Crossroads . . .
 
 
 

 Long ago, after a bitter series of civil wars denuded the countryside and impoverished the lords and guildsmen and farmers of the Hundred, an orphaned girl knelt at the entrance of the cave sacred to the founders and prayed that peace might return to her land.  A crack in the earth opened and from out of the stone rose nine guardians and their winged steeds, each one bearing the staff of justice.

 They established the free city of Toskala at a crossroads formed by the confluence of two rivers.  Into a rock that jutted out into the streaming waters they carved the laws under which the city would be governed.  Any soul might find refuge in the city who agreed to abide by these laws.

 After this the guardians dispersed throughout the land, seldom seen but never forgotten.
 

 As propitiation for their sins in war, the surviving rulers, councilors, landholders, and mercenary captains pooled their riches and the labor of their clansmen and built the city walls, temples for the seven gods, and a school for the six eagle clans.  The twelve guilds founded chapters within the walls, and each guild contributed skills and material to the four great gates - the gates of the four mothers, as the inhabitants came to call them.  Outsiders referred to the gates by the animal likenesses they represented - dragon, wolf, bull, and stallion - the totem ancestors who at the beginning of the world mated with the four mothers to create the eight races who populated the land.

 As a free city, ruled not by a lord but by Law itself, Toskala flourished.
In time, recovering from the disastrous wars, the Hundred became rich and prosperous again.

 But for every apple tree heavily laden with ripe fruit
there comes a thief intent on gorging himself on the sweet juices.