The Eldest corrected himself: the Wanderer had once been human. Even the Wanderer was human, and the Eldest honored his human frailties, even when he didn't understand them. There was such a room in Valinhall, meant for honoring the memory of those who had died.
A rock with a dead man’s name on it would not change that. He approved of their attempts to clean up the mess, but why bury the bodies at all? Why mark the grave? In only a century or two, no one would remember anyone who died here today. There were far too many dead to deal with each of them appropriately, so the survivors simply threw them in pits and covered them with dirt. They made a mockery of propriety, and the Eldest couldn't see why they bothered. The survivors hobbled around, using sheathed swords and broken spears as makeshift crutches, hauling corpses from one place to another. In the Eldest’s opinion, it was a huge improvement. In the presence of his master, this world strove to imitate Valinhall. Some of the camp had shifted, transformed and rearranged by the Valinhall Incarnation’s presence: here a barrel whose warped planks had turned into an armchair, there a patch of grass curled into a thin layer of green carpet, over there a pile of firewood grown into a rough-carved table. The tents lay in ruins, shattered and broken. The grass was slick with blood and littered with bodies. The field had once been an orderly tribute to Damascan military discipline: row upon row of white tents arranged according to some plan that the humans had no doubt thought wise at the time. He still moved with the stealth and grace that were his birthright-none of the soldiers in red-and-gold caught so much as a glimpse of him as he glided in and around their camp. Sheltering in the shadows made him feel a little better, a little stronger, a little closer to his powers in the House. He felt weak, here in the outside world, and he would feel weaker the longer he stayed exposed. The 81st day of Spring, for instance, would be “9 Days Till Spring’s End.” The 46th day of Spring is “1 Day Since Sower’s Day.”Ģ4th Year in the Reign of King Zakareth VIĪs the sun sank below the horizon, the Eldest Nye moved from shadow to shadow across the battlefield. To mark the date, you count the number of days between you and the nearest holiday. This was a simplified system intended to unify the various seasonal and lunar calendars that competed prior to Damasca’s conquest of the continent. (Also called the Cynaran Calendar, established during the reign of Queen Cynara II) To Dad, who doesn’t read fantasy novels…but who read these. Chapter Four: A Dead Man in the GraveyardĬhapter Fourteen: Battle in the House of BladesĬhapter Eighteen: A Conversation in AvernusĬhapter Twenty: Old Friends and New EnemiesĬhapter Twenty-Four: The End of a TravelerĬhapter Twenty-Seven: War in the City of Light
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