slew with one of his own javelins, picking his mark through the trees and heaving a mighty cast. The man fell, pierced from behind.
    “He would have gone for his tribe,” Tifari said to my shocked expression, lowering his shield to wipe his brow with his forearm. “And then we would have blood-debt to settle.”
    To that, I could make no reply. We were alive.
    I went instead to see to Joscelin, who winced when I touched him. An arrow had nicked his ear, taking a chunk of flesh from its upper curve. Since it was not a dangerous wound, I washed it and applied a tincture of snakeroot, giving him a clean rag to press against it until the bleeding stopped.
    “Well?” he asked.
    “It