At daybreak they crossed the borders of Sabazel, riding down from the high plains and mountains sacred to Ashtar. At noon of the second day they came to the edge of an escarpment; the land fell away into a thick forest that edged a glistening rim of the sea. The Sardian encampment lay there, on the sea strand, in a clearing hacked from the wood. The purples and scarlets of its pennons were muted by a haze of sun-gilded smoke.

Danica gazed narrowly at the tall cloth-of-gold pavilion that dominated the camp; Bellasteros of Sardis, the conqueror, rested there. "The oracle," she commented to the woman at her side, "told him that a victory would be won beyond the borders of Sabazel."

"He threatens to throw down Ashtar's high altar," returned Atalia. "But Sabazel is small pickings compared to those provinces of the Empire he has already won."

"Perhaps the victory to be won here is not his." Danica glanced back at her Companions, a hundred warriors ranged in good order behind her, breastplates gleaming and crested helmets spilling sunlight onto sword and shield. She nodded in satisfaction. Her shield rested securely on her arm, its emblazoned star humming with a latent power.

"Look," said Ilanit, Danica's daughter. She thrust her chin toward a slight disturbance in the brush nearby. "His sentinels grow clumsy. It would be great sport to flush that one."

Danica exchanged a smile with Atalia over the young woman's eagerness. "Our gambit must be more subtle," she said. "We play for more than our own lives." She urged her horse on down the path and the company was engulfed by the moist stillness of the lowlands.

Then a wind purled down from the mountains, stirring the trees with a distant melody of chimes. Danica's mind stirred with the words of the goddess; her thought rippled like the surface of a pool disturbed by a touch. Bring him to me, daughter. When he pays the debt he owes me, redeeming the bones of his mother, then shall Sabazel be secured.

The camp was encircled by a palisade of sharpened logs and a deep ditch. The horses' hooves clattered on the drawbridge and the guards waiting in the gateway stepped aside, their weapons at rest. Their plumed helmets swiveled curiously after the company as it passed. The Sabazians were expected, if hardly honored, guests.

White waterbirds wheeled overhead, their screeches blending with the cacophony of voices that rose and crashed against the riders like waves against the shore. "I'll be damned," cried one ill-shaven soldier, starting up and dropping the scarred armor he mended. "Sabazians!"

"So they do exist," exclaimed another. "I never quite believed the stories."

A third called, loudly and pointedly, "Are they truly women?"