He tried to take a deep breath and immediately regretted it. Pain washed through his ribs and he winced.

"You're awake." The voice was deep and friendly enough. He looked to his left and saw Drask Silver Hand's massive form not three feet distant. "We were beginning to wonder about that." The man was sitting on a bedroll and looking directly toward him his eyes alight in the twilight of the shelter.

Andover sat up very slowly, wincing the entire time. He was having trouble breathing.

"You have broken ribs. Bromt bound them for you." Andover looked around and saw both Bromt and Delil, the other two people he was traveling with. Well, he had been traveling with them before they disappeared. Only they were back now, weren't they?

"How did you find me?"

"We were never far away. We were watching."

Anger flared in his chest and despite the pain he turned to look hard at Drask. "Then why didn't you help me?"

"Are you alive?" Drask's eyes gave off that odd glow his people's eyes all seemed to hold inside.

"Of course I'm alive."

"Yes." Drask leaned back and shrugged. "Then you did not need our help."

Andover opened his mouth to say more and then closed it. Being angry with Drask was foolish and would get him nothing but dead.

Delil moved through the small shelter in a crouch and squatted next to him, looking at his chest and moving her hands over the tight bandages there. He'd have bothered to notice them before but he was too busy recovering from being alive. "These are tight but you can breathe. Do not move too much. It will only hurt."

She turned away from him for a moment and her arms got busy over the fire in front of Drask. When she turned back there were several slices of roasted meat on a small wooden plate. "Eat. You need to gain your strength. Tomorrow morning we travel again."

Her tone was not kind, nor was it harsh. It was simply perfunctory. Still her eyes managed what he thought was a small smile as he took the offered food. As always the damned veils hid their faces away too well for him to see much beyond their eyes.

The entire shelter rattled as ice and dirt lashed against it. Delil cut more slices from the slab of roasting meat and folded them over on themselves before sliding them under her veil. For a moment he saw her chin through the fabric. It looked like a perfectly normal chin, well rounded and shapely enough. At least as shapely as a chin could manage to be without anything around it but cloth. He couldn't understand the secrecy any more than he could understand the strange quality of the Sa'ba Taalor's voices.

"How far away from the Seven Forges are we?" He took the time to ask the question only after he'd rammed the first cut of juicy meat into his mouth and chewed it into nothingness. His hunger was not abated in the least and he intended to eat as much as he could manage in a single sitting. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten. The meat was gamey and heavy with enough fat to make it tender. His stomach fairly roared for more.

Drask shrugged his broad shoulders. "We could be there in a week or less. We will probably take much longer. The storms will not abate for at least another day or so, if I am right." He shrugged again. "I am normally right." Bromt nodded his agreement.

"Why will we take longer?"

"You are not healed yet, Andover. You must be mended before we head through Durhallem's Pass. There will be challenges for you there and you must be ready to face them."

A great, low note sounded. The noise was loud enough that the tent wall vibrated with it. Andover flinched and immediately regretted it as his ribs flared. All three of the Sa'ba Taalor looked toward the sound, their bodies tense.

"What is that?" Andover had to shout to be heard as the roaring noise slowly faded away.

"The Mounds." Delil's voice was harsh. "We are closer than we should be."

Drask said something to her in a different language, one that was unsettling to his ears. Whatever he said, the tone was argumentative. If he expected Delil to be cowed by the large man he was mistaken. She argued back vehemently until Bromt interrupted them both.

For a few minutes the only sounds were the winds outside and then Andover decided he was done watching the three of them locked in a staring contest and spoke up. "So tell me what the Mounds are."

"We do not know. We are forbidden by the Daxar Taalor to approach them." Delil's voice was low and seething with tension.

"Then tell me about Durhallem's Pass and why I need to be healthy before I get there."

Drask was the one who answered. "You will be challenged there. You are unknown and you come to our land as an outsider. This challenge is the first of several for you."

"I'll be with you, won't I?" He frowned. This wasn't what he was expecting when he agreed to the journey to the Seven Forges. He wasn't really sure exactly what he'd expected, except that he was to work as an ambassador of sorts between Fellein and the Sa'ba Taalor. He was supposed to come with them, in part as payment for the miraculous hands he now had, replacements for the ruined lumps Menoch and Purb of the City Guard in Tyrne had left him with.

"Possibly," Drask answered. "That is for the gods to decide. Durhallem's Pass is the entrance to the valley we live in. I cannot say that the guards there will challenge you, but they might."

"But I don't havea" He bit his tongue.

Drask looked at him in silence for several seconds, his face unreadable. "You have no weapons?"

Andover nodded.

All three of the Sa'ba Taalor sighed.

"I know. I have my hands." Andover mumbled the words and looked down.

