The attack came around mid-day. The tireav lined up, rushed the edge of the ditch and hurled their spears at the men on the walls. At the same time, a hand of men flung themselves bodily at the gate, but the heavy timbers and the dwerkan metal hinges didn't even register a complaint from the impact.

The defenders flung their own spears at the attackers and dropped rocks on the heads of the men outside the gate. One defender took a spear to the head and fell cartwheeling from the top of the wall. A handful of others took lesser wounds, but by far, the attackers received the worst of the exchange as the defenders' falling spears could hardly miss finding some target among the densely packed men—and an exchange it was, as the defenders quickly ran out of spears and resorted to collecting the enemies' weapons and throwing them back. Sticker, who had moved up to the western wall, just south of the gate, leaned out over the parapet and snatched up a spear stuck in the wood. With much jeering, he flung it at the enemy and received an answering flight of spears of which three or four more stuck in the timbers within arm's reach, adding to his arsenal.

The attacks came in surges like waves washing up against the gate and retreating to regroup before rushing forward again. After each attack, the farmers would run out into the common area and gather the spent spears which rose from the ground like the quills of an irritated hedgehog. Collecting them by the armloads, they passed them back to the men on the walls.

The attackers learned not to spread out, but to concentrate on the main approach. Close ranks of men hurled spears at the defenders, trying to force them to take shelter behind their wall and prevent them from attacking the men digging under the gate. As soon as light and ankles were visible under the gate, however, the farmers on the inside thrust their spears under. The fight between spears and shovels greatly slowed their work.

The defenders hoped the reavers of Nur would ultimately give up and go away. Instead, they withdrew to the fields and set up camp, casually destroying the crops they said they'd come to save and share. That night, after setting up guards on the wall, the three tacarchs met in Macander's tent to discuss the enemy and make plans.

"Thank the Mountain the walls were well designed and the gates well constructed," Tephra said. "Even with the farmers' help, we wouldn't have stood a chance against those numbers."

"I'm worried the walls aren't high enough." Macander scratched at his beard as if it irritated him. "All they have to do is construct a score of ladders and they can simply go over them."

Garanth shrugged. "They'd have to go pretty far to find trees tall and straight enough to bridge both the ditch and the walls. No, I'm more worried about the food."

"What about the food?" Tephra asked.

"Without access to the river and fishing, we may not have enough to last until the harvest. And even if we do, they could simply eat it and wait for us to starve."

Tephra and Macander frowned as if his suggestion were a new and unpleasant thought.

"Would they have the patience for that?" Tephra asked.

"It would be an easy risk-free way to defeat us," Garanth said.

Macander sighed. "If they don't attack tomorrow, we'll know they either intend to wait us out or send for reinforcements."

Tephra shook his head. "I never thought I'd be hoping to be attacked tomorrow."

The defending reavers were on the wall early the next morning. They chanted and jeered at the enemy, challenging them to attack their mighty wall. Their overconfidence made Garanth nervous; it seemed an invitation to disaster. The other two tacarchs each stood motionlessly at their section of the wall, silently watching the enemies. Garanth wondered if they had the same churning in the gut he had.

The enemy rose and milled around their cooking fires preparing their breakfasts. Groups of armed men walked out to relieve the sentries at the edges of the field, but the bulk of the force did not seem to be in a hurry to prepare for more fighting. Time passed and the sun climbed to late morning when a small group of reavers gathered around a man wearing expensive robes and took the southern road to Nur.

Garanth and Macander exchanged glances across the span of the gate. Neither one had to say anything. The enemy was sending for reinforcements.

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

Andral found Sarco in his shop which comprised the entire lower floor of his house. His shutters were folded down into counters over which he was busy selling sausages and other cheap meats. His better and more expensive cuts hung behind him on lines from the ceiling.

"Ah, Andral!" Sarco smiled as he took some coins from a customer and handed others back. "I'm glad you're here. I've been too busy to attend to the animals out back and my no-good nephews are nowhere to be seen. I know you can handle the goats, will you start with them? We also have a sow to butcher, but I want you to wait for me before you kill her. They can get a little fussy."

Though Andral was only twelve years old, he was nearly as tall and as strong as Sarco. He nodded and hurried inside Sarco's shop, grabbing the various knives he needed to bleed and butcher the animals and stepped out into the backyard. Greeted with the rich smell of blood and decay, the sharp stink of urine and the musk of animals and their feces, Andral paused to appreciate the unique power of the place and noticed the line of people along the railed fence watching him.

