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blade there, and I brought back the night.
    With a blade in each hand, there, and the stars at my boots,
    With the Legend in song, then, I set down my roots.
    The demons have claimed you, forever in light,
    But the darkness of order will put them to flight,
    Will break them in twain, soon, and return you your pride,
    For the Legend is kept by the blades at your side.
    The blades at your side, now, must always be bright,
    And the Legend we hold to is that of the right.
    For never will guards lose the heights of the sky,
    And never can Westwind this Legend deny . . .
    And never can Westwind this Legend deny. "
     
    "Good!" offered Ryba, amid the scattered applause. "Each time it gets better."
    Nylan had to agree with that, although he knew that Ayrlyn had more than mixed feelings about creating songs to fuel a female militaristic culture. So did he, but given the reception they had gotten from the locals, there weren't many options, not on a planet where women had virtually no rights-at least anywhere the angels had heard of so far.
    At the same time, Nylan reflected, he had, in some ways, even fewer options. His guts tightened, reminding him that he was deceiving himself. In Candar, any man had some options. He swallowed, wondering why his growing mastery of the local order fields was accompanied by an equal vulnerability to the pain of death and increasing discomfort with deception and untruth. And by increasing uneasiness with Ryba, he reminded himself, an uneasiness compounded by his feelings of responsibility toward his children.
    Or is it a worry about the alternative? About having to face an unfamiliar outside world alone? He shook his head, again recognizing that there was something about the order fields that forced more self-examination, self-examination that was never exactly welcome.
    The smith's eyes went through the darkness, no barrier to any of the silver-haired guards, to study Daryn. The blond young man fidgeted ever so slightly on the bench beside Hryessa. Hryessa, one of the first refugees to Westwind, had developed into a first-class guard, a demon with a blade according to Saryn. Her eyes were rapt and fixed on Ayrlyn.
    "A ballad," called Llyselle. "The Sybran one."
    The redheaded healer readjusted the lutar, touching the tuning pegs and strumming the strings before she began.
     
    "When the snow drops on the stone
    When the wind song's all alone
    When the ice swords form in twain,
    Sing of the hearths where we've lain.
     
    "When the green tips break the snow,
    When the cold streams start to flow,
    When the snow hares turn to black
    Sing out to call our love back.
     
    "When the plains grass whispers gold
    When the red blooms flower bold,
    When the year's foals gallop long,
    Hold to the fall and our song. ..."
     
    The stillness was almost absolute in the hall, punctuated by a scattered cough or two. The memory of Sybra was still too raw for the survivors, and the grief was too palpable even to the women from Candar.
    "Something cheerier?" suggested Huldran.
    Ayrlyn nodded, murmured to Istril, and began again.
     
    "All day I dragged a boat of stone
    and came home when you weren't alone,
    so I took all those blasted rocks
    and buried all your boyish fancy locks...
    and took you for a ride in my boat of stone...."
     
    Nylan wasn't certain how much cheerier the song was, but the locals especially loved it, perhaps because Ayrlyn had reversed the sexes in the verses.
    In the end, the last song was predictably the same.
    "The guard song ... the guard song!" chanted the newer recruits.
    Ayrlyn looked wryly at Nylan; Istril just looked at the floor. Ayrlyn stood before the hearth, lutar in hand, adjusting the tuning pegs and striking several strong chords before beginning.
     
    "From the skies of long-lost Heaven
    to the heights of Westwind keep
    we will hold our blades in order
    and never let our honor sleep.
     
    "From the skies of light-iced towers
    to the demons' place on earth,
    we will holdfast