Partings

The Challenge of a Generation:75 years after being razed in The War, Dale has been rebuilt and expanded, now a prosperous and relatively peaceful center of trade. This peace was challenged when the King's Gift and its bearers disappeared; but Ancalime and five heroic women and their escort rescued both the lost men and the Gift. After recovering their brothers from slavery and breaking the power of the warg pack in the Gray Mountains, the sisters find themselves delving more deeply into the reasons for their slavery. The consequences of their search are manifold, and war with Rhûn appears a possibility with both personal and national consequences. Concerns about how those lost were betrayed leave questions unanswered that reach to the royal family itself. Tidings that dark things are abroad in the Gray Mountains bid caution, not celebration, and threats of war smolder on the eastern borders. The untimely demise of the aged King Brand II forces Dale to elect a new king, dividing the powerful guilds and nobles, paralyzing the crown at a critical moment.