24.

A KNIGHTING IN MIDSUMMER.

SADDLED HIGH, KATHRYN SWELTERED IN A FULL CLOAK OVER rich finery. She wore polished boots to the knee. Her horse was tacked in silver, a match to her cape's clasp and warden's badge. As the retinue would be traveling through Chrismferry's main streets, she had her hood up and masklin fixed in place.

Gerrod rode up beside her. "We're just about ready to head out." Even hidden behind his armor, he appeared ill at ease, shifting in his saddle, adjusting his reins. The castellan diadem shone brightly at his throat.

Such were their new positions: Warden and Castellan.

Of Tashijan in exile.

Kathryn glanced behind her. They had made much progress over the past two moonpasses. Had it truly just been sixty days? Tylar had granted them the Blight, an empty and ruined section of Chrismferry's inner city, not all that far from his castillion, to house and rebuild Tashijan. It proved a good place to set down new roots, land that had lain fallow for a long time. Already the Blight was a jumble of rebuilding, tearing down, mucking out, and clearing. And some shape was taking forma"a skeleton of rafters, stone walls, and trenched fields. Tashijan was rising again.

New land, new roots, a new foundation.

Argent had proposed the original knighting of the regent as a way to bring Chrismferry and Tashijan closer together, to unite the First Land. Now their houses were closer than ever, by both distance and determination.

A small blessing for all the blood spilled.

Beneath her, Stoneheart shuffled his hooves, restless to leave.

Kathryn patted the stallion's neck to reassure him. Atop this same horse she had led the survivors out of the rubbled ruin of Tashijan. The journey was already being heralded in song. The Great Exodus. A trail of horses, folk on foot, and wagons that stretched thirty leagues. She could have taken a flippercraft, but she had wanted to be there, needed to be there, among them.

Kathryn also remembered that last morning. The storm had broken at dawn. As rocks still rattled, unsettled and loose, they had found they had survived. Tylar had snuffed out Lord Ulf's font of Dark Grace, and with it went his storm and ice. But as they pushed open iron shutters and stepped out into that cold morning, all lay in ruins: toppled and gutted towers, broken-toothed walls. Even Stormwatch had been held together only by the last of Ulf's ice, and the melt of the morning sun threatened that precarious hold.

Kathryn could still picture her last view of Tashijan, from atop the rise of a hill. The once-proud citadel lay in rubble and ruin. And as she watched, Stormwatch slowly gave way, its last alchemies fading, the morning sun melting crusts of ice, and down it came, rumbling like thunder, casting up a cloud of rock dusta"then gone, crushing the Masterlevels under it. So she had turned her back, left Tashijan to the haunt of wraith and daemon. Someday they might rebuild, but for now they needed a new home.

A horn sounded up ahead.

"Are you ready?" Gerrod asked.

She nodded. "We should not be late to a knighting that is long overdue."

She nudged the piebald stallion and walked Stoneheart down a lane lined by stacked planks and brick. Hammering and chiseling, shouts and laughter echoed all around.

Gerrod clopped his horse beside her. "Yet another parade of Tashijan in exile through the streets of Chrismferry."

"Another parade?"

He nodded ahead. "What with all the woodwrights and stonemasons flowing in and out our temporary gates, it's like a daily circus around here."

She offered him a small smile, but it was hidden behind her masklin. He did not see how quickly it faded. As she led the bright retinue toward Chrismferry, she could not deny a cold worry that even the midday swelter could not melt.

"What's wrong?" Gerrod asked, shying his mount closer, ever knowing her moods. He touched her knee with his bronze fingers.

She shook her head. It was too bright a day.

"Kathryna"

She sighed, glanced to him, then away again. "Did we win?"

"What do you mean?"

She lifted an arm to indicate all the rebuilding. "Or did Lord Ulf? Back at the Blackhorse, he stated what he sought through all the death and destruction he'd wrought. *The steel of a sword is made harder by fire and hammer. It is time for Tashijan to be forged anew.' Is that not what happened?"

He motioned for her hand. She gave it. He squeezed her fingers.

"We will be stronger. That I don't doubt. Already the other Myrillian gods unite more firmly against the Cabal, pull more strongly in support for Tylar. Did you not see the number of flippercraft in the skies over the past days? Hundreds. The knighting today is not the small affair of Argent's original design, a few Hands from the closest gods. There are retinues here from every land, from as far away as Wyrmcroft in the Ninth Land. That is proof alone."

