Free High Mage: Book Five Of The Spellmonger Series by Terry Mancour Page B

hedge of logs could be of more use as fence posts.
    Southridge Manor had prospered beautifully under my brother-in-law Sagal’s stewardship.  He had turned the manor hall into a tidy home, when he had taken over from Guris.  Southridge was where most of our cattle and all of our horses were pastured.  More importantly, it was where a goodly portion of snowstone (snow dirt , technically) was located, and I wanted every granule of it under the protection of people I could trust, now that I understood how valuable it was.  Southridge’s jurisdiction now extended to the castle walls, including the site of the former village of Genly. 
    Southridge was also becoming a kind of hostel for the arcane.  Sagal had responded to the urgings of my sister-in-law Ela and had paid for a residential structure to be built on the south side of his hall.  There were four two-story bays protruding from the forty feet long main hall.  The hostel had stone foundations with a half-timbered second story, capped by a tiled roof.  When it was completed, the itinerant magi who were able to afford it could stay in relative comfort, without the problems that came with inns or sleeping in my Great Hall. 
    Hollyburrow was a bit of an aberration.  Originally a tired, gloomy old estate, poorly suited for grain and dismally managed for generations, I had turned it over to Master Olmeg, my Greenwarden, after Sagal had rescued it from oblivion.  Master Olmeg had moved a hybrid band of Tal Alon – River Folk, in the vernacular – into the miserable place and made it prosper. 
    The human hamlet near the manor had not grown, but the burrow the Tal had quickly built in a shady hollow at the foot of Matten’s Helm had boomed.  The Tal outnumbered humans in the district.  But their prodigious care and talent for growing vegetables had enriched the district significantly, so there was little of the resentment human peasants often feel for the Tal Alon.  As Hollyburrow, as it was called now, was also on the way up to the only path to Lesgaethael, a string of strange visitors of all races drinking the Tal’s delicious brews at their tiny tavern, the Holly Bush . 
    In truth Hollyburrow was avoided by most everyone else in the vale, though it sat in the middle of it.  The humans were just not used to the strange Tal Alon ways.  Tensions were easing, once Tal were employed in the castle doing drudgework and folk began to see how civilized the furry little guys were, but they were still keeping their distance.  The Tal didn’t take offense at the distance.  The Tal were just happy for the work.
    Boval Town sat adjacent to the gate of Sevendor, a wholly-new settlement built from the ground up.  It was a town in its own right, with nearly a thousand Bovali refugees within its limits.  They had poured their energies (and a good deal of my money) into their new home, and they took their responsibility to guard the gates seriously.  A knot of Wilderland folk in the midst of the Riverlands, the little town square that was evolving was destined to get its own market soon.  There was even a temple.  They took their responsibility for acting as a militia, reinforcements for the guards at the Gatetower, very seriously. 
    Brestal had settled into a quiet prosperity, too.  It had become the bastion for the Old Sevendori in the valley, and its village had more than doubled in size as a result.  The folk there weren’t exactly happy with how their fortunes had turned, and how some had been relocated forcibly, but then they weren’t exactly unhappy either.  Everyone had work, no one was starving, and the fortunes of many had risen in Brestal.  It was a far better life than they had ever experienced under their previous lord, so the chances of them actually revolting were low.
    If things beyond the vale were not quiet, they were not volatile, either.  My newly-conquered domains were still recovering from the change in administration.  There was