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to it, making it more than just a hut. But
the soldiers had burned it down and the girls and me had no tools.”
    “I find
them,” said Markin. “They needed help.”
    “He came
and he fought for us. Other men came, many with swords and bows, but
he kept them from taking me or the girls.” She glanced at him
with obvious affection in her eyes. “He’s my man now, and
he’s a fair da‘ to the girls.”
    Jimmy sighed. To
Dash he said, “We’ll hear stories like this one a hundred
times before we’re through.”
    “Why
Darkmoor?” asked Jimmy.
    “We hear
the King’s there and there’s food for the asking.”
    Jimmy smiled.
“No, the King’s not there, though he was last year. But
there’s food for work.”
    “I work
good,” said the foreign-born soldier.
    “Can we
go?” asked the woman.
    “Yes,”
said Dash, motioning for them to pass.
    Markin said,
“You soldiers?”
    Jimmy grinned.
“Not if we can help it.”
    “But you
noble man. Markin can tell.”
    Dash said dryly,
“I’ve known him all my life and can tell you he’s
far from noble most of the time.”
    The old soldier
studied the two, then said, “If you try to look like common
men, you don’t.” He pointed down to Jimmy’s feet.
“Dirty, but nobleman’s boots.”
    He motioned for
the woman and girls to follow him and moved carefully on, not taking
his eyes off the brothers until his small band was past. Then he
turned and hurried along, taking his position in the van, against any
other unexpected encounters.
    “First
time I regretted having comfortable boots,” said Dash.
    Jimmy looked
down and said, “Well, we may be muddy, but he’s right.”
Glancing around, he added, “This is a place of little food and
even less comfort.”
    Dash remounted
his horse. “I suspect by the time we get to Krondor we won’t
look quite so prosperous.”
    Jimmy also
mounted, and said, “Maybe we should get off this highway.”
    Dash said, “The
north road?” He referred to an old road his one-time employer,
Rupert Avery, used regularly to move goods, avoiding the tolls
charged on the King’s Highway.
    Jimmy shook his
head. “No, that’s almost as busy as this one, and those
woods are going to be full of deserters and bandits.”
    “The
south?”
    “Slower
going, but there are enough trails along the lakes if we don’t
head too far into the southern hills.”
    Dash said,
“Since Kesh pulled south to the old border, everything from
here to their nearest garrison is going to be wilderness.”
    Jimmy laughed.
“What’s the difference if we run into fifty deserters
from the Emerald Queen’s army, or fifty bandits, or fifty
Keshian mercenaries . . .” He shrugged.
    Dash made a show
of shivering under his heavy cloak. “Let’s hope whoever’s
down there is hugging their fires. As any sane man would do.”
    Dash urged his
horse forward and soon the two brothers were riding south at a steady
walk. “Why do we do these things?” he asked.
    Jimmy said,
“Because our King commands and we obey.”
    Dash let out a
theatrical sigh. “1 thought it was something like that.”
    Softly, Jimmy
began to sing a very old song:

    “To Kesh’s
heartland or Queg’s harsh shore,
Our blood, our hearts, our
lives and more,
For honor’s sake do we obey,
And go over
the hills and far away. . .”

    The sound of
cracking ice rang through the cold morning air and both brothers
pulled up just before entering a clearing. Using hand signals, Jimmy
motioned for Dash to move south along the edge of the clearing while
he circled north.
    Dash nodded,
dismounted, and tied his horse to the branch of a small birch tree.
Jimmy did likewise and moved silently away.
    Dash moved
through the thinning trees, bordering a burned-out farm, he judged
from the appearance of tree stumps nearby. The sound resolved itself
into a repeated hammering at ice.
    Dash saw a man
in the distance.
    A slender
figure, he crouched over the frozen ice on a large pond, perhaps a
hundred yards