He squeezed her hand even harder, almost painfully. "We will be stronger. Not because Ulf won, but because you did. He made an offer to you: to walk away, to escape with a few. But because you held fast, many more survived. And it is that victory that makes us stronger, not capitulation to the mad calculation of a cold god."

She took a shuddering deep breath and felt some of the ice inside her break apart, but still the shards hurt.

"Even Lord Ulf knew he was defeated. Did he not leave his castillion and wander into the hinterlands to the far north?"

Kathryn had heard the story of the god's last steps. Just as it was forbidden for a rogue to enter a realm, a god was equally forbidden the hinterlands. Lord Ulf's form was seen blazing like a torch as he strode north across the frozen wastes to his doom. At the end, the lord of Ice Eyrie gave himself over to the flame.

Still, Gerrod was not done. "If we are going to forge Tashijan to a harder steel, then let it be in a fire born of our own hearts. And I know no heart burns brighter than yours."

Gerrod seemed suddenly abashed at his last words. His fingers began to slip from hers. "All know this," he mumbled. "Did not every stone cast for our new warden bear your color? Not a single stone against?"

Kathryn did not let his fingers slip so easily away. She gave them a firm squeeze. "You are kind. But the casting was so clean because Argent stepped aside."

Gerrod finally freed his hand and took his reins. "How is he faring?"

"Stubborna"that's the word Delia used. She came by early this morning. Arrived with the dawn flippercraft from Five Forks. She says he mends well and is slowly adjusting to his new leg, but he is quick to wrath and not willing to listen to his healer's warnings."

"Little wonder there," Gerrod mumbled. "One eye, one leg. The man is slowly being whittled away."

Kathryn smiled, a rudeness perhaps, considering his maiming, but she suspected even Argent would respect it. Back in Tashijan, Argent had survived by will and alchemya"but mostly by a promise to a daughter. Not to leave. And as always, he stubbornly kept his word.

A commotion drew their attention to the side. A small figure ran toward her horse. "Warden Vail! Warden Vail!"

She glanced down and recognized the youth in mucked boots and muddied clothes. She reined her horse to a halt. "Mychall?"

The stableboy hurried to her stirrup. He held up a strip of black cloth. "I did it!" he shouted proudly and waved the strip. "I've been picked!"

She smiled down at him, knowing what he held, remembering when she had been chosen, given a bit of shadowcloak, picked to join the knighthood.

Mychall waved his bit of cloth and ran back down along her retinue. "I must tell my da!"

She watched him race away.

When she turned back to Gerrod, he stared at her. She knew he was smiling behind his bronze. "Still think we lost?" he asked.

She rattled her reins to get Stoneheart moving again. Inside her, the last of Lord Ulf's ice melted away.

As the last morning bell rang over the meadow field, Brant whistled sharply. They were already late, and still needed to get attired for the knighting.

Stalks of sweetgrass parted in a weaving pattern, flowing down the slight hill. The pair of wolfkits responded to his whistle, running low to the ground, a hunting posture. They burst from the field together, bounding toward the small group gathered in the shade of a wide-bowered lyrewood tree, heavy with midsummer blossoms.

Brant led the pair back to the lounging party.

To the left, the meadows rolled into the green Tigre River, its waters reflecting the castillion of Chrismferry. Four stone towers rose from each bank of the Tigre, supporting the bulk of the castillion that ran like a bridge from one side to the other. A ninth tower, taller than the rest, rose from the center of the castillion, a beacon over the river, its white quarried stone blazing in the midday sun.

Great festivities were planned for the day, but before that happened, they had all wanted a moment to enjoy the sunshine, away from the tumult.

Buried in the shade ahead, Malthumalbaen rested against the twisted trunk. He chewed the end of a churl-pipe, a gnarled piece of wood as long as the giant's arm. He puffed a trail of smoke as Brant returned with the cubbies.

Resting beside the giant, the bullhound Barrin snored, nose on the giant's knee. Malthumalbaen stirred with a crack of bone.

"Ach, are we 'bout ready to head back, Master Brant?"

He nodded.

"Good thing that. All this dogflesh is making me hungry."

The giant slowly gained his feet. Barrin groused about being disturbed, then was pounced upon by the returning cubbies. The bullhound let out an irritated grumble of reluctant tolerance.

"They're getting big," Laurelle said, packing the basket and stepping aside so Kytt could roll the blanket. "It was hard to tell when you were working them in the field."

