Dedicated to my friends. The claw of the lion Making of a fantasy novel (Selected manuscriptum notice I) When the main body of the Steward's troops arrived, two riders left the garrison town through the northern gate out of the former allies sight. The friends had to leave the place, they were connected with and the men they leaded for two fateful years. Throughout wartime and epidemic, raids, smuggling and sabotage. They got over it all, the commanding officer of the Lion's Claw and the governor. It was an insidious intrigue by the Stewards to bring them down. Sigrun tried in vain to detach the captain, unlike her born here in Dragoon, from her future stony way under the Steward's outlawry. The officer accompanied her, as he had given his word to somebody, who esteems Sigrun. It was time to tell her the true reason for his stubborness ... The Burgundian, fresh governor out of duty, nodded thoughtfully to the knight at her left. She would have done the same the captain did for sure.