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I'd fallen off my horse avoiding the first spear thrust as they burst through the undergrowth. They'd been laying in ambush, like they knew we were coming. I swear Sapphire killed the first one as though he'd been laying in ambush for them. Wasn't sure. Too busy falling off my horse. He'd come back for me though. “Good man, Shapphi,” I muttered to myself as I staggered away from the tree.

“
Can you get on?”

He was there with the horses. I shrugged. “No idea. Let's see.”

The drubbing he gave me that night made the other pale into insignificance. I think he may have knocked me out, but I'll never be sure.

#

“
I think we are in trouble.”

Sapphire looked at me, then back to the Eyrie. The Eyrie was a stronghold built to be big enough to house the whole Alendi people, and it looked as though they were all there. Smoke hung over it like a cloud, slowly drifting overhead. We'd seen it at dawn, high and slowly dissipating, and followed it all the way here. Twice we had come across groups of barbarians crumpled in heaps, a day or two old. We'd passed the first without comment.

“
Looks like the alliance is breaking up,” Sapphire had said after we had skirted the results of a second skirmish.

“
They must be losing,” I said. Not that I had ever had any doubt that they would. It was always a matter of when, not if. Even if all the barbarians as far as the kingdom of Rancik in the west and Fortherria in the east rose against us, I would still place a good wager on the outcome. “Turning against each other.”

“
Or whatever held them together is gone,”

“
Kukran Epthel,” I said.

“
It doesn't make a difference to us, not right now.”

“
True. I need to get in there and get him out,” I didn't need to say who he was.

“
You are not going in.”

“
What?”

He dismounted and I slithered down to join him, meeting him at the horses' heads. “Of course I'm going in.”

“
The booze has addled your brain, Sumto.” He reached up and tapped my forehead. “How are you planning to hide that? Headscarf?”

Damn. I hadn't given it a moment's thought. Most of the time I don't even remember it's there. I thought about it now. Men don't wear headgear. Not in the north. Not ever. “Bandage.”

He just stared at me.

“
You didn't want me to think of that did you?” I accused him.

“
No.”

“
You think I'm a liability.”

“
You are a liability. Stay here. Wait for me.”

“
No.”

“
Then if there's any fighting, for gods' sake stay out of the way.”

He mounted up and rode on. A little subdued I followed him.

#

The gate to the Eyrie was reached by a long, uphill, switchback road, banked and walled on both sides. The guards on the walls could face into the road and out to any enemy that might threaten it. Either side of the gate two fat towers provided an escape route for those stuck on the long walls should they fall. Each and every soldier on the walls, and they were a mile or more long so there were many, had a bow and I knew from my readings that they had stored a couple of thousand arrows for every bow. Doubtless there were some crossbows as well, though good spring steel is something we make in the city and sell at a price.

We looked like them. Pale hair and pale eyes. We wore their clothes. But just because they are barbarians doesn't make them fools. The gates were opened but we were stopped, along with a steady stream of Alendi making for the Eyrie, men women and children and all they could carry or drag with them.

“
What clan?” A guard called to us at the gate.

“
Liani,” Sapphire told him so fast he sounded defensive. I guessed he made answer before I could.

“
All two of you, eh?” The guard laughed.

I scowled. “Two of us are worth twenty of you, scumbag,” I told him with some authority.

He laughed. “Get on, you're holding everyone else up,” he waved us through and we went.

Inside the gate a vast pasture spread for what seemed like forever. The far wall was invisible. The pasture was filled with cattle, thousands of them. Fences were still being made, hundreds of miles of fences, to make enclosures of varying size depending on the size of the tribe, the size of the herd. Makeshift villages of tents were packed tight everywhere else, they seemed small but there were thousands of people on the move. A city of tent villages spreading out as far as we could see. There were enclosures of horses but far fewer of them. Only the chieftains and their families could traditionally enjoy the luxury of riding. We rode and were conspicuous because of it. We had hardly gone a few dozen yards before we were offered a price for them, drays though they were. We declined and rode on, heading for the center of things, the great stone stronghold that sat in the middle of what I suddenly thought of as a spider's web. It wasn't a comforting thought.

I reached for the bottle and Sapphire frowned as I upended it. “What will you do when you run out?”

“
Drink beer.”

“
You will have to face them someday.”

I shook my head. “When I have an army around me they can come.”

He made no response and we rode on down a narrow avenue between fenced enclosures. There were fires everywhere, in every camp, and the cattle were restless, noisy. They pushed against the fences here and there but the enclosures looked stout enough to prevent stampede. The wood of them was old and had seen use before. I guessed they were stored in the stronghold and only assembled in times such as these.

