It had been a long, desperate journey from the south where his lovely and beloved Moriana had left him dead in a city swallowed by a glacier. It seemed half a hundred years since his sorcerous resurrection by the Amulet of Living Flame, since he and Jennas, hetwoman of the nomadic Ust'alaykits, had arrived in Tolviroth Acerte, the City of Bankers, to find that the Princess Moriana had departed days, hours even, before they appeared. Now they had missed her again.

Fost considered Moriana's possible fate. Fled? Killed? Captured? The thought of the latter possibility turned him cold. Capture meant return to the Sky City to face the vengeance of her sister Synalon – and of her cousin Rann, warrior, genius, sadist. Death would be better by far.

They rode on through the eerie stillness of dusk. Fost couldn't rid himself of the sensation that the limp bodies strewn so recklessly about would rise up at any instant with a friendly greeting or outstretched hand. He was no stranger to death; he'd dealt it himself on occasion. But he had little experience with such wholesale slaughter. And no stomach for it at all.

He had been horrified at the carnage at the battles of the cliffs, when he'd helped the People of Ust defeat the Badger Clan and their foul shaman. That had been the mildest of diversions compared to this awful carnage. Together in a heap to Fost's right lay more men and women than lived in either Bear or Badger tribe. He shuddered. He wanted to throw up.

Though they kept careful watch they saw no eagles. The bird riders were off chivvying the defeated, butchering stragglers and the wounded. The wind babbled to itself of the sights it had witnessed that day, stirring fallen banners and mocking the dead. The wind even spoiled the clean and optimistic odors of early spring with the gassy rankness of corruption. Fost took hold of the strap slung over his shoulder, held a leather satchel high.