It wasn't far before the forest thinned out around us and gave way to lush stalks of grass brushing about the horses' knees.

"Normally thins out slower than that," Kaczmarek remarked, looking around.

"It's the herds," I said, gesturing at a skeletal sapling sticking out of the grassland like the flagstaff of a vanquished army. "They eat everything that's not wood, and it stops the forest from spreading much out here."

"Huh," she said. "Is that the disappointment I'm supposed to have?" She added, addressing the Afamacian magus. He smiled and shook his head below his voluminous hood.

"No. It already has happened, but notice has not." He paused for a second. "Pardon me. But you have not realised, should I say."

The jäger blinked. "Really? But you said I would notice. It's been nearly ten minutes anyway."

"Ah, well, it is a bit of a trick," the magus shamelessly admitted. "There is no… I am not quite sure how to put it in the Hochsprache, say, true magic in it. The future cannot be said with such certainty so easily."

"Wait, what?" Kaczmarek demanded, dismayed. "So you were just guessing?"

Alemayehu grinned. "No, no. I spoke no false word, and did not guess anything. But you are disappointed, no?"

His Highness burst out laughing, and a moment later I followed suit. The victim made an obscene gesture at the magus before shaking her head and chuckling ruefully.

“Jäger!” I snapped at her, but the magus headed me off.

“It is understandable,” he said. “The victim of a bit of a joke she was, after all.”

The prince glanced up from under his hood. “So is there no magic you can do quickly like that, then, magus?”

“Magic that changes the world, no. But, ah, sometimes the way you speak and what you say is magic by itself, yes? Master Dejen in the Tarimate Court could make you agree that green is the sky if you spoke with him. And if you think the world is changed, it is not so different from the world changing,” he said, briefly dropping the reins to move his hands about and gesture at the sky for emphasis before snatching them back up again.

His Highness nodded along thoughtfully. “I see.” He pursed his lips but remained silent, lost in thought. The scholar looked ready to keep talking, but I was distracted scanning the horizon. I nudged Munter forward a little to come up alongside Kaczmarek where she rode a little ahead, having to rein the big gelding back in when he went to take the lead fully.

“Do you see something on the crest there?” I murmured, not wanting to distress the less militant pair off only the evidence of my own faulty eyes. Though I was sure there was something there, I could not say if it was a cluster of surviving trees huddled around an outcropping of boulders or a group of riders.

The hunter wiped her face and shielded her eyes with her hand, peering in the direction I’d indicated. After a moment she clicked her tongue in annoyance and rose to a wobbly standing position in the stirrups—that she could at all was a testament to her improvement as a rider in the last week of unrelenting practice—to gain some height. At length, she dropped back into the saddle.

“Riders,” she reluctantly agreed. “They’ve got a banner, but I can’t really see it properly from here. Bet you a kreuzer it’s not ours, though.”

“That’s a fool’s bet if ever I heard one,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Better prepare for trouble, then. How many do you make them?”

After a long moment of staring again, she shrugged. “Maybe seven? Hard to see through the rain, at this distance. Don’t think they’re standing still either, doesn’t help.”

“Thanks.” I sighed, rubbing at my brow. I raised my voice back up to a normal volume. “Gentlemen, we may have company in a few minutes. They appear to be flying a banner and it does not appear to be Imperial, sirs, so I’m afraid they will most likely not be offering us tea and a change of clothes.” I paused briefly.

“We are almost certainly heavily outnumbered. I should dearly like for us to pass without incident, but I fear it is more likely they will recognise us and attack. In that case, discretion is the better part of valour. That is to say, we run like foxes from the hounds until we make some kind of favourable terrain. Ideally an outcropping or other space where their numbers cannot be brought to bear. If necessary I will hold the rear for a moment before rejoining you, but that will hopefully not happen.”

“How do we know they’re enemies?” The prince asked. “And what if they’re not?”

“Well, sir, either they’re ours, they’re civilians, or they’re Torreans. We don’t have much in the way of garrisons out here, your Highness, so they’re probably not ours. Civilians don’t fly banners…” I hesitated for a moment. “Well, it’s a little unusual for a patrol to fly a banner as well, but it’s more likely, sir. So it about has to be Torreans, and they’ll almost certainly be looking for you, sir.”

His Highness winced. “I see. Thank you, Schreiner.”

“Only my job, sir.” Mentally recounting the usual preparations for battle, I stooped to unsling my dragonet from beside the saddlebags. “I think you’d better load your flintlock, sir. Keep it close for your own defence. Don’t fire unless one has his sights on you, sir, and if you’d rather not have to pull the trigger perhaps pass it to the jäger.”