It was Delil who hit him with her fist and knocked him back into a prone position. She barely seemed to move, but he was on his back and his face was first numb and then burning where her hand struck him.

She leaned over him and her eyes flared with anger. "Did I teach you nothing? Do you wish to have another lesson, boy?" The word boy had never seemed so insulting.

A month ago he would have whimpered. A year ago he would have run.

Andover reached up and struck her in the chest with his closed fist. Delil slipped back before the blow landed and the damage was minimal, but had it connected properly he knew he'd likely have left her in agony.

Delil continued the motion he had started, falling backward. As her arms caught her weight, her left foot came around and the heel of her boot cracked him in the stomach hard enough to leave him gasping.

Bromt and Drask watched on, offering no help on either side of the argument.

Andover rolled over, ignoring the pain in his chest. There was pain, yes, but in comparison to what he had already endured in his life it was minor. He reached for her leg with every intention of doing his level best to break it. She was gone by the time his hands should have been closing on flesh.

And then her hands were on his wrists. Before he'd been injured Andover had been working in a smithy; he'd worked the bellows and hammered at metal for hours on end, learning from one of the best blacksmiths in Tyrne. Despite his size he was muscular enough.

Delil was not only faster, she was stronger. She pinned his arms in short order and he bucked and fought and did his best to get away while she held him in check.

Drask leaned in closer and looked at Andover, studied him.

"She has leverage on you. She has you at a disadvantage. You are not without moves you can make to break free."

Andover looked to Delil and saw that she was looking back, her eyes watching his face. She did not look angry. And he understood. Wounded or not, this was his training. There was no reprieve for bad weather or his injuries, just as there would be none if he fought for his life.

Her weight was forward and pinning his arms. She crouched in front of him and he could not possibly reach her with his body. If he tried she would move to one side or the other and either attack or once again pin him. His arms could not move, but if she intended to keep him where he was hers could not move either.

Andover lunged forward and slammed his forehead against hers. Delil fell back and he had his moment. He had his momentum. He was off balance, but there wasn't far they could go, and if he was going to fall, he intended to fall on his enemy.

Delil saw him coming and moved, sliding away from where she had been and moving like water around a falling tree. He hit the ground and turned as quickly as he could, but it wasn't fast enough. By the time he'd recovered from his attempt, the woman was cuffing him across the side of his head.

She could have killed him. He knew that. It didn't make him any less angry.

Andover let out a small growl and lunged and she slithered away again, not letting him hit her.

Bromt, who seldom seemed to take the effort to talk, spoke up, "Anger is a tool, Andover Lashk. Never let it be the master. Think before you attack. Delil is not going to let anger make her foolish. You can ill afford to make that mistake."

The entire time Bromt was speaking Delil was moving, half crawling over their supplies in the small area of the tent, watching him as a cat watches a wounded bird. She was not the least bit intimidated by him.

Delil spoke to him as she moved. "You are an unscarred baby, Andover Lashk. You are afraid of hurting me." There was no venom in her words. "Let me worry about my injuries. When next I come for you, I will attack you in earnest. Do you understand? I will hurt you. Badly."

He nodded. He believed her. He knew better than to think she was bluffing.

When she came he was prepared. He calmed himself, watched her and did his best to anticipate.

She dropped lower still, slid across the ground on the balls of her feet and brought her hands toward his face. He grabbed at her wrists and while he was trying to pin her she brought a knee into his side hard enough to send him stumbling. Before he could right himself she had a handful of his hair and slammed his face into the ground. She turned his head with her pressure and avoided breaking his nose, but he understood that was her being nice. She had him. She could have ended the fight with one brutal move.

Andover got to his hands and knees and shook his head to clear the ringing from his skull. By the time the noises had stopped Delil was sitting cross-legged on the ground and eating again. She looked at him and shook her head, though he could see the smile in her eyes. "Do not tell me you do not have a weapon. Your body is a weapon." She reached down and pulled her tunic open enough to show the ugly blemish on her light gray flesh. The bruise caused by the knuckles of his hand when he'd struck her, apparently harder than he had realized. "We watched you fight the Cacklers. You broke the teeth out of one of their mouths." She leaned toward him and let her tunic fall back in place. Her hand touched his wrist and slid up to the back of his hand, her fingers lightly moving over the smooth black metal. "You have hands of iron, Andover. Before we reach Durhallem's Pass we will show you how they can be used best to fight."

Bromt nodded and pointed to their supplies. "Besides, your hammer is over there. We found it when we found you."

Drask chuckled. "That's your lesson for tonight. Get rest. When the storm abates we move on. Before then, each of us will show you how to fight in close combat." His eyes looked Andover from head to toe. "You need the lessons."

Andover nodded his head.

