Divided Allegiance

Elizabeth Moon

Once a sheepfarmer's daughter, now a seasoned veteran, Paksenarrion has proven herself a fighter. Years with Duke Phelan's Company taught her weaponry, discipline, and how to react as part of a military unit.

Now, though, Paks feels spurred to a solitary destiny. Against all odds she is accepted as a paladin-candidate by the fellowship of Gird. Years of study will follow, for a paladin must be versed in diplomacy and magic as well as the fighting arts. But before she is fully trained, Paks is called on her first mission: to seek out the fabled stronghold of Luap far to the west. The way is long, the dangers many--and not even the Marshal-General of Gird can say whether glory or ruin awaits.

DIVIDED ALLEGIANCE

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright 1988 by Elizabeth Moon

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

ISBN: 0-7434-7160-1

eISBN: 978-1-62579-445-1

Cover art by Dominic Harman

First printing, June 1988

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Printed in the United States of America

Prologue

Prologue

Long ago, before the elder folk were driven from the lands south of the Hakkenarsk, the elves who dwelt in those heights had found a valley more lovely than any other. The shape of its rock and the clarity of its water brought joy to all who saw it. There for a time the elves lived, and built as they rarely build, while the greatest among them sang to the taig of that place, and wakened it to its own power. Over long years they shaped it, singing one song of beauty after another, and the taig responded, willing itself to flourish as the elves suggested. Very dear was this valley to all who could sense the taigin, both elder and younger folk, and it was known as the elfane taig, the holy place and a living banner of the elves and their powers.

Then troubles came: the tales are lost that tell who brought them, or how those who fled sought refuge far away. Even to the elfane taig the evil came, and the elves fled, driven out by a power they could not resist for all their songs. The taig remained, crippled in its resistance to that evil by corruption placed at its heart, no longer truly elfane but banast, or wounded. Most of its great strength was spent in containing that corruption. The taig could not attack the embodied evil without loosing the worse danger, the periapt which would leave it permanently defiled.