"But won't you call the spirits for your madra?"

Pronos took a sip of beer and brushed back the cloth covering the entrance to Andral's "communing" room. Andral sat on the floor before his little table of stones with Apaidia and a customer across from him. The twelve-year-old boy was the size of full grown man though he had a youth's scowl on his boyish face. Pronos thought he saw the first shadow of hair on Andral's upper lip though the incense filtered light made his view uncertain. Andral would not remain a mere boy much longer.

"No," Andral said.

"But Mahd Tora needs to find her goat. It's important to her," Apaidia protested.

"I don't need the bugs." Andral tapped his head. I can hear the spirits right here.

"How stupid can she be?" Pronos thought as surprise rippled across Apaidia's face. It was obvious to him that Andral had had some sort of falling out with the insects. Pronos took another sip. Andral had, however, fallen in with some other sort of spirit that seemed more useful when it was cooperating.

"Then can you tell her where it is?" Apaidia asked.

"Her neighbor, Mahd Shihar stole it, cooked it and ate it."

"No! I don't believe it. She wouldn't do that to me." Mahd Tora said.

"You'll find its bones in the kitchen fire."

"Bones in the fireplace isn't very helpful," Apaidia suggested. "Bones could belong to any animal."

Andral scrunched up his face, eyes closed. "Its skin is soaking in a bucket behind her house. You should be able to recognize it by its markings."

"Well!" Mahd Tora said. "I don't know what to think."

Pronos let the curtain fall into place. Andral's relationship with the spirit world didn't matter now. It was barely enough to pay their expenses. The funding for the city guard, however, was paying very well. He had squirreled away a nice fat bag of coins Apaidia didn't know about. In fact there seemed little reason to stay with her and the brat any longer. He should find his own place in which to live and let those two continue to play oracle in an otherwise disinterested town.

A heavy pounding on the door interrupted the conversation.

"Quiet out there!" Apaidia shrieked. "We need peace to commune with the spirits!"

"Tacarch! Tacarch! We need you! It's a disaster!" a frantic voice called from outside.

Pronos strolled over and opened the door. One of his new recruits leaned panting against the doorframe, having evidently run over from Sheider's tavern.

"Our guards... attacked... by a mob... several killed."

"Slow down," Pronos urged. "Catch your breath. Who was attacked? One of our guards?"

"All of them. All except us new recruits and the trainers."

"Our guards were attacked?" Pronos stepped outside and slammed the door behind him. "Come." They headed back to Sheider's tavern. The tavern had become their unofficial office over the weeks as that was also the place where many of the elders and the merchants backing the guard congregated. Inside, in place of the usual gathering of customers, guardsmen were laid out on all the tables. Several were covered in bloody sheets that would most likely become their burial shrouds. "Who did this?" Pronos demanded of the room.

The tavern keeper's wife and daughter were assisting a lone yotare and some stray new recruits in cleaning and tending to the wounded. One of the recruits turned to Pronos. "It was a mob. No one knows any names."

The merchant Raeos and the tailor Okuvas entered the tavern and froze in the doorway at the site before them. Raeos was the merchant who the council had appointed to work with Pronos in establishing the guard. Okuvas was the man appointed to collect the money for the guard's use and to supervise its expenses. Pronos turned on them. "This is the council's fault."

"How?" Raeos asked.

"What do you mean?" Okuvas said.

"How many times have I asked you to get the funds we need, funds for men and spears."

"But we got you the spears," Okuvas objected.

"Not what I asked for! Not enough!" Pronos swept a hand over the dead and wounded. "We barely had enough to equip a hand of hands. Our recruits are still practicing with wooden poles! This would not have happened if you had given me what I asked for."

Raeos gave him a conciliatory nod, "I'll speak with the council of elders. I think we can make a case."

"I'm going to need ten times what I asked for before."

"Ten times!" Okuvas yelped. "But before you said you only needed—"

"That was before you let the guard be wiped out. It's going to be much harder to recruit than before. Besides, the mob is clearly larger and angrier than we'd anticipated. It will be difficult to keep the city from burning now."

