Somewhere off in the darkness, a dog howled. It was not really a dog. Burrich glared at me. “I can’t control him at all,” I admitted.

Nor I, you. Why should there be control, one of the other?

“Nor does he stay out of personal conversations,” I observed.

“Nor personal anything,” Burrich said flatly. He spoke in the voice of a man who knew.

“I thought you said you never used … it.” Even out here, I would not say “the Wit” aloud.

“I don’t. No good comes of it. I will tell you plainly now what I’ve told you before. It … changes you. If you give in to it. If you live it. If you can’t shut it out, at least don’t seek after it. Don’t become—”

“Burrich?”

We both jumped. It was Foxglove, come quietly out of the darkness to stand on the other side of the fire. How much had she heard?

“Yes? Is there a problem?”

She hunkered down in the darkness, lifted her red hands to the fire. She sighed. “I don’t know. How do I ask this? Are you aware she’s pregnant?”

Burrich and I exchanged glances. “Who?” he asked levelly.

“I’ve got two children of my own, you know. And most of her guard is women. She pukes every morning, and lives off raspberry-leaf tea. She can’t even look at the salt fish without retching. She shouldn’t be here, living like this.” Foxglove nodded toward the tent.

Oh. The Vixen.

Shut up.

“She did not ask our advice,” Burrich said carefully.

“The situation here is under control. There is no reason she should not be sent back to Buckkeep,” Foxglove said calmly.

“I can’t imagine ‘sending her back’ to anywhere,” Burrich observed. “I think it would have to be a decision she reached on her own.”

“You might suggest it to her,” Foxglove ventured.

“So might you,” Burrich countered. “You are captain of her guard. The concern is rightly yours.”

“I haven’t been keeping watch outside her door each night,” Foxglove objected.

“Perhaps you should have,” Burrich said, then tempered it with a “Now that you know.”

Foxglove looked into the fire. “Perhaps I should. So. The question is, who escorts her back to Buckkeep?”

“All of her personal guard, of course. A Queen should travel with no less.”

Somewhere off in the darkness there was a sudden outcry. I sprang to my feet.

“Stand fast!” Burrich snapped at me. “Wait for word. Don’t rush off until you know what is happening!”

In a moment Whistle of the Queen’s guard reached our fire. She stood before Foxglove to report. “Two-pronged attack. At the breach just below the south tower, they tried to break out. And some got through at—”

An arrow swept through her and carried off forever whatever she had begun to tell us. Outislanders were suddenly upon us, more of them than my mind could grasp, and all converging on the Queen’s tent. “To the Queen!” I shouted, and had the slim comfort of hearing my cry taken up farther down the line. Three guards rushed out of the tent to put their backs to its flimsy walls while Burrich and I stood our ground in front of it. I found my sword in my hand, and from the corner of my eye saw firelight run red up the edge of Burrich’s. The Queen appeared suddenly in the door of the tent.

“Don’t guard me!” she rebuked us. “Get to where the fighting is.”

“It’s here, my lady,” Burrich grunted and stepped forward suddenly to take off the arm of a man who had ventured too close.

I remember those words clearly and I remember seeing Burrich take that stride. It is the last coherent memory I have of that night. After that, all was shouting and blood, metal and fire. Waves of emotions pounded against me as all around me soldiers and Raiders fought to the death. Early on, someone set fire to the tent. Its towering blaze lit the battle scene like a stage. I remember seeing Kettricken, robe looped up and knotted, fighting bare-legged and barefoot on the frozen ground. She held her ridiculously long Mountain sword in a twohanded grip. Her grace made a deadly dance of the battle that would have distracted me at any other time.

Outislanders continued to appear. At one point I was sure I heard Verity shouting commands, but could not make sense of any of them. Nighteyes appeared from time to time, fighting always at the edge of the light, a low sudden weight of fur and teeth, hamstringing with a slash, adding his weight to change a Raider’s charge to a stumble. Burrich and Foxglove fought back-to-back at one point when things were going poorly for us. I was part of the circle that protected the Queen. At least, I thought I was, until I realized she was actually fighting beside me.