Prologue

The day Saraven Gol came back from his tour of duty in the Jewel of Haelande, he had a saddlebag full of coin, two horses big enough to pull a plough, and a shiny new suit of steel armor.  Life was not exactly easy as a soldier in the Army of Thronehold, but it wasn’t harder than farming.

He couldn't wait to see Velaru again, to see how much Dorova had grown.  He had ridden up to the farmhouse in the warmth of the afternoon sun, filled with hope and anticipation.  He had just turned fifty-two years old. The fellows in the barracks had bought him a few drinks the day before, but he'd been careful not to get himself hung over before the day's ride North on horseback to the lovely stone buildings in the rolling fields south of Wheelwright.  It was just the three of them.  They couldn’t have afforded to hire a field hand.  They hoped that after a couple of years’ sales of homemade lettuce cake they might.  Velaru had studied the process at length.

It was quiet when he rode up, quieter than it should be.  He frowned as he dismounted, leading the horses over to the stable with its sod walls.  There was no sound but the click of the latch as he went inside.

He was inside for a long time.  He made no sound at all.

Two days after the day he came home, the pyre ran out of fuel and there was nothing left but ashes.  He bestirred himself to eat eventually.  Then he cleaned up the house as best he could.  It would need to sell for a high price.  Iron armor wouldn't be enough.

A week after that he was the new owner of one fleet black horse, a suit of skysteel chain armor, and a skysteel longsword and dagger.  Vampires were known to heal incredibly fast from injuries inflicted by steel; but there was no creature so supernatural that it could not be cut by skysteel.

Almost a year after the day he came home he actually found her.  He had wasted so much time down mines, chasing goblins through reeking caves, gaining great proficiency against wraiths and revenants that he disturbed quite by accident because his grieving and implacable rage admitted of neither caution nor stealth.  And all of that time she was in Wheelwright, beautifully dressed in velvet, fair of hair and fairer of face.  He knew her because she was still wearing the copper bracelet he had given Velaru when they first found out they were going to have a son.  He had worked the metal himself, crudely and without finesse, but he had been proud, and she had been happy.

He narrowed down the street by checking the beggars for punctures, by asking around about people who had disappeared or died suddenly in their beds.  And finally he caught her on the way out of an evening party, on the arm of a smitten young Dac'hye whose throat fur was thick and luxurious, so that he didn't have to wear a collar too high for the summer heat.  He stood with his plumy tail waving gently as he stared dull-eyed at the beautiful young human beside him, occasionally running his tongue over the shiny black leather of his nose.  They matched, his brocaded red waistcoat and her crimson gown.  She was small, small enough that she was not taller than the generally compact race of upright canines, and her body was light and delicate.  A queen would envy the lines of her face, the rich red fullness of her lips.

Neither of them even noticed the gray-skinned Venre in his suit of skychain walking toward them.  He had blackened the metal links with ashes to hide all shine, and his scabbard was lined with silk, so that his sword made almost no noise as he drew it.  A vampire's senses were keener than any Nerae’n, than any of those who must sleep and will die; but her attention was absorbed with her new toy, one hand uplifted so that she could twist a strand of his soft fur around her fingertip.

Saraven just walked directly up beside them and ran her through the heart.  He did not stop to ask why them, why us.  He knew the answer.

There was one abortive scream, quickly cut off as she burst into ashes.  Her dress collapsed to the ground empty, the copper bracelet clattering on the cobbles.  The Dac'hye was left with dust running down his black velvet jacket.  He stared at it in stunned incomprehension, then at the ashes at his feet.

Saraven took up the copper bracelet and dragged a sack through the ashes, leaving the young wolf-boy stunned and staring in the street.  He was handsome, tawny fur striped and spotted with black and brown.  He was still living the life of the rich and young.  He would recover fast enough.

Two years after the day he came home, Saraven was almost dead from sheer lack of a reason to go on.   In that day, before Noriste, before the Society of the Burning Blade, he had no spells at all.  Later he would realize that if he had not taken her totally by surprise he would have had no chance.  In the moment he thought of nothing.

    He walked the black horse through a wood west of Salinsfield with no real memory of how he'd got there.  He was still carrying his sack of ashes.  He had buried Velaru's bracelet over her ashes.  He had not really eaten or slept since then, riding stooped over the horse with the reins held loosely in his hands.

The wood opened up before him to reveal a clearing bathed in sunlight, the mossy lawn dotted with violets.  In the center of the clearing stood a shrine.  It was so old and its surface so worn that he could not tell whose shrine it was.  At this point it was just a roughly shaped granite pillar that might at one point have been meant to depict the curve of a woman's body.  There were flowers scattered around the base that had not grown here, tulips and red roses.

Saraven Gol dismounted and went to stand before the shrine, staring dully at it; and then he stiffened as the voice pierced him.  He did not hear it with his ears.  It seemed to be heard with every molecule of his body, overwriting every thought in his brain.

HAVE YOU BROUGHT ME AN OFFERING?

“No,” he whispered.

IT SEEMS TO ME THAT YOU HAVE.  BRING ME THE ASHES.

The thoughts felt as if they were his own, incontrovertible.  He went to get the ashes and brought them to lay the sack at the idol's feet.

YOU HAVE SLAIN ONE OF THE CHILDREN OF DURAGH, ONE WHO HAS TAKEN SOMETHING PRECIOUS FROM YOU.

“She took everything,” Saraven said.  His voice was without emotion.  He felt very little now.

WOULD YOU TAKE FROM DURAGH OTHERS OF HIS, THAT THEY MIGHT NOT SLAKE THEIR THIRST ON THE CHILDREN OF NERAE?

“I am spent,” Saraven said.

AND YET YOU DO NOT LIE DOWN TO REST WITH THOSE WHO ARE GONE.  DELIVER YOUR LIFE TO ME, AND I WILL MAKE YOU MY SWORD.  YOUR HANDS WILL FLOW WITH THEIR ASHES AND YOUR HEART WILL BURN WITH MY FLAME.

“My life,” Saraven repeated dully.  “What good is that to me?  Take it.”

KNEEL.

Saraven fell to his knees, head bent before the idol.  He heard the sound of rushing wind before he lifted his eyes to see the column on fire, burning with a white flame.  A tiny spark jumped from the idol to his breast even as he watched, and he felt the heat burn through him, restoring life where life had almost fled.  His spine straightened slowly.

RISE, SARAVEN GOL, CHAMPION OF NORISTE, AND CARRY THE FLAME.