The evacuation was not going well. Karux stood in the center of the market square and as far as he could see, people were just running around in confusion. "Z'taes, why aren't I seeing people assembled here and ready to leave?"

"You! Reaver! Stop that man and bring him back with the others!" Z'taes turned toward Karux. "They keep running back for things and missing family members. It's like trying to herd cats."

"Send your men to the docks. Have them spread out and go house by house, street by street and start flushing them this way. I don't care if you have to set their accursed houses on fire. Drive them to the market square. We should have already left."

"Yes, Oracle!"

Z'taes ran off calling to his tacarchs and Karux tried to wait patiently while Labrose yelled at the people, forcing them into lines, chasing down those who dried to leave. In the distance, drwg howled, reavers shouted and spears clattered. The fighting had started and might well catch them before they could flee. Was it foolish trying to save these people? They seemed to be doing everything they could to get caught up in the fighting. Perhaps he should just leave them behind.

Flames shot up in the west. At first Karux thought Z'taes might have taken his instructions a little too literally, but no, Z'taes had gone south. West was where the fighting had started and it didn't look like things were going well. A bunch of frightened citizens rushed toward them from the western part of town.

"Please, dra, protect us," a middle-aged woman with two young children and several youths rushed up to him. "The enemy has come upon us."

"That's what we've been trying to do," Karux said. "If you stay here, we are getting a group together to leave the city."

"Leave? And go where?" A middle-aged man who might have been her husband asked.

"Har-Tor."

"Do they have food and heat?" an older woman asked. "Is it safe?"

"Yes," Karux said. "They have supplies and it's much safer than here."

"Well, can we go now then?" asked a younger man.

"We're waiting for the rest of the citizens."

"Can you tell us the way?" another man asked. "We can go on ahead."

Karux shrugged. "If you wish. Just head north on the river road. When you get to the ford at N'shia-Potoma, turn west. You should see Har-Tor's walls rising up from the hills."

"Thank you. Thank you!" The citizens hurried away to the northern gate.

Typical, Karux thought. Can't get them to leave their homes, but once they get the idea in their heads to go, can't get them to wait for the rest.

Time passed and morning slid into afternoon. The fighting grew closer and more frightened citizens appeared in the square. Some waited, others left for Har-Tor alone or in small groups. More fires sprung up and Karux could only guess at their source. Finally Z'taes men appeared pushing a wave of citizens before him.

"Is that all?" Karux asked.

"As far as I can tell," Z'taes said. He looked around at the people in the square. "I would have thought there would be more."

Karux shrugged. "Some have gone on ahead. I'm sure we'll encounter them on the road if they haven't gotten lost."

A loud crash from the west signaled the collapse of a house. Sparks rose up like scowling red eyes in the black columns of smoke. The fire was spreading.

Karux turned toward Z'taes. "We must get these people moving."

Z'taes shouted at his men. "Tacarchs get your reavers moving. We're leaving now."

Once again they were abandoning the city of Nur. Karux began to wonder if the city itself were cursed. As they passed through the northern gate, he paused and stared thoughtfully over the frozen river. If they left and withdrew all their forces, the enemy could easily spread out across the whole southern valley.

"And what would you have them do?" his father had asked all those years ago when Karux had tried to warn their village elders this day would come. His father's voice came back to him as if he had only just spoken yesterday.

"We must gather all the tribes and prepare them for the conflict to come," Karux had said.

"All the tribes? Would you have them just leave their homes and go...go where? Come here?"

The dwerka had transformed Har-Tor into one of their underground cities. They now had the space, but they had to warn the other koria. Karux looked around at the narrow pass between the hills and the river. If that space could be blocked and the river weren't frozen, the enemy would have a hard time following.

"Are you coming?" Z'taes asked as the last of the reavers and citizens disappeared up the narrow road.

"There is a passage north through the hills is there not?"

"Yes, a narrow and treacherous one. I wouldn't like to take it during the summer much less during an icy winter."

"Do you think we should guard it against the enemy?"

Z'taes shook his head. "Only if we were planning to hold them here. It would only take a handful of men, but blocking this road would probably take more men than we've got, judging by the strength of their drwg and angorym and whatever else they've got.

"We've got to warn the rest of the valley," Karux said. "When you get to Kerwyn's Hill, have them send runners to all the other koria in the valley."

"That would take months," Z'taes objected, "even in good weather."

"I think we can keep them busy until spring," Karux said. "We'll need to set up a rotation of tireavs as we did in the north."

"Think we could get the dwerka to help?"

Karux shook his head. "Not as long as there are still men in their tireavs."

"But how are you going to block the road?"

"You leave that to me. Just go and warn the other koria."

With a reluctant clasping of hands, Z'taes turned and left. Labrose was already long gone.

