Haskeer grumpily declared that he wanted to make his way back alone. Stryke was happy to let him. "But mind what Brelan said about the curfew. And stay out of trouble!"

Haskeer grunted and stomped off.

"So, which way for us, Stryke?" Coilla asked.

"Haskeer's going that way, so…"

She pointed in the opposite direction.

"Right."

The course they chose took them through a couple of open meadows and into a wooded area. They moved at a fast clip, anxious to put some distance behind them. At their backs the fort burned, belching pillars of black, pungent smoke. Ahead, they could just make out Taress' loftier towers, wine-red in the flaxen light of a summer's evening.

Not for the first time it struck Coilla how much Acurial's rustic landscape differed from that of Maras-Dantia, the ravaged land of their birth; and how it so resembled their adoptive world of Ceragan.

"I'm sorry," she said.

Stryke was puzzled. "About what?"

"Losing the star you trusted me with, probably to Jennesta. I feel such a fool."

"Don't beat yourself up about it. I lost the other four to her too, remember. Who's the bigger fool?"

"Maybe we all are. We were betrayed, Stryke. It must have been somebody in the resistance who took the star I had."

"Could have been. Then again…"

"You can't mean somebody in our band."

"I don't know. Perhaps an outsider took it."

"You really believe that?"

"Like I said, I don't know. But from now on we keep things close to our chests."

She sighed. "Whatever. Fact is we're still stuck here."

"Not if I can help it."

"What d'you mean?"

"I aim to get the stars back."

"From Jennesta? From the whole damn Peczan empire?"

"There'll be a way. Meantime we've got our work cut out riling the humans."

"Well, we struck a blow today."