Mather looked me in the eye for several seconds. "I work for the Radisha. I couldn't."

"I could."

I turned. That was Blade.

Smoke had a squeaking fit.

Blade grinned, the first I'd seen him do so. "I don't owe you anything, little man." He turned to Swan. "What did I say? Ain't over yet."

Something flickered across Swan's face. He wasn't happy. "You're putting us in a bad spot, Blade."

"You putting yourself there, Swan. You said it, what kind of people they are. Soon as they got what they want they going to stick it in you. That right, wizard? Like you done the Black Company?"

Smoke staggered. He would've been dead if he'd had a bad heart. He looked like he expected me to roast him. I smiled. I'd let him stew a little first. "I'll accept your offer, Blade. Come meet your hundred-leaders."

Once we were out of earshot of the others I asked, "What did you mean by that remark?"

"Less than it sounded. The wizard, the Radisha, the Prahbrindrah, they hurt you more by deceit than treachery. They withheld information. I can't tell you what. I don't know. They thought we were spies you sent ahead. But I can tell you they never meant to keep their agreement. For some reason they don't want you to get to Khatovar."

Khatovar. Croaker's mystery destination, the place the Black Company had originated. For four hundred years the Company moved northward slowly, in the service of various princes, till it came into mine, then of my enemies, and was reduced to a handful of men. After the battle in the Barrowland, Croaker turned back south with fewer followers than my squad leaders had today.

We'd gathered a man here, a man there, and when we'd reached Taglios we'd discovered we couldn't cross the last four hundred miles because the principalities of the Shadowmasters lay between us and Khatovar. There was only one way to cover those final miles. Take Taglios, already pressed by the Shadowmasters, with its pacifist history, and win an impossible war.