Maybe the rumors are true, but nobody said they set on visitors here.

And it didn't smell as bad as some towns did; just woodsmoke and barnyard, mostly. They probably had working sewers.

Four more towers around the gatehouse there… right, that's where the bridge leads in.

The town was built in a U formed by the river, which meant a natural moat on three sides; an old but well kept pre Change bridge ran to the edge of the gate. A carved and painted statue twice life-size was set into the wall on either side, a beautiful woman with long golden hair standing on a seashell on the left, a naked man holding a bow and crowned with the sun on the right.

As his horse set a hoof on the pavement he heard a thunder of drums from the gatehouse towers, and a screeching, skirling drone that sent Boy to tossing his head and snorting, and made the hair rise along the back of Ingolf's neck. His eyes were still flicking up to the source of that catamount wail when he halted before the gate guard.

"Never heard bagpipers before, eh?" one of them said with a chuckle. "It's not someone biting a cat's tail, honest. We're bidding farewell to the Sun, you see."

Ingolf smiled back and nodded. "Just startled me a bit."

It was always sound common sense to be friendly with armed strangers, and anyway, the one who'd spoken was a good-looking woman about his own age, with a freck led snub-nosed face and lively brown eyes. Which was a little odd, but while fighting women weren't numerous, they weren't so rare that he'd never met one before ei ther. He'd campaigned with a couple who were pretty good, in fact, and one of them had been notably better than that.

He took off the hat, slapping it against his knee to shed the water, and incidentally to let them see his face in the circle of light cast by the big lamps. Looking him over was their job, and he didn't have anything- well, not much -to hide.