Winter was in full force before Apaidia saw the western shore of the Pardos River. She had long ago traded away all the money and trinkets the strange street people of Mari had given her. Starving exhausted and half-frozen, she stumbled within sight of the river bank. Three people were climbing out of a small rowboat onto a small stone landing, unloading large packs as if starting a long trip. Apaidia stumbled down the slope to the river bank and hobbled forward, crying out in a frost-cracked voice. "Help. Help me, please! Help."

The three passengers lifted their packs and hurried away with barely a backward glance. The boat's owner sat and watched her trip down the slope to the shore.

"Please, you have to help me! Please take me to Nur."

"You going into Nur? Most people are paying to get smuggled out."

"Please, I've been lost in the wilderness for so long."

"Have anything to trade?"

"No. I've had to give away everything I own."

The boatman eyed her ragged cloak and the rags wrapped around her feet and signed. "I'm going back anyway. Come along. Get in."

Apaidia fought back tears. "Thank you! May the High One bless you." She climbed into the boat.

"It may be hard to get along in Nur without nothing to trade, especially with the occupation. Of course, being a woman, I suppose you always have something to offer if you're not too picky."

Apaidia shuddered. "What occupation?"

"The oracle of the north's returned and taken over the city. Looks like this time he means to stay."

"Karux?"

"What?"

"Is the oracle's name Karux?

"Maybe. I don't know. I've also heard the name Garanth. I try and steer clear of the Har-Torans."

Garanth. It was a name she hadn't thought of in some time. Having raised Andral since infancy, she occasionally wondered what it might have been like for Charissa to give birth to two children and lose them. She knew that even though Andral was not her child by birth, Apaidia would still hate to lose him. She might have almost felt sorry for what happened to Charissa if she hadn't been so incredibly stupid as to throw away her marriage. Amantis would have happily laid the world at her feet. If it hadn't been for Charissa's love for Karux...

Apaidia found the portions of city where the invaders were camped. It turned out that widows could sometimes earn a meal cooking, washing and sewing for the reavers, though some reavers took advantage of women who were willing to do more to earn their keep. She suspected much of the work was thinly disguised charity. Even so, she was grateful to be more or less adopted by a group of reavers calling themselves the gobo-bashers. She only hated looking at the horrible stuffed head those savage men kept on a pole.

Her job mostly consisted of looking after a reaver named Crease who had been gravely wounded though she saw no wound on him. Crease lay on a pallet in an encampment near a steep hill at the edge of the central market square. A man called Sticker was tending a small cook fire and the two had been verbally sparing for an hour.

"I still say the tacarch didn't say no," Crease told Sticker.

Sticker jabbed the coals with a stick. "And I say the tacarch would never lie to us."

"That's just it. He didn't lie to us, but he didn't want to tell us the truth either. Otherwise he would have just said they went to Ogofdinas and it wasn't there."

Sticker sat back on his heels and glared at Crease. "Do you really think that if they found the source of eternal life in Ogofdinas they wouldn't tell us?"

Apaidia dropped the pot of water she had been carrying to the fire, but caught it before it could tip over. Sticker rushed to her side and helped her lift it over the fire.

"Maybe he has his reasons, Crease said. "The Oracle doesn't seem to want anyone to know about it."

"Tell anyone besides the Oracle, I mean. The tacarch wouldn't let Karux stop him anyway."

"I don't know," Crease admitted. "Maybe he's afraid the enemy will find out about it."

"There is no more enemy. Besides, if we all drink from the source we wouldn't have to worry about any enemy."

"But what if the enemy drank from the source too, you couldn't kill them either."

Sticker shrugged. "So, they couldn't kill us and we couldn't kill them."

"But that doesn't mean they might not stop trying," Crease shuddered on his blanket. "Can you imagine if they caught you? They could stab you with a spear, over and over and despite your wounds and losing all your blood you wouldn't die even if you wanted to..."

"So?"

"That doesn't mean it wouldn't hurt."

