Cover

Dedication

For Freya.

You are never alone.

Interstitial

Imagine a castle.

You’ve probably done this before, but in case you need a bit more guidance, imagine there are towers and spires and jagged crenellations made of gray stone. Colorful pennants fly from the rooftops, bearing a vicious-looking bronze dragon against a scarlet backdrop. There’s a drawbridge on thick iron chains and a moat, because so long as we’re imagining a castle, we might as well imagine a cool one with a moat. Maybe there are even crocodiles in the moat—no one told you this had to be realistic, after all. If you want crocodiles, you can have them.

The castle sits on a slight hill, overlooking several acres of fields, kept clear to make sure no one can creep up on anyone inside the castle walls. At the base of the gently sloping grassy rise is a reasonably sized town spread out in a ring full of all the sorts of shops you might expect. Places to buy and sell equipment. An alchemist, tucked underneath a subtle sign bearing the mark of a hedge witch selling love potions. There’s the tavern, where all the heroes go to drink mead and recount their adventures, which sports a big sign proclaiming “On Thor’s Days We Have Ladyes Night.”

The streets are packed earth, and the buildings are roofed with thatch, and it all looks a bit nerve-rackingly flammable. This, by the way, is what people refer to as foreshadowing. But more on that later.

Today, it just so happens, is Market Day. The streets, already crowded with shops, have sprouted tents and stalls and colorfully draped wagons belonging to vendors from far and wide. The lord of the castle has recently reopened the gold mine on the other side of the forest, and the influx of wealth has brought every able-bodied and able-wagoned merchant for miles around to this spot. Every inch of space on the outskirts of the market is filled with horses and donkeys, as well as a pair of extremely anachronistic llamas. Nobody is sure who they belong to, and they spit if you go too close, so we’ll avoid them. Nobles and peasants alike walk down the haphazardly formed aisles of cloth and wagon wheels, while town criers offer to shout about the wares on display for a penny a word.

Market Day is always a riot of colors and sounds and the smells from baking treats and horse dung. But this time there’s a particular buzz in the air, and an extra dozen or two merchants crammed in among the regulars. It’s the last Market Day before the qualifiers begin for the Tournament of Dragonslayers—the first time it’s ever been held in the little county known as Darkhaven—and people are pretty well psyched.