"Here is a deed to the land, signed by my schola. If you have no nephews or kinsmen who can help with the land, then here are a pair of crippled soldiers in my retinue who agree to marry into your house. They can't fight, but together they can manage the fieldwork."

"Speak to Lady Renate of Spelburg. She is also plagued by bandits, no doubt the same group. Her estate lies only two days' march east of here. You must pool your resources. If you have lost this much of your population, then for the time being you must consolidate in one place. Offer protection there for the common folk who rely on you. Combine your milites. If you do not cooperate, you will certainly drown."

"The sun will return. Be patient. Act prudently until the crisis has passed. Do not abandon those who will turn on you if they have no other way to save themselves."

These pronouncements his audience absorbed with an almost pitiable gratitude, but in only one case could he act immediately. A guide led them to the wolves' lair. Liath called fire down within the warren of caves where the wolf pack laired, and the soldiers killed over a dozen as the beasts tried to escape flames and smoke. The wolves were dangerous predators, but they were beautiful, too, in the way of dangerous things, and she hated to see them slaughtered like sheep. Yet afterward they found the much-gnawed bones of several children in the outer cave. The wolves had grown too bold. Such a pack could not be allowed to keep hunting.

"A small act in a desperate time," Sanglant said the next day, when they were riding again. His voice was hoarse with apprehension and the helpless anger of seeing so much trouble that could tear the realm asunder, but then, he always sounded like that. "I am ashamed to have them fall at my feet with such praises. If the weather does not improve, half of them will be dead by next spring."

"Eventually I must go to St. Valeria," she said. "What sorcery raised may possibly be dispelled by sorcery."

"Stay with me a while longer, into the marchlands, at least."

"I will. But eventually I must go."

He nodded, although his expression was grave. "Leaving me with the dogs biting and growling at my heels as I settle once and for all who is regnant in Wendar and Varre. Eventually you must go. But not yet."

_{PART ONE}

_{DEATH AND LIFE}

^I

TRAVELERS

1

ALL morning Alain and the hounds walked east and southeast as they had done for many days. Lavas Holding lay far behind them. Their path this day cut along an upland forest, mostly beech although what seedlings had thrust up through the field layer were fir. The view through the woods was open but because of the clouds the vista had a pearly sheen to it, as though he were staring into a lost world just out of reach. Into the past, or into the future.