Karux shifted his awareness to the world of shapes. He could see the sheet of ice resting upon the river and began calling the names of fire and heat. It required a massive amount of karis, more then he'd ever tried to gather before, but as he collapsed the schemas he heard the explosive crack of ice breaking up. In moments the ice roadway had shattered into pieces which melted into the warmer river water beneath. He turned his attention to the pontoon bridge which had already been damaged by the ice and quickly reduced it to splinters. Then he turned his attention to the rock outcropping that rose up on the west side of the river road. I may not be the "lord/husband/king/body" you requested, Karux thought, remembering the n'phesh's demands, but you are going to listen to me.

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

"There's more coming from the south!" Crease shouted as he ran back to their waiting line of spears, the side of his face covered in his own blood.

Garanth thought the wound looked worse than it was, but nearly half his remaining reavers held wounded comrades draped across their shoulders. He gestured at one of his tacarchs. "Send a couple of hands to help them out."

They were beginning to run low on men. The tireavs had dragged out their retreat all day. The market square was nearly at their backs, barely a block away. If they were pushed into that large open space, the enemy could easily surround them and finish them off.

The sky was also beginning to darken. They needed to find a secure place soon. The darkness would not inconvenience the angorym and drwg, but his men would find it hard it hard to defend themselves. The drwg alone would tear them apart.

Knuckles lumbered up, gasping. "We need to pull back."

"We just got here," another daikon observed. "If we keep pulling back this way we'll be in full retreat."

South of their position, a drwg broke in among Tekmos' men. It knocked down several reavers, ripping out throats and entrails and shook its head, spraying blood and gobbets of flesh all around it.

"Crease, tell them to come north!" He slapped the stunned Sticker on the shoulder, "Go tell Anankaes to retreat east along the north side of the city. We'll follow behind him. We're going to have to go around the market."

The reavers hurried, fearing the enemy would race through the market square and cut them off from the north gate. Of course once they were through the north gate and out in the open, they would be lucky to survive even as far as Kerwyn's Hill much less make it all the way back to Har-Tor. Questioning howls rose up from the drwg in other parts of the city. It seemed some of the invaders hadn't figured out where their spears had gone, which meant they hadn't yet concentrated their forces, and that mean the fighting would grow immesurably worse when they did.

Garanth led his men northwards in Anankaes' wake. Hope that they could at least make it to the gate before the big fight started, grew with each step. As the north gate came within sight, the hillside leaped under their feet. Houses collapsed around them and a massive cliff face broke away from the river-facing stone outcropping with a loud crack. The rocks crashed down in cloud of dust, forming an immense pile which blocked their escape.

The tireav stopped, each man gaping in stunned disbelief as the rocks began moving under their own power, piling on top of each other. A wall of stone formed itself, stretching from the broken cliff to the river. Then the rocks melted together into a solid smooth surface of stone.

"By the mountain!" Slick exclaimed.

A shadowy figure approached through the dissipating dust cloud at a steady lurch. Karux wore a grim but satisfied smile.

Garanth pushed past the startled reavers and stood nose to nose with Karux. "You did this didn't you?"

"Of course. How else would it have happened?"

"You cut off our escape!"

"I'm protecting the southern valley from the invaders."

Garanth gestured at the stone wall where the gate used to be. "You could have waited until we were through."

"I need you to block the other passage out of here."

"What passage out?

Karux pointed at a narrow track, little more than a series of hand and footholds in the hills to the north.

"That doesn't go anywhere, does it?"

"It runs along the top of the ridge," Karux said, "then down to the river through a narrow defile just north of Korion-Tamia."

Garanth shook his head. "And you want us to get the whole tireav through that?"

Karux shrugged. "It's either that, or stand here and face the angorym when they arrive."

"Anankaes, how are your men?" Garanth snapped.

"We're in pretty good shape. We didn't see too much of the enemy on the north side."

"Good. You take the rearguard. Send the wounded to the front."

Anankaes and his men pushed past the line of men while others dragged the wounded forward.

Garanth gestured at the wounded. "Get moving. They'll be here any moment."

The wounded had barely been dragged up the hill when the enemy found them. Jammed together in the narrow track between the hill and the northern houses, only a few combatants could face each other at the same time. The drwg, unfortunately, had no trouble following their trail. Anankaes' men fought them off while the human and angorym elements of the enemy's forces mostly got in each other's way.

The light had nearly failed by the time Garanth's tireav began to climb the hill. Anankaes' tireav remained below alone holding back the enemy while a steady trickle of their wounded were passed up the line. A number of the reavers threw rocks from the cliff side in an attempt to support their fellows below. It was almost completely dark by the time the last of the tireavs climbed into the hills.

Garanth paused on a widened ledge and confronted Karux. "It will be full night in about thirty seconds at which point we'll get to hear the sounds of the drwg eating our men in the dark. Did you have a plan for this?"

Karux gave him a sour look. "I am the oracle of Har-Tor. I'm not completely dim." With a few muttered words, a small sphere of light appeared floating over his hand. He flung it into the air where it expanded into a miniature sun, blasting out hard-edged light that sliced the night into ribbons. The line of men froze in mid-step and stared at the hills and ledges around them.

Surrounding them, as thick as flies on a juicy corpse, a thousand grinning gob-bocari crouched, their tusks flashing in the sharp light.