Nevertheless, when we passed the boundary at the edge of the farm, I drew my sword. Tosten (who’d let us gradually catch up to him) and Oreg drew steel likewise. The path we’d taken approached the farmhouse, which from the rear was more of a fort than a house, but a lookout spied us riding down into the valley and let out a series of notes on his hunting horn—Atwater’s own call. The tightness eased in my shoulders.

A moment later the unmistakable form of the holder, himself, came around the corner. Seeing us, he whistled an all clear, so I sheathed my sword.

The boy heaved a great sigh of relief and nudged his mare into a gallop.

When one is a grizzled old war lord or the younger son of a holder, one may gallop as much as one wishes. Since I was a young lord who was trying to live down various reputations, I slowed my horse to a walk.

Mounted on my father’s old war stallion, walking was sometimes adventurous. Pansy knew better, but I let him snort and huff and generally announce to everyone watching that he was dangerous and would be much faster than that little mare if I would just let him go.

Atwater nodded at me when we got close enough to talk. “Thank ye, my lord, for coming. But the problem of bandits has been dealt with. I’ve the bodies if you’d like to look at ’em.”

Atwater was a mountain of a man, approaching my height and build. His pale blond hair fading unnoticeably to gray was braided in old Shavig style—unusual now, but not worth commenting about. His beard, however, was a magnificent thing. Fiery-red, it covered his face and a fair bit of chest. A little barbaric by proper Kingdom standards, but my Hurog folk were beginning to exhibit a pride in our Shavig heritage.

Like many of the older men at Hurog, Atwater had fought to put down the rebellion in Oranstone at my father’s side. Sometime during the campaign, Atwater had conceived a dislike for the previous Hurogmeten. I hadn’t been fond of my father for my own reasons, but even I had to admit there weren’t many men who could fight as well as he had. Most of the men who fought under him wouldn’t hear a word against him. I don’t know what my father had done to Atwater, but it had taken me the better part of two years to make him see that I was not the man my father had been.

Tosten, Oreg, and I followed Atwater and his son around the building into the chaos of children and relatives who helped him farm and protect the land. At the center of the fervor were three dead men, covered decently for the sake of the children.