Lawrence Watt-Evans: Relics of War

Lord Edaran had also talked about perhaps sending a punitive expedition into the baronies to avenge the shatra ’s death, which he somehow blamed on the incompetence of Lord Dakkar’s magicians, but by this time word had reached the other two overlords of what was going on. Azrad and Gor made it very clear to their young partner that there was to be no war unless the barons were actually stupid enough to invade the Hegemony-which they were not.

Experimentation on the captured equipment, Ellador reported, was conducted with extreme care, using every sort of protective spell. Whether anything ever came of it he could not say.

In time, Grondar and Shella’s three children grew up. Garander remained a farmer, becoming an equal partner with his parents; he met and eventually married a merchant’s daughter by the name of Peretta the Clever, and became the father of five children-three daughters and two sons.

Shella the Younger married Karn Kolar’s son, but the marriage did not last; after she left him she wound up living in Sardiron, where she became a noted dressmaker, married a captain in the city guard, and bore him three sons.

Tesk remained in the forest, visiting occasionally with Garander, Ishta, and later Peretta; neither Grondar nor either of the Shellas ever saw him again.

And Ishta, with Ellador’s assistance as arranged in Garander’s dreams, went to Ethshar of the Sands, where she apprenticed to a demonologist. Her original intent may have been to find a way to separate Tesk’s human and demonic parts, but although she was successful in her chosen field, and visited him every so often, she never achieved that particular feat.