There is the war for daily survival in a world with neither the means nor any philosophical inclination to make abundant resources commonly available.
And there is the incessant, silent war against the Tyranny of the Night. This most deadly and most vile of wars is the struggle least well known. Not one man in five hundred becomes aware of the conflict, yet to be born is to become a conscript in the struggle with the Instrumentalities of the Night. On one side or the other.
1. Caron ande Lette, in the End of Connec
The enemy came out of the forest on the Ellow Hills, sudden as a spring squall. There had been no rumor of their coming. Brock Rault, the Seuir ande Lette, thought they were bandits when the first handful appeared. Then his conscience threw up the fear that they might represent Tormond of Khaurene. The Duke of the End of Connec had forbidden the construction of new fortifications except under ducal charter. Unfinished, Lette was just the sort of fastness that Tormond had proscribed.
Fortifications were appearing throughout the End of Connec. And caused more despair than comfort. The universal inclination seemed to be, once a man was confident of his own defenses, to hire mercenaries and become a plague upon his neighbors.
The Seuir ande Lette was an exception. Barely twenty-one, nevertheless, he had been with Count Raymone Garete at the Black Mountain Massacre and was a veteran of the Calziran Crusade. He had smelled the cruel beast War's foul breath. He had tasted blood. He loathed his family's enemies but never so much that he felt compelled to gift them with terror, death, or pain.
Peace was the root of his faith, though he was a warrior born and consecrated.
Brock Rault was Maysalean, a Seeker After Light. Peaceable by belief and a heretic by declaration of the Brothen Episcopal Church. He did not hide his beliefs.