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paying no greater heed to Vorzheva than to anyone else in the battered company. Despite the terror and weariness she shared with the rest of the survivors, it was obvious that she was also furiously angry about his inattention. Deornoth had long been a witness to Josua and Vorzheva’s stormy relationship, but was never quite sure how he felt about it. Sometimes he resented the Thrithings-woman as a distraction, a hindrance to his prince’s duties; at other moments he found himself pitying Vorzheva, whose sincere passions often outstripped her patience. Josua could be maddeningly careful and deliberate, and even at the best of times tended toward melancholy. Deornoth guessed that the prince would be a very difficult man for a woman to love and live with.
    The old jester Towser and Sangfugol the harper were talking dispiritedly nearby. The jester’s wine sack lay empty and flattened on the ground beside them; it was the only wine any of the survivors would see for a while. Towser had drained it dry himself in just a few gulps, occasioning more than a few sharp words from his fellows. His rheumy eye had blinked angrily as he drank, like an old rooster warning away a henyard interloper.
    The only ones engaged in useful activity at this moment were the Duchess Gutrun, Isgrimnur’s wife, and Father Strangyeard, the archivist of Naglimund. Gutrun had slit the front and back of her heavy brocade skirt and was now sewing the open pieces together, making something like a pair of breeches for herself, the better to travel through Aldheorte’s clinging brush. Strangyeard, recognizing the good sense of this idea, was sawing away at the front of his own gray robe with Deornoth’s dulled knife.
    The brooding Rimmersman Einskaldir sat near Father Strangyeard; between them lay a quiet shape, a dark bump below the wash of firelight. That was the little handmaiden whose name Deornoth could not remember. She had fled with them from the residence, and had cried quietly all the long way up and down the Stile.
    Cried, that is, until the diggers had reached her. They had clung to her throat like terriers to a boar, even after their bodies had been sheared loose by the blades of her would-be rescuers. Now she cried no longer. She was very, very still, holding precariously to life.
    Deornoth felt a shudder of trapped horror surge up within him. Merciful Usires, what had they done to deserve such dreadful retribution? Of what abominable sin were they guilty, to be punished by the harrowing of Naglimund?
    He fought down the panic that he knew showed plainly on his face, then looked around. No one was watching him, thank Usires: no one had seen his shameful fear. Such conduct was not fitting, after all. Deornoth was a knight. He was proud that he had felt his prince’s gauntlet upon his head, had heard the pronouncement of service. He only wished for the clean terror of battle with human enemies—not tiny, squealing diggers, or the stone-faced, fish-white Norns who had destroyed Josua’s castle. How could you battle creatures out of childhood bogey-tales?
    It must be the Day of Weighing-Out come at last. That was the only explanation. These might be living things they fought—they bled and died, and could demons be said to do so?—but they were forces of Darkness, nevertheless. The final days had come in truth.
    Oddly, the idea made Deornoth feel a little stronger. Was this not, after all, a knight’s true calling, to defend his lord and land against enemies spiritual as well as corporeal? Hadn’t the priest said so before Deornoth’s vigil of investiture? He forced his fearful thoughts back into their proper track. He had long prided himself on his calm face, his slow and measured anger; for just that reason, he had always felt very comfortable with the reserved manners of his prince. How could Josua lead, except by the mastery of his own person?
    Thinking of Josua, Deornoth stole another look at him and felt worry come surging back. It