The Wall nodded. “It will. I saw the acrobatics. How did that make you feel?”

“A little sick,” Saska confessed. “But that’s normal. Next time I’ll know what to expect.”

“Next time.” The Wall looked like he wanted to pour his usual pail of cold water over that, but he knew it was for a worthy cause, not just a way for Saska to seek out some chancy thrill. “Yes. Next time. Though now that you’re back down, I would ask you to put on your armour. The essentials at least. We are entering a busy city and must take the proper precautions.” He looked at Talasha. “Will you be coming as well, Your Highness?”

“Into the city? No. I will be fetching Cevi and taking my leave.”

The Wall did not try to persuade her otherwise. Grateful as he was to her for saving his life, he seemed to prefer to keep her at arm’s length. “I will fetch her for you.” He bowed and stepped away.

He returned shortly after, with Cevi in tow, having found her with the horses. The handmaid loved horses, Saska had noticed, and always smiled when she saw them. The camels not so much. They were loud, she had said, and didn’t smell so nice. Saska quite agreed. With her handmaid returned, Talasha retreated back into the darkness to rejoin Neyruu, telling them she would find them come morning.

It was the same each night, and no matter how many times Talasha said it was her preference, the sight made Saska feel guilty. “The men should be more inviting to her,” she grumbled, as the princess took her leave. “You as well, Rolly. You’re only alive because of her.”

“I give her every courtesy.”

“But not every kindness. She has flown across half the world to be here. And she’s a princess. She should be leading this host, not trailing behind it.”

The giant did not like that. “She is Agarathi. Derived from the line of Lori. Eldur’s blood runs thick in her veins.”

“Yes. I know. That’s why she’s able to bond a dragon.”

The Whaleheart ignored her sarcasm. “A dragon bonded to her by Eldur. He gave her that dragon. He can just as easily take it away.”

“It? Her name is Neyruu.”

“I know her name. Forgive me if I do not feel as you do, Saska. You have Lumo’s Light in you, I do not. The bonding of beasts is unfamiliar to me.”

This was old ground, worn and trodden and it needed no further footfall. Saska changed the subject. “I think it’s time to leave them behind,” she said, looking over at the men. A pair of them were pulling up a bucket from the well, a few others watering the animals, and some dozen or so would be gathering intel, but the rest were just standing around, looking worn and weary, gazing out in the direction of the city. This promise of feasts and featherbeds seemed the only thing keeping some of them going. “I don’t like the tension here anymore. There’s an ill feeling in the air, and we’d be best rid of it.” She looked up at him. “I think we should go west. If we ride hard across the plains, we could reach the Everwood in a week.”

“The Everwood?” He exhaled. “Saska, we have been through this…”

“Ranulf may still be there. He might be trying to seek the permission of the Calacania still…”

“He might. Or he might not. It is possible that Ranulf Shackton is dead. We cannot go that way. We must keep to the Capital Road.”

She knew he was going to say that. Why do I even bother? “Then we sail from here. We’re a long way out of the krelia’s reach now, and if we hug the coast…”

“No. You have seen the seas. The storms come from nowhere and cannot be predicted. The waves rack the coast so fiercely it’s said that great chunks of cliff are falling away. Taking ship would be folly until we must. We would only follow Robbert Lukar down to the depths.”

“He’s alive,” she found herself saying, if only to argue. “Robbert’s still alive, I know it.”

“I hope so. The boy is brave, but courage counts for nothing at sea. Not to a Bladeborn.”

“He has Seaborn with him too. Del told us. All the best ships were crewed by Rasals. If there’s anyone who could get him home…”

“It is them. I know. But this weather is not usual. The heat, the storms, the sinkholes. The extremities of the world are becoming uninhabitable, and this world is surrounded by sea. When we reach Eagle’s Perch, we must take ship…we will have no choice but to cross from there, but here? No. We will stay on the road.”

“That is my decision,’ Saska snapped at him. “Not yours. Mine.”

He stared at her, silent, his horribly pocked and pitted head cast in grim detail by the moonlight. It took only a few moments for her to realise she was being unreasonable, arguing for the sake of it. Not for the first time, not even for the hundredth, she realised she was not made to be a leader. But she had to keep trying. Much as she wanted to hand over the reins, she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, give up so easily.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m just frustrated. All the muttering from the men. The pleas of the smallfolk. And with the sellswords being at each other’s throats as well…” She gave a sigh. That was another concern. The Butcher and the Baker had no love for the Tigress, and had only grown more suspicious of her since that night at the river. “There’s going to be blood between them one night, I know it. This business with Merinius…”

“The Baker has no proof of that,” Sir Ralston came in. His upper lip did flicker, though, showing how much he was disturbed by the Baker’s accusation. “He saw a shadow, hovering over Merinius’s body, no more. It may just have been one of those creatures.”

“And blood on the sand,” Saska said. “Where Merry died. He says there was blood.”

