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the serf ground out. “Death Lord pull you under the dirt and cover over your grave.”
    “Serfs’ curses. Serfs’ gods,” Ormerod said with a shrug. “They won’t bite on a Detinan. You blonds ought to know that by now. Last chance: do I finish you, or do I walk away and let you die at your own speed?”
    Blood dribbled from a corner of the serf’s mouth. He’d bitten his lips or his tongue in his torment. His eyes still held hate, but he nodded up at Ormerod and said, “Get it over with.”
    The noble caught him by his yellow hair, jerked his head back, and drew the knife across his throat. More blood spurted, scarlet as the Lion God’s spires. The serf’s expression went blank, vacant. Ormerod let his head fall. The blond lay unmoving. Ormerod plunged his knife into the soft earth to clean it, then thrust it back in its sheath.
    His men had kept going while he finished the runaway. He quickmarched after them, and was panting a little by the time he caught up. “Dead?” Lieutenant Gremio asked him.
    “I didn’t go after the bastard to give him a kiss on the cheek and tell him what a good boy he was,” Ormerod answered. “Of course he’s dead.”
    “His liege lord could bring an action against you for slaying him rather than returning him to the land to which he’s legally bound,” Gremio observed. “It falls under the statutes for deprivation of agricultural resources.”
    “His liege lord could toast in the seven hells, too,” Ormerod said. “As far as I’m concerned, that sort of action falls under the Thunderer’s lightning bolt.”
    “I merely mentioned what was legally possible,” Gremio said with his annoying lawyerly precision. Baron Ormerod spat in the dirt of the roadway to show what he thought of such precision.
    As Colonel Florizel had said it would, his regiment camped just outside Rising Rock that night. Florizel said, “Ned’s unicorn-riders are supposed to keep the enemy away from us till we fall back, too.” He eyed Ormerod and the rest of his captains. “Ned is an able officer, but I wouldn’t put all my faith in his riders, any more than I would put all my faith in any one god.”
    Ormerod had already planned to post double pickets to make sure his company got no unpleasant surprises from the east. After hearing that, he posted quadruple pickets instead. But the southrons didn’t trouble his men, and the regiment, along with the rest of Count Thraxton’s rear guard, passed a quiet night.
    “Ned knows his business,” Ormerod remarked the next morning.
    “Nice that somebody does,” Lieutenant Gremio answered. He looked around to make sure nobody but Ormerod was in earshot, then added, “It’d be even nicer if some more people up above us did.”
    Ormerod grunted. “And isn’t that the sad and sorry truth? But there’s not one cursed thing we can do about it, worse luck.” He raised his voice so the whole company could hear him: “Come on, boys. We’ve got to move out. I wish we didn’t, but we cursed well do.” Along with the rest of the regiment, the rest of the rear guard, he and his company marched out of Rising Rock, out of the province of Franklin, and into . . . he didn’t want to think about what they were marching into. Into trouble , was what crossed his mind.

    “General?” someone called outside of Earl James of Broadpath’s pavilion. “Are you in there, General?”
    “No, I’m not here,” James answered. “I expect to be back pretty soon, though.”
    As he’d hoped it would, that produced a fine confused silence. When he strode out of the pavilion, the runner who’d come up was on the point of leaving. He brightened when he saw James. “Oh, good, your Excellency,” he said. “Duke Edward’s compliments, and he’d like to see you at your earliest convenience.”
    “Would he?” James of Broadpath said. “Well, of course I’ll see him straightaway. He’s in his pavilion?” He waited only for the runner to nod, then hurried