Storms of Victory (The Turning #1) by Andre Norton

Author:Andre Norton [Norton, Andre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2023-11-29T00:00:00+00:00

Seakeep

P. M. Griffin

1

There was no need of a fire this far into the spring, at least not by day. At night, it was another matter. Damp and sea cold still made themselves felt once the sun’s warmth was gone, and so logs had been laid at ready in the hearth of the Holdlady’s sleeping chamber to combat them.

Una’s eyes shifted from the waiting wood to the smoke-blackened stone wall behind it. The absence of the familiar light and heat depressed rather than soothed her, and she quickly turned away again.

She sighed in her heart. She had reason in plenty for her low spirits, and she could not close out her bleak thoughts, as she had the sight of the idle fireplace. The situation before her must be faced, and the decisions she made would mold not only her own fate and future but those of the people dependent upon her.

She did not think to rebel against the responsibility laid on her. She had grown accustomed to that weight, having carried it, with more than passing success, for year after year until she could scarcely recall save as a sort of distant dream the long-past days before war and the miseries that were its outriders had descended upon the Dales of High Hallack.

It had come upon them suddenly and unexpectedly, at least to outlying, virtually isolated Dales like those of this region, although the lords of the major holds to the south had indeed anticipated and tried to prepare against it. Even Harvard, that wily soldier who was her father, had not been concerned in that final year of peace about more than the happy fact that the lady who was his wife was at last with child. He had concealed his disappointment well when the infant proved to be female, rejoicing instead that his lady, whom he loved greatly, had survived the difficult birth. A scant two months after the child’s formal owning and naming, Alizon had unleashed its hounds and strange weapons against the Dales.

Then had begun years of horror and loss. For the first time in their long history, the fiercely independent lords of High Hallack had united in common cause, for they had very quickly learned that if they did not, the individual Dales would be swept away one at a time until all had been devoured.

Even after their alliance, for a long time after it, the issue had remained at question, and hope was more a low, stubborn light that somehow refused to die than any sending of reason. Then the tide finally turned. The Dalesmen, in company with their mysterious, terrible allies, the Were Riders from out of the Waste, stopped and finally threw back the invaders, utterly defeating them and ruthlessly hunting down the last remnants of their once-invincible forces.

That work done, the army of High Hallack had disbanded, and its various units returned home. All too many had found little or nothing to greet them, for Alizon’s forces had ravaged far and for

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