So he pulled his team into a very dark, very deserted byway, and leaned back over his cargo. He thumped the side of the wagon very hard with the pommel of his bodkin and waited until he heard another grunt. “I know you can hear me,” he said to the hay. The three men underneath it, the thieves from Doral’s house, were just now waking from their drugged stupor. They would be unable to use their limbs for a while yet, but their ears would be fully recovered. The drug Malden had used on his darts was measured out quite carefully, and he knew its effects well-he’d even tested it on himself, to be sure of its efficacy. He knew how groggy and listless it would leave them, and how unable to defend themselves.

Still the hay rustled as they tried to rouse themselves and escape. Malden sighed and said, “If I tell you to be quiet, I expect you will try to shout. It’s what I would do in your situation. Allow me to point out one thing, however. If I wished to kill you, I could have done so quite easily, hours ago. Instead I did you a very great favor: I saved you from the hangman’s noose. I’d like to do you another favor, but it depends on my getting to my destination without incident. You may therefore remain silent, and keep your groans to yourself. Or I can stop your breath right now, while you’re still too weak to fend me off. Do we have a deal? Cry once for yes, or twice if you wish to die.”

“Oooh,” one of them moaned.

“Pluh-pluh-pluz,” the second begged.

“Gah,” the third one muttered. That must be the one he’d struck in the tongue.

“Very good. Lie still, then, and you’ll live, for now.” Malden got his horse under way again and headed for the Ashes.

That ancient district of the Free City of Ness was named for a calamity that happened well before Malden was born, the Seven Day Fire that claimed half the city. There was very little evidence of the conflagration left in Ness, save for a small zone of houses that had been so decrepit before the fire-and their owners so desperately poor-that they had never been rebuilt.