“
I'd like to get some news,” I said.

He made a random gesture to the sprawling camps. There were thousands of people to ask. Go ahead, he didn't say, go talk to anyone you like, they'll all have news.

“
He'll be in the stronghold,” I said.

Sapphire nodded.

“
This is madness.”

He turned to look at me. “You only just thought that?”

#

The makeshift villages were largest toward the center of things. In the shadow of the stronghold there was a dense ring of them melding into each other. We sold the horses. We could always steal others if we needed them. I had imagined the Eyrie as I had read of it; a vast empty walled pasture with a sparsely populated stronghold at the middle. What I got was the whole Alendi nation crushed into a couple of square miles. A hundred thousand people or more. Getting him out of the stronghold, which would be equally full, would only be half of it. We could make him disappear for a while amongst so many, maybe, but ultimately we had to get him through the gates and no one was going to be leaving for a while.

We set up our new tents in sight of the gate to the stronghold amongst a hundred others and settled down to watch and think. We took it in turns to look and watch, sitting either side of a small fire, swapping places occasionally. There was a moat about the stronghold and a narrow bridge wide enough for one man to walk across comfortably. It was of wood and could be burned. The gate was small, also. Just a door, really. The stronghold was low and square. I remembered what I had read of the inside. A courtyard, surrounded by forges, and a single building running all around the walls and as high. In essence the walls were the building, peppered with arrow slits. A small army could stand on the roof and repel attackers. I measured one wall's length by eye, making it just under three hundred feet. Guessing the courtyard was half the size that made one hundred and fifty by three hundred twice, or ninety thousand feet, and one hundred and fifty by one hundred and fifty twice, or forty five thousand. One hundred and thirty five thousand square feet. Well, let's say it takes three feet square for a man to stand and fight, that would give enough room for fifteen thousand men on the roof. Not that they could all fight of course. That would be...

“
Thinking of climbing in?”

“
Eh? Oh, no. We would be seen for certain.” I looked back at the bridge. There was a guard detail, four men, passing people on and turning them back in equal measure. Clearly you had to have business inside if you wanted to pass. Most of the men coming out carried bundles of arrows and assorted weapons. Some carried food. What I was trying to get an idea of was what the magic word was. Who was passed and who turned back.

My attention drifted back to the roof. That would be only four hundred men usefully at the wall at any one time. That didn't seem enough out of fifteen thousand. Had I calculated right? Fifteen thousand sounded like a lot. Would the roof hold under their weight?

“
My turn,” Sapphire said.

I nodded absently and changed places with him.

#

“
Wake up.” A kick in the ribs reinforced the instruction. “Now!”

It was the middle of the night. The air was full of the already familiar sounds of cattle making the noises they make multiplied by thousands and spread out in the night. As I struggled to awaken I could hear the sounds that the dogs made in their sleep, the odd whimper, the occasional sleepy growl. I ignored them. I'd have a drink in a minute. I felt about as rough as I ever had and really didn't want to be awake.

“
We are going in, or I am.”

I moved. No way he was leaving me alone. I needed this if I were not to be damned to poverty forever, a patron with no influence or money and one ex-slave as a client. A disgraced exile living on charity in a foreign land. It took a while to get up. My whole body was stiff and complained at me and my head throbbed, my stomach threatened to rebel. I could hear the dogs faintly, whimpering and whining in their sleep. Thank god they were asleep. I still needed a drink.

“
Now?” I asked blearily.

He pointed. Torches lit the night, a procession of men were crossing the bridge, a throng of them waiting to follow. No one was checking them, no one was passing them. They were going in en masse and were expected. I nodded. Easy to tack on the end and just walk in.

“
Now,” I agreed, and we went.

#

Torches lit the scene, the flames reflected in the dark water of the moat, pooling round each torch bearer, dancing on the walls of the stronghold. As the barbarians walked across the bridge in single file the crowd clustered at our side of the bridge was slowly thinning. We tacked ourselves onto the back of the group that waited their turn without incident, and stepped out onto the bridge when it came around to our turn. Ahead of us they passed through the small gate one at a time, torchlight dancing inside and fading, dancing and fading, until it was our turn to pass inside, Sapphire ahead of me and no one behind apart from four bored guards who had eyed us disinterestedly. The bridge was wide enough so that one man could walk without difficulty, but not so wide that two could pass or walk together without risk of being pitched into the dark waters only five feet or so below. I was relieved to make it to the end of the bridge.