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Two lines of riders crested the southernmost hill and rode down toward the bonfire.
Wistala counted seven . . . eight. One carried a high standard, a banner suspended from a crossbar the length of an ax-handle. Wistala’s night-sharp eyes distinguished a thin-legged, long-necked bird standing out white on the material of the standard.
“Dis!” Rainfall said. “Bandits, you think? Go and keep hidden, Wistala. Oh, there can’t be fighting!”
He tossed the mutton shank in her direction and ran toward the bonfire, his hair making a sound like leaves hitting a wall on a windy night.
Wistala wouldn’t leave the mutton to prowling rats and dogs. She returned it to Yari-Tab at the angled overhang.
Yari-Tab sniffed the greasy, ragged joint. “Tchatlassat, you’re a wonder!”
“Please stay here,” Wistala said, an eye toward the center of the three hills. “There’s a new group arrived in Tumbledown. I don’t like the look of it.”
Wistala circled around through the ruins and found all a-tumult. Shepherd boys guided their flocks off the grassy hills, dogs barked everywhere, and around the bonfire, the celebrants had divided into two huddled groups.
At the edge of the fire, the men stood their horses, the banner in the center and another man, rather shorter but above the rest thanks to the size of his horse, speaking with Rainfall.
The riders had thrown back their cloaks to reveal metal plates fixed about their chests, hands on sword hilts, save for the tall one with the bird standard. She let the wind carry the words, along with the aroma of roast pig, humans, and the horses, to her.
“I’m thane here, elf. All your legalisms and tricky wordplay won’t change that.”
“You claim to be thane here, Vog. The maps say differently. The ruins of Hesstur belong to the Directory. You interfere with one of its agents.”
Vog, the short man on the tall horse, laughed. He snapped his fingers in the air. “That’s for the Directory. All sound and no presence. Those doddards couldn’t muster an Imperial Host if Hypat itself had barbarians climbing the First Walls.”
“They could if their thanes attended to their duties instead of wine and hunts.”
“Do you mean to insult me?” Vog sputtered.
Wistala crept around toward the newcomers’ horses.
“I beg your pardon for not making myself understood. If I meant to insult you, I would point out that your roads are so overgrown that a wagon can hardly pass without being tangled in branches, that there are a dozen washouts to a vesk at least, or that I cannot distinguish the difference between a pig-chasing dog’s collar and your mens’ livery, or that you act and speak in the manner of a barbarian warlord rather than a Hypatian Thane, who would dismount to address a fellow citizen.”
Vog put his hand on his sword hilt. “How dare you—”
“How dare you, sir,” Rainfall roared. Wistala wouldn’t have thought him capable of making such a sound; she froze in her tracks where she crept behind the horses. “How dare you touch your sword when addressing a Knight of the Directory, a Temple Star, and a former Judge Imperial.”
Vog’s mount danced backwards from Rainfall’s fury, unsettling the other horses. Wistala heard a rattle, saw one of the men take a handle with a chain leading back to some metal objects that looked like small metal balls set with dragon teeth.
When Vog had his mount under control again, he leaned forward. “I dare because old titles don’t frighten me any more than old moss-backed elves. You’re badly in need of a hiding, prissfall. I’ve a mind to give you one.”
“Your having a mind to do anything beyond drawing breath comes as a shock to me,” Rainfall said.
“Insult! Bind him!” Vog shouted.
Wistala, at last upwind of the horses, rattled her griff as loudly as she could and loosed her urine. Once before, in her journey with Auron, she’d used her urine to scare off a prowling bear. This time the trick worked to spectacular effect. The horses jumped and plunged as though ghost-ridden. Four riders fell, Vog jumped off, and the rest held on to mane and rein for life and limb as their mounts bolted.
The men of the wading-bird standard must have blamed Rainfall for the madness of their horses. They picked themselves up and, following Vog’s example, drew their swords, or swung the whirling metal ball in the case of the man with the chain weapon. It made a sound as it cut the air that reminded Wistala of eagle cries.>“Rah-ya, Wistala, here’s a hoard worthy of a dragon,” he called up. “Silver and gold and baser coins.”
“Will you be able to find it again?”
“I’m sure of it. I return. Close your eyes, for I’ve a handful of gold.”
She shut her nostrils, too. Her mouth went wet, and her stomach growled at the faint smell.
Rainfall spoke in her ear. “Now open your mouth.”
She complied, and felt a hard fall on her tongue.
