Skinsinger

To save two boys from a sorcerer who wants their magic skin-cloaks, Laaki must decide what she's willing to sacrifice.

Laaki and her charges are offered a new home in a Kaltaoven village, but someone will go to great lengths to prevent it.

Laaki has taken on an apprentice skinsinger, but when a stranger takes refuge in the village, Ashóli has her own idea of how best to help.

You can't go home again. And that went double for Eysla, after Ashóli broke the rules of the Kaltaoven and created a skin-song for one not of the tribe.

Ashóli and Eysla come to the city of Wilentelu to sell horses, but if they want to stay they must bargain with the city's ruler.

The Marchalt of Wilentelu has sent Ashóli as an emmissary to the Kaltaoven villages in his domain. But one village hides a dark secret and will go to extremes to protect it.

Laaki and Ashóli are skin-singers--byal-dónen--who can craft cloaks of fur and feathers to let their people wear the shapes of beasts. These are the stories of how they traveled through an often-hostile world and came at last to find a home where their people could gather, then thrive in safety. The tales of these people--the Kaltaoven--originally appeared in the Sword and Sorceress anthology series. Now for the first time they are collected together, finished off with a brand new novelette.