A day and a half later, Vaix -- who had been scouting ahead -- rode back into the camp. He had good news: "Duke Galagus is on his way," he said. "He's going to cross the Mans at Hangman's Jag and march directly for New Carmal. We'll be meeting up with him there." He glanced at Arliel. "The duke will be very happy to see you."

  "Galagus has always been one of my most ardent supporters within the Greater Remnant," Arliel said. "It will be good to see him again."

  They rendezvoused with Duke Galagus' army just a few hours after that, in the late evening. His wagon train stretched on for miles; Arai estimated that he had at least ten thousand men under his command, most of whom were flying the silver pennant of the city of Dulcifer. They were well-equipped and well-organized, which Arai did not find surprising; the Dulciferians were known to be fierce fighters, and Duke Galagus himself was a skilled and seasoned war-leader.

  Grizz, Vaix, and the other leaders of the Steelmen, along with Arai, Lillandra, Shell, and Sir Estil, were present when Galagus emerged from his wagon to meet with Arliel. The duke -- a huge, black-bearded man who stood at least six and a half feet tall -- threw his black cape over one shoulder and immediately sank to his knees before the emperor. "Arl has not abandoned us, at the last," he murmured. "I feared the worst when I'd heard you'd been captured, Your Highness. I can't tell you how relieved I am to see you safe."

  "Thank you. Please, rise."

  The duke obediently got to his feet. "We have much to discuss. But first..." He turned to Grizz, who gave the man a little bow. "You have my utmost thanks for delivering the emperor safely to us. Might I convince the Steelmen to join us in this crusade against Dayan and his heretics?"

  "Thanks all the same, Duke Galagus, but I'm afraid we have other business to attend to. We'll be heading north now, to Velon."

  The duke shrugged. "So be it. But if there's anything you need from me, please don't hesitate to ask. The people of the Greater Remnant, and indeed, of the Holy Empire entire, will not forget what you've done for us today." And he went on to promise them all kinds of great rewards.

  Arai, however, was too tired to care about any of it. They had been pushing themselves almost nonstop since they had set out to rescue the emperor, riding and running all over the countryside, and he was deathly tired. And he wasn't the only one; Shell was yawning and even Sir Estil seemed a little fatigued. As soon as the meeting with Duke Galagus concluded, the four of them made a little camp for themselves within a quiet copse of trees -- they built a fire, appropriated a set of bedrolls from the Steelmen, and settled in for the night.

  Lillandra placed her bedroll beside Arai's. "Are you as tired as I am?" she asked.

  "At least," he said.

  She settled down next to him. Their fingers intertwined, and they moved their faces to close to one another, so that they might speak in whispers. "It's cold," she grumbled, edging closer to him.

  "It's only going to get colder, the closer we get to Velon."

  "I know."

  She paused here, and Arai got the impression that there was something on her mind. "What's the matter?" he asked.

  "I think this is going to be hard for me."

  "What is?"

  "Returning to Velon, after all this time."

  "Oh. We've been over this before, though, haven't we? As long as you're able to keep your identity a secret, I don't think anyone's going to bother you."

  "I know that. That's not what I'm afraid of." She paused again, then said, "You've told me over and over again that Velon is a desperate, impoverished place. I'm not really looking forward to seeing it with my own eyes. Seeing it, and knowing that I'm the one responsible for it."

  "It's not all your fault--"

  "It is, though. You can blame the Lords Protector, you can claim I was only a child at the time, you can make all kinds of excuses, but you can't get around the fact that none of this would have happened if not for me."

  Arai squeezed her hand. "You can't change the past," he said. "But you can try to atone for what you've done."

  "How?"

  "By helping me save Velon -- from Lord Pierce, from Dayan and Bellarue, from Rollaug and the Al'mud, and from anyone else who threatens its peace."

  Stolen story; please report.

  "I suppose," she said, although she didn't sound all that convinced.

  Arai hesitated, then asked, "Have you really given up on your plan to use the Nightfall to resurrect Julien?"

  "Yes," she said after a moment. "I spoke to him, remember, in my dreams. He told me to stop living in the past. I didn't want to accept it at first, but..." She trailed off, lost in reverie.

  "I understand."

  "I hate to think that I've wasted the last hundred years on this folly," she said, "but I suppose if I hadn't, I never would've met you."

  Arai smiled. "That's one way of looking at it."

  "I love you," she breathed, her voice barely audible.

  "I love you, too."

  * * *

  Duke Galagus, anxious to join his armies with Duke Caldarach's and take the fight to Dayan as quickly as possible, set out the very next morning. The huge encampment packed itself up and slowly began making its way south, out of the village -- her wagons rumbling along, her thousands of horses producing a rolling thunder which shook through the morning stillness.

  Grizz allowed the Steelmen to sleep in that morning, while Duke Galagus and the Dulciferians made their preparations, but by noon they were ready to go as well. Arai and the others sought out Arliel, who had been given a large tent and retinue of his own, and said their goodbyes.

