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A sense of unease lay over the road, growing as we climbed each of the ever-steepening hills.

Yelena’s face grew tighter with each hill, and the bigger horses strained and began to puff. On a particularly high hill-crest where the road was wider, perhaps because the hummock of stones and fallen timbers looming in the brush back from the north side of the road might have been an inn or roadhouse in times past, I motioned for the sub-officer to stop.

For the first time, looking to the west, I could see the white-tipped dark bulk of the Westhorns. Even from where we had halted, still a good thirty kays from the foothills beneath those massive slopes, I could also see that they were indeed impressive, and that at least another day of riding lay before me.

“We’re getting close, I think. I can feel chaos ahead.”

Yelena squinted against the cold bright sunlight. “We’re still quite a ways from the Westhorns.”

“I can make it from here. You’re needed against Gallos.”

Yelena shook her head. “Order-master, what would happen if I had to tell the sub-commander that we left you this far short of the Westhorns?”

I sighed. She was right. “All right. Let’s go. But if there’s too much chaos ahead, I want to be able to send you back.”

“Why?”

“Because I might have trouble protecting you.” I laughed harshly. “I might have trouble protecting myself.”

The chaos I sensed seemed to recede as we rode westward. Either that, or it was stronger and more distant than I had thought.

By nightfall, we still seemed scarcely closer to the base of the Westhorns, although we could see some of the nearer peaks, their ice-covered spires glinting rosy in the sunset.

We camped in another long-deserted farm, sheltered by a single standing stone wall. I set wards, but nothing woke me, and the fourth morning of the trip dawned as gray as the morning when we had left Kyphrien.

I wondered how many more had died on the hills of Northern Kyphros while I rode on my fool’s errand toward the Westhorns. Then, again, what else could I do? No warrior, I could but try to bring order where I might.

In a way, that was similar to woodworking, except in crafting I built upon the natural order, whereas in order-mastery—I thought—I tried to strengthen natural order to repulse an unnatural disorder.

“Cheese?” I offered some to Weldein, absent-mindedly.

He took it, equally abstracted, as he looked from the hillside, where we had camped not far from a small brook, toward the mountains. Then he looked at the white cheese, as if wondering how he got it.

“Eat it. It’s good cheese. A mill-master gave it to me.”

“Why?” asked Freyda.

“Because I helped his goddaughter.”

“Was she pretty?” Weldein inquired. His tone was polite.

“Very. Unfortunately,” I added.

The two exchanged glances, and, for some reason Weldein blushed.

“She didn’t like you?” That was Yelena.

“She did like me.”

“If she was pretty…” Weldein sounded confused.

I really didn’t want to explain, but I sighed and went on. “I found her attractive. She was capable and bright. That just made it worse.”

“So you left her for duty?” Yelena asked. “How noble…”

“No.” My voice was cold, but I couldn’t help it. “I left because I had a job to do, and because I realized there was someone else still in my heart, and because…” I broke off. What I would have said would have sounded unforgivably pompous. So I shut up. It was probably true, but it was arrogant.

This time all three exchanged knowing glances, and things were even worse.

“What about the goddaughter?”

“I found her a good-looking and talented husband who loved her, and provided a dowry, and we both cried like hell.”

That shut them up, but I felt petty about it as we packed the horses for the coming day’s ride. Finally, I stepped over to Yelena. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

She smiled, as softly as I had seen her smile, and touched my arm briefly. “Don’t be. It’s good to see that great order-masters are human, that they love, and make mistakes.”

I shook my head. “I’m not a great order-master.”