Nodding seriously, the prince clumsily started unhooking his own dragonet while Kaczmarek threw a sardonic salute.

“Professional trigger-puller at your service, your Highness. Seven years without flinching, unless you count the time I got shot in the leg first but I’m pretty sure that doesn’t count. Sir.”

His Highness chuckled nervously—almost more a giggle really—while measuring powder out of the horn. Eyes fixed on my own measure, I lowered my voice to murmur to Kaczmarek while I shook out the charge. “I know you’re strung high as well, but do try not to distress the prince, jäger. He’s a good lad, not cut out for this line of work.”

She glanced at me sidelong, grinning. “Oh, I’m not nervous. I just haven’t had a good fight in weeks.”

I cocked an eyebrow at that but let it slide, raising my voice again to address the magus. “I don’t believe you’re the soldiering type, sir, so unless I miss my guess it would be best for you to keep to the rear. If we make a run for it I’ll drop back behind you to cover the rear myself, sir. Is that alright?”

“Understood,” he said. “What should we be from them expecting?”

I shrugged, tipping a dash of powder out the measure into the priming pan before snapping shut the hammer and turfing the rest down the barrel, one hand holding both the measure and the muzzle while the other shielded them from the rain. “Next to no idea I’m afraid, sir. Likely they’re dragoons, sir, unless their command gambled on sending hussars through unmounted to pillage horses from us. They may very well have flintlocks, but so long as they’re full arquebuses they’ll be too clumsy to bring to bear– I hope, anyway. With luck they’re mounted infantry not true cavalry and we’ll have the advantage of them from horseback, sir.”

“You are not afraid?”

I chuckled, trying to keep the strain out of my voice. “Magus, usually I’m on foot and the artillery are firing on me already.” I pointed to an isolated boulder a few hundred metres away with the ramrod before driving a ball into the dragonet. “About there we’d have to stop in good order under arquebus fire to return a volley and reload.” I slipped the rammer back into its tubes and experimentally tilted the charged gun this way and that to check the ball was secure. “I’m a little nervous, sir, but this is truly a Sunday stroll compared to how an infantryman usually goes into battle.”

“You must have interesting Sunday walks, then,” the magus drily commented.

“Three turns about the picquets and pray the Heavens that it sticks to raining water not lead, sir,” I cheerily replied, and he huffed a laugh. Satisfied with my dragonet I returned it to its sling, muzzle tilted a little upwards, and noted with a measure of relief that His Highness was passing his to Kaczmarek.

It was an issue that bothered me when I had time to think—which was all the time now—and nothing more pressing on my mind. On the one hand, the prince needed to be able to defend himself, and to fulfil my oath in spirit as well as letter I should be obliged to teach him. On the other hand, he was still so young. My spirit baulked at the idea of a child becoming so hardened he could aim a flintlock and take a life. What point was there in protecting His Highness’s life if he’d live it with a heart of stone?

For better or for worse I was pulled away from my would-be philosophical musings by the approach of the foreign riders. At this distance even I could clearly make them out; seven, like the jäger had guessed, and any doubt as to their provenance was quickly dispelled by their uniform orange jackets. Tall hats, sabres at their sides and the barrels of arquebuses rising above their shoulders: Torrean dragoons. I dropped my hand to my scimitar, checking it was sliding freely in its scabbard. My hand slipped on the wet hilt and I absently wiped it on my sleeve before realising I hadn’t improved matters at all, resigning myself to clinging to it with a death grip if needed.

“You don’t seem too troubled yourself,” I remarked to the magus, as much to fill time as out of curiosity. The last few minutes were always tense even if I had made a show of how straightforward this was compared to the usual. I glanced over my shoulder just in time to see his cloak shift as, presumably, he shrugged.

“It will come as it comes,” he said. “My fate is already in the stars. I can only do my best.” He smiled tightly, showing some teeth. Not quite a grimace, but close. “Of course that does not mean I am not nervous, eh?”

“‘Man plans and the Heavens laugh’,” I agreed. “But don’t fret, sir. I’ve been doing this for years, sir, and I haven’t died yet!”

We subsided into our own nervous silences for the rest of the distance, until the dragoons rode out to meet us. From a ways off their officer—the equivalent of a fähnrich, I thought, though I didn’t know the Torrean ranks very well—hailed us, and I replied in kind. A minute later we came in ordinary speaking range, and the officer politely but quickly introduced himself and explained their demands, or so it seemed.

I cleared my throat and adjusted my hat. “It’s a little embarrassing to admit now, sirs,” I addressed the rest of my party, “But I don’t speak a word of Torrean. By any chance could you translate that, your Highness? Magus?”