I was looking at the middle of the list today and it reminded me how quick the series shifts into Bili Morguhn stuff. A Cat of Silvery Hue is listed as book
4 and from 1979 on both the Wikipedia list and Open Library, so it comes right after the first three Horseclans books.
That always felt a little sudden to me, but not in a bad way. You go from the big founding / moving-people-around story into this younger nobleman who is not Milo, but still has that same weird mental-power part of the setting hanging over everything. Later there is even Bili the Axe as its own title in the list.
I don't always remember where folks first ran into Bili. Was it book 4 for most of you, or did somebody here read one of the later paperbacks first and then go back?