  "Good luck, Arai," the emperor said, shaking his hand. "Are you sure I can't convince you to come with us?"

  "I'm afraid not," he answered. "You heard what Grizz said -- we have business in Velon."

  "I won't keep you from it, then. I won't forget what I owe you, though. If you ever need my help..." He let that hang there.

  "I appreciate that, Your Highness."

  He turned to Shell. "I wish we had more time to talk, little one. I'd love to hear more about your people, about these distant lands of yours."

  "Maybe I'll come to visit you someday," she said. "Someday."

  He smiled, and they parted with him there. Less than an hour later, the Steelmen -- three hundred men and a handful of women, under Grizz's command -- were marching north, leaving Manrador and entering the Greater Remnant. This was the heartland of the Holy Empire, and the largest, by area, of its broken-up principalities; it was at least three times the size of the Old Duchy of Carmal, which was the second-largest of the Empire's states. The northern half of the Greater Remnant was heavily forested, but the southern portion consisted mostly of endless wheat fields and hedgerows. The harvest season having passed, these fields had been picked clean, and appeared rather barren and bleak.

  The roads were good, though as not as good as those in Elent, and the towns and villages they passed through were quaint and quiet; war was less common in the Remnant than in the more southerly states. The villagers they encountered were nevertheless wary of the Steelmen, and to Grizz's annoyance, the larger and more fortified villages refused them entry. Fortunately Duke Galagus had gifted them with supplies sufficient to see them to Velon, or to its borders at least, so there was no reason to strain the villagers' hospitality.

  The weather took a turn for the worse four days after they entered the Remnant -- the temperature dropped drastically, to only a few degrees above freezing, and they were battered by strong winds and lashing rains, which made travel miserable. Arai and the others bundled up as best they could, putting their hoods up and their eyes down.

  Arai and Lillandra were at least accustomed to this kind of weather; Shell and Sir Estil were not. The old knight endured it stoically enough, but Shell was constantly complaining. "It's so cold," she muttered, shivering. "Is it always like this?"

  "It gets as warm as Addis in the summer," Arai said. "But the winters are long and hard up here. It's just something you'll have to get used to."

  A few days later, the rain turned to snow, which Shell had never seen before. She marveled at it, at first, her green eyes full of wonder, but it didn't take long for her to get over it; she was soon back to complaining: "Why does it have to be so cold?"

  Another week of travel brought them to the eastern branch of the mighty Tuv River, which served as the border between the Greater Remnant and the state of Cyrille Major. A large city, Griffinsback, which was the capital of Cyrille Major, lay at the river's terminus, and after a few hours of wrangling, Grizz finally managed to convince the local authorities to let them make camp on the city's outskirts. Shell, tired of roughing it in this miserable weather, begged Arai to let them stay at an inn that night, and he obliged; he got them a room at the Polished Helm, one of Griffinsback's finer inns, and they slept comfortably that night for the first time in a long time. Arai had stayed at this inn several times and even remembered the names of some of the serving girls in the tavern; Lillandra frowned when they tried to flirt with him.

  The next morning they bundled up and rejoined the Steelmen. Shell, in somewhat higher spirits now, discovered how much fun it was to shatter the puddles of thin ice that had appeared in the cobblestone streets during the night; she made a point to gleefully smash every one of these she saw.

  The mood in the Steelmen's camp, however, was grim. Puzzled as to why this should be so, Arai sought out Grizz, but the man was busy with something, and he wound up talking to Feri instead.

  Feri was a battlefield mage who had joined the Steelmen a few years before Arai's father's death. She was a slight, middle-aged woman, with short dark hair and a bad burn scar on the left side of her face -- the result of a gone-wrong spell, apparently. To hide it, she almost always wore a cloak with a heavy hood, draped over her whole head. This, coupled with her exotic red robes, gave her a rather mysterious and perhaps even sinister air, but Arai had known the woman for years and she had always been kind to him.

  "What's going on?" he asked her.

  "We just got the news," she said sadly. "Duke Galagus was defeated at the Crevak de Che."

  Arai stared. "Are you sure?"

  "Grizz has been sending riders back and forth, to keep up with events in the south," she said. "It seems the Holy Legion was more than prepared for Galagus. They set a trap for him, which he fell right into. They captured the Crevak, scattered the Grand Army. And now they're headed north."

  "What about Arliel?" Shell asked worriedly. "Was he captured as well?"

  "About a quarter of Galagus' army managed to escape," she said, "including Arliel and Galagus himself. They're headed west now, apparently, to seek the help of the Marquisates. Dayan sent about a third of the Holy Legion after them, but the rest of his army has pivoted north. They've already entered the Greater Remnant. They're headed this way."

  "Velon," Arai muttered. "They're headed for Velon."