Some songs, once heard, are never forgotten. Songs whispered by trees to the wind, songs bellowed by one mountain peak to another, songs chanted by the Syrin, calling men to deeds worthy of legend. Young Voran, eldest son of an ancient warrior clan of Vasyllia, believed that such songs were still sung, though no one in his cohort at the warrior seminary took him seriously. Voran insisted he could hear intimations of a Syrin-song in the rustle of an alder, the cry of an eagle, the thunder of the mountain city's twin waterfalls, but the others only laughed. Especially the Dar's son Mirnían.
"Old tales," Mirnían said. It was late Leafturn, a day or two before the season of ordeal. The cohort had just left the training grounds, and most of the sweat-soaked scholar-warriors were now milling ab
