Ride on!

 Finished Mercedes Lackey's By the Sword yesterday, a rare solo volume in the series. (I mean, technically, it it's a continuation of Tarma and Kethry's story in Vows and Honor, but it picks up two generations after those adventures.) Anyway, we're south and west of Valdemar for the majority of this one, as the mage Kethry's granddaughter Kerowyn ends up rescuing her future sister in law from bandots on the eve of her wedding day. Kero winds up with the magical sword, Need, which gives its female bearers abilities to make up for ones they lack. 

Anyway, Kero really doesn't fit in with the small court her family belongs to, as such, she gets trained to be a mercenary by her grandmother and Tarma. While this does introduce her to Prince Daren of Rethwellen, he ultimately has a place as his brother's Lord Marshall after his other brother tries to kill off Selaney in Valdemar. 

So, we follow Kero in a series of deep dives over her career, seeing how they make her the woman she ends up as. In one of the early ones, she ends up saving Herald Eldan during a rout in a battle verses Karse. He helps Kero with her Mindspeech, she ends up getting hin to the border (and safety), and they end up playing games over his ransom. 

Kero eventually leaves her Company due to the current leader's incompetence. Which ends up with most of the rest of the company voting out the old leader and installing Kero as the leader. 

A few major battles later, Kero accepts Daren's invite to Rethwellen, when Talia and Dirk arrive to beg help from them for their war against Hardorn. Kero manages to bring up the fact Rethwellen owes Valdemar a debt from Kethry's time. As Rethwellen's army will take time to get there, KEro ends up taking her company across Valdemar, losing her Mages on the way. (The rejoin Daren's troops, and wind up marching through Karse, which has its own political shakes up going on, as we see later.) 

Anyway, Ancar's armies cause issues, Kero and Selaney and Elsbeth become friends, and Kero and Daren get chosen, setting up the Mage Winds trilogy. 

A lot of fun, since Kero is not very lady like.