The pair had arrived late to the gathering, returning from the adjudicator's office in lower Chrismferry, where they had gone to attend matters in regards to Liannora and her attack on Delia. They had been summoned to give testimony to what they had overheard in a hallway. Since the fall of the towers, Liannora had languished in a cell in Chrismferry, claiming her attack on Delia was all the doing of Sten, captain of the guard, insisting that in the tumult and chaos of the siege, he had misinterpreted a jest.

Unfortunately, Laurelle and Kytt could shed no more light on the foul act with certainty. They had never heard Liannora plainly order Sten to attack Delia. There were rumors she was to be set free.

But Lord Jessup had washed his hands of her. Though she might escape punishment, a god's judgment was of a higher order. She had already been banned from setting foot in Oldenbrook.

Which left Lord Jessup needing not one but two new Hands to fill his wing.

Brant adjusted his crimson sash, marking him a Hand of blood. But no longer for Lord Jessup. With the god's blessing, he now resided in the High Wing here, serving the regent while Delia attended her father in Five Forks. And there were rumors here, too, that she might not return at all.

"Look how they've grown!" Laurelle said. "Almost to my knee now."

The cubbies were indeed growing fast, three times their weight when Brant had found them.

"But they're still young," Dart said quietly. She bent a knee and muffed up the fur of one of the pups, the sister. The cubbie lolled on her back, tongue hanging loose, happy for the attention.

"And learning fast," Brant said. "Especially yours, Dart. She's a true little hunter."

Dart smiled up at him. He was happy to see it. Her rare smiles cheered him more deeply than he cared to admit. Since she had returned from the Eighth Land, a haunted look often shadowed her eyes. And he could not blame her. He still woke up sometimes covered with sweat, picturing moldering heads on stakes. But at least the real nightmare was over. Back in Saysh Mal, Harp was putting the forest in order, helped by a pair of acolytes that had descended from Takaminara. As the goddess had protected her daughter's people, she watched now over their land. They should fare well from here.

Dart straightened from her wiggling cubbie and nodded to the other, who sat straight-backed at Brant's side now.

"That boy of yours is no laggard either," Dart said. "He might let his sister run down a mouse, but it's his nose that always roots it out to begin with."

Her words lifted a proud grin to Brant's face. The whelpings had been left in his care, a burden shared with Dart. It allowed them both an excuse to escape their roles for a short timea"he as a Hand of the regent, she as page to Warden Vail. Out in the fields, with the wolfkits, they could be themselves.

With everything packed up, Dart waved Laurelle on with the others. "Go on ahead. We'll catch up."

Laurelle searched between them, a ghost of a smile hovering, reading something more behind Dart's words. Laurelle had a disconcerting ability to do that, to understand what was unspoken better than any. Brant barely recognized her as the girl he'd known at school.

It seemed they were all learning fast, struggling to find where they fit in this new world.

"We'll meet you at the gates," Laurelle said. She turned, drawing Kytt along with her. If the tracker had had a tail to go along with his nose, it would have been wagging.

At least some things hadn't changed about Laurelle.

As they left, Dart lowered again to her little she-wolf. "We said that by the knighting we'd pick names for them. Have you decided on your boy?"

Brant crouched beside her in the shade, glad the others were gone. "I have."

He patted the lone blanket remaining. Dart sank to it. She seemed oddly nervous, shifting a bit too much, as if she were sitting on a root.

"What have you decided?" she asked.

The two cubbies had grown bored and taken to wrestling in the sun and trampled grass.

He nodded toward the brother. "I thought a good name would be Lorr. He was certainly wise to the wood." And he had spent his life to save theirs, so they could be sitting in the shade under blossoms with the sun shining.

She reached out and touched his knee. He glanced from the cubbies' play to her. Tears filled her eyes. "He would like that."

Brant's throat suddenly tightened. He stared at her too long, finally dropping his eyes. "What about your cubbie," he whispered. "The sister?"

"It's why I sent the others on ahead," she said softly. "I wasn't sure it was appropriateanot an insulta"

He glanced to her, sweeping back a fall of his hair, his brow crinkling.

She continued, not meeting his eye. "You mentioned what a good little hunter she wasawhat a good little huntress. I thought maybea"

Brant knew immediately the name she picked.

"Miyana."

The god's final plea echoed in his head. I want to go home. Maybe in this small way, they could grant her that, a heart in which to live, to become a huntress of the forest once more.

Dart's eyes flicked to him, still moist with tears. "Is that all right?"

Brant leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers.

"More than all right," he whispered.

He stared into her eyes, their noses touching. She smiled softly, like the sun rising over Saysh Mal. It warmed completely through him.