Cordy asked, "Think they know we're here?"

"What?" The idea startled Swan.

"You said they're organized. Nobody ever accused the Lady of not being efficient. She should have pickets out."

Swan thought. No one had entered or left the camp, but Mather had a point. If they wanted to remain unnoticed they'd better move on. "You're right. Let's go. Blade, you were down here before. Know how to cross that creek somewhere that's not too far out of the way?"

Blade nodded. In those desperate days before the Black Company picked up the reins he'd led guerrillas behind the Shadowmasters' main forces.

"Lead on. Smoke, old buddy, I wish I could get a peek inside your head. I never seen anybody so ready to drizzle down his leg."

The wizard said nothing.

Blade found a game ford three miles east of the south road, led the way through woods narrower than Swan expected. When they reached the southern side, Blade said, "Road's two miles that way."

"I figured." The sky was dark with buzzards. "That's where we'll find our dead men."

That was the place.

The air was still. The stench hung like a poisonous miasma. Neither Swan nor Mather had a stomach strong enough to let them take a close look. Blade, though, seemed to have no sense of smell.

He returned. Swan said, "You look green around the gills."

"Not much but bones left. Been a while. Two hundred, three hundred men. Hard to tell now. Animals been at them. One thing. No heads."

"Eh?"

"No heads. Somebody cut them off."

Smoke moaned, then chucked his breakfast. His mount shied.

"No heads?" Swan asked. "I don't get it."

Mather said, "I've got an idea. Come on." He rode south, toward where crows circled, dipped, and squabbled.

They found the heads.

Blade asked, "Want to get a count?" He chuckled.