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strength and off-worlder heritage. A symbol of bullies — Gwyn thought grimly — a symbol that their mounted warriors had come perpetually to abuse in pillage and plunder.
    “It would not be an easy task,” Bryana observed quietly.
    “But it’s one Jes has agreed to… as do I,” Gwyn returned. “The northern folk didn’t deserve the Changlings’ attack, and the people of Khirlan do not deserve the Clan’s renewed abuses. No, if there is no success in arranging a peaceful balance, then perhaps it is time the Clan forfeit their precious horde.”
    “So you will ride to join Jes in Gronday?”
    “And then south with her to Khirlan.” Bryana nodded as her eldest stood, and Gwyn brushed a kiss of farewell along her mother’s brow. “I must tend to packing.”
    “I know,” Bryana smiled with a gentle amusement that tempered the rising amarin of her melancholy. “You have the same shimmer of excitement and tension Jes so held in her youth. This season has been an overly long winter in Valley Bay for you, hasn’t it?”
    Gwyn flushed a faint brown in admission. But her mother had taken no offense in the truth, and they had parted with that gentle understanding.
    Gwyn came out of her memories with a crooked smile and a chuckle. Ril’s head lifted in a curious query, and Gwyn admitted, “She always knows, doesn’t she?”
    The sandwolves tilted their heads, attentive and encouraging.
    “Bryana — she’d noticed how restless I’d become. We all three had. I hadn’t quite realized it yet, but I’d been looking forward to getting out of Valley Bay. I’ve missed the woods, the travel….”
    Ril whined and nuzzled under Gwyn’s arm. Her human gave her a hug, amending gently, “And our time alone together, Dumauz.”
    Ty turned about, pushing into Gwyn’s lap from the other side. The knife and wood were set aside as she was welcomed into the embrace.
    “Aye, it’s been a long, quiet wintering for all of us… a nice respite. But much too quiet and I get to feeling rather useless. Our skills are better suited to helping these outside folk than dey Sorormin, it would seem.”
    In response, Ril sniffed; Gwyn was threatening to become much too serious, much too early in this trip. Ril exchanged a glance with Ty — they’d stop that! The two sandwolves suddenly clambered into Gwyn’s lap, their wet tongues in her face. Laughing, she went over backwards beneath their furry heap.
     
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    Chapter Two
     
    Ril sneezed with a shake of her head, and the fur at her ruff stood up in little, wet spikes. The silver-green leaves of the drooping trees drenched her again as she pushed through the underbrush, and the dense fur at the crown of her head shed the water, sending trickling streams down across the mud-brown of her face hide. The tips of her small, pointed ears sagged amidst her coarse curls, and her pads made sucking plops as they plowed through the road’s mire.
    This was not the sort of weather to be dragging one’s packmates about in, Gwyn thought with a twinge of conscience as she watched her beloved friend trudge along. The two mares on lead behind them didn’t look very happy either. A vagrant breeze stole in past her cloak and Gwyn shivered, correcting her opinion to include herself. This was not the sort of weather anyone should be trudging about in.
    She sighed and the saddle creaked as she shifted. Of all the things the ancient Founding Mothers had blessed the Niachero with, the one thing Gwyn did not appreciate was this ultra-sensitivity to cold and damp. It was enough to make one retire from travel permanently. At the moment, it was not an option — which left them all wet and plodding on towards the Marshals’ lodgings in the Gronday Traders’ Guild.
    The passing thought of the Guild brightened her spirits considerably. This was the last day on the road to Gronday, and the Guild’s Inn had never scrimped on hot food, hot water nor blazing logs.
    Ril sneezed again, and Gwyn