PROLOGUE?

  ManHart

  Astram ManHart crouched on a flat limestone slab half-buried in the grass, breeches around his ankles, the morning sun already warm on the back of his neck. The central plains of Eiurp stretched out before him in every direction

  endless green waves of rye and wild barley rippling under a sky so clear it hurt to look at. No smoke from distant villages, no dust of marching columns, no banners of Three Circles. Just birdsong, the low hum of bees, and the occasional snort from his horse thirty paces away.

  He finished, wiped with a handful of dock leaves he'd already picked, then stood and laced up without hurry. The world felt too still, too gentle after seventeen years of holy war. He almost didn't trust it.

  Astram walked over to the horse, a sturdy bay gelding he'd named 'Thorn' after the third prophet, though he sometimes called him Bastard when the animal was being stubborn. The saddlebags were light now: half a loaf of rye bread going hard, a lump of cheese sweating in its cloth, ten copper pennies, one bent iron nail he meant to use as a spare arrowhead if he ever found a bow worth the trouble, and the rolled-up scrap of blue linen with his self-made sigil stitched in coarse thread. The longsword hung at his hip, still in its plain leather scabbard. The ring-mail hauberk was draped over the saddle; he hadn't worn it since yesterday's rain turned the roads to slurry.

  ?He pulled the waterskin free, took a long swallow, cool, tasting faintly of leather and the mint he'd chewed earlier, and poured the rest into his cupped palm for Thorn. The horse lipped at it greedily, then bumped Astram's chest with his broad forehead, demanding more.

  "Greedy fucker," Astram muttered, grinning. He wiped his wet hand on the horse's neck. "You think the Creator made grass just so you could shit it out the other end and then beg for my water? ah! you beast."

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  ?the horse snorts.

  Astram laughed, the sound startling a pair of birds into the air. He leaned his forehead against the horse's, close enough to smell the warm, sweet scent of hay and sweat.

  "Listen to me, you horse!," he said, voice dropping to something almost tender. "We're in the middle of nowhere. No lords, no priests, no tax collectors, no Pelsan lancers looking to stick a lance through my ribs for wearing the wrong symbol. Just you, me, and about ten thousand leagues of grass pretending the wars never happened. You know what that means?"

  ?the horse snorted again

  "Exactly," Astram said. "Means I can take a shit in peace without some knight riding up to lecture me about the sanctity of the body as a temple. Means I can talk to my horse like he can understand me and no one's around to call me mad. Means maybe just maybe we don't die screaming this year."

  He straightened, slapped Thorn lightly on the shoulder. The horse sidestepped, tail swishing at flies.

  ?"Faster next time, aye? When the next company of broken pilgrims comes limping home and decides my blue rag looks like a challenge, I'd rather you run than stand there looking noble."

  Thorn nickered, low and rumbling.

  Astram snorted. "Ah! don't give me that."

  He took the reins, swung up into the saddle with the easy motion of a man who'd spent more nights on horseback than in beds. The leather creaked. Thorn shifted under him, muscles bunching, ready.

  ?Astram gathered the reins in one hand, rested the other on the sword-hilt out of old habit. He looked east toward where the sun was climbing, toward the distant haze that might have been mountains or might have been nothing at all.

  ?"Six years on the road," he said quietly, more to himself now. "Six years and I still don't own a single acre. Still don't have a banner anyone salutes. Still don't have a name worth a damn outside my own head." He patted Thorn's neck again. "But we've got this, don't we? This stretch of green. This morning. This stupid horse who's my only friend."

  ?Thorn tossed his head, bit at the bit.

  Astram laughed again, louder this time, freer.

  "Alright, alright. Let's see if those legs of yours remember how to gallop without me beating you with the flat of my sword."

  He touched his heels to Thorn's flanks.

  The horse surged forward, hooves drumming the soft earth, kicking up clods of dark soil and crushed grass. Astram leaned low over the withers, wind tearing at his yellow hair, grinning. Behind them the limestone slab sat alone in the field, already forgotten, already returning to the silence of the plains.