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tight confinement of the little chink in the rocks, he struggled to set an arrow to the string. His hands were shaking and there wasn’t room to draw the bow fully. The man was kneeling now, perhaps already making fire. As a target, he was too low. The knife: Bridei could use that as he had seen Donal and the others do for sport, tossing it in a spinningarc. He’d never actually tried it, but that wasn’t to say he couldn’t. Bridei set the bow aside, reached for the knife’s hilt. There would be one chance, one good shot at it, when the man had lit his wee fire and stepped back to admire it. One shot. Then he supposed he would have to leap out somehow, flames and all. Perhaps the leaves would not burn. Perhaps he would miss the target. No; hewas a king’s son.
    A thread of smoke began to rise at the cave’s entry and a pungent smell wafted into the dim interior, making him want to cough. The thread became a ribbon, a plume, a small cloud, and all at once there was a crackling. The gray-clad assassin rose to his feet and turned, exposing his back for a long moment. Bridei sighted, balanced the weapon and threw even as the sound of runningfeet came to his ears, and a shout in a familiar voice. As the knife spun, satisfactorily, through the thickening pall of smoke, a form came hurtling across Bridei’s vision, a furious, long-limbed form that crashed into the gray-clad man, removing them both from sight. The knife had disappeared. Bridei shrank back. Flames crackled before the gap, men shouted, metal clashed. There was a strangegurgling sound that ended in a rasping sigh. The flames began to die down; someone was stamping out the fire. Someone was saying, “You’ve killed him.” The little cave was full of smoke; Bridei’s eyes stung, his nose itched, his chest was heaving with the effort not to cough. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his lips tight. Wrong; he had got it wrong. Someone was dead. His knife had killedsomeone. Probably Donal. Donal had come to rescue him, and instead of waiting as he shouldhave done, Bridei had thrown the knife without looking properly; without assessing the risks as Donal had taught him to do. He had done something truly bad and now he was shaking and crying like a baby, he could not seem to stop himself.
    Voices, outside. “He’s done for, all right. Snapped his neck. Worthlessscum.”
    “Better to have kept him stewing; could’ve got the truth out of him, who sent him, who’s paying him. Why’d you—Donal?”
    Then a shuffling sound, like someone trying to get up and not making much of a job of it. It was getting harder and harder not to cough. Bridei needed to sniff; his nose was running like a stream in spate.
    “What’s this, man? You’re bleeding like a stuck pig! Did thefellow wing you?”
    “It’s nothing. A scratch. Go after the others and be quick about it!”
    Feet on the path, many of them now, and jingling metal, and then silence. Or almost silence; Bridei could hear breathing, his own, snuffling with tears, and another’s, somewhat labored. Donal was alive.
    “Bridei?” It was little more than a whisper. “Are you somewhere near, lad? Answer me, curse it!”
    Donalsounded strange. Perhaps he was angry. A warrior would not have hidden like a coward, and hit the wrong target, and then shed tears over it. Bridei found himself unable to move, unable to speak.
    “Bridei!” Donal was attempting a shout. Bridei could see a little bit of him now, his shoulder in the familiar old leather jerkin, and the other hand clasped over it, and blood oozing between the fingers.“Bridei, you foolish wee boy, if you’ve gone and got yourself killed I’ll—I’ll—” The warrior’s voice faded; Bridei had never heard him speak like that before, as if the life were draining out of him quicker than sand through a glass. Bridei edged forward, slipping out between the rocks, stepping over the smoldering heap of leaves and twigs to stand, small and still, by Donal’s