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unbeatable in single combat. In the past, when Wizard Lords had gone bad, it was usually the Swordsmen of the time who eventually slew them.
    This particular Swordsman had thought the job was ceremonial when he first accepted it, as more than a century had passed without any known misbehavior by a Wizard Lord, but that long streak of good fortune had already been broken once. Several years ago Sword had struck down the Dark Lord of the Galbek Hills with a single blow to the heart.
    But that Wizard Lord had slaughtered a village; this one was merely building roads. How could building roads be a crime punishable by death? Yes, it disturbed the natural order, but who did it really harm?
    And if the Wizard Lord had not gone mad, and was not harming anyone, nor trying to exceed the powers allotted him, then he was not a Dark Lord and did not need to be removed. The Chosen were not responsible for maintaining order, but only for ridding Barokan of Dark Lords.
    Elder was waiting for a reply.
    â€œI hope not,” Sword said. “I very much hope not.”

[ 2 ]
    The road crew did indeed reach Mad Oak before dark—well before, in fact. The sun was still a hand’s breadth above the ridge when the overseer looked at the swath they had cut right up to the boundary stone, a ten-foot swath of bare brown earth, and called, “Tools down!”
    The crowd of villagers watching from safely inside the border burst into applause. They had been calling greetings, questions, and encouragement for some time as the road neared the town, and now that the job was complete they welcomed the road crew across the boundary with cheers, shouts, handshakes, and claps on the back. The idea of an open road all the way to Willowbank had captured their imaginations, though Sword was not entirely sure just what benefits they thought it would bring. After all, no one from Mad Oak had ever traveled much; the loss of the Willowbank Guide had been considered an inconvenience, but hardly a great tragedy.
    Still, most of the town seemed to think the road was a wonder that would somehow make the world a better place, and had greeted the road-builders as heroes.
    The two priestesses, however, had had to withdraw to the pavilion; the disturbed
ler
beyond the boundary shrine were making them both ill. Younger had been frighteningly pale when she withdrew, her sigil of office resembling a smear of blood. Elder’s color had been better, but she was not steady on her feet, and Sword had helped her up the path.
    Sword had gone back out for another conversation with the road-builders at one point, asked a few questions about the project and the Wizard Lord’s actions elsewhere, and how other priests and priestesses had handled the resulting discomforts, but then he had come back up to the pavilion to check on the priestesses.
    They were obviously suffering, but insisted there was nothing he could do. When Sword had spoken to the road crew they had expressed sympathy, but said that the pain would pass off in time, with no permanent harm done. The Wizard Lord had been building roads for four years now, and all those myriad displaced wild
ler
had not yet killed a priest; the tame
ler
had always protected their patrons.
    Sword had left the priestesses in the rocking chairs by the unlit hearth, and had gone out to the pavilion terrace to watch the celebration begin. He leaned over the rail and peered down as the road crew finished their work, and the cheering started.
    He remembered once before when he had stood leaning on this rail, seven and a half years before, looking out across the trees below. That had been the night of that year’s barley harvest celebration, when the Old Swordsman and two wizards had arrived in Mad Oak, seeking a volunteer to replace the aging member of the Chosen.
    But that had been different. It had been a quiet evening at dusk, not a bright afternoon, and he had been looking straight out at the valley, not across the fields