Paladin's Strength

The novel opens in the mountainous territory of the Arral, a clan-based society with rigid customs of honor and blood-price. Clara, a lay sister of the Order of St. Ursa, stands outside the tent of Istvhan, holding the sword of a young Arral man he killed in a duel. She guides the bewildered Istvhan through the ritual of accepting the forfeit: taking the dead man's sword and, with it, Clara herself, offered as "something of value" from the dead man's household. Clara reveals that her convent was burned weeks earlier and her sisters kidnapped by raiders heading east. She asks to travel with Istvhan's group.

Istvhan is a former paladin of the Saint of Steel, a warrior god who died years earlier, leaving his berserker paladins without divine control over their battle madness. He works for the Temple of the White Rat, a pragmatic religious order, and is tracking mysterious "smooth men": golem-like creatures made of fired clay heads jammed into decapitated corpses. His group includes Galen, a fellow paladin and second-in-command; Brindle, a badger-like gnole who drives the wagon mules; and Brant, a master distiller whose barrel delivery serves as cover for their true mission.

As they travel, Clara gathers intelligence from local women, learning that a man's severed head was found alongside a mismatched woman's body, evidence the smooth men passed this way. She confides fragments of her trauma to Istvhan: the convent burning, the raiders herding her sisters into barred wagons, and her own near-death from fever, after which the raiders dumped her in a ditch.

After crossing into open territory, they consult a warrenmind, a collective rabbit intelligence that speaks through a specially bred rabbit, which confirms that barred wagons passed through weeks before. Shortly afterward, the group is ambushed by more than 20 bandits. Two mercenaries are killed. Galen enters a berserker state during the fighting, and when Clara encounters him afterward, a primal force inside her roars in response; Istvhan intervenes with an authoritative shout that snaps them both free. In the chaotic aftermath, Istvhan finds Clara blood-spattered over a dead man and, overcome by arousal, kisses her before catching himself and dropping to one knee in mortified apology.

At a small inn, they learn the raiders' wagons passed through disguised as plague wagons. Clara notices a nondescript man watching her with unsettling intensity. That night, she kisses Istvhan in the hallway, declaring them even. Both acknowledge their growing feelings but fear acting on them; Clara recalls a past lover who fled in horror upon learning she was a werebear, leaving her resigned to casual relationships.

Days later, seven mounted men block the road and demand Clara. Their leader produces a heavy net designed for beasts, confirming that the pursuers know what she is. Clara transforms into a massive bear for the first time in front of Istvhan. The lead horse panics and kills its rider. Istvhan, not understanding what happened, stabs the bear before realizing it is Clara. Galen voices what everyone grasps: the raiders kidnapped not just nuns but an entire convent of werebears.

Clara insists on leaving alone to draw pursuers away. Istvhan refuses, revealing he is a paladin, not merely a mercenary. Clara is furious at his concealment, though she acknowledges her own. They agree to travel together while Galen leads the caravan to the coastal city of Morstone. Traveling as a bear with Istvhan on her back through a snowstorm, they shelter in a cave and share intimate confessions: Istvhan admits his god's death left him questioning whether divine justice was ever truly just, and Clara admits she has never directly felt St. Ursa's presence. Pursuers interrupt, and violence follows.

Clara's bear nose detects the smooth men's distinctive burnt-carrion smell, leading them to a headless corpse with mismatched severed heads. They join Doc Mason, a traveling medicine seller, and his granddaughter Tolly for cover. Through tavern canvassing, they locate Stachys, a brain-damaged wonderworker whose minor magical talent brought clay sculptures to life. Stachys created the first smooth man as a companion, but it turned monstrous, demanding human bodies and eventually cutting off Stachys's hands when he tried to destroy it.

In Morstone, a sprawling port city controlled by corrupt rulers called Sealords, Clara and Istvhan enlist the Temple of the White Rat. Clara demonstrates her bear form to Bishop Raulann, who commits the temple's spy network to the search. The bishop explains that Sealord Antony fields "drowgos" in gladiatorial pits: corpses animated by clay heads, publicly believed to be undead. The smooth men retrieve Stachys before temple agents can secure him.

During days of enforced waiting, Clara and Istvhan's feelings become impossible to ignore. Clara's fear of intimacy, rooted in the lover who rejected her upon discovering her bear nature, gradually yields to Istvhan's tenderness and acceptance. They consummate their relationship, and the emotional closeness terrifies Clara, who recognizes that Istvhan's willingness to know what she is and want her anyway makes him uniquely dangerous to her heart.

The Rat's spies confirm that approximately a dozen women were delivered to the colosseum, an island fortress accessible only by a retractable bridge. Clara proposes escaping by swimming out as bears, guided by a bonfire on a headland. She and Istvhan infiltrate the colosseum in a delivery wagon. When cornered, Istvhan surrenders to create a diversion. Clara secures work as a cleaner but is caught just as she unlocks her sisters' cage and is shoved inside. She reunites with Sister Sigrid and the others, learning that the Abbess died after refusing to force the sisters to transform on command.

In the arena, Istvhan discovers the drowgos' weakness: small clay heads hidden in chest cavities that, when smashed, kill the creature instantly. He destroys all six and spots Stachys's original creation, now salt-cured into a semi-permanent body, seated beside Sealord Antony. The sisters are pushed into the arena and transform into bears to fight the next wave. Three sisters die. Istvhan seizes Sealord MacLaren at knifepoint while Clara releases every beast in the run, creating chaos that allows most sisters to reach the water stair and swim south.

Clara, Istvhan, and Sigrid confront the original smooth man in the drowgo storage area, where it has reanimated three of Clara's dead sisters with clay heads. Stachys, broken but lucid enough to recognize the horror, deliberately impales himself on Istvhan's knife. Every smooth man and drowgo collapses instantly, confirming that the wonderworker's death severs the magic animating all his creations. Sigrid stays behind to cover the escape, her broken arm preventing her from swimming.

At the water stair, Istvhan confesses he is madly in love with Clara. She transforms, and he clings to her back as she plunges into the freezing sea. The swim nearly kills him, but Clara drags him ashore, where Doc Mason, a longtime ally of the Rat, waits with his wagon. Clara's surviving sisters have already arrived safely. When Istvhan wakes, he proposes escorting the sisters back to their convent with paladins to fortify it. He tells Clara again that he is hopelessly in love with her. This time, she answers: She is in love with him, too.