The Warden mounted his horse and spurred it into a gallop. Kyrick rode ahead, guiding them with the accuracy of a bloodhound. The dogs had been cut loose. There was some taint on the air that distracted them. But Kyrick, it seemed, could filter the distractions and follow Telos’s trail.

  “What misleads the dogs?” the Warden asked.

  “It has a tang of Daimonsblood about it. But highly concentrated.” The sorcerer’s eyes went skyward, but he said no more. The Warden wondered what he could mean.

  “How far behind are we now?”

  “A few miles.”

  Let us hope he did not acquire a horse, The Warden thought.

  They rode on as four. He had sent one of the guards back to Ob-koron with the injured man. It was an unfortunate loss of manpower, but the injured man was slowing them down and, as much as he had failed, The Warden would not abandon him. The guard had sworn the oath of the guardsmen and performed his duties with acceptable diligence for five years. All careers ran their course.

  The Warden did not believe in luck, but he knew the odds were good that they might encounter the second search party, led by Belt, in Midnere. Then they could set out as seven to pursue Telos. The thief was canny, but the Warden saw the net closing now. The key was to apprehend him before he went beyond the borders of Yestermere. It would be far easier to track him here than across the open plains or in the bustling cities.

  They reached Midnere soon enough, storming into the high street with the fanfare of thundering gods. The epics and legends told of the gods launching a cavalry charge against the Daimons on horses made of starlight and steel known as The Mu. Scholars now interpreted this as an imaginative description of the gods’ sky-ships. The Warden believed none of it. That technology had been lost in ancient times was not beyond the realm of possibility. There were indeed diagrams on the Tablet of Mastery that indicated advanced machinery in the Divine Age. But the fact no one, not even the most learned scientists or linguists, had been able to translate or make use of the text properly indicated to The Warden that much of the narrative surrounding it was mere exaggeration. Visitors from another planet? The matter was lunacy. As were the rules, regulations, and institutions that emerged from their legend.

  “Where now?”

  “I am not sure. There are more smells here. His is harder to follow,” Kyrick answered.

  The Warden saw familiar horses stabled at the House. His blood boiled in his veins. Belt and his men were slacking, no doubt using a rare opportunity to venture from Ob-koron to sink ales. They would sorely regret their misdemeanour.

  “Locate where the track leaves the town,” the Warden ordered. “I shall gather the strays.”

  The Warden brought his horse up and dismounted. The stablemaster, perhaps sensing the fury that burned in the Warden’s core, and determining from his armour and bearing that he was a man of rank, rushed to grab the reins and lead his steed away. The Warden marched up to the door of the House and battered it open.

  The House of the Forest Pony might have been quiet at this early hour, save for the three drunkards in the corner. They occupied a single booth and table but seemed to take up the entire common room space with their raucous laughter and buffoonery. A disgruntled barmaid stood off to one side, straightening her skirts. The Warden grit his teeth.

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  They still wore their official regalia, bringing disgrace to the prison and Crown as well as themselves. Belt and another were engaged in a furious arm-wrestle. Tankards were piled up about them; the floor was awash with spillage.

  The Warden approached. The third of their number, the one not engaged in a contest of strength, spotted the Warden first.

  “B-Belt—”

  “Quit whining! I told you the Warden…” Belt’s words died as the Warden’s shadow fell over him. He swallowed down a bolus of spit.

  The other man slammed Belt’s limp arm and fist into the table, letting out a monosyllabic bark of victory. Belt did not even notice the loss.

  The Warden regarded them all.

  “A prisoner has escaped,” he whispered. “And I find you here. Drunk.”

  “W—”

  “No excuses,” the Warden said. “You are all dismissed. And your pay this moon shall be forfeited.”

  “You can’t do that!” Belt snarled.

  “I can. I have. Now, take off that armour. You are not fit to wear it.”

  Belt stood.

  “Make me.”

  The Warden sighed.

  “How little you have learned.”

  The Warden went for a punch—or seemed to. A second too late, Belt realised it was a feint. The Warden’s mace was in his other hand—his off hand—and swinging into Belt’s knee. The guard screamed as the metal, which might have withstood an edged weapon, crumpled beneath blunt force. The knee joint snapped as it was bent sideways. As Belt fell, The Warden caught him by the throat and slammed him down on the table. The other guards watched white-faced, stupefied. You’re sober now, The Warden thought, grimly.

  “Take. Off. Your. Armour.”

  Belt howled in pain, but eventually nodded.

  The Warden sneered in disgust and turned away. There was no time to waste with these. Telos was still on the run.

  He marched toward the door, but before he had reached it, the entrance flung open and Kyrick stepped within.

  “I have found the trail, Warden. It seems he did not stay in Midnere long.”

  “We depart without these,” The Warden said.

  Kyrick grinned and cackled.

  They mounted their horses, which the anxious stablemaster had prepared for them. The Warden kicked his horses flanked and they thundered out of the town with the same fury with which they had arrived. He’d wished they had more men, for it would have been easier to fan out and surround the prisoner, but four whom he trusted, including Grygory, was better than a murder of crooked ravens.

  Kyrick led them around the back of the house and into the trees. There were no true paths here, although there were the remnants of trails evidently used by foragers and hunters and animals. The trees towered over them, the canopy so high that the morning light seemed remote, more like a memory of light.

  Kyrick halted, sniffed.

  “There is another smell… A very strange smell.”

  “The same one that threw off the dogs?”

  “No… This is… This is very unusual. The Daimon, it angers him. There is something in his memory…” Kyrick trailed off.

  The Warden had no patience for such theatrics.

  “We proceed with caution, then.”

  Kyrick nodded.

  “He is close, Warden. We have gained much ground. He is close!”