We walked, we hid, we froze. It took us two nights to reach the port. We spent half a night squeezed into a rockfall while a pack of hyenas circled us, big squarish creatures that made Stanko look like a weakling. How any horses, horned or otherwise, could survive on a planet like this was beyond me.

  During the day, our food ran out. I shared the last of a can of tinned apples, sour, chewy balls swimming in an over-sweetened marinade, with the Knife. He ate them carefully, sucking all the sugar water out before chewing, like they were a rare treat. Maybe they were. Crudmunging planet.

  I got another three hours of restless slumber in the lee of a pair of rocks leaning against one another. The Knife claimed this was a safe spot, outside the range of the Syndicate detector net.

  "How do you know?" I asked.

  "Experience, and this," he said, tapping his nose.

  "Right," I said. You couldn't smell electronics.

  "I've got a knack," he said. "Nothing like your magic, but enough to let me smell the land."

  "Enough of a talent to smother my wards," I said, remembering the sense of unraveling. He was a dirt mage, at least, maybe even trained. I couldn't decide which was worse. A dirt mage would be less of a danger to me, but also more of a liability. Someone with training...

  People talk, especially mages. The worst group of gossips I've ever encountered. He might have heard of me, or about me.

  Those thoughts didn't help my ability to sleep.

  We moved with dusk, crawling out of hiding, the weighted ends of our camouflage cloaks obliterating our traces. The Knife wasn't satisfied, though, hunkering down and smoothing out indentations I left behind, indentations only he could see.

  "You move like a gorged panzer-sloth," he said. "A drunk layabout could follow your trail."

  "But no one will," I said.

  Which was the truth. I'd figured out why the Syndics hadn't sent out a search party after losing their quadcopters.

  Clans don't share. One of the basic tenets of the Syndicates. You held what you could take. We'd shot down one clan's quadcopters, and walked into another clan's territory. If the first clan wanted us, they'd have to buy the right to hunt us, or start a war.

  In my mental map, with City in the middle, and judging by the location the different clan complexes, we'd started out in Void Orb territory. The Gash might be within it, or close.

  "Why not?" the Knife said.

  On the far northern horizon, a miasma of cold light pollution signaled the location of City. The port would be closer, on our side. We might reach it by midnight, if we didn't run into more hyenas, or worse.

  "Wrong turf," I said. "They're not paying enough. I figure we shot down Void Orb quadcopters, then moved into Red Raven territory."

  "Yes," the Knife said. "Their sensor net is worse, too. Almost inviting. They like to shoot, when they can get it. Hunts are reserved for paying customers."

  Which didn't surprise me in the least. The clans' greed was keeping us alive. Except...

  "Wouldn't that leave room for raids?" I said. "Weak sensor nets are like sending out invitations. The other clans must salivate like power-lifters at an all you can eat buffet."

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "That's what the Invisibles are for," the Knife said. "No wars on Remba."

  "Plenty of killing, though," I said.

  "There is that," the Knife said. "But then, slaves and affiliates aren't people. And if a full member is accidentally shot, who would object?"

  "Crudmungers," I said, wishing that I'd had enough saliva for a proper spit wad.

  The Knife nodded, ending the discussion. Time to get going.

  "Let's see how close to the port we can get," I said, getting to my knees.

  The Knife followed, wiping my trail for a while. Then he stopped me, moved ahead.

  "Now it becomes dangerous," the Knife said. "Lots of sensors around here."

  I listened to him, walked when he walked, crawled when he crawled. We stumbled across a herd of the small, horned horses, scared them running. For a moment, I froze, but the Knife hurried onward while they moved. Then he stopped.

  "This is as close as we can get," he said. "Time for you to do your thing."

  The port was still beyond the horizon. The concrete walls of the ship holds had been some five meters high. Being hidden behind the curvature of the planet meant some ten or twelve kilometers, depending on Remba's radius. I couldn't remember exactly.

  I raised my magerifle, conjuring a thread of force and gently touching the rifle's wards, letting them carry it.

  Warmth. Vibrations. A slightly greasy feeling.

  The Bucket's warpstone engines were still online. The Syndics hadn't broken into it. Or maybe the Void Orbs didn't control that part of the port, and weren't willing to share the fact that there was a Mino Javelin for the taking. Either way, it was good news.

  I shifted the rifle, aiming it upward. The thread snapped, sending a spike of cold pain into my sinuses.

  "Crud," I said.

  "What?" the Knife said.

  He hadn't felt that. Not a dowser, then. Either that, or he chose to hide it.

  "I lost the connection," I said, aiming at the Bucket again.

  The connection came fast and greasy. I tilted the rifle, slowly. Five degrees. Six. Seven. At ten, I felt a resistance. At twelve, I swore again, rubbed my eyes.

  "No good," I said. "We're too far."

  I got up on my knees. The Knife yanked me down.

  "See those mounds?" he said. "Those are sensor packets. Nothing like that metal and electromag detector. These are the full kit. Sound. Cameras. Thermal infrared. Some of them have got guns on remote mounts. Get closer, and you've got directional mines, wired to a central."

  "We'll need to get closer," I said, but the Knife held me down.

  "We won't," he said.

  "Those did," I said, pointing toward the horses.

  "The Syndics don't care about goats," the Knife said. "Herds of them all over the place. The Syndics hunt hyenas, and panzer-sloths. Those don't come close to the port. Neither do men. The goats are safe here, unless some Syndic feels the need for tough meat."

  A shred of an idea formed in my mind.

  "We hide," I said. "Warm bodies among warm bodies. I'm betting that the Syndicate sensors aren't good enough to tell men from animals."

  "To the Syndicates, all men are animals," the Knife said, with some bitterness. "But you can't herd goats where you want them to go. Lead them if they're domesticated, and in the right mood, but never herd. Ornery creatures."

  I wiggled my fingers at him.

  "Magic," I said. Hao would have laughed at that, the Knife didn't. I missed her. But hopefully, she was better off, sleeping in a warm pile and eating from our cans.

  "I don't believe in magic," the Knife said. "Unreliable."

  "Coming from a mage himself," I snapped, which surprised me. Since when was I sensitive about magic, or what others thought of it? "You unraveled my ward without too much effort."

  The Knife laughed, a dry, mirthless sound.

  "That smack almost killed me," he said. "Your wards are strange."

  Strange indeed. They were mine, not matching some pattern set a dozen centuries ago.

  "Your knife went through them just fine," I said, not wanting to tell him more than he already knew.

  "Wardblade," the Knife replied. "Got it in my youth, and have kept it alive since."

  Which would point toward him being a dirt mage. You pick up a vocabulary at the Academy. Hard to get rid of, too. I might think of a ward as pulsing, or moving, or alive, but no self-respecting trained mage would. I tried not to show my relief. When we got off Remba, the Knife wouldn't be able to report me. Wouldn't know what I was, or why it mattered.

  "How much do you know about mage burnout?" I said to distract him.

  "Enough not to play around with things I don't understand," the Knife said. "I've seen boys fry their minds."

  "Then you won't mind putting a bullet in my brain if I fry?" I said.

  The Knife stopped shuffling behind me. I stopped, looked at him, but it was impossible to say what he was thinking through the darkness and the camouflage. He was only another low bump in the grassy sand.

  "I'll put my knife through your eye," he said at last. "Done it often enough."

  "Good," I said, and started crawling toward the horned horses. Goats.

  The Knife didn't stop me. After a heartbeat, he followed.