The day was cool and sunny, with a ridge of flat clouds standing to the west. The Skybands were wearing their customary day colors, the faint dull white, and Dommammon, the White Moon, was showing in the blue sky as a thin crescent. Although it was well into fall, coming on winter, the air was still quite comfortable. Back in Aldreth, he had no doubt that they'd already had their first snow. The village, being in the foothills of the Skydancer Mountains, tended to get snow earlier than Torrian, which was only 3 days to the southwest. His father had told him that Suld, being on the coast, had a much milder climate than the inlands of Sulasia. It did get cold, and snow and even having the harbor ice up were not uncommon, but the icebound time was not very long. Snow only piled up for about a month during winter, and then the first stages of early spring would melt it. It was the winter that was unusual, for it took winter more time to settle around Suld than it did most of the rest of Sulasia, even those areas to the south. Eron Kael suspected that the Tower had something to do about that.

The training area was populated, which was normal for this time in the afternoon, full of young men wearing leather jerkins and holding wooden swords, practicing forms, sparring with each other, or thrusting or chopping at the numerous wooden posts that were staked into the sandy ground. Surrounding and interspersed with these cadets were the Knights in their mail shirts, giving instruction, correcting mistakes, or punishing cadets for bad errors. Some of the faces, Tarrin recognized. Most he did not.

One cadet stood out, literally, among those on the field. He was a young man, that was obvious from his face, but the young man towered over the other cadets and Knights as if they were children, and he was almost a head taller than Tarrin. Tarrin was amazed at that, for few humans could look him in the eye. The young man had chocolate brown skin, even darker than Dar's swarthy complexion, was more than an axe handle wide across the shoulder, and had arms that looked like gnarled tree trunks. As Tarrin walked up to the edge of the grounds, the young man just kept getting bigger and bigger. He wasn't just tall. He was awesomely developed, and Tarrin had no doubt that the young man was monstrously strong. He swung his practice sword with a calm, calculated efficiency that came with long hours of practice.

A mop of dark curly hair sprouted from a rank of cadets, and Faalken appeared at the edge of them. Wearing a battered mail shirt and a pair of undyed leather breeches, the burly, jovial Knight recognized him and rushed over, his wide, cheeky face beaming. Tarrin smiled warmly and took Faalken's hand when he reached him. "By Karas, it's good to see you again, Tarrin!" he said in a joyful voice. "We heard you'd come back, but they didn't tell us you'd be returning to the grounds."

"They didn't tell me I could," he replied, "but they didn't say that I couldn't, either."

Faalken laughed. "You may get in trouble. You're supposed to be devoting yourself to your magical training."

"They can get as mad as they want," he shrugged. "Besides, I was told that my time outside of class is my own. They didn't put any kind of restriction on it." He glanced at the monster of a man. "Who is that?"

"His name is Azakar," Faalken replied. "He came from Arak."

"Arak!" Tarrin gasped.

Faalken nodded. "He's an escaped slave. He was one of their gladiators, and somehow managed to get free while he was being moved from one Arakite city to Dala Yar Arak. From what we know, he managed to get passage on a Wikuni clipper, and wound up here. Someone that speaks Araki helped get him into the service on the docks as a laborer. He learned our language out on the docks. Not long after you left, he showed up at the gates and asked for the chance to become a Knight. He's good, Tarrin. He was still in training when he escaped, but he learns fast. We have trouble training him," Faalken chuckled. "I use the troll-skin gloves when I work with him. I'm not used to my students being stronger than me."

"Cheater," Tarrin teased. The cadets, those who did not know him, were now only half paying attention to their work, for they were staring at him as much as they could get away with. "How have things been for you?"

"Oh, the same," he smiled. "Dolanna hasn't been out, so I've been amusing myself on the training grounds." He chuckled. "More like getting my backside tanned. Allia has been teaching us some of her technique. We've decided to integrate some of it into our training."

"Not a bad idea."

"Our armor keeps us from getting exotic, but it's always good to know some unarmed combat. Just in case you lose your sword. Allia helped us come up with some moves and forms that work with our armor. I've gotten pretty good at parrying with my forearm guards," he said. "That wouldn't help me against someone using a broadsword, but it works pretty well against Allia and her shortswords."

"Why not?"

"Broadsword? It'd break my arm," he replied.

"Oh, yes. I forgot, you humans are fragile things."

"You just keep talking," he warned with a grin. "I've got the gloves right now."

Tarrin grinned back, nudging him with his elbow. "I know. I can smell them."

"You came out to grind off the rust?"

"Yes," he replied. "That fight I had yesterday reminded me how important it is for me to be able to defend myself."

"Dolanna told me about that. She said that the Keeper about had a conniption after it happened. I even heard that the Tower is going to run every other magic-user out of Suld in punishment. I know that they're doing something," he said. "The priest didn't show up this morning for morning prayers, so the Lord General had to conduct the service." The Lord General of the Knights, their leader, was a strapping man of advanced years named Darvon. Despite his white hair and wrinkled face, he could still swing a broadsword and run wearing armor, and there wasn't a craftier fighter among the Knights. His many, many years wearing the armor had taught him more tricks than most of the Knights put together knew. Tarrin had fought him only once on the training field, and it had been quite an educational experience for the young Were-cat. Tarrin didn't think of Darvon as old. Tarrin thought of Darvon as experienced. What made Tarrin laugh at Faalken's declaration was that Darvon despised conducting service. Tarrin had no doubt that it was very short, very blunt, and very interesting.

"It must have been, fast," he mused.

"I think it sounded something like 'Lord Karas, Amen'."

Tarrin laughed. "That sounds about right," he said. "I think that the Church will start worrying about the moral standing of her Knights if that keeps up."

"We're not paid to pray," Darvon's voice piped up from the side. Tarrin and Faalken turned to look, as the white-haired, broad-shouldered commander of the Knights of Karas walked towards them. Darvon was a man of slightly more than average height, and despite his years, he was still very burly. He moved with the grace of a man half his age. He was wearing a mail shirt and a pair of leather chausses, with his old, battered broadsword on his belt. His face had been handsome once, but his face was about the only thing on Lord General Darvon that showed his age. His skin was permanently browned from exposure to the wind and the sun, and his eyes and mouth were surrounded by a myriad of deeply etched wrinkles. His face wasn't very full, but lacked the gauntness of an old man, with only a little bit of sinking about his cheeks and eyes. Those eyes were a very light shade of gray, quite striking, and they were as clear and lucid as they had been twenty years before. Tarrin bowed as he approached, and Faalken saluted his commander sharply. "Good to see you back, Tarrin. You ready to give up on the Tower and come over here, where you belong?"