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shuffled his feet, cleared his throat, and looked up at
the sky.
    "Was there
something else, Banek?"
    "Well,
actually, yes." He cleared his throat again. "The others tell me
you were looking for work."
    She nodded.
"I'm hoping to earn the price of a meal."
    Banek scratched
at his beard. "Well, yes. We might be able to do a bit better than
that." She waited patiently while he fidgeted, and finally spoke in
a rush. "We'd like to hire you to find those missing children.
There's three of them, they've been gone since the day before
yesterday, and it's not the first time this has happened. We want
you to bring them back safely, and we want you to find out who's
doing this, and make them stop."
    "I want to
come!" the boy blurted. Banek and Tira looked at him, and he turned
red, but he squared his shoulders and kept talking. "I know the
countryside, I know what the children look like, and they know me.
I can help!"
    "No, Tam," said
Banek, "your place is here."
    "I won't get in
the way," Tam said desperately.
    Tira shook her
head. "Forget it, son. I work alone."
    "But I can..."
His voice trailed off as he took in her expression. Finally his
shoulders slumped and he turned away.
    Banek shrugged.
"The exuberance of youth. I remember how it was. I set out to find
my fortune, walked for ten miles, and had to walk all the way
back." He smiled at the memory. "These three didn't wander off,
though. Two of them are sisters. Sarina and Salina. Sari's nine,
Lina's ten, and they fight like badgers. No way either one of them
would go very far with the other. The third one is a boy. Mikail is
twelve, and he'd die of embarrassment if anyone saw him with
girls." Banek gave a grim chuckle. "No, wherever they are, it
wasn't their idea."
     

Chapter 2
    She took the
job. The pay was dreadful, four silver crowns, and not a bit of it
in advance. They advanced her a meal, and that was what finally
decided it for her. Banek gave her thorough descriptions of all
three children, and told her where Mikail had last been seen,
fishing on the banks of the river at a bend half a mile upstream
from town. There would be no usable tracks, she knew. The hamfooted
villagers would have trampled every bit of spoor into the ground by
now. Still, she set off in that direction with the sun low in the
sky, the anxious best wishes of the villagers echoing in her ears,
hoping against hope that she might find something.
    Tam was waiting
for her at the riverbend. He was riding a fat pony, with his axe
strapped across the back of the saddle along with a bedroll. He
wore an often-patched cloak that was much too big for him, and a
determined expression.
    Tira sighed.
"Go home, son. You're not coming with me."
    "I can help
you."
    "I doubt
it."
    "How do you
know that?" he demanded. "You don't know a thing about me!"
    "I know you're
a child," she said. When he opened his mouth she raised her hand to
stop him. "When was the last time you shaved?"
    "Yesterday," he
said, with a touch of pride.
    "And the time
before that?"
    He reddened a
bit. "I'm no child."
    "You're no
soldier, either. Look at you! You're armed with a wood axe, and
you're riding a pony, for pity's sake."
    He didn't
answer, but his eyes went to the mule she was riding, and the look
on his face spoke volumes.
    "Okay, never
mind the pony," she told him. "Suppose we find whoever took those
children. Whoever it is, they won't be too happy with us. You could
get killed."
    "That's my
problem," he said. "Not yours."
    She nodded,
conceding the point. "Well, you and that axe won't be much use in a
fight, and I've seen how you move through the forest. You're not
much good as a scout, either. You say you know the country, but
what's the farthest you've ever been from this spot right
here?"
    He squirmed in
his saddle. "Twenty miles?"
    Tira shook her
head. "So you won't be much use as a guide, either." She pulled her
hat off, raked her fingers through her hair, and put the hat back
in place. "Name one thing you can contribute that I