Hunched over her burden, she slunk into the room, setting the gleaming tray on the ebony dining-table with a clatter. Triumphant, she straightened, beckoning to the others. Whispering to one another, they crept into his quarters like shadows, taking with reverent hands his dusty, sweated armor, his dirty boots. In the morning these would be returned, polished and gleaming, the buckles cleaned of grime, straps fresh-oiled, boots buffed to a high gloss.

Tanaros, who had beheld this drama many, many times over, watched with pity. “No,” he said gently when one, scarce more than a lad, reached for the black sword. “That I tend myself.”

“I touch?” The boy threw him a hopeful glance.

“You may touch it in its scabbard, see?” The Commander General of the Army of Darkhaven went to one knee beside the madling lad, guiding his trembling hand. “There.”

The boy’s fingers touched the scabbard and he groaned deep in his throat, his mouth soft with ecstasy. “My Lord! My Lord’s blood!”

“Yes,” Tanaros said softly, as he had done many times before, with this lad and others. “It was tempered in the marrow-fire, and cooled in his blood.”

The madling cradled the hand that had touched it. “His blood!” he crowed.

“His blood,” Tanaros agreed, rising to his feet, kneejoints popping at the effort. Always, it was so; the young men, the youths, drawn to the blade.

“Enough!” Emboldened by the success of her mission, Meara put her hands upon her hips, surveying Tanaros’ quarters, finding nothing amiss. “Will you want a bath, Lord General?”

“Later,” Tanaros said. The odor of mutton roast teased the air and his stomach rumbled at it. “Later will suffice.”

She gave a firm nod. “Ludo will bring it.”

“Thank you, Meara.” Tanaros made her a courtly halfbow. She shuddered, a rictus contorting her face, then whirled, summoning the others.

“Come! You and you, and you. Algar, pick up the Lord General’s greaves. Come, quickly, and let the Lord General eat!”

Tanaros watched them go, hurrying under Meara’s command, laden with their burdens. Where did Ushahin find them? The unwanted, the misbegotten, the castoffs of Urulat. Damaged at birth, many of them—slow, simple, illformed. Others, the world had damaged; the world, and the cruelty of Men and the Lesser Shapers. Beaten by jealous lovers, shaken by angry parents, ravaged by conquest, they were victims of life, of circumstance or simple accident, fallen and half-drowned, until wits were addled or sanity snapped like a fine thread and darkness clouded their thoughts.

No wonder Ushahin Dreamspinner loved them.

And in their dreams, he summoned them, calling them to sanctuary in Darkhaven. All through the ages, they had come; singly, in pairs, in groups. In this place, they were sacrosanct. Lord Satoris had decreed it so, long, long ago, upon the day Ushahin had sworn the allegiance of his branding. No one was to harm them, upon pain of death.

Vorax had his indulgences.

Tanaros had his army.