"What have you learned for me?" the knight asked.

The soldier grimaced. Whatever he had learned, it had not been to his liking. Or perhaps, the knight thought, he merely had not learned enough for his own liking. Whatever Jerril found out would be more than anyone else could have, but sometimes that was still not enough for the man. He was a competent soldier, and an excellent gatherer of information – never a spy – but the man prided himself on being the best at both. If he had failed to learn something, it was because no one, perhaps not even the gods themselves, knew it, but saying so would only embarrass him.

"Fair little, my lord. I might have learned more if I had gone to the hold, but it did not seem wise." The knight nodded, both to show his understanding and urge the man to continue. "The people of the hold are considered a bit strange, hereabouts. Most are determined warriors or powerful sorcerers. A fair few are both. The people around here don't much like getting close enough to find out more, though they'll trade with the hold quick enough if they can turn a profit from it."

"You have more than that, Jerril, if I know you," the knight commented when the solider fell silent.

"Still little enough, sir. They aren't shy people by any means, rather the opposite, but they're private by nature. Stubborn as stones, the lot of them, but no heads for business, if I understood the folk I talked to aright. They're fighters, not merchants."

"Would they fight for the Count, do you think?" the knight mused aloud, casting a glance back to where the child Jerril had found the night before rode, surrounded on all sides my soldiers.

The soldier nodded thoughtfully. "Could be, sir. They have a funny notion of honor. If you can appeal to that, perhaps. But don't mention gold, or you'll offend them quick enough."

"Warriors that wield sorcery," the knight mused. "Have you any idea how rare that is?"

"Fair enough, sir."

"Aye, that it is. We've no end of surprises on this journey, Jerril. I think we may be in for a few more. And here we are." The group had arrived at a stone fortress. It wasn't in the trees, exactly, for the ground had been cleared for a good area around it, but the knight could see how once this whole area had been forest.

The fortress itself was imposing; stark rock seeming to sprout from the ground to end in jagged peaks somewhere high above him. Not the work of human hands, if he was any judge. Build with sorcery, and lots of it. The place looked impregnable, for all the main entrance stood open. It wasn't a wide entrance, for such a fortress, scarce wide enough for a wagon to enter, but the place had been built for defense, not aesthetics.

The soldier at the gate halted them. He frowned when the knight gave his name and purpose for journeying into the north, and frowned still deeper at mention of the child. Still, he picked took out a mirror and said, "Sir, there's some'at here to see ye," then reluctantly allowed them into the courtyard.

The man that came to meet them was short and stocky, with a brown beard clipped short about his severe mouth. He had the solid, confident movements of a fighter, but the knight had never seen such red eyes on any human. He stood and faced the armed and mounted party with confidence, though he didn't have any weapons. When he saw the child, mounted among the soldiers, he scowled.

"Hello sir," he said, his voice carefully polite. "I hope you'll join us for luncheon, and then we can deal with the business that brings you here." It was a very old formality the man held too, but the knight bowed and accepted in the proper fashion. He hadn't heard such a request in, gods, years, not since he was a little boy, before they crossed the ocean. The man's eyes flicked to the child. "Present yourself after luncheon," he ordered. The child scrambled from his saddle, bowed, and disappeared into the fortress without a word. A strange people, to be sure, the knight thought wryly as he was led in to lunch. Nothing Jerril had said had quite prepared him for these abrupt, if carefully polite, people, and he had a headache coming on that suggested more of this lunacy was to come.