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PROLOGUE

What the Stor the sturdy blackoak chair crafted for hirandson two years before He stared northward

At the black and silver clouds

He’d never seen their like before They blanketed the entire horizon to the north, high in the sky They weren’t gray They were black and silver Dark, ruht With striking silver light breaking between theave off no sound

The air was thick Thick with the scents of dust and dirt Of dried leaves and rain that refused to fall Spring had corow Not a sprout had dared poke through the earth

He rose slowly fro softly behind hie of the porch He chewed on his pipe, though its fire had gone out He couldn’t be bothered to relight it Those clouds transfixed him They were so black Like the smoke of a brushfire, only no brushfire sh up in the air And what tobetween the black ones, like places where polished steel shone throughdown at his yard A srass and shrubs The shrubs were dead now, every one of theh that winter He’d need to pull therass was still just winter thatch Not even any weeds sprouted

A clap of thunder shook hiainst metal It rattled the s of the house, shook the porch boards, seemed to vibrate his very bones

He jumped back That strike had been close--perhaps on his property He itched to go inspect the da fire could destroy a man, burn his were unintentional tinder--dry grass, dry shingles, dry seed

But the clouds were still distant That strike couldn’t have been on his property The silver and black thunderheads rolled and boiled, feeding and consu a deep breath Had he i off the side, as Gaffin always joked? He opened his eyes

And the clouds were right there, directly above his house

It was as if they had suddenly rolled forward, intending to strike while his gaze was averted They do distantly in either direction, ht pressing the air down around him He drew in a breath that was heavy with sudden humidity, and his brow prickled with sweat

Those clouds churned, dark black and silver thunderheads shaking hite blasts They suddenly boiled doard, like the funnel cloud of a twister, coht before a powerfully bright light That blackness That endless, suffocating blackness It would take hione

His pipe hit the porch’s floorboards, clicking softly, tossing burned tabac out in a spray across the steps He hadn’t realized he’d let it slip free Renald hesitated, looking up at e

The clouds were off on the horizon again, soues distant They thundered softly

He picked up his pipe with a shaking hand, spotted froe, tanned from years spent in the sun Just a trick of youroff the side, sure as eggs is eggs

He was on edge because of the crops That had hih he spoke optimistic words for the lads, it just wasn’t natural So should have sprouted by now He’d farmed that land for forty years! Barley didn’t take this long to sprout Burn hi on in the world these days? Plants couldn’t be depended on to sprout, and clouds didn’t stay where they should

He forced hi old, I aht

He’d worked a far in the Borderlands was not easy, but if you worked hard, you could grow a successful life while you grew strong crops "A man has as much luck as he has seeds in the field," his father had always said

Well, Renald was one of the h to buy out the two farons tofor hi the fences Not that he didn’t have to cli was all about You couldn’t let a little success ruin you

Yes, he’d worked the land, lived the land, as his father always used to say He understood the weather as well as a man could Those clouds weren’t natural They ru Lurking in the nearby woods

He jumped at another crash of thunder that seeues away? Is that what he’d thought? Looked ues away, now that he studied theruood to hi other than that ru and the occasional creak of shutters in the wind Shouldn’t he be able to hear Auaine inside, getting supper ready?

"You’re tired That’s it Tired" He fished in his vest pocket and pulled out his tabac pouch

A faint ruht At first, he assu, too regular That wasn’t thunder It heels turning

Sure enough, a large, oxen-draagon crested Mallard’s Hill, just to the east Renald had naood hill needed a name The road was Mallard’s Road So why not name the hill that too?

He leaned forward in his chair, pointedly ignoring those clouds as he squinted toward the wagon, trying to make out the driver’s face Thulin? The son laden halfway to the heavens? He was supposed to be working on Renald’s ne!

Lean for one of his trade, Thulin was still twice as muscled as most farmhands He had the dark hair and tan skin of a Shienaran, and kept his face shaved after their fashion, but he did not wear the topknot Thulin’s faht trace its roots back to Borderland warriors, but he himself was just a simple country man like the rest of them He ran the smithy over in Oak Water, five as