“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.