Two hundred years before, the grand mercenary companies of the Vilhon Reach had turned their backs on their honorless Chondathian employers and a worthless war. The huge divisions, with their traveling hospitals, mobile sanctuaries and courts, had moved slowly east into an empty land of yellow hills and fallen stone on the shores of the Akanamere.

All the sciences of the north were brought to bear upon the fallow lands; ancient aqueducts were repaired by skilled military engineers, while soldiers cleared the broken harbor mouths and roads. As years of building passed, the soldiers' tent cities became true towns, and mercenary companies changed into tiny nations. The great captains married camp followers, captives, and whores, breeding heirs to take over their commands in the years yet to come.

For two busy centuries the kingdoms had prospered-locked into the traditions of their freebooting past. Military discipline readily tucked itself under the covers of democracy. The free-voting mercenary councils became senates of nobility, each captain still having status according to the number of his men.

The free companies soon vanished, and in their place the Blade Kingdoms had been born.

The Blade Councils that ruled the kingdoms were descended from educated men; soldiers who had risen above mere passion, and who had brought the art of warfare to its greatest heights. As they grew, the kingdoms prided themselves on the triumphs of the rational mind; of law and order, sciences and art.

Men being men, disputes still arose; the Blade Kingdoms came of martial roots, and soldiers were their political heart and soul. Yet even in war, the scientific mind could rise above brute emotion; war could be confined to pure military contest, leaving the daily lives of simple subjects quite alone. And so each summer, the great armies marched across the hills in dazzling, intricate campaigns, making move and countermove like ploys played in an all-consuming game.

Thus, in the drowsy days of a golden summer, it came to pass that Sumbria and her neighbor Colletro were once again at war. The contention-as it had been in many campaign seasons past-was the ownership of the Valley of Umbricci, its salt mines, its olive presses and its prosperous cattle farms.

Burned farms and slaughtered cattle profited no man. The armies, therefore, moved through the passes and down into the valley without offering the inhabitants the slightest bit of harm. Provisions were bought and sold, and local womenfolk made the firesides of both armies merry through the nights.

The campaign progressed with intricate, energetic subtlety. By day, the hippogriffs circled overhead, their riders endlessly skirmishing and spying on the maneuvers far below; by night, cunning countermarches and surprise attacks were launched. Casualties mounted, though thanks to the laws of war, they remained blessedly light. For in "white war," wounded opponents offered ransom for their lives, and an enemy recovering with his feet tucked up in bed was worth more gold to his captor than a corpse moldering in the ground…

Move and countermove, feint and strike-until finally the Prince of Sumbria and the ruler of Colletro saw fit to venture themselves upon a final throw…

Now, in the height of an afternoon that sparkled like warm, clear wine, the two armies spread across the valley floor in all their martial splendor. Dense pike formations stalked like many-legged insects in shells of burnished steel; the crossbowmen and pavisiers swarmed along the flanks like butterflies, covering the grass with the mad motley of their particolored clothes. Engineers scuttled back from their gigantic catapults, sheltering behind wicker shields as the machines prepared to fire. The massive engines pinned the battle lines; pikes and bill-hooks sank and locked as the soldiers rigidly dressed their formations. The valley grew still and strangely silent, quiet but for the restless stir of banners and the rustling of arms.

Beneath gay umbrellas of whirring hippogriffs, cavalry began to move: Lanze Spezzate-mercenary horsemen in half-armors made of burnished steel. To the rear, there rode the Elmeti-the noble horse, decked out in a ponderous grandeur of golden armor and nodding plumes. The horses paraded solemnly past the waiting ranks of infantry, hooves stepping high and horse-necks arching like haughty cobras in the sun. The formal parade of power passed back and forth across the fields, carefully scrutinized by the commanders of their foes.

Before the warwagon which bore the standard of Sumbria, twelve horsemen silently surveyed the enemy battle array. Big men on giant horses, they dominated the hillside with their air of magnificent scorn.

From ground to crown, the riders were sheer shining magnificence. Their horses' hides all gleamed pure silver, gold or bronze, the metallic hairs glittering to each shift and turn of summer sun. Smothered beneath armored bardings, the beasts seemed like statues animated out of burnished metal-a glory only matched by the outrageous martial splendor of their riders up above.

Each man wore an uncovered shell of pristine, perfect plate. Their helms were topped with tall cones of parchment, tubes of feathers or startling ostrich plumes; their faces were hidden beneath flawless visors of enchanted steel. Each simply sat and posed in arrogant disdain as the enemy flourished itself across the distant valley floor.

A silver god turned to the golden being at its right; the faceless head breathed cool words into the breeze.

"Their cavalry is badly mounted."

"We have the weight of them in horseflesh; they are still using southern breeds." A rider in sickly arsenic green hissed like a mantis inside his shell. "Worthless stock; mere meat before our blades!"

The golden rider's hand rose up and stemmed the flood of speech. Below them, the armies stilled themselves and locked tight into their ranks.

The rider's mount-one of the Gens D'Or, the golden horses of the gods-shifted sideways with prancing, stabbing motions of its metallic hooves.

"Heralds."

A single word of command sent a pair of figures strutting forward across the grass; haughty youths mounted upon pure white hippogriffs. The hippogriffs-half horse and half griffon, equipped with both equine hooves and an eagle's beak, wings and claws-made a savage, magnificent display. Ripping at the grass with razor talons, shaking feathers and arching necks like prized fighting cocks, the lithe monsters trotted out into the open ground between the waiting armies.

Coming forward to meet the Sumbrian messengers, Colletro's heralds were mounted on matched palomino beasts of their own; a most noble display. Behind the Sumbrian battle lines, the twelve horsemen watched the heralds primp and pose, viewing the whole process with professional disdain as each team cried out the pedigrees of its armies' commanders and their lists of victories. Finally the competing heralds struck their staves, signaling that parley had begun. From the Colletran lines there came a ripple of relief, with many glances toward the impressive Sumbrian cavalry. Both teams of heralds turned about and drifted back to their own battle lines, content that the peace negotiations were well and truly begun.

Sumbria's golden rider slowly levered up the visor of his helm. Within the shadows gleamed a stern, pale face framed by a close-trimmed beard. Forever calculating odds and possibilities, Cappa Mannicci, the prince of Sumbria, swiveled to gaze at his Blade Council.

"They will deal."

"My lord?" A rider in silver steel turned his helm toward the prince.

"We hold the high ground; our cavalry are better mounted. Colletro will deal." Prince Mannicci signaled with his mace, and servants drew forward bearing maps of the contested valley lands. "We can press for a minor gain-three villages and the southern mines."