Pronos made his way down to the docks and entered a tavern known as the Fish-Loaf for the crudely painted sign the owner had painted and hung over the door. An excited rumble of voices greeted him as he stepped into the warm smokey interior. Pronos pushed his way through the press of bodies toward a large drum in the back of the main room. There he found Tarakae sitting at a table drinking with some large well-muscled men.

"We need to talk," he said.

Tarakae looked up and smiled. "Welcome partner. Why do you look so unhappy?"

Pronos sat on the bench next to him and leaned in close. "We had an agreement."

"And so we still do,"Tarakae said. "Has something changed?"

"You were supposed to incite riots to force the elders to allow me to establish a soreav. Months have gone by and the city is as peaceful as ever."

"Oh! I forgot." Tarakae pulled from under the table a leather bag the size of a soup bowl. "Here. I've been saving your share." He plopped it down on the table with a heavy ker-chunk.

Pronos opened the bag and peered inside. Several pounds of bronze kermas, copper aescs and a handful of silver trochees filled it. Puzzled, he looked up at Tarakae. "Is this all money you've taken from the merchants?"

Tarakae smiled and nodded. "Everyone time you see a black hand painted on the side of a house or business, it means that person has paid us to not attack them."

Pronos picked through the bag. More silver pieces were buried inside. "That's all well and good but, how am I going to get my soreav?"

Tarakae chuckled. "You can very nearly fund your own soreav now, but never fear. We keep coming back more often and demanding more money each time. We'll find their breaking point yet and when they cannot pay or refuse to pay, they'll turn to the elders and demand a solution. Some are already starting to talk about it."

"So what happens when they refuse to pay?"

Tarakae held up his right hand. It was painted red. "You'll find out this evening if you care to join us. I've already marked their house to put the fear into them and their neighbors."

Pronos gestured for the server to bring him a beer. "Very good. It'll be nice to see you in action."

Returning his smile, Tarakae rose, approached his drum and began pounding and chanting his chant. The crowd, nearly packed shoulder to shoulder and already buzzing with excitement, chanted along in chorus, "Justice! Fairness!" As he chanted he explained how the wealthy were robbing the poor of the just reward for their labors. One man in particular was somehow more egregious than the rest and so needed to be taught a lesson. His house had been marked for judgment and this night they would visit judgment upon him.

Tarakae's drumming reached a frenzied crescendo and, with a final loud burst on the drum, he thrust his red hand up into the air. With a shout, the crowd turned and headed for the door. In addition to the usual crate of clubs, they found a wood tray filled with a red liquid in which they thrust their right hands. Some enthusiastic ones thrust both hands into the red liquid before grabbing their weapons.

Remembering the last attack, Pronos decided he didn't need to join them after all. He hefted the bag in his hand, judging the weight and trying to estimate the amount of coin inside. He could afford to be patient a little while longer.

<==|====|==>

Arcanth Z'taes seemed delighted to see Karux and his tireav on the next spring and hurried out to meet them as soon as he heard they had arrived at Korion-Diochis. He stood at the gate smiling at the straggling line of reavers gathering on the road. "I see your promise of many reavers was no exaggeration, nor were your wooden poles. Come see what they've done to my fields."

Z'taes took Karux on a long and rambling tour of his fields, describing in detail the types of crops grown, how well they had grown in the past and how much better they had done with his poles in the ground. He quoted numbers of vadhs and salks like a merchant standing on the docks buying and selling goods before they were even unloaded. "Come," he urged after some time, "let us return and refresh ourselves. I don't know if we can fit everyone within the korion's walls, but we should be able to accommodate most of them."

"Perhaps we can rotate a number of them in and out of the korion and have the extra help your men stand guard at their watch fires," Karux suggested.

"And excellent idea!"

They feasted that night and rested the next day while the tacarchs made plans for the assault on the gob-bocari hollows.

"Why do this at dawn?" Karux asked.

"The gobos are most active at dawn and dusk. During the day they hide and they have an unaccountable ability to not be seen. One can easily walk right past one and mistake it for a rock or a plant, even on close examination."

"So are they less likely to do so at dawn or dusk?"

"Yes, but they are also more dangerous. Not as dangerous as at full dark, mind you, but dangerous enough."

"So how should we do this?" Karux asked.

Z'taes took a goatskin and a piece of charred wood and sketched out a fan-shaped series of hills. "I'll place my men along the tops of these hills along with their dogs." He marked a line across the narrow point of the fan. "We'll drive the beasts down into the hollows where your spears will be waiting. With a little luck you should be able to catch them all on the ends of your spears."

"How many do you think there are?"

Z'taes shrugged. "There is no telling. Likely hundreds, perhaps thousands."

Before the dawn of the third day, Z'taes had stationed his men along the tops of the hills and waited while Karux and Garanth got their men in position. The sky had begun to lighten though the sun was not yet up when they determined they were ready. They told a runner who raced off into the darkness.

"So when do they begin?"Garanth asked after several minutes of waiting.

"They said we would know," Karux replied.

They waited another minute or two and then Garanth asked. "Is that a light?"

A light flickered at the top of a hill and soon more lights appeared. In the distance, the baying of dogs startled flocks of birds who took flight from the tree-choked spaces between the hills.

