Blade scrambled down the slope toward the valley floor, keeping low and looking for a place where he could see without being seen. He found it-a shallow depression in the ground, screened from the side by two large boulders. He dropped flat and stared downslope just as the approaching men emerged out of the mist eddying across the valley floor.

It was quite a procession-three hundred men at least, with two hundred animals and more than thirty wagons, carts, and litters. As he got a better look at the party, Blade realized he'd better be particularly on the alert. If this weren't a military expedition, he'd like to know what else to call it.

Ahead, behind, and on either flank rode forty men mounted on almost comically misshapen beasts. They looked as though someone had started to draw a horse but got so drunk while doing it that the rear end came out very different from the front.

The head could have belonged to a horse, except for the enormous protruding ears. The forelegs were double-jointed and ended in three sharp-clawed toes, and the body was thinner than any horse could ever be without starving to death. The hind legs looked as if they might have been borrowed from a kangaroo, long, heavy-boned, and immensely muscular, with sharp, jutting spurs. The creature trailed off into six feet of flattened tail, ending in a mass of bone. Blade noticed that the tails were strapped tightly in place. Doubtless they were unstrapped in battle, so the beasts could use them as weapons.

The creatures were dark green with irregular patterns of grayish-brown stripes, except for white tails and ears. They might look ludicrous, but Blade suspected they would be unpleasantly formidable opponents in battle.

The riders wore chain mail shirts over broad-skirted leather coats and plate leg armor over blue leather trousers.