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cloak more tightly around his frame. The run had been hard, his aging muscles complaining at the severity of the exercise, his lungs on fire, his heartbeat a pounding drum. Stretching out his right leg, he rubbed at the still-burning muscles of his calf and thought of all he knew about the Guild.
    Fifteen years earlier the Guild had approached Waylander, offering to broker his contracts. He had refused them, preferring to work alone. In those days the Guild had been a mysterious, shadowy organization, operating in secret. Its rules were simple. First, all killings were to be accomplished with blade, shaft, or knotted rope. Murder by poison or fire was not allowed; the Guild wished for no innocent victims to be slain. Second, all monies were paid direct to the Guild and a signed document was placed with the patriarch, giving reasons for the contract. Such reasons could not include matters of the heart or religious quarrels.
    In theory a cuckolded husband could not hire an assassin to murder his wife, her lover, or both. In practice, of course, such niceties never applied. As long as the contractor declared his reasons as being business or political, no questions were asked. Under Karnak the trade had become if not morally acceptable at least more legitimate. Waylander smiled. By allowing the Guild to operate openly, the financially beleaguered Karnak had found yet another source of taxable income. And in times of war such income was vital to pay soldiers, armorers, merchants, shipbuilders, masons … the list was endless.
    Waylander stood and stretched his aching back. How many would come against him? The Guild would have other contracts to meet. They could not afford to send all their fighters scouring the country for news of him. Seven? Ten? The best would not come first. They would sit back and watch while lesser men began the hunt, men like Kreeg.
    And were they already there, hidden, waiting?
    He thought of Miriel, and his stomach tightened. She was strong and lithe, skilled with all weapons. But she was young and had never fought warriors blade to blade.
    Removing his cloak, Waylander rolled it and looped it over his shoulder, tying it to his knife belt. The cold wind bit into his naked chest, but he ignored it as he climbed down the tree. His eyes scanned the undergrowth, but there was nothing to be seen. Swiftly he leapt from the lowest branch, landing lightly on the moss-covered earth.
    The first move would have to be left to the enemy. That fact galled him, but having accepted it, he pushed it from his mind. All he could do was prepare himself. You have fought men and beasts, demons and Joinings, he told himself. And you are still alive while your enemies are dust.
    I was younger then, came a small voice from his heart.
    Spinning on his heel, he swept a throwing blade from its forearm sheath and sent it flashing through the air to plunge home into the narrow trunk of a nearby elm.
    Young or old, I am still Waylander.
    Miriel watched the old man make his way slowly toward the northwest and the distant fortress of Dros Delnoch. His pack was high on his shoulders, his white hair and beard billowing in the breeze. He stopped at the top of a rise, turned, and waved. Then he was gone. Miriel wandered back through the trees, listening to the birdsong, enjoying the leaf-broken sunlight dappling the path. The mountains were beautiful in the autumn, leaves of burnished gold, the last fading blooms of summer, the mountainsides glowing green and purple, all seemingly created just for her pleasure.
    Coming to the brow of a hill, she paused, her eyes scanning the trees and the paths wending down to the Sentran Plain. A figure moved into sight, a tall man wearing a cloak of green. The cold of a remembered winter touched her skin, making her shiver, her hand moving to the hilt of the short sword at her side. The green cloak identified him as the assassin Morak. Well, this was one killer who would not live to attack her