After two years, Malor Eram realized that there was no way he could win a war against the Ungardt when they were on Ungardt soil and in Ungardt waters. They had land trade routes back into Draconia and Daltochan, which were landlocked nations that were immune to Wikuni threats to prevent them from trading with them. That, and the sudden drastic decrease in the amount of iron they received in export made them realize that the Ungardt were more important to them as a trading partner than they were as an enemy. The Ungardt were the door through which Dal and Ungardt iron flowed into Wikuna, and the war closed that door. Malor offered peace, which Jorg accepted with the condition that the stolen technology that had started the war was now official Ungardt property, and they'd do their own smelting and refining. That nearly set Malor back on the warpath, for the Wikuni made a fortune buying raw ore at cheap prices, smelting and refining it, then selling the refined iron at a hefty profit, but he could not refuse. And so, there was peace again, the Ungardt suddenly began making money smelting and refining both their ore and the Dal ore, and sold it to Wikuna at a much higher price. It was a war that the Wikuni had lost, the only one they had ever lost, and it bit deeply into the purses of the noble houses of Wikuna. So deeply that Malor Eram mysteriously died that winter, and was succeeded by Ethram Eram, who was Damon Eram's grandfather.

The Iron War was probably what made Wikuna what it was today. They were almost paranoid over their technology falling into the hands of other nations, unwilling to share it with the rest of the world becaue of the financial gains that having it brought to them. But the problem was that technologies that would make them much more money by releasing them were also witheld, such as their ingenious water and sewage systems. They could make a fortune if they sent out their plumbers and pipe-making artisans out into the world and offered to build their water systems in the larger cities of the West, and the entire world for that matter, but they would not, jealously holding onto what they perceived as their technological edge.

That would change, though. Keritanima showed that she was much more progressive than the kings who had held the throne before her. She would introduce Wikuni advances to the West, and everyone would benefit from it.

They ran on through the night, along a road that led eastwards through a series of smaller and smaller villages, villages that showed the peculiarities of Ungardt architecture. They used slate-roofed houses whose roofs were steeply sloped, the crown of the roof often three stories off the ground for a one story house, and they were built like that to make the heavy snow that fell during the winter slide off the rooftops. If that much snow settled on top of a house, its weight would collapse the roof. So Ungardt roofs were high, sharp, and heavily reinforced, to bear the additional weight they were forced to accept during the winter months. Some buildings in the cities and some of the larger buldings in the villages had flat roofs that were made of stone, but there was also a door leading onto it so people could get easily onto the roof and sweep the snow off of it before it got too heavy for the roof to take. But those roofs were usually literally armored, heavily buttressed to withstand great amounts of heavy snow, so the chore of going up and sweeping them off wasn't something that had be done after every snowstorm. And in the summer, such buildings provided something of an extra private space where the owners of the building could go and enjoy the brief warmth of the summer sun. The flat roofs turned into temporary gardens and courtyards during the summer.

By morning, they were at the edge of the foothills, passing through a village just beginning to stir in the darkness. Morning came very late that far north, so far north that the Skybands dominated the entire southern sky, so far north that the sun only came up for a few hours on Midwinter Day. The Ungardt would rise well before sunrise and stay up well past sunset, using the light of the Skybands and the moons to navigate the night. And that far north, the Skybands cast a great deal of light down on the land, more than enough for Tarrin to see as clearly as if it were day, and more than enough for a human to easily be able to move around. It was never truly dark on Sennadar unless the clouds blocked the night sky, and the larger the Skybands were in the sky, the more light they shed down upon the land. As far north as they were, they were a constant lantern in the night, turning darkness into a dim pre-dawn kind of light that by which anyone could easily see.

They moved well past the village, and finally stopped in a stand of thick fir trees that helped break the biting wind. Jesmind swept snow off a log and flopped down, panting and breaking some frozen sweat out of the hair of her red eyebrows, but Tarrin showed no signs that he was winded from the long, heavy run. He simply wove a dome of warmth around their small clearing in the middle of the fir grove, then swept all the snow out of it before it melted and turned everything soggy. Jesmind gasped when all the snow suddenly picked up and flew out of the clearing, then she laughed as Tarrin seated himself cross-legged on the ground, wrapping his long tail around his legs to keep it out of the way. "Nice," she said, looking around, then shaking her head while her paws scrubbed through the unruly mane of her hair. "What do we do now?"

"Rest," he answered in a distant tone, taking the metal bracers off his wrists and putting them in his lap, then summoning his black-bladed sword out of the elsewhere and setting it in his lap with them.. "Go find us something to eat. I have something to do."

"What?"

"Make you a weapon," he told her, then he closed his eyes and put his paws over the bracers.

"No, what do you want to eat?"

"It doesn't matter, and you won't find any problems finding something," he answered. "Caribou are migrating through this area right now."

"Is that what I'm smelling?"

He nodded.

"Then it shouldn't be too hard to run one down," she agreed, standing up. "They're all over the place."

"Just don't let youself be seen. Ungardt hunters are out doing the same thing right now."

"You're insulting me, my mate," she teased. "Before I go out there, do you think you could make me something a little warmer?" she asked, picking at her thin shirt. "This doesn't do much about the wind."

He opened his eyes and absently Conjured her a heavy fur-lined jacket of sorts with sleeves that ended at her elbows and a deep hood to hide her colorful hair, with white fur at the collar and cuffs and hanging down to her thighs. The fur on her arms and legs would keep them warm, and the pads on her feet were thick enough to defend her against the cold of the ground. The only parts of her she needed to protect against the cold were the parts with no fur.

Jesmind pulled it on over her head, then waved her paw in front of her face. "This thing may be too hot," she complained.

"You're hot from the run," he told her.

"Don't you need something?"

"Cold doesn't bother me, Jesmind," he told her distantly, eyes closed again. "The Weave is keeping me warm. Now go on. When I'm done, I'm going to be starving."

"What are you going to do?"

"You'll see when you get back."

"You're getting too secretive," she complained as she pulled up her hood to hide her flame-colored hair, a color that would attract every eye to her within a league out in the white snow, then she bounded off into the snow and quickly disappeared, her white coat blending with the snow perfectly.

What he was doing stretched his powers of Sorcery to their limit. The Cat's Claws were powerful magical devices, and they would be perfect for his mate. He had no real need for them, because he had a weapon against which the Demons could not defend, and his magic made him their equal. But Jesmind had no protection from them, and what was worse, no weapon to harm them. He intended to change that. He focused all of his power on the Cat's Claws, and then reached deeply into High Sorcery, causing his entire body to limn over into Magelight, then have it condense down and form the concave four-pointed star that marked a sui'kun using his maximum power. He turned his full, true power against the bracers in his lap, his magic and his awareness sinking down into the black steel of their substance, deeper and deeper, until he was at a point where the tiniest bits of their substance were made aware to him. It was at this level that he unleashed his power, weaving flows of such microscopic smallness that it would have boggled the mind of nearly any other Sorcerer, manipulating the very core of the substance of which the bracers were made. He had to go very slowly and very carefully, for the substance of the bracers also housed the weaves that gave the Cat's Claws their power, and he could not disrupt that magic. Magic of that kind was strong, but it was also very delicate and very carefully designed. If he interfered with the way the weaves worked with one another, they would break down and destroy themselves, and render the items powerless. So he moved with painstaking care, Transmuting the metal of the Cat's Claws piece by tiny piece, moving methodically through them a section at a time, changing the metal very carefully around the weaves without disturbing them. It was exhausting work, and the effort of it was very quickly and very steadily draining him of his energy.