Sticker scowled thoughtfully.

"How's our loafer?" a new voice chuckled.

Apaidia looked up. A handsome young man stood over them. He had broad shoulders, big arms and chest, and looked as if he'd been bred for war.

"Oh, hi, tacarch. He's doing fine. He's letting me do all the work isn't he?"

Apaidia looked at him again. Garanth would be around twenty years old now, about this man's age. He even looked a little like Amantis, but with Charissa's hair. She wanted to ask him his name, but what would she say? Hi, I'm Apaidia? I was there when they cut you out of your madra?

"I am doing better," Crease said. "I'm still a little weak, but I should be on my feet soon enough. Please thank the Oracle again for healing me."

Garanth brushed off the suggestion with a good-natured wave. "I think Karux would prefer to not be reminded. He says he's rather gotten into the habit of healing you."

Apaidia mumbled an excuse and left while the others laughed and chatted. She found another reaver who looked like he was in charge and approached him. "Pardon me, dra. But may I ask you a question."

"Yes, Mahd. Ask away."

"Have you heard of a place called Ogofdinas?"

The reaver scratched his head. "You mean the city of the dwerka? That's the only Ogofdinas I know of."

"Where is it?"

The reaver shrugged. "Somewhere up north. The dwerka keep its location a secret to all but a few humans."

Apaidia smiled and nodded. "Thank you."

"You wouldn't be thinking of that rumor about the source would you?"

Apaidia shook her head. "I'm afraid I don't know very much about that."

The reaver sighed and looked around. "It would be best if people could forget such things. It's an old legend among the dwerka; apparently hundreds of generations have gone looking for it. We've got enough to worry about just finding food and shelter. We don't have time to waste on such wishful thinking."

Apaidia wandered away thinking if there were any truth at all to the rumor, Andral would need to know. She knew he intended to attack these spear men and he might get hurt. The idea frightened her. He had to be told.

Whenever she spied a knot of reavers talking together, she drifted near to learn what she could. Eventually she came across a group of men issuing orders to the others, so she walked up to the one who appeared to be most in charge. "Excuse me, dra. Can you show me where the Oracle is?"

The man who turned around, looked fierce. He was a heavyset man with a dark, thick, curly beard shot through with gray and a surprisingly soft voice. "He's very busy right now. Can I help? Are you hungry? Do you need food?"

"No, I have an important message."

"Tell me and I'll pass it along to him."

"I can't. I was told to speak to him directly."

"Told? By whom?"

"Just tell him Amantis' wife would like to speak with him. I'll wait here."

"Does he know this Amantis?"

Apaidia nodded.

With a puzzled frown, the reaver passed through the clustered warriors and entered a nearby house. A moment later he returned with a slightly younger man scowling along behind him. "Where is she?" the man asked. The reaver pointed her out to him.

"Who are you? I know you are not Charissa. Why are you here?" Karux demanded.

"Are you Karux?"

"Yes."

"I am Apaidia. I lived here with Amantis and Charissa until you came and destroyed this city."

A strange play of grief and rage flashed across his face. For a moment, he appeared unable to speak. "What do you want?"

"Did you raise Garanth?"

Karux's face darkened. "I did."

"I raised Andral."

"Who's that?"

"He was Charissa's second child."

"Were you looking to trade?" Karux sneered.

Apaidia glared at him. "I came to warn you. Andral is coming here. He's bringing a massive force of men and monsters to kill you and Garanth."

Karux looked skeptical. After waiting a moment or two, as if expecting more from her, he raised a sarcastic eyebrow. "Thanks for the warning? I hope you don't mind if we resist."

"Hmph." Apaidia turned around and stormed off. She had delivered Andral's warning and, though she had planned on staying until his reavers arrived to destroy Karux, she felt he needed to know about this source thing as soon as possible. Having already spent a few days getting to know Nur, she knew where to steal some food, a blanket and a decent pair of boots and started back out into the snow.

She found the same boatman on the near shore waiting for passengers.

