At dawn the group broke apart. Aldric took the ransom note and the signet seal and rode south with the black dragon, carrying the proof to the king. Rowen rode north alone to hold the merchant. Sylara stood by his stirrup, bow in hand, and did not mount. "The merchant hires blades," she said. "You ride into them with no one at your back." Rowen gripped the reins. He knew it. One road needed the proof. The other needed a sword. He could not be two men. He rode hard through the morning. By noon he caught the merchant's party on the road. A wagon, a fat man in a fur collar, and six hired men with their hands near their swords. Rowen raised the king's name and ordered the merchant to stop. The merchant smiled and lifted one hand. The six men spread out and drew steel. Rowen was one against six. He pulled his horse back toward the trees for ground that favored a lone man. The hired blades came on. Then an arrow took the nearest man through the shoulder, and he dropped his sword screaming. Sylara stepped out from the brush, nocking a second arrow before the first man hit the dirt. "You split the group," she said. "I didn't." She had not ridden south. She had ridden after Rowen and shadowed the road. Two more arrows cleared two more men. Rowen charged the three who stood. He took one across the chest and turned fast on the next. Steel rang. The hired men had been paid to guard a wagon, not to die for one. When Sylara's next arrow buried in the earth at their feet, they broke and ran into the trees. The merchant tried to whip his horses forward. Rowen cut the harness and pulled him down into the mud. The fat man begged. He offered gold. He offered the name of other buyers. Rowen bound his wrists with the man's own fur collar and said nothing. Sylara walked out and looked at the bound merchant. "Alive," she said. "The king will want him talking." "You should have gone south." Rowen's hands were still shaking. "Aldric rode alone." "Aldric has a dragon," she said. "You had a horse." She lowered her bow. "Next time, don't split what shouldn't split." Rowen looked at the merchant in the mud, then north up the empty road. He had the man now, bound and breathing. But Aldric carried the only proof three days south, with the black dragon and no second blade. Rowen had held one road. He could not see the other. If the merchant's men reached Aldric before the king did, the proof would die on the southern road, and the prisoner at Rowen's feet would be worth nothing.

Rowen tied the merchant to the wagon wheel and stared south. Three days of road lay between him and Aldric. The merchant's blades had run into the trees, but they had horses hidden somewhere. They would ride for Aldric now. Rowen had the prisoner and no way to warn the one man who carried the proof. "I can't reach him," Rowen said. "Not in time. His horse has a day's lead and the blades know the road." Sylara knelt by the brush, reading the broken branches where the men had fled. "Four horses," she said. "They ride light. You ride with a prisoner. You lose." "Then I leave the merchant and ride." "Leave him and you lose your proof twice." She stood. "Think." A woman stepped out of the treeline. White hair, green cloak stitched with dried flowers. Rowen's hand went to his sword before he saw the empty palms. This was the witch the villagers feared, the one who read the plants and told what was coming. Rowen had heard the stories. He had not believed them. "You need the south road watched," Elara Thornwood said. She did not ask. She pressed her flat hand to the dirt and went quiet. "Riders passed here this morning. Heading north, toward you. They did not know you had already won." She opened her eyes. "They turn back now. South. After the knight." "How do you know this?" "The ground tells me what moved across it." She looked at Sylara, then at Rowen. "I know the fairy of the mushroom wood. She flies faster than any horse. She can carry a warning south by nightfall." Rowen's chest tightened. A warning. Not his sword, but his words, reaching Aldric before the blades did. "Why help me?" "People fear me and never thank me," Elara said. "You asked how, not whether to run. That is enough." Rowen tore a strip from his saddle cloth. He scratched a message with charcoal. Blades on the road. Ride off the path. Trust no rider. He pressed it into Elara's hand. Elara walked into the trees and whistled a low note. Something small and bright rose from the branches, wings catching the light. The fairy took the cloth, no bigger than a leaf in her hands, and shot south over the hills. "She will reach him," Elara said. "Before dark." Rowen let out his breath. He mounted and hauled the merchant up behind him, bound and silent. "Then I ride for the king with this one. If Aldric gets the warning, he leaves the road. The blades chase an empty path." Sylara swung onto her horse. "And if she's too slow?" "Then I have the merchant alive to speak the plot himself." Rowen turned south. "Two chances now. Not one." The three rode for the king's castle, its blue towers far off against the sky. Behind them the north road lay empty. Ahead, a warning flew faster than any horse could carry a sword.