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Dowell’s esteem, still retained a beautiful face and a slender figure. Aramina was old enough to realize that Barla was far more handsome than most holdless women and that, when they entered a new hold, Barla kept her lustrous hair hidden under a tattered head scarf and wore the many-layered garments of cold poverty.
    Dowell had been a skilled wood joiner, holding a modest but profitable hold for Lord Kale in the forests of Ruatha. News of the treacherous massacre of the entire bloodline had reached the mountain fastness long after the event, when a contingent of Fax’s rough troops had thundered into the hold’s yard and informed the astounded Dowell of the change in Lord Holder. He had bowed his head—reluctantly but wisely—to that announcement and kept his resentment and horror masked, hoping that none of the troop realized that his wife, Barla, expecting her first child, also bore Ruathan blood in her veins.
    If Dowell hoped that a meek acceptance and an isolated location would keep him from Fax’s notice, he erred. The leader of the troop had eyes in his head; if he couldn’t detect Barla’s bloodline at a glance, one look was enough to tell him that here was a woman of interest to Lord Fax. Nor had the man’s shrewd gleam escaped Dowell, and the woodcrafter had made contingency plans, which began with leaving the hold’s Gather wagon and two sturdy dray beasts in a blind valley on the Tillek side of the mountain. When half a Turn had passed with no further visitation, Dowell had begun to think his precautions foolish: that he had mistaken the man’s reaction to Barla’s beauty.
    Then Lord Fax, followed by a score of his men, came galloping up the narrow trace to the woodland hold. His scowl had been frightening when he had seen Barla’s gravid state.
    “Well, the pump will be primed and ready. She’ll whelp soon. Collect her in two months. See that she is waiting for her Lord Holder’s summons!”
    Without a backward look, Fax had cruelly spun his runner about and, clouting the lathered creature with his rawhide whip, clattered back the way he had come.
    Dowell and Barla had left their hold within the hour. Seven days later, a boy had been prematurely born, and died. Nor did Dowell and Barla find a ready sanctuary in Tillek’s hold.
    “Not this close to Fax, man. Perhaps farther west,” their first host has suggested. “I don’t want him knocking on my hold door. Not that one!”
    Dowell and Barla had traveled ever since, to the western reach of Tillek, where they had found brief respites in their journeyings while Dowell carved bowls and cups or joined cabinets, or crafted Gather wagons. A few weeks here, a half Turn there; and Aramina was born on their way through the mountains of Fort, the first of Barla’s children to survive birth. The news of Fax’s death caught up with them in the vast plains of Keroon, just after Nexa’s birth.
    “Ruatha Hold brought Fax nothing but disease and trouble,” the harper told Dowell and Barla in Keroonbeasthold, where Dowell was building stables.
    “Then we could return and claim our hold again.”
    “If there’s anything to claim. But I’m told that Lytol is a fair man and he’ll need good workers,” the harper had said, eyeing the notched timbers that Dowell had fitted.
    “We’ll return then,” Dowell had told Barla, “when I’ve finished my bond with the mastercraftsman.”
    More than a full Turn later, they did begin the long journey up the Keroon peninsula, with a sturdy daughter, a small son, and a tiny baby.
    Then Thread began to fall on the innocent green land, raining destruction on a population that had denied the existence of their ancient enemy. Once again dragons filled the skies with their fiery breath, charring the dread menace in midair, saving the rich land from the devouring Thread.
    Travel became more hazardous than ever for the holdless; people clung to the safety of stone walls and stout doors, and to the traditional