Da, a Koramite bow master, had taught his sons well. Talen could shoot eight arrows a minute, and not to simply fill the sky with a haphazard rain of death. No, Talen could fire at that speed and hit what he was aiming at.

But he didn’t have his bow. All he had was his knife and a pile of chicken baskets, which meant he’d have to slice open his own neck if the blighters got to him, for he wasn’t going to be turned into a villain, nor would he allow himself to be used as feed for their terrible gods.

Talen thought he might be able to lose any pursuers in the thickness of the woods. But who was to say they hadn’t already circled behind him? Besides, the safety of the village with its embankment walls was much closer.

Smoke trailed into the sky from behind the walls of the village. But it was thin, not the thick smoke of burning homes. Upon the timber and earthen wall he saw the glint of three men wearing helmets and carrying spears. The gates stood closed, which only confirmed his assessment of the situation.

Talen looked back at the woods once more. He searched along the tree line following the river that snaked its way through the valley, but saw no shallow-bottomed ship’s mast. Perhaps they had landed farther downriver. Perhaps the village had been forewarned and the raiders had yet to attack.

He quickened his pace. He did not want to be caught outside the gates. The cart and chicken baskets clattered along the dirt road as he went. He watched the shadows and trees. He kept an eye on the fields. He prepared himself, at the first sign, to run.

He passed two large wicker creels on the bank of the river. One had toppled over. Its lid hung loose, and a tangle of fat, brown eels wriggled their way back toward the water. The sight raised the hackles on the back of his neck, and Talen began to run.

Down the dirt road he went, and then it was over the bridge. On the far side of the bridge, one of the chicken baskets bounced off, but Talen paid it no mind and let it lie in the grass on the side of the road. He didn’t stop until he stood outside the gates.

The Mokaddian guards up on the wall were not looking out—they were looking in. The beef-heads were not going to see any threat coming that way. “Hoy!” Talen called.

The three guards turned.

One was that maggot Roddick, the cartwright’s son who had tormented Talen with rotten plums when he was a boy.

“Let me in,” said Talen.

“You,” said Roddick in disgust. “Stay right where you are!”

CHASE



T

echnically a Mokaddian village couldn’t refuse entrance to Talen just because he was a Koramite. Even though the Koramites had been conquered and paid tribute to their Mokaddian masters, they still maintained some rights, and refuge was one of them. But that didn’t mean they would open to him. Roddick yelled down to those within.

This village had fallen once, before it had a wall. The Bone Faces had rowed two of their small galleys up the river to a bend at the edge of the fields. They attacked just before dawn, setting the homes ablaze, running many good men through with their curved swords, and stealing anything of value, including fifteen young girls. The next year, the village built the wall.

The wall had been made by digging a wide ditch and throwing up an embankment of earth about three times the hight of a tall man.