Exodus

Guiding the costumed townsfolk through the enemy garrison, Laban keeps his nerve even as the Arklow Knights around him mutter doubts, reminding them that every step so far has matched the children's dream. Near the perimeter two Kushan sentries stop him and demand to know his unit, but their words are lost on Laban, who speaks none of their tongue. Their suspicion mounts until a mounted Kushan messenger rides up with dispatch orders and waves the whole column through.

The rider leans close and gives his name as Jarif, revealing that he belongs to the Band of the Falcon's spy network and that plenty of Kushan have sworn themselves to Griffith. Laban marvels that Midland would never recruit from its foes. The march resumes only for fresh figures to drop out of a tree ahead: Silat and his Tapasa. Silat has seen through the disguise and mocks Jarif as a turncoat.

Rather than fight, Jarif talks. He names Silat's group as the Bakiraka, a shamed Kushan clan driven from its homeland that turned to contract killing, once even in the service of the Holy See, and now hopes the war will restore its honor. He invites them to join the Falcon, arguing that their present master is a deranged emperor whose empire of dread stains their pride. Silat answers that the Bakiraka simply follow whoever is strongest, wanting nothing more than a land to settle in peace.

Jarif presses further, hinting that the clan's true home may lie beneath the falcon's wings, in a future that sits beyond the ordinary logic of the human world. He describes an immense, unreadable tide carrying Griffith toward a new world, with the war itself only a ripple inside it. Silat is drawn to the idea yet sets it aside, unwilling to surrender himself to something he cannot grasp, and chooses instead to withdraw and watch. When the Tapasa protest, he notes they could never seize so many people on their own, and the Bakiraka slip away.

Jarif makes his first appearance in this chapter. Laban leads the refugees onward until daybreak, when they meet the Band of the Falcon; he and Owen exchange a warm greeting while Foss drops to his knees before Griffith.