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not only turned the road into a quagmire which seemed bottomless in spots but stoked a humidity that turned the grass-hemmed roadbed into a steam bath.
    The entire escort, including Erlis, had just finished helping the drivers and their assistants wrestle both wagons out of yet another knee-deep pothole full of soupy mud, and Garlahna had not been amused. Nor had her horse, when he’d found himself hitched to the lead wagon to add his own weight to the effort. The gelding was no prize example of the Sothōii warhorses which were the pride of the Kingdom, but he’d obviously found the role of dray horse far beneath his dignity...as he’d demonstrated with an indignant crow hop or two when she’d climbed back into the saddle.
    Garlahna wasn’t the horsewoman her friend Leeana was. Most war maids were infantry, more comfortable on their feet than in a saddle under the best of conditions, and she’d been born to a family of yeomen, not in the house of a great noble. For her, horses were simply a means of transportation—a way to get from one place to another without using her own feet—and while Leeana would undoubtedly have taken the gelding’s misbehavior in stride and actually enjoyed it, Garlahna was just relieved she hadn’t parted company with her saddle. Well, by that and the fact that her spine seemed not to have collapsed after all.
    She chuckled at the thought and wiped another stripe of mud across her forehead as she blotted fresh sweat and thought longingly of her chari and yathu. The short, kilt-like chari was definitely not the most comfortable garment for a lengthy horseback ride, however. Trousers were a far better idea for that ( another reason to prefer feet to saddles, she thought darkly). They were at least a little less offensive to traditional Sothōii patriarchs than the short, revealing, comfortable chari (and even more scandalous yathu!), too, and unlike some of her sister war maids, Garlahana didn’t have a problem being unconfrontational for trips to non-war maid towns, at least when it could be done without appearing weak. Outside such towns, the traditionalists could like it or lump it as far as she was concerned, and if she’d been traveling on foot, she’d have worn chari and yathu this time, as well, and let the townsfolk think whatever they liked. The war maids weren’t about to kowtow to anyone’s prejudices after their long, bitter fight for equality. Yet she had to admit that, as towns went, Thalar was more accustomed to and comfortable with war maids than most. Now, at least. Garlahna wasn’t going to object if the trousers she’d donned for utilitarian reasons soothed any potential ruffled feathers someplace like Thalar—she wasn’t that enamored of making a statement everywhere she went—but that didn’t mean she liked the wet, sticky misery her present attire helped create in this kind of humid heat.
    At least her horseback perch put her high enough to see across the green sea of grass baking under the windless sun. That was fortunate, given what she was pretty sure was out there somewhere doing its best to sneak up on them, and she shaded her eyes with one hand, making a slow, conscientious sweep of her own area of responsibility. So far, so good, with no sign of trouble, and she nodded in satisfaction, then glanced back at those muddy, creaking wagons with mixed feelings. She would far rather have spent the last couple of days in one of the Kalatha Guard’s nice, shady barracks, but she did have a proprietary interest in the larger of the two vehicles, since it carried (among a host of other things) a dozen bolts of fabric in rich colors and textures destined for Tomarah Felisfressa. Tomarah and her freemate Selistra were the best seamstresses and dressmakers in Kalatha, and Garlahna had paid the better part of two months of income for the length of amber-colored silk that was going to turn into her new gathering gown. At, she reflected, the expense of another week or