Drask leaned in again and touched his hand. Silver fingers prodded iron. "Truska-Pren had gifted you, Andover. Gods do not make such gifts lightly. Before you told me you would meet with our gods and offer your thanks. I will keep you to that. But before that happens you have to prove yourself worthy to meet with the gods or their representatives. You met Tusk, the Sa'ba Taalor. You have not met him in his role as King Tuskandru. Not really. He has not spoken to you and he has not accepted you. Tuskandru's people are the guardians of Durhallem's Pass. If you do not prove yourself to them, you cannot prove yourself to Tuskandru. He is the first of the kings you must meet."

Andover thought hard on that. He had made promises. He had new hands. They were his gift and they were his to keep, that he had already been promised. He had fought the men who took from him, who crippled him, and he had returned the favor to both of them. That had been the price demanded by Drask and he had paid it. But there were other duties that came with his hands, and those included meeting the Sa'ba Taalor's kings and offering thanks to their gods. He knew there was more to it. There had to be, didn't there? But he did not fully understand the details.

He moved and winced at the pain in his side. Delil had reminded him about pain without even trying. He looked toward the girl again. She was curled up and her eyes were closed. She had called him "unscarred". She was not quite right. His wrists were all scars, weren't they? But next to any of the people in the tent she spoke a bit of truth. He could see the scars on her skin highlighted by the small fire. Her arms, her legs, her hands... there were scars everywhere. The same was true of Drask and Bromt alike. Bromt seemed more scar tissue than regular flesh.

He wondered how long before his skin was similarly decorated. Part of him was terrified by the thought. A look at his wrists, at the graying skin where his iron hands met his flesh a a stain that was growing, however slowly a and he knew that he was changing, becoming something other than he had been before his flesh and blood hands were taken from him. Another part found the notion oddly appealing. And that thought was just as unsettling to him as anything he had ever encountered.

There are some who say that kings rule by divine right. If that is the case than surely the kings must answer to their gods. That was most assuredly the way of the Sa'ba Taalor. The Daxar Taalor called their representatives together and as they demanded, so it came to pass.

From each of the mountains the kings came, some with retinues and others with either no one for company or only a small number. There had been times when the seven kingdoms were at war, but those times were past and any grudges carried were cast aside as ordered by the gods themselves.

They met as equals, surely the gods were equals and therefore their representatives were as well, but they met in Prydiria, called the Iron Fortress, the vast keep of Tarag Paedori, the Chosen of the Forge of Truska-Pren and King in Iron. The great hall of the keep was opened and the kings met at one of the vast gray marble tables and settled themselves there to eat and discuss the only subject that currently mattered: the coming war.

Tarag Paedori was the host of the affair, not that it much mattered to any of the attendees. Tuskandru walked into the hall and nodded his greeting to the man. They had been allies more often than they had been enemies. That was true of all the kings when it came to Tusk. He was an easygoing sort so long as you didn't offend him, and as Durhallem did not believe in mercy, most of the kings had the common sense not to give the Obsidian King a reason to hold a grudge. Both of the men were of exceptional stature. They had to be. Though all of the kings celebrated different aspects of war in their daily lives, few would have argued that both kings required physical strength above nearly all others.

In comparison N'Heelis, the Chosen of the Forge of Wrommish and King in Gold was leaner and smaller. His muscles were cords and bands that ran under his flesh and his scars were so plentiful that it was far harder to find a portion of his body that was unblemished than it was to find a wound that had healed. Though he was slight in comparison, he was highly respected. The representative of Wrommish had met each of the kings in combat previously and taught all of them a good number of tactical maneuvers for unarmed combat.

Wheklam's chosen was Donaie Swarl, the King in Lead. She was lean and tall and dark. Her skin was several shades darker than most of the others and she wore a dark blue sash wrapped around her head and draped down to her waist. The fabric was said to have cost several people their lives over the years. More than one had tried to take it from her and died for their efforts.

Of all of them Donaie had met the most outsiders. For years she and her ships had cruised through the waters well beyond the Seven Forges and made raids on multiple lands. Wheklam demanded the sailors be prepared for when the Great Tide was upon them and the King in Lead obeyed.

Several asked her questions about the destruction of Guntha and she answered their questions. She rolled out the maps she had made of the world and on those maps the newly growing island was carefully marked in.

Ganem, the Chosen of the Forge of Ydramil and King in Silver, entered the hall with Lored, Chosen of the Forge of Ordna and King in Bronze. If there was ever a sign that times were changing it was that the two came in together. For over a decade the only thing they shared was their hatred of each other. Lored's right eye and the area surrounding it had been replaced by a partial mask of bronze and everyone in the room knew that Ganem was the cause of that particular wound. Ganem was not a woman to be angered lightly and Lored had offended her many times. Still, the Daxar Taalor demanded peace and so both sides offered peace.

