Thanks are due to the many people who helped shape this book. Perhaps foremost among them are Jonathan and Laurel Langford, who not only read the book once, but twice, and made detailed notes. Beyond this, certainly I must thank my editors at Tor for their care and consideration—David Hartwell, Tad Dembinski, and Tom Doherty. Others who gave valuable input include my writing group, Pilgrimage—Lee Allred, Russell Asplund, Virginia Baker, Scott Bronson, Michael Carr, Grant Avery Morgan, Scott Parkin, Ken Rand, and Bruce Thatcher. Thanks are also due to Les Pardew, Paul Brown III, Sandy Stratton, John Myler, and Dave Hewitt.

I’m particularly grateful to my wife, Mary, and to my children, who had to live without a dad while I wrote.

BOOK 1

DAY 19 IN THE MONTH OF HARVEST

A GLORIOUS DAY FOR AN AMBUSH

1

IT BEGINS IN DARKNESS

Effigies of the Earth King festooned the city around Castle Sylvarresta. Everywhere the effigies could be seen—hanging beneath shopwindows, standing upright against the walls of the city gates, or nailed beside doorways—stationed any place where the Earth King might find ingress into a home.

Many of the figures were crude things crafted by children—a few reeds twisted into the form of a man, often with a crown of oak leaves in its hair. But outside the doors of shops and taverns were more ornate figures of wood, the full size of a man, often elaborately painted and coiffed in fine green wool traveling robes.

In those days, it was said that on Hostenfest Eve the spirit of the earth would fill the effigies and the Earth King would waken. At his wakening, he would protect the family for another season and help bear the harvest home.

It was a festive season, a season of joy. On Hostenfest Eve the father in a home would play the role of Earth King by setting gifts before the hearth. Thus, at dawn on the first day of Hostenfest, adults received flasks of new wine or kegs of stout ale. For the young girls the Earth King brought toy dolls woven of straw and wildflowers, while boys might get swords or oxcarts carved from ash.

All these bounties delivered by the Earth King represented but a token of the Earth King’s wealth—the vast hoards of the “fruits of the forest and of the field” which legend said he bestowed on those who loved the land.

So the homes and shops around the castle were well adorned that night, on the nineteenth day of the Month of Harvest, four days before Hostenfest. All the shops were clean and well stocked for the autumn fair that would shortly come.