She placed her feet carefully to avoid slipping and falling headlong on the slippery mulch of fallen leaves underfoot. The anhak trees grew right to the crest where the soft black earth fell steeply to a broad flood plain. Here and there she saw great raw gaps in the terrain where the spring flood had undercut the bank and toppled a hunchbacked anhak. None was recent. Winter had been too brief for the melting snowpack in the far-off Thail Mountains to engorge the Marchant till it overflowed its banks.

She dropped to her belly. Nothing in the act struck the princess as incongruous. In years past when an heir apparent to the Beryl Throne and not an outcast, she had trained as a bird rider of the elite Sky Guard, a course designed to break all but the fiercest, most determined and toughest in mind and body.

Moriana had passed without the slightest favor being accorded her due to her station. Under the command of the youthful leader of the Guard, her cousin Rann, she had leda flight of Sky Guardsmen into battle against the Northern Barbarians. Now Rann was head of all Sky City soldiery, and Moriana's sworn enemy. But Moriana had not forgotten the hard lessons she'd learned from him. Not the least among them was that survival never took second place to dignity in the field.

With bits of sodden leaf and rich black loam clinging to her belly, she snaked to the crest of the slope. Above her and to the left grew an oval-leafed urylla bush. The short shrub sported no flowers and would not blossom until the white sun of high summer glowered down from overhead, but it provided excellent cover. The princess knew not to silhouette her head against the sky.

Noiselessly she wriggled to the bush, raised her head to peer through the branches. To her left the Chanobit made its final dash to meet and merge with the Marchant. Man-high rushes marked the banks of the river. She scanned them carefully. If the Sky City forces wished to mount a final ambush on the ground, this would be an ideal place to do it.