Borenson feared he couldn’t possibly reach the castle before the siege, couldn’t help Myrrima.

Then he had to consider the challenge of hunting the reaver. She’d be up in the woods, near the mountaintop, feeding on the bear. The ground here was too cluttered for a man to negotiate easily: aspen limbs had blown from trees; underbrush grew thick and tall after a long summer.

Catching her would be hard. Reavers could sense movement, feel sound as a trembling. The only way to get close to one was to sneak, ever so slowly, letting footfalls come at uneven intervals.

For a moment, Borenson considered following the reaver.

Distantly, as if a voice called from far off, he felt a powerful compulsion. Strike. Strike now if you can!

His king needed him. Myrrima needed him.

He spurred his charger over the mountain trails as snow began to pile, the first of the season. The breath of Borenson’s warhorse came in tiny swirls of cloud. His heart pounded.

Tomorrow is the first day of Hostenfest, the first day of the hunt, Borenson realized, and he started thinking about this in order to keep calm. It would have been a good hunt, with snow falling. The boars would have moved to the valleys, leaving tracks at the edges of glades. He’d have bet with Derrow and Ault as to which of their lords would first put a spear into a pig.

He longed for the yapping of dogs, the deep calls of the horns. The nightly feasts beside the fires.

But I must strike now, he thought, spurring his mount faster. He wished to strike, wished he had a target.

Again he worried whether he’d killed all the Dedicates at Castle Sylvarresta. I’ve struck as I can, he told himself. He’d killed all he’d seen, but some might have been taken from the keep into the city, so that invisible lines of power still tied Raj Ahten to Dedicates there.

A battle between Runelords could be complex. The number of endowments played a great part in a battle, as did the skill and training of the warriors.

But a balance of traits was also important. Raj Ahten had so many endowments, it seemed almost futile to slay his Dedicates. But a strong Runelord stripped of wit and grace could become a mere lout, nothing in battle. Take away his metabolism, and though a Runelord had ten thousand endowments of brawn, he moved so slowly compared to a balanced soldier that he might as well be a coat rack; he became a “warrior of unfortunate proportion.”