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

Kerwyn's Hill looked like an anthill that had been kicked over. Hundreds of reavers swarmed the base of its walls, filled the ditch and struggled up the hill on which it stood. Men shouted as spears flew back and forth clattering against the walls where stuck out like the quills of an angry hedgehog. Having left most of their men behind a tree-lined rise, Garanth and his tacarchs stole closer to observe the enemy.

"They don't seem to be keeping a watch," Derson, a tall narrow-faced tacarch in Garanth's command, said.

"They can smell victory," Toranth, on Garanth's right spat in disgust. "I'm amazed those gates are holding. I don't expect they'll last long."

"No," Garanth agreed. "If we're going to save them, we'll have to act fast."

"Save them?" Derson said. "They must out-number us three-to-one. If we try to save them, who will save us?"

Garanth leaned to Toranth. "Think we can sneak our men south along the river bank without being noticed?"

Toranth gave Garanth a nod. "My men can. I can't vouch for the ones from Korion-Amelein."

"I assure you we won't be the ones to give the tireav away," Derson said.

"Good." Garanth remembered the fight with the gob-bocari. "I'm thinking if we hit them hard and fast and catch them by surprise, we might just drive them off."

"Until they re-group," Toranth warned.

"We'll have to pursue them if they flee, wound as many as we can in their flight, drive them back to the lower passes."

"If," Toranth said.

"All the way to Nur?" Derson asked.

"If we can. I don't want them coming back."

"I just hope we don't find more spears waiting for us if we chase them down there." Toranth left with a warning look and slipped back to rejoin his men.

Garanth did the same, explaining to his men the need for speed and stealth. Breaking their forces into hands of hands, they regrouped in the woods south of Kerwyn's Hill and crept to within a hundred yards of the main gate. A loud crack and a roar from the attackers warned them the gate had been breached. Nur's forces poured in through the gap. Garanth traded nods with his tacarchs and they charged forward without a sound.

As they neared the edge of the attacker's forces, an enemy reaver sent up a warning cry. Garanth's forces roared back and more of the enemy's heads snapped around in surprise. Garanth's tireav smashed into them, catching many of them off guard. The men on the walls cheered as their spears thudded into unprotected backs and sides. Enemy warriors tried to step back and prepare a defense, but Garanth's forces continued pushing forward forcing a wave of the enemy to tumble into the ditch, knocking down fellow warriors struggling on the slope.

Cries of surprise and dismay rose up among Nur's forces, alerting the attackers near the gate. They paused, hesitating to rush into the village and be cut off from the rest of their forces. At the same time, the defenders within Kerwyn's Hill left the walls, cut down the first wave of attackers and rushed out through the shattered timbers of the gate.

The men near the gate broke first. They dropped their spears, turned around and ran back through their fellows. Rising fear rippled through the tireav in their wake. Men on the western outer edge ran and soon each man was trying to abandon his comrade before his comrade could abandon him.

Garanth's forces gave chase but were quickly out-distanced. The fleeing warriors tossed down their spears and shed their encumbering armor of bronze and leather as they ran. Garanth's men got as close as they could and launched their spears after the fleeing tireav but most landed short.

"Think we'll see them again?" Toranth asked, watching the last of them flee southwards.

Garanth turned back to the village. "With any luck, they'll carry that fear all the way to Nur."

Macander, his tacarchs following, strode out of the village grinning. "You're arrival could not have been any better timed!" He caught Garanth up in a bear hug.

Garanth laughed. "You looked like you could use a little help."

Tephra and the other tacarchs pounded him on the back until it became hard to breath.

"Glad you're back," a relieved looking Tosser clasped his hand. "I don't think I was meant to be a tacarch."

Macander clapped a meaty hand on his shoulder. "From what I hear, you did quite well."

Garanth slapped Tosser on the other shoulder. "Guess you're stuck with the job."

"Good thing too, we need more leaders," Daikon Knuckles said. He walked up leaning on Sticker, clutching at his bloodied side while a bandaged Crease followed behind.

"Knuckles! You're hurt," Garanth said.

"It's nothing to worry about."

"And Crease!"

Knuckles chuckled. "You know Crease. Always gets wounded, always manages to survive."

Garanth sighed. "That's good, I was afraid we were about to lose one of you bashers."

Knuckles' expression grew serious. "We did. We lost Boots."

Garanth started to ask how, but noticed the bodies scattered along the wall and realized it didn't really matter.