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Alun knew, not enough healthy ones. He had others in the kennels, limping on mangled paws or with bellies ripped open; right now he was preparing to send Wanderlust into the fray.
    “What do you say, love?” Alun asked the hound as he combed. He wanted her to look nice, in case she died today.
    Wanderlust was old. The black hair on her snout had gone gray. Her joints were swollen, and as Alun held her muzzle, peered into her loving brown eyes, and strapped on a fighting collar, she barely managed a slow wag of her tail, as if to say, “Another battle? I’m so weary, but I will go.”
    At first glance, she didn’t look like much of a dog. But Wanderlust was more than a common hound. Her mother was a sand hound, a breed so named for its sandy color, renowned for its good nose. But her father was a brute, descended from three strains of war dog. Wanderlust was almost as large as a mastiff, and she had a warrior’s heart. Even in old age, if she smelled a wyrmling, she would be first to the fray.
    Alun put on Wanderlust’s mask, as red as a bloodied skull. He had fashioned it himself, and it reminded him that all too soon there be nothing left of her but a skull. If the wyrmlings didn’t get her, age would.
    A hound named Thunder rushed up and bayed in Alun’s face. Alun gave Thunder a stern look, warned him to go sit, then Alun twisted over to dig in his big rucksack for Wanderlust’s cuirass.
    A shadow fell over Alun; he looked up. Warlord Madoc stood above him, a tall man in his forties, astonishingly big-boned and broad at the chest. He was a powerful man, as relentlessly bred for war as any of the dogs in Alun’s care. His bald head was painted in a red war mask, though he had not yet donned his armor. At his back were his twin sons, Connor and Drewish, both eighteen, in masks of blue. Alun drew back reflexively, for Drewish had often kicked him.
    “G’day, milord,” Alun said. “Nice day for a hunt.” He nodded toward the wastes. The rising sun sprang above the fog-shrouded vales, staining the mist in shades of rose.
    “Fagh! I grow weary of hunts,” Madoc groused, his tone equally full of fatigue and disgust. He nodded at Wanderlust. “Sending the old bitch out?”
    “Aye, milord.”
    Warlord Madoc grew thoughtful. “You’re grooming her for her burial. She deserves such honor. But I have a more vital task for her today—and for you, I think.”
    “Milord?”
    “Master Finnes tells me that your dog has a nose so strong that she can track the trail of a quail a day after it has taken to air—even if it flies over open water.”
    “True enough,” Alun said, his heart suddenly pumping, excited to hear that Wanderlust might get a reprieve.
    “Then, I need you to track …
someone.
”
    Alun wondered whom. He had not heard of any criminals that had escaped the dungeons or highwaymen hiding in the wastes. No one dared stray outside the castle these days. “Who, milord?”
    “Swear on your eyes and your hands that you won’t tell?”
    That was a serious oath. If Alun broke it, Warlord Madoc would require his eyes and hands as payment. “I’ll nay tell nobody.”
    “I want you to track Daylan Hammer.”
    “Milord?” Alun asked, surprised. Daylan Hammer was a hero. No, he was more than a hero, he was a legend, not some common criminal to be hunted and spied upon. Tales of his exploits stretched back for centuries. It was said that he was immortal, that in his youth he had traveled to another world, where he had drunk a potion that somehow let him cheat death. Some thought that he might even be from another world. He could not be killed, yet he had a habit of disappearing for decades on end, then showing up again. He had come to Caer Luciare last summer, at the end of the month of Wheat, and had been wintering all season.
    “You heard aright,” Madoc said. “Daylan Hammer has a habit of abandoning the hunt, taking off into the wastes alone. There is a pattern to it. If I’m right, he’ll