Aldric Thornheart carried the wolf pup under one arm and a jar of soup in the other, and both were slowing him down. The recruitment notice in his pocket said the Iron Vow trials began in two days. It did not say where. That, apparently, was the first test. He ducked under the low beam of the herbalist's door. He had to duck under most doors. At seven feet tall, with shoulders that filled a doorframe, Aldric had spent his whole life apologizing for taking up space. The Iron Vow was the most feared warrior order on the coast. If he could earn their black cord, no one would ever again mistake his gentleness for weakness. That was the plan. Step one was finding them. "Soup," he said, setting the jar on the counter. The herbalist was old and thin and did not look up. The pup wriggled. Its silver fur caught the lamplight, and the pale blue markings along its ribs glowed faintly. Aldric had pulled it from a trapper's snare a week ago. It had refused to leave him since. "You brought me soup," the herbalist said. "You want something." "The Iron Vow trials. I heard you treated one of their captains last winter." She finally looked up. Her eyes moved over him, top to bottom, and settled on the pup licking his thumb. "They don't take soft men." "I know." "Do you." She uncorked the soup and sniffed it. "East road. Two days' walk. Look for the broken ground where nothing grows. They hold the trials at the bottom." "The bottom of what." "You'll see." He left before she could change her mind. He walked through the night and most of the next day. The pup rode on his shoulder and chirped at birds. The road narrowed. The trees thinned. By dusk on the second day the grass had gone yellow, then gray, then gone. He smelled it before he saw it. Dry stone and cold air pouring up from somewhere it should not. The ground ahead had split open. A sinkhole wider than his village square yawned in the dirt, its edges shattered into long cracks that reached toward his boots like fingers. Iron spikes jutted from the broken rim. Down inside, so far down the light gave up, he heard the clang of steel on steel. A rope ladder was pinned to the near edge. A wooden sign beside it read: CLIMB DOWN OR GO HOME. Aldric set the pup on the ground. It sat and looked up at him with pale, patient eyes. "You can't come," he said. The pup stood and walked to the ladder. He rubbed his beard. He had found the trials. He had not thought past finding them. Down there were the men who would judge whether someone his size could be trusted to be kind. He gripped the top rung and started to climb.