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roots. Two years later, Bragi's foster brother, Haaken Blackfang, and Reskird Kildragon had come by. Rolf had gone off with them, leaving a wife and child mystified and hurt.
    In her own way, Elana cared for Preshka as much as her husband. Though their relationship had remained proper since her marriage, she missed him. He had been around so long that he had become a pillar of her universe.
    Now he was home. And someone was trying to kill him.
    iii) Sons of the Disciple
    A flash-flood of burnoosed horsemen roared from the wood. Elana had a moment to be startled by their appearance so far from'Hammad al Nakir, another to wonder at their numbers—there were forty or fifty, then it was time to fight. "Go!" she shrieked.
    Her bowmen leapt up, loosed a flight that sent the leaders tumbling over their horses' tails, caused tripping, screams, and confusion behind.
    Bevold's group swept round the mound, loosed a flight, abandoned their bows for swords. They crashed
     the head of the line while confusion yet gripped their foes. In the first minute they looked likely to overwhelm the lot.
    "The riders!" bellowed Uthe Haas. "Aim at the riders."
    "Don't count your chickens, Uthe," Elana replied from the grass. There was little she could do with her crossbow. "Take what you can get." Haas, smelling a victory still far from certain, wanted the mounts as prizes.
    They almost pulled it off. Half the enemy saddles were clear before they recovered.
    The wild riders of Hammad al Nakir had never learned to handle the Itaskian arrow-storm. The appearance of Itaskian bow regiments had ordained their defeat during the wars. In a dozen major battles through Libiannin, Hellin Daimiel, Cardine, and the Lesser Kingdoms, countless fanatics had ridden into those cloth-yard swarms, through six hundred yards of death, and few had survived to hurl themselves upon the masking shieldmen.
    But the commander here wasn't awed. He seized the ground between Lif s men and the barrow, eliminating the screen Bevold could have provided, then sent everyone unhorsed to get the bows.
    "Those are soldiers, not bandits," Elana muttered. "El Murid's men." Royalist refugees from Hammad al Nakir were scattered throughout the western kingdoms, but they were adherents of Haroun's. They would not be after Preshka. Assuming Rolf was still a friend of bin Yousif.
    She got her chance to fight. Two quick shots with the crossbow, then the attackers arrived. Her first had deep, dark eyes and a scimitar nose. His eyes widened when he recognized her sex. He hesitated. Her rapier slipped through his guard. She had a moment before she engaged again.
    The man had been middle-aged, certainly a survivor of the wars. If these were all veterans, they were El Murid's best. Why such an investment to take one man, nearly a thousand miles from home?
    Her next opponent was no gentleman. Neither was he a dainty fencer. He knew the limitations and liabilities of a rapier, tried to use the weight and strength of his saber to smash through. As he forced her back, she met his eyes over crashing blades. He could have been the twin of the
     man she had killed. The fires of fanaticism burned in his eyes, but, having endured the wars, were dampened. He no longer believed El Murid's salvation could be delivered to the infidel with hammer blows. The Chosen, even in the grace and might of God, had to spread the faith with cunning and finesse. The idolaters were too numerous and bellicose.
    The man wasn't so much interested in killing her as in forcing her out of position. Without a shield, rapier-armed, and physically less powerful, she was the weak point in the defense box they had formed. Her chance lay in taking advantage of his effort.
    She parried a feint, thrust short and low at his groin, backed a step before he unleashed the edge-blow meant to force her to do just that. She made no effort to parry. His blade slid past a fraction of an inch from her breast. Being a half-second ahead gave her time to