Strung out, of course, they also covered a great deal of ground, seeing most everything that moved over many mey. Joss cast a prayer to the winds, and found a draft on which Scar could rise, the better to allow them a chance at outrunning the flight. But a reeve has good reason to gain familiarity with the creatures he lives beside. He recognized, quickly enough, Volias's sleek and gorgeous Trouble. Gliding down, he and Scar found open ground and landed.
On his tail, Volias came to earth with a pair of reeves flanking him. One was Pari, the Argent Hall reeve. The other was Kesta, young, muscular, shapely and, of course, child of the Fire Mother as he was, so therefore taboo.
"You look like you've been dragged through the hells," said the Snake as he sauntered forward.
"You look pleased to think it might be so."
"Only had I been there to enjoy watching you suffer. What happened? Should I bring the others down? Turn them around?"
"By no means. You can't imagine how glad I am to see you."
Volias laughed. "That bad, eh?" He was a bastard, but he knew his duty.
"How is Peddo?"
"He'll live." Volias scanned the sky, then pointed toward Pari. "The Commander wasn't minded to do anything after Peddo and I got back. She said, let you run on the winds of your nightmares and come back when you'd shed yourself of them. But then this boy arrived at Clan Hall and told us a tale I wouldn't have believed if I hadn't seen Horn Hall. As it was, the Commander was given strong reason to believe his outrageous tale might be true. So she sent me in command of the Third Flight, to bring what aid you might ask for."
"I applaud the Commander's wisdom. Why did she only send one flight?"
"There's a second flight following behind this one," said Volias.
Kesta broke in. "Why did she send any? Why in the hells are we wasting our time out here?" Her glare was almost as intimidating at her eagle's. "We should turn around and go back right away. In case you hadn't heard," she added with drawling scorn, "High Haldia's walls were breached, and the city was burned. Iron Hall's reeves fled to their hall, unable to stop it. Now there's an army of about ten companies-six thousand men!-marching seaward down the Istri Walk. Marching on Toskala. I have seen such things… and that we abandoned the countryfolk of Haldia to come stooping after this hare!" Her fury was like steam, almost visible rising off her.
"You'll see those same things here in the south, alas. For there's an army not more than two days out of Olossi, closing fast. About five companies, we estimate. Burning and slaughtering as they march. Desolation in their wake."
Volias shook his head. "Two armies, hidden from us for this long. How can we have been so blind?"
"Was there news from Horn Hall?" Joss asked.
Their look was his answer.
Pari had stayed back by his eagle, whose head feathers were flared and wings half opened. An Argent Hall eagle would not feel easy in the proximity of so many unknown raptors.
"He's handling him well," remarked Joss.
Kesta smiled wickedly. "He's not bad. A little young, but that fault improves with time."
"Unlike you," said Volias to Joss, because he could not stop jabbing. "So what are we to do? Two flights of reeves can do nothing against an army of three thousand. Iron Hall was helpless at High Haldia. An army won't submit to arrest."
"I wish they were all lost in the hells and eaten alive by rats!" said Kesta, tossing her head back.
"Best we meet up with Captain Anji."
"Who is Captain Anji?" demanded Kesta. "What kind of name is that?"
"An outlander's name. He's our ally, and we're fortunate to have him. Indeed, if he survived the night, he'll be happy to see us sooner than he expected. We thought it would take me days to fly to Clan Hall, persuade the Commander, roust a flight, and return here."
"There's one other thing," added Volias. "This Argent Hall marshal who calls himself Yordenas? The Commander had us hunt in the records. There was mention of a reeve called Yordenas. He was a young man newly come to Iron Hall. He was killed about ten years ago, while trying to stop a skulk of bandits as they were beating and raping and robbing in an isolated village up in the high valleys. The reeve's eagle was mutilated and left for dead, and the man's clothes were found, soaked in blood. But they never found his body."
"So we don't know he was killed."
"In the testimony of the villagers, those who survived, they stated quite clearly that he was killed. That he died in the arms of a woman who'd given her apprenticeship to the Lady. She'd seen death before. The reeve who took her testimony felt she knew what she was talking about."
"What happened to the body, then?"
"That's the mystery. It vanished soon after. No one could say how."
THE FLIGHTS FLEW wide of the road, so as not to be spotted, but Joss sent Volias and Kesta to shadow West Track. He'd taken his chances yesterday flying over to observe the army. He didn't want to be spotted, knowing it necessary that Argent Hall and their allies believe, for the time being, that he was dead. But yesterday he had needed to see, and today so did these two, so they could understand as well as he did what they were up against.
He had never in his life seen quite so many people on the move all at the same time. They marched in orderly groups, ranked by cohorts. Their weapons gleamed; blacksmiths had been working for years to produce that supply of swords, spears, halberds, axes, and arrows. Their wagons trundled along, pulled by draft animals. Behind them, villages lay emptied. The road stretched, deserted, before and behind the army's killing path. He had glimpsed a handful of people in the woodland cover, scrambling to hide when they saw the eagle's shadow: these might be outriders and foragers, or they might be innocent villagers trying to hide from the wolves. He had seen fresh mounds of dirt heaped over corpses, an act meant to demoralize and terrify the country folk, since it was truly an abomination to bury what should be left to the Lady's acolytes to purify and the Four Mothers to gather into their wombs.
Worse even than all this was the knowledge that the horror was just beginning, if they could find no way to stop it. No adult in living memory had seen an army gathered, although armies were spoken of in the old tales of the civil wars that had almost torn apart the Hundred. To think there were two such armies made him want to scream.
Midday came a signal flashed through the flights by flags. Joss had told Volias what to look for, and they had found it. He shifted the flights northward to move out over the road and the river plain, while he flew in over West Track. There, on the road below, marched a band of some two hundred mounted soldiers, all in black.
The Qin soldiers moved at a speed Joss could hardly credit, but they switched off between horses, and all of them-men and horses alike-had a stubborn toughness that was impressive and even disturbing. Joss took Volias and Kesta down with him and left the rest aloft, as it took less energy for the eagles to circle high overhead, rising on drafts and gliding back down to repeat the cycle, than for all to land and take off again. Anyway, they were safer in the air. The army was at least a day's march behind them by now, but there would still be scouts and outriders ranging along the land and sneaking through the woods.
They landed a short ways out ahead of the Qin. Joss left Scar off the road and clambered up onto its surface. Where the Qin scouts hid he could not tell, but they got their message back to the company somehow, because a short while later Anji came galloping up in front of his troop with six companions, including Chief Tuvi and his usual dour guardsmen, Sengel and Toughid.