Either the last to enter the room or possibly the first was Glo'Hosht, the Chosen of the Forge of Paedle and the King in Mercury. It was incredibly rare for any of the Kings to see Glo'Hosht, who warred with everyone and no one. Glo'Hosht was often called the King in Shadow and the Bone King, because Paedle, as everyone knew, was the god of silent deaths. Glo'Hosht was also androgynous. No one could decide which gender was the king's and he or she volunteered nothing.

Seven Kings and Seven Gods met in the great hall. They did not meet alone.

The business of kingdoms and empires does not stop. In seven days the new head of the Empire would be crowned. It was, not shockingly, the topic of much conversation.

Merros found he did not care. There were other things on his mind. First, there were the men under him, many of whom he was only just meeting and assessing for the first time.

He was dressed in new leather pants and a simple shirt with a leather tunic. He was supposed to be dressed in a uniform that had been tailored to his body, but he hated the damned thing already. He would wear it when he had to, but not now. For now he preferred to meet the men around him in relative comfort.

Getting used to being one of the commanders of the army was a bit confusing for him. Not because he hadn't been in command before a he had been a captain before he retired and he had led the expedition into the Blasted Lands, after all a but because of the sheer scope of his command.

He was used to a company, a battalion, possibly a squad of men. This was an army, and as he stood on the parade grounds and looked at the hardened men in front of him, he was almost comfortable. Then he remembered that each of the soldiers he was facing was in charge of a battalion, or a squad or a full legion.

"Durst, how many more are supposed to be here?" He'd almost called the man Wollis, but he caught himself this time. Taurn Durst had been along with both men on the last expedition and he was a competent soldier. He was from Trecharch, and like many of the people there he tended to be direct and honest in his opinions.

Durst walked closer and pursed his lips. His thick hair was receding from his forehead like a slow moving wave drawing away from his eyebrows. He looked to have deep trouble with the idea of handling any task harder than remembering his name, but Merros knew the appearance was false. Durst was excellent with numbers and a very capable fighter.

"Might be one or two missing, General, but if they are, I suspect we can have a talk with 'em and handle the matter." He spoke slowly and when he contemplated the notion of punishing the stragglers Durst's broad mouth pulled into a dark grin. That smile alone made Merros recall why Wollis had respected the man. Durst was fond of discipline and precision. Anything that fell short of those lofty ideals was something the man felt should be crushed under one of his thick heels.

"Fair enough." Merros eyed the crowd again. Most of them were standing at attention. He noted the ones who weren't and made sure to have Durst copy their names onto a sheet of paper.

"We are here today because we stand close to war." He didn't waste time on pleasantries. He'd take care of those later. Merros scanned the men and watched their expressions. "Make no mistake about that. I doubt another season will pass before Fellein is drawn into bloody combat with warriors you do not want to take lightly."

The soldiers started muttering among themselves. Not all of them, but a sizable percentage. Merros frowned at that.

Durst frowned too, then he stepped forward and bellowed, "Shut it! Keep your tongues until the general is finished with you!"

Several of the soldiers looked shocked by the outburst, and one or two of them had expressions that said they were contemplating arguing. Durst's head lowered a bit, his neck thrusting forward. His posture practically begged for someone else to interrupt.

Merros said nothing for a moment, but instead waited for calm to come back.

"Some of you know me. Most do not. Get used to my face and my voice. If you have questions, I'll be available to answer them and we'll discuss matters, but for now, it's time to listen."

A few of them got smart and responded with, "Aye, ho, sir."

"Let's hear that again, lads!" Durst roared the words and the men caught on.

"Aye! Ho, sir!"

Merros nodded. "We are all aware of how long it's been since Fellein has been in a real war. Believe me. This is likely to be a very real war. Not a skirmish, not an argument between neighbors. Ten of the Sa'ba Taalor killed a thousand Guntha."

That caught the rest of them up and several started to speak. This time it was Merros who shut them down, bellowing at the top of his lungs to get their attention. "I said it's time to listen!" The silence was complete and immediate.

"Ten of them killed a thousand. I saw it with my own eyes. They did not engage in formal combat. They used stealth and they crept in among numbers that should have never allowed them to gain access." Again he looked over the soldiers. "Most of you have fought the Guntha. You know they were hard fighters and brutal enemies. They are gone now. Dead. We've all heard the stories about the burning seas and the new island growing where the Guntha lived. The stories are true."

He walked a few paces and let them consider those words. Then, "The latest messages from Roathes say that black ships with black sails are cutting along the coast. They stay out in the waters for now, but those ships are supposed to be the very forces that caused the Guntha to attack again and again. They were trying to escape what they claimed were demons."