"Huh. No joy there, yet he can hardly be worse than what we've had, these twenty summers now-wizards and barons, wizards and barons: villains, all!"

"Aye, that's so. Wizards have always been bad and dangerous-'tis in the breed, by the Three!"

"So we thrust a pitchfork through every mage we spot, and what then?

Who of our Great Lord Barons can be trusted not to lash out on a whim? They've all been little tyrants to put the most decadent kings of the old tales to shame!"

"And here we sit, thinner and fewer, every year, while their madness rages around us and Aglirta bleeds."

An empty tankard thunked down on a table, and its owner sighed gustily, clenched his hand into a helpless fist, and added bitterly, "And the great hope of the common folk, Bloodblade, turned out to be no better than the rest."

An old scribe nodded. "All our dreams fallen and trampled," he said sadly, "and no one cares."

A drover shot Flaeros a look so venomous that the bard's fingers faltered on his harpstrings, and growled, "Now we have some boy for a King, and his four tame overdukes scour the countryside for barons and wizards who took arms against him-and who cares for us?"

1

To Conquer a Kingdom

The rattle of keys awakened an echo in that dark and stone-walled place, and then a heavy door scraped open, flooding torchlight into a damp darkness that had lasted for decades. Old Thannaso, who kept the locks and hinges-and the manacles that waited on the gigantic wall wheel within, gleaming now in the leaping flames-well oiled, was as blind as deep night, and so had no need to light his way when he worked.

A lithe, slender man who wore skintight garb of soft, smoky-gray leather on his body and a half-smile upon his darkly handsome face held the torch high and behind his own shoulder, to peer into all corners of the cell. A little water was seeping in high on the south wall, glistening as it ran down the stone, but of intruders-beyond a small, scuttling legion of spiders-he saw none. Craer Delnbone was one of the best procurers in all Asmarand… which is to say that after too many years of escapades enough for a dozen thieves, he was still alive. If Craer's bright eyes saw no intruder, none was there.