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was stealing in from the west. Rather than heading back to the coastal trail, Geran decided to put the sunrise on his right and cut northeast through the hills. It would shave a couple of miles off their journey, even if it was more rugged country, and it was also much less likely to lead them into any pirates who might still be looking for them. These hills marked the rolling fall of the land from the high moors of Thar to the Moonsea. The folk of Hulburg called them the Highfells, and Geran knew them well. As a youth he’d explored every vale and hill for a day’s ride around his home. They rode at an easy pace for several miles, slowly climbing higher into the hills and leaving the coast behind them. The higher slopes were treeless and marked by wide slashes of bare, mossy rock.
    “It’s so empty,” Nimessa said as they crested a ridge. “Nobody lives here?”
    “Shepherds and goatherds sometimes bring their flocks into these hills in the summertime, but we’re past that now,” Geran answered. “A few people settled the coastal hills in the time of old Thentur, but that was two or three centuries ago. Now?” He shook his head. “No, no one lives up here.”
    “Where are the mines? And the forests your people cut?”
    Geran pointed past her at a faint, gray-green range that marched across their path many miles away. “The Galena Mountains. They lie about
    fifteen or twenty miles east of Hulburg. That’s where you’ll find the mining and timber camps. West of Hulburg there’s nothing but the Highfells and Thar.” He reined in and swung himself down from the saddle. “You keep riding. I’ll walk a bit.”
    “I’m perfectly capable of walking a few miles,” Nimessa answered.
    “I don’t doubt it, but I’d feel better if you rode.”
    She looked at him with a skeptical expression. “You don’t have to impress me with your gallantry, you know.”
    “Would it make you feel better if I said I was mindful of the horse, not you?”
    Nimessa laughed briefly and shook her head. She had a pleasant laugh, light and soft, much like many of the elves Geran had known in Myth Drannor. He smiled and set off again, walking at her stirrup as they picked their way down a hillside. If he had his bearings right, they’d hit the inland trail from Thentia soon. “So what business do you have in Hulburg? It seems a fair distance from your home.”
    “I’m taking over the management of our House’s ttadeyard. My father isn’t satisfied with the return on our investments in Hulburg. He feels that it’s time a Sokol stepped in to put things in order.”
    Geran looked up at her. He wondered if she had much experience in overseeing Sokol business. Was her father seeing to her education in the affairs of House Sokol, or was she expected to take a direct hand in the business? He was more than a little responsible for the decline in Sokol profits over the last few months, since he’d played a large part in exposing the corruption of the Merchant Council in Hulburg—although it was Geran’s own cousin Sergen who’d been behind much of that. In the aftermath of Sergen’s failed attempt to seize power, Harmach Grigor had closely examined the leases and rents paid by each of the foreign merchant concessions in Hulburg. Most of the big merchant costers were now paying much more for the right to cut the harmach’s timber and mine the harmach’s hills than they had when Sergen was running things. Of course, that meant Nimessa would be on the other side of the table from him when it came time to negotiate those rights.
    “There are still plenty of Veruna leases available,” he observed. House Veruna of Mulmaster had been Sergen’s chief accomplice in the recent troubles. “House Sokol could do worse than to bid on a few of those, since the Verunas won’t be getting them back.”
    “The Verunas have made it clear to us that they’d take a very dim view of other families or costers buying up their Hulburg leases,”