They all wore ragged clothes and had the weathered look of people who lived their whole lives under the sun. Most of them were old and all of them were strange in some way. A blind woman with frizzy gray hair called out to him. "The way has been opened! Seek the source in the east!"

"They are calling you!" a scrawny old man lost in the clothes of a larger man said. "They are calling you! Can you hear them call your name?"

"Eternal life!" shouted a middle-aged woman who was about his mother's age and who looked like she was wearing the ragged old dress his madra had cast off. "Eternal life to the lord of the land!"

Andral didn't know what to do, so he tried not to look at them as he led out the first goat. His madra had pressed into him how he was supposed to act around others while being an oracle, but he wasn't sure if this was the same thing. He straddled the goat and positioned the bowl between his feet. Taking up the knife he paused and looked up to the sky. "Spirits, attend me!" Andral looked over his shoulder, half-expecting the beetles to rush toward him, but they remained in a trembling line at the edge of the yard as if some invisible force prevented them from approaching.

He put the knife to the goat's neck and cut. The goat tried to leap back, but he clamped his legs together harder. The crowd at the fence leaned in against the rail as he put the knife down on the table behind him and picked up the bowl catching the blood.

A sudden pressure came down from above. He felt a presence as if someone were behind him, leaning over him. He looked over both shoulders and saw nothing, though the presence remained close enough to raise the hairs on the back of his neck. He felt as if the back of his head were open and something else were looking through his eyes.

"Do you hear that?" one of the old women asked.

"They're here!" an old man added.

Andral heard distant laughter like the rumble of thunder somewhere in the sky behind him.

The goat slumped to the ground. Something like steam rose up from the bowl of warm blood and Andral sensed its rising power. He smiled. The laughter seemed to promise the power was his alone. The beetles trembled at the edge of the yard.

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

A dozen men without a single torch whispered together on the southern wall of Kerwyn's Hill at night.

"I still don't see why you have to go instead of Macander," Tosser hissed.

Garanth smiled back. The tacarchs had argued for most of the evening before forcing Macander to agree that the village had a greater need of him defending it and that Garanth would be just as successful. "Don't worry, you'll do fine. The gobo-bashers know you're in charge until I return. Just ask Macander if you need help."

Tosser stared at the trees silhouetted in the night. "If the enemy decides to attack before you get back, there'll be little time for chatting."

Macander flung the coil of rope over the wall and he, Tephra and Shihar held on to the other end. "Better get going. You don't want to be anywhere near here when the sun comes up."

"Yes." Garanth tossed his short spear over the wall, grabbed the rope and threw one leg over. He paused to look fruitlessly into the darkness below him, then slid his other leg over. He climbed down, hand over hand, and dropped the final few feet to the dew-dampened grass below. He heard the hiss of the rope being drawn up and a whispered good luck from above.

"May the mountain watch over you," Macander called down softly.

Garanth fumbled around in the darkness until he found his spear, then stumbled down into the ditch surrounding the korion. He tried to climb up the other side slowly, for fear of sentries the men of Nur may have posted, but no matter how slowly he crept along, every step seemed to bring the snapping of twigs and the rustle of clinging brush. He had just made it to the far side of the ditch and had passed into a relatively cleared area when he heard a sound.

"Hist! Did you hear that?"

Garanth froze and held his breath. He peered into the darkness trying to determine from which direction the voice had come.

"What?" a second voice replied.

"It sounded like someone's out there moving around."

The crickets around him had fallen silent, a sure sign exposing his location. As he held his breath, they started chirping again.

"What? Do you think the locals are trying to sneak out and run away?" the second voice asked.

"Wouldn't you?"

"So much the better if they did. More land and fewer mouths is what we need. I don't know why we even offered to let them join the Collective."

They were very close. Garanth tried to ready his spear which caught on some brush. They abruptly stopped talking and he froze. A minute later the crickets started chirping again.

"Let's check around the corner," the first voice said. "If anyone's trying to sneak out, they'll probably do it on the river side."

Garanth waited until they had moved off, then hurried away. He headed south and kept along the river until he found a small no-name settlement, little more than a handful of fishermen huts along the banks of the river. He searched around until he found a small wicker and hide boat covered in pitch. He located an oar, pushed the coracle out into the water and climbing in. It rocked dangerously and he nearly dropped the oar snatching at his spear before it could fall into the water. He wasn't sure which would be the more disastrous to lose.

Dawn had already starting to lighten the sky by the time he made it out into the middle of the river. The current quickly carried him past Korion-Iscuron and he was nearing Nur and the center of the blight by the time he made it to the far side. He finally pulled ashore on an empty muddy bank and started moving eastward toward, he hoped, Karux and his tireavs.