No one else had seen it, but the Baker swore that the Tigress had cut open Merinius’s neck, and drank his blood as he lay dead at the border of the camp. The sand demons of Hrang’kor may have killed him, like they had two dozen others, but the Baker was adamant the Tigress had supped when she might have tried to save him, before his body was dragged beneath the dirt.

It was a foul allegation to be sure, and Saska’s skin had crawled when she’d heard it. The Surgeon had continually claimed that the Tigress only ever drank the blood of the Bladeborn men she slew, evil men or so he called them, men who deserved it. But Merinius was far from evil. He was a bright-eyed man, kind and faithful, and everyone had liked him. No one argued that the Tigress had killed him herself, though there was a growing sense that the Baker was not lying, and that she had seen a chance to have a taste of Bladeborn blood and taken it, thinking no one would ever know.

Now the talk had turned to casting her out. The Baker and his brother did not want to fight beside her, and yet if Saska dismissed the Tigress from her service, she would only lose the Surgeon as well, and with him Gutter and Gore and Scalpel and Savage, all of whom had proven their worth. So far Saska had prevaricated over that problem, hoping it would go away, and that tensions would settle, but they hadn’t. Only two nights ago, the sellswords had come together in a fierce clash of words over it all, the Surgeon defending the Tigress’s honour, calling the Baker a liar, the Baker and the Butcher angrily pointing fingers and making their gruesome claims. In the end, it was one word against another and the matter had been put to bed. But not to sleep, Saska knew. This grim business was like to rear its ugly head once more, and when it did, it would be more than a clash of words she’d have to worry about.

She sighed again. Of the two factions of Bloody Traders, she would sooner keep the Baker and the Butcher, and with them Umberto and the Gravedigger, their men, but she would prefer not to have to make that choice. “How are we to solve his, Rolly? The Butcher has asked that we settle it with steel. Blade against blade, to let the gods decide her guilt. Do you think I should let them?”

He pondered it. “They will not accept anything less than a fight to the death, Saska. This will be no duel to first blood. You would have to be happy accepting that the Butcher may die.”

She hated the idea of losing him. And would the Baker stay in her service if his brother was slain? Would the Surgeon if he lost the Tigress? “Do you think the Butcher would lose?”

“There is every chance. I have seen the Butcher fight up close many times. He is a formidable warrior. But the Tigress is as well, from the glimpses I have seen of her. Such a fight could go either way.”

She ran a hand across her forehead. It came back slick with sweat. It was still so close here, so damnably humid. It wasn’t helping with anyone’s mood. “We need to find a way to bring them back together. This division weakens us all.”

“Battle usually does that. A common foe.” He shrugged. “Saving that, time can prove a healer. My advice is to let this play out naturally. If these men are truly committed to you, they will put their personal resentments aside and work out how to get along.”

Saska preferred that option. “We’ll give it time, then.” The men at the well were stirring, and that could only mean one thing. She peered up the road toward the glow of the city, and saw a host of riders returning. “Tantario,” she said. “Let’s hope he has good news.”

That hope, like many others, was dashed when they went to greet him. Sunrider Tantario dismounted his sunwolf Santarinio with a grave look cast on his face. The men gathered around to listen. “There has been an earthquake,” he told them. “Beyond the city. It has torn a great rift in the earth, we are told. The Capital Road is impassable that way.”

There were murmurs from the men. “Then we stop here,” said one. “We can go no further. We return to Aram.”

Tantario glared at him. “We will continue to the Perch, as ordered by Moonlord Hasham. How often must I say it?”

Once more, Saska thought. Always once more.

“What of the feast?” called another of the men.

“And the featherbeds,” said a third.

Tantario shook his head. “We will camp here tonight. There are fears that the earth will tremble once more, and the city is no longer safe. Many buildings have collapsed, even some of the stone towers, and sinkholes are appearing. Tomorrow, we will head for the lake and take barges across the water. This will take us back onto the road.” He talked sharply, in a voice that brooked no dissent, and before any of the men might call out their complaints, he looked to Saska and said, “Serenity. Does that serve?”

Everyone looked at her. She could feel their eyes upon her. “If…if you think it’s the right course, Sunrider.”

“It is the only course,” he said. Then he stepped closer to her. “Walk with me, my lady.”

They left the others behind, grumbling and grousing, and moved out across the yard to where the animals were tied and stabled. From the coast, Saska saw the shadowed forms of Del and Kaa Sokari reappear, much to her relief, and Jaito as well, Del’s tent-mate and friend who’d been helping him with his training. She was musing on how glad that made her, for Del to have his own friend here, when Alym Tantario said, “I am sorry for my men, my lady. They shame me with their behaviour, and I assure you, it is quite unlike them. They were all chosen for this charge for their sense of duty, and yet too many are now losing their faith. I can only apologise. I hope you will accept it.”

She smiled at his grizzled face, deeply rutted at the eyes and forehead. It seemed to Saska that more lines had appeared during their weeks on the road, and they still had so far to go. “You don’t need to apologise, Alym. They are sun-weary and grief-struck and afraid, that’s all.”