Cover

Title Page

MILES CAMERON

GOLLANCZ

LONDON

Dedication

This book, and indeed the whole series, is dedicated to Joe Harley (Elves/Irks), Robert Sulentic and Jim Dundorf (the Empire), Rob Gallasch and Delos Wheeler and Stephen Callahan (Etrusca/City States), Greg Hauser (the Steppes/Horseclans), Jevon Garrett (Galle/Gargencel), as well as Chris Schulitz, Mark Stone, Doug Snyder, David Stier, Regina Harley, Frank Gilson, and all the other players in the endless RPG and war games campaign we all called “Alba.” In fact, this book is also dedicated to the men and women of the SGA, the GLA, and the Drama House, who played games for days, or taught all of us nerdy gamers how amazing role-playing could be with trained actors, or how much fun it was to game with people who’ d never tried a game, and how easily we could let pretend take over our lives if we were not careful. It was thirty years ago that I folded away the maps. I miss you all. And to Celia Friedman—that’s C. S. Friedman, if you read fantasy—who taught me to be a GM.

Map

Map

Prologue

Prologue

Alba

The Vale of Dykesdale—Bill Redmede

The sun was setting in a sky of gold, and the bronze light suffused everything, gilding the endless forest, bronzing the stones left by ancient glaciers, and burning on the spear-tips of the retreating Army of the Alliance. The golden light set fire to the bright hair of the oldest irks and kindled the fur of the Golden Bears. It smoothed faces deeply creased by terror and fatigue.

Bill Redmede looked down the long column of weary men and a few women and then looked at the strange golden sky.

“Rain?” he asked John Clothyard, who was now, to all intents, his lieutenant. Nat Tyler had left him; killed the king, or so some men said. Ricar Fitzalan had gone east to serve with Aneas Muriens as battle comrades or lovers or both. The Jarsay-born Fitzalan had been a fine leader and the best second a commander could ask for, and Redmede missed him. He missed Tyler, too. Instead he had Grey Cat, who tended to wander off into the woods, and Clothyard, who was solid and dull.

Clothyard was a broad man of middle height, and his looks weren’t helped by a four-day growth of beard.

“Rain,” he responded.

Redmede was so far past exhaustion that he didn’t have to think much about his actions. He put a hand on the bow slung over his shoulder in a linen bag and trotted back along his Jacks. “Rain!” he yelled. “Put your bowstrings in your shirts.”

“Who the fuck are you? My father?” muttered one Jack. In a single summer of constant fighting, the Jacks had dispensed with camaraderie and turned instead to discipline. Some resented it.