Tasi-feng conferred with the Tervola on the scene. "Lord Ssu-ma, Yan-chu says they were alive when they transferred. They had to be driven into the portal."

"Tell him to send more."

Two more pairs came through. They were as dead as the first. Of the last pair one was a tall, dark man whose armor did not resemble that of the others.

"Have them examined," Shih-ka'i said. He strode back to the map room. Another party had reported itself under attack. He wanted to confirm his memory of their positions. "Uhm," he murmured. "Come, whoever you are. Hit me one more time."

He got his wish within the hour. Two minutes later he had strings attached to the points where each attack was taking place, stretching toward the top of the map. Soldiers were shading areas where the three would cross. The launching of additional attacks allowed Shih-ka'i to begin reducing the size of the shaded area.

"Keep it up," he murmured. "I'll have you pinpointed." He glanced at the log of the times the attacks had been reported. Might the attackers have departed the same point at the same time? Their dispersion and lack of coordination suggested that might be the case. "Lord Lun-yu. Let Yang-chu's position be a point on a circle. Let the other attacked positions be points outside that circle. See if you can describe the circle using the lag in the times of attack."

Lord Lun-yu looked puzzled for a moment, caught on, went to work. He received data from two more assaults. He developed a crude, skewed arc. "It doesn't look right, Lord."

"Guess me a maximum and minimum radius. The terrain they crossed should account for the irregularities." He peered at the map. Neither of his methods was working well. The first, in fact, now looked a little foolish. He had, in effect, collected a lot of lone legs of triangles. He did not know any lengths or angles.

The scope of search did seem to be narrowing. He accepted a casualty report from a messenger. "Hmm?"