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Cravenlock.” 
    He caught her wrist and tugged as she retracted her hand, and she lost her balance with a surprised yelp and landed upon his lap. Since they were both not wearing any clothes, he found it quite a pleasant sensation. 
    “There were a lot of women before you, yes,” said Mazael, “but none after you.”
    “Prove it,” said Romaria.
    He did. That, too, felt quite pleasant.
    They were late for dinner, but no one complained. Being the liege lord of the Grim Marches and the hrould of the Tervingi nation was a tremendous headache, but it did have occasional advantages. 
     
    ###
     
    Mazael’s eyes opened.
    It was the middle of the night, and Romaria sat up next to him, her eyes wide, her right hand clutching the dagger she always kept near at hand while sleeping. Mazael cursed and sat up, reaching for his weapons, his eyes scanning the darkened bedroom for foes, whether San-keth changelings or assassins of the Skulls or more of those damned valgasts…
    At last Romaria let out a breath and lowered the dagger.
    “Nothing,” said Romaria. “It was a dream…or a vision of the Sight.”
    “The Sight?” said Mazael. “Another vision of the future?” 
    “I think so,” said Romaria.
    “What do you see?” said Mazael.
    Romaria was silent for a long moment.
    “Spiders,” she said at last.

Chapter 3: War Unending
     
    Adalar Greatheart, once of the Grim Marches, now Lord of Castle Dominus and a knight of Lord Gerald Roland’s court, rode alone through the dead village. 
    He knew what to expect. He had seen so many like it. 
    Weeds choked the streets between the houses. Part of the village had burned, the stone walls of the houses standing like empty shells. In other places they stood in half-crumbled ruin. The walls of the village’s church still stood, the burned timbers of its roof jutting from the walls like dead fingers. Adalar could guess what had happened here easily enough. On the terrible day of the Great Rising, the runedead had burst from the graveyard outside the village. Panicked and desperate, the villagers had fought back, burning down their houses, until they had finally been forced into the church as it burned around them. Some villages had held out until the wave of blue fire from Swordgrim had enabled their weapons to harm the runedead.
    Some had not. 
    This one had not. 
    Adalar had seen so many dead villages like this one. Large parts of Mastaria had once been filled with thriving villages and prosperous farms, but now were empty stretches of ruin-dotted wasteland. Entire villages and towns had been wiped out in an instant, their people slain and their history forgotten. 
    In another generation, would anyone remember that a village had once stood here?
    Adalar sat upon his horse and gazed at the church, lost in his dark thoughts.
    “My lord?” 
    Adalar blinked.
    Sir Wesson Stillwater rode closer, maneuvering his horse around the bushes growing in the village square. When Adalar had met Wesson, years ago, Wesson had been fat and stuttering. He was still stout, but now bore muscle instead of fat, and his stuttering had turned to stoic taciturnity. Like Adalar, he had been knighted after Amalric Galbraith’s defeat, and he had fought in the campaign against Caraster’s runedead and Lucan Mandragon, gaining wide estates in Mastaria. When his father Lord Tancred died, Wesson would inherit Castle Stillwater and become one of the most powerful lords in Knightreach. A dozen of the most prominent noble daughters of Knightreach were vying for his hand. Wesson accepted it all with the same sober equanimity that he accepted everything, whether good or bad.
    The war had been good for him. 
    Adalar could not say the same for himself.
    “Sir Wesson,” said Adalar. 
    “Our column’s moving on,” said Wesson. He scratched at his nose. He had started growing a mustache in imitation of Lord Gerald, as had many of the nobles of Knightreach and Mastaria. “This place is