"Deciding to leave already?"

"I did what I needed to do." She dropped a few kerma onto his palm.

The boatman shook them together in his hand. "You didn't do too badly. Get in and I'll take you back across."

She dragged her feet over the gunwale and he pushed the boat off, ice scraping against the sides as he poled out into deeper water. Apaidia rode in silence, simmering in outrage from Karux's dismissive arrogance. No wonder Amantis had hated him!

When the small stone landing on the other side of the Pardos arrived, the boatman hammered at the ice with an oar before helping her up out of the boat. "Good luck and fare well."

"Thank you, and in return, I would warn you to leave this city behind."

The boatman looked over his shoulder and sighed. "You are probably right. It might be best. Still, you never know what opportunities may appear in times of trouble. I think I'll wait a bit and see how things shake out."

Apaidia turned to leave. "Well, you can't say I didn't warn you."

"I hope you'll not be going far in this weather."

Apaidia thought of Andral and his army of monsters. Were they already coming this way? She smiled. "I intend to put quite a lot between me and this city."

Large fat flakes of snow began to fall.

"Well, stay warm, then."

Apaidia trudged westward. The temperature fell. She shivered through the night in a fire-less abandoned house in an abandoned village and escaped the blight on the second day. More snow had fallen overnight slowing her progress. Certain she had passed a village in this direction on the way east, she plodded mechanically onward, aware only of each snowdrift before her which she must either plow through or circle around. Over time she ceased to feel anything, even the cold.

After endless hours of slogging under a gray sky, she happened to notice a column of smoke rising above the horizon. She veered toward it, unsure she was even moving until a shifting line of gray shapes appeared and drew closer. Tripping on an unseen obstacle in the snow, she fell and struggled weakly to get up. Unexpected warmth washed over her and she lay in the snow blinking sleepily up at a soft gray sky which settled like a blanket over the endless bed of snow.

A shadow moved across the filtered sun and she blinked up at a silhouette of someone standing over her.

"Madra?"

"Is that you, Andral?"

"Yes. What are you doing here?"

"I took your message to Karux."

"Did he understand his doom is approaching? Did you see fear in his eyes?"

"No. I don't think he understood."

Andral growled. "What an irritating man. If he had begged, I would have given him a swift and dignified death. Now, he's going to have to suffer until he understands."

"That's good," Apaidia sighed. The world was fading to gray and she was getting very sleepy.

"Why did you come back? I thought you were going to wait for me in Nur."

"I had to tell you about the source."

"The source of what?"

"The source of the river Pardos."

"Why?"

"They said that if you drink from it you will never die."

"Is that true?"

"I don't know, but apparently Karux has hidden it so no one else can find it."

Andral laughed. "What a great fool he is! In his place, I would have made my soreav drink from it. Imagine an army of deathless warriors."

"Perhaps he fears his reavers."

"If he fears his own warriors, he is already defeated." Andral smiled. "Oh I hope he's drunk from those waters. I will have such fun questioning him."

"I'm going to sleep now."

Andral stared down at her. "You do that."

"You go on. I'll just rest here."

"Goodbye, madra."

"Goodnight, my son."

Andral walked away. In the distance she could hear him bellow to his soreav. "We go on to Nur!"

Feet tramped past. First came men with their hopeless downcast shuffle, then the drwg straining against their chains, dragging the angorym behind. One of the giant wolves sniffed at her, snarling as a giant glob of saliva fell from its snout on her face. A shout and a rattle of chains and the drwg moved on. Silence fell and Apaidia began to drift off into sleep, but before it could claim her, another shadow fell across her face. She labored to lift her eyelids. A gob-bocari leaned over her smiling, its tusks gleaming white through the gray. Another go-bocari appeared next to the first and it was joined by another and another.

"Go away," she whispered.

The gob-bocari looked at each other and made their strange turkey-like noises. Their grins broadening, baring long rows of sharp teeth. Then they fell upon her and, for a few horrific moments, she was wide awake.