Page 71 of Raven’s Fight

"The transfer," he says. Quiet.

"I still haven't placed him."

"East tower. Third-floor window. He was set up before the bell."

I take that in without breaking stride. "Watching. Not fighting."

"Sending. Steady, since the bell went. I saw the device when I cleared the tower at minute twelve."

"To the border."

"That's the way it was pointed."

I walk a few steps with it. A running account of me — where I am, where I go, where the others sit in relation to me — going out over the western line the whole time. Not three plants and a watcher. The fire drakes outside the boundary as a live part of this, fed minute by minute.

"That's a great deal more than three angry fire drakes," I say.

"Considerably."

"Can you reach the tower?"

"Already did. He isn't sending anymore."

I look at him.

"He had an accident," Orpheus says, in the dry delivery he keeps for things he considers both deliberate and unremarkable.

"Tagged?"

"Tagged and unconscious. The medical staff will collect him. The device won't be doing anything for anyone."

"So the border loses its eyes."

"Yes. Whatever they fall back on, they're falling back on it blind."

I think about that. Blind, for something built this carefully, means going to whatever was agreed in advance. The plants know their fallback. The question is what it is, and whether I can use the gap while it reaches them.

"How long since you put him down?"

"Eleven minutes."

"Then they've had time to change over."

"Some. It takes a while to reach everyone. Both of the ones on the ground are still where I last saw them."

The wind comes up the corridor from the east training ground, carrying hay and horse and cold. I redraw the picture. The first is still holding in the east. The second — the one who works by scent — is in the north.

"She's broken position," I say.

"Four minutes ago. Moving."

We walk. The grounds are busier in the second hour. Pairs settling old business, small groups working the edges of the marked zones. Somewhere behind the west range someone is shouting, and the shout cuts off. The courtyard has thinned out. Most of the people who had business here have taken it elsewhere.

"Anipe," Orpheus says. Flat.

I look at him.

"South grounds. Moving. She has a crossbow."