Why do these things happen to me? The big stones talk to me more than to anyone else.

Twice a charm? I paid attention. For a menhir to repeat itself meant it considered its message critical. "The men hunting you?" I asked One-Eye. He shrugged. "They wouldn't give up." "What's happening out there?" Hiding on the Plain, I might as well be buried alive.

One-Eye's face remained unreadable. "Corder will tell it." "Corder? That the guy you brought in?" I knew the name though not the man. One of our best informants. "Yeah."

"No good news, eh?" "No."

We slipped into the tunnel which leads down to our warren, our stinking, moldering, damp, tight little rabbit-hole fortress. It is disgusting, but it is the heart and soul of the New White Rose Rebellion. The New Hope, as it is whispered among the captive nations. The Joke Hope to those of us who live here. It is as bad as any rat-infested dungeon-though a man can leave. If he does not mind a venture into a world where all the might of an empire is turned upon him.

Chapter Two:THE PLAIN OF FEAR

Corder was our eyes and ears in Tanner. He had contacts everywhere. His work against the Lady goes back decades. He is one of the few who escaped her wrath at Charm, where she obliterated the Rebel of old. In great part, the Company was responsible. In those days we were her strong right arm. We piloted her enemies into the trap.

A quarter million men died at Charm. Never was there a battle so vast or grim, nor of outcome so definitive. Even the Dominator's bloody failure in the Old Forest consumed but half as many lives.