Echoes of Betrayal by Elizabeth Moon

back, his horse high-stepping with the squire’s excitement. “It’s a royal courier, my lord. For you.”
    Dorrin rode forward. The man wearing a courier’s tabard over his Royal Guard uniform looked pinched with cold and tired in the wavering torchlight. As well he might, she thought, if he’d ridden straight through from Harway.
    “You knew?” the man said. His tone was almost accusing, but Dorrin could imagine the frustration of riding hours through the cold without need. “That girl said, but I wasn’t sure.”
    “My squire, Gwennothlin Marrakai,” Dorrin said, nodding. “Of course I called in the nearest militia, and more are coming. What does the Royal Guard know?”
    “I left as soon as the Lyonyans told us there was trouble,” the man said. “I don’t know more than you do.” He spat to the side. “I guess I’ll go back now.”
    “Do you have a message for me? Written?”
    “Oh. Yes, my lord.”
    “Then let’s get to the shelter and I’ll read it.”
    “How far’s the house, my lord?” His voice held a faint whine.
    “The house?” Dorrin scowled. “You’ve no reason to go on: I’m here, the person you came to see.”
    “Well, but …” He spat again. “I been riding all day, and yesterday, too. It’s a long way back to that shelter and no fire there, neither.”
    “It’s as far to the house as back to the shelter,” Dorrin said, nodding at the nearest marked tree. She felt a vague uneasiness. The man was a royal courier—had to be, wearing that uniform—but she could not imagine anyone in that service expecting to travel on to a duke’s residence for a night’s rest when the duke was there, on the road, headed somewhere else. It made no sense.
    “If you say so, my lord,” the man said. He looked away, once more spitting to the side of the trail.
    Dorrin felt cold down her spine. He had never actually looked straight at her, she realized. He had looked down or away, using the need to spit as a reason to keep his gaze averted. Was he a traitor? Was he—worst of all—a Verrakai in a loyal man’s body? She shifted both reins to one hand, let the other drop to her side, and flicked a hand signal she knew the troop sergeant would understand.
    “When did you leave the shelter?” she asked, riding another horse-length closer to him. If he’d left early, he should have reached the house by nightfall, not this halfway point.
    He spat yet again. “Oh, well,” he said. “M’horse was that tired … I thought the house was closer, so I didn’t leave until … maybe near nooning.”
    Time enough, if a Verrakai magelord had been hiding in the woods, to attack … but he should have been delirious with fever, not already invaded. The invasion must have happened before. So why had he waited to start for the house?
    To catch her on the way. He would have known—his powers were ample for that—when she set out.
    Would he attack her, or one of her party? Behind the courier, false or true, Daryan sat his horse watching them. Too close to the courier; too close to her.
    “Ride on to the shelter,” she called to Daryan. “Start a fire for us. Be swift.”
    “Yes, my lord.” Daryan wheeled his horse and booted it to a canter.
    The courier whirled at the sound, and Dorrin’s next flick of the hand sent five crossbow bolts into the man’s torso. He gave a hoarse cry and slid from the saddle; the bolt of mage-power he’d sent missed Daryan by a scant armslength.
    “You … you killed a royal courier!” one of her Verrakai militia said.
    “I killed a traitor,” Dorrin said. “
If
he’s dead. Sergeant: perimeter guard. There may be more. Do not approach him; he’s still dangerous.”
    Why hadn’t she recognized his magery instantly? she wondered.
    She dismounted, drew her sword, and walked over to the fallen man. Still alive but mortally wounded, too weak to raise an effective attack of magery. She barely felt the malice he flung at her shield, but she saw in his