The soldier strode out as though he had a board nailed to his back. Second generation, Ragnarson thought. The others were gone. Dahl was the last.

Palmisano had claimed many old friends, his only brother, and his son Ragnar. Kavelin was a hungry little bitch goddess of a kingdom, eager for sacrifices. He sometimes wondered if it didn’t demand too much, if he hadn’t made the biggest mistake of his life when he had allowed himself to be made King.

He was a soldier. Just a soldier. He had no business ruling.

Vorgreberg shivered with gentle excitement. It was not the great dread-excitement foreshadowing dire events, it was the small, eager excitement that courses before good things about to unfold.

There had been a messenger from the east. His tidings would touch the life of every citizen.

The magnates of the mercantile houses sent boys to loiter by the gates of Castle Krief. The youths had strict instructions to keep their ears open. The traders were poised like runners in the blocks, awaiting the right word.

Kavelin, and especially Vorgreberg, had long reaped the benefits of being astride the primary route connecting west and east. But for several years now there had been little exchange of goods. Only the boldest smugglers dared the watchful eyes of Shinsan’s soldiers, who occupied the near east.

There had been two years of war, then three of peace occasionally interrupted by furious border skirmishes. Easterner and westerner perpetually faced one another in the Savernake Gap, the only commercially viable pass through the Mountains of M’Hand. Neither garrison permitted travellers past their checkpoints.

Merchants on both sides of the mountains railed against the neverending, knife-edged state of confrontation.

Rumor said King Bragi had sent another emissary to Lord Hsung, the Tervola proconsul at Throyes. He was to try again to negotiate a resumption of trade. The whisper had raised almost messianic hopes among the merchants. No heed was paid the fact that past overtures had been rebuffed.

Warfare and occupation had shattered Kavelin’s economy. Though the kingdom was primarily agrarian and resilient, it had not yet come all the way back in the three years since liberation. It needed resumption of trade desperately. It needed a freshened capital flow.

The King’s henchmen had gathered. Michael Trebilcock and Aral Dantice stood at the foot of a long oak table in the gloomy meeting room, chatting in soft voices. They had not visited in months.

The wizard Varthlokkur and his wife Nepanthe stood before the huge fireplace, silent. The wizard seemed deeply troubled. He stared into the prancing flames as though studying something much farther away.

Sir Gjerdrum Eanredson, the army’s Chief of Staff, paced the parqueted floor, smacking fist into palm repeatedly. He was as restless as a caged animal.