"Ready spears! Ready shields!" Garanth called out and the line of men before him straightened and seemed to hunker down a bit.

More time passed. The baying of hounds drew closer and more birds took to wing.

"That was disappointing," one of the reavers said loudly enough his voice carried from the front line.

"Quiet!" a rough-voiced daikon shouted.

Trees and bushes began to shake violently as if an invisible storm were passing through. First hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands of short mud-colored figures came running and leaping from the woods into the cleared area of the flat lands. A shiver ran through the line of men. "Plant your spears!" Garanth called out.

The second line shoved their short double-headed spears into the ground within reaching distance and braced their long spears on the shoulders of the shield fighters on the front line. Their short spears were only to be used if the front line was overrun and the long spears became useless in the crush of bodies. At that point they would move up and reinforce the front line.

Wordless high pitched gibbering shrieks echoed across the empty space as a dark tide of the beasts rolled and tumbled toward them.

"Ready throwing spears,"Garanth called and the third row, having already planted their short double-headed spears prepared one of several light throwing spears.

Garanth waiting until they were at the edge of the furthest throwing range and cried out,"Throw!"

The spears launch into the air and came down on the horde of gob-bocari, pinning hundreds of them to the ground and tripping up many charging behind, but it didn't even slow down the tide of teeth and claws racing toward them.

"Ready! Throw!" Garanth called out and another flight of spears was in the air. They came down as the first of the gob-bocari crashed into the shield fighters who slashed and stabbed with their swords. The back row launched a last flight of spears, then picked up their double-headed spears and spread out, prepared to deal with any gob-bocari who made it past the first two lines.

The gibbering shrieks of the gob-bocari shifted into higher screams of pain as they began to die in increasing numbers yet still they pressed against the shield wall like a rising ocean tide.

"Hold! Hold!" Garanth shouted, as the wall buckled and gob-bocari spilled through. The second line ignored the first of these, jabbing over the shoulders of the shield fighters, creating a maze of sharp points that had to first be navigated before the gob-bocari ever saw the first row.

The creatures seemed to not even recognize the threat those weapons posed. They threw themselves onto the spears with such abandon that, burdened by the weight of their corpses, the men could not shake them off. The second row was increasingly forced to drop their long spears, grab their short spears and move up to reinforce the front line.

Those gob-bocari that got through seemed most concerned with simply getting past the tireav. They ran, ducking and dodging between legs like greased pigs, only fighting when blocked by a reaver. Then they would bite and claw like an enraged cat. The back row of the tireav ran back and forth, slashing and stabbing with their double-headed spears and Garanth watched, nodding his head approvingly as any gob-bocari who succeeded in getting through the first two lines were cut down.

The gob-bocari, however, just kept coming. All the long spears were dropped as the numbers piled up on the front line. A number of the creatures, first in ones and twos, then in handfuls began to slip through the last line and scamper away into the wilderness. The entire tireav was about to be overrun by sheer numbers.

Karux turned to Garanth. "Did you have a plan for this situation?"

Garanth ground his teeth. "No."

Men on the front line began to go down beneath the flood of gob-bocari.

A discordant high pitched shriek echoed across the flat lands from somewhere overhead.

The gob-bocari scattered like a flock of frightened starlings, a few brushing past Garanth as they sped away.

An enormous shadow sailed overhead.

Garanth looked up and screamed so loudly the words tore at his throat. "Don't move!"

An enormous draek swooped down and scooped up a dozen fleeing figures in four giant clawed feet. Garanth froze in stunned amazement as it shoved fistfuls of gob-bocari into a long mouth of serrated teeth, spears snapping from gobo corpses as it chewed. It circled with another terrifying shriek that made one's feet want to move on their own. Attracted by the movement, it swept over the littered field, chasing the stragglers southwards, diving and rising and circling in its pursuit.

When the draek had shrunk in the distance to the size of a large buzzard, Z'taes' men cautiously crept from the woods. Garanth's men searched the battlefield, collecting their wounded and finishing off any gob-bocari still breathing.

"Keep one alive for me," Karux called out. "That was half the reason for this exercise."

"Did you lose any men?" Z'taes asked as he strode over the bodies toward Garanth.

"Only one that I know of. Looks like one of the gobos ripped his throat out with its teeth. There are others, however, who are badly wounded and may not live."

"I'll attend to them." Karux walked toward the area where the wounded were being treated.

"Be sure to wash their wounds," Z'taes called out. "They bear a poison which causes their wounds to putrefy."

Karux waved back over his shoulder that he'd heard.

"I apologize for this," Z'taes said.

"Why?" Garanth asked.

"There were far more of them than I imagined."

"You had no way to know."

Z'taes shook his head. "I would not have had your men stand before that wave of teeth and claws had I known."

Garanth chuckled. "Many of those men have stood before angorym and charging drwg."

"I wondered why they did not turn and run. I fear my own men would have dropped their spears and fled."

"You do that before a charging drwg, you won't get far."

"If not for that draek..."

"Are they all that big here? The largest I've seen up north was the size of a big dog."

"No," Z'taes said. "Ours are rarely even half that size. That monster had to come up from further south. I fear they've discovered the gob-bocari make a good food source."

Garanth watched Karux move among the wounded. "If he can get his hands on a few live gob-bocari and learn their secrets, he may be able to find a way to drive them all away."