It took a sennight from the spring thaw before the news of the attack on Pelavale reached Nur in the south. It struck like an earthquake shaking the worldview of the entire city to its core. The angorym were more likely to be found in old wives' tales than in the lands of men. They were a thing to frighten children with so they would not stray too far from home but they were not the sort of thing an adult would normally fear. Once in a lifetime, in a hard winter, one might wander down out of the northern mountains to catch some poor lone victim or steal a few animals. If some isolated household were to be dragged away and eaten, it was the sort of story that grandfathers would tell their unbelieving grandchildren.

But then the first grim-faced and hunched-shouldered survivors trudged into the city radiating a smoldering fear that leaped from person to person like an invisible fire. The citizens rushed the markets, fighting over what desiccated food had managed to out-last the winter.

Many hid themselves in their homes, fearing an imminent attack of angorym straight out of the valley. Others re-discovered a long neglected faith and ascended the hill on the north-east side of the city to shout, sing or whisper their prayers for deliverance to the Holy Mountain.

The city elders met, as was their custom, in the market plaza between the fountain and Tonwill's ale house. Though, if the truth were told, they were closer to the ale house than the fountain. It was their practice to sit and exchange gossip until some group of citizens locked in an argument came to lay their complaints before the elders and receive their wisdom.

On this day they suffered from a lack of visitors as the chaos of the markets had ceased with the disappearance of food, and so they were forced to repeat again the rumors they had already discussed of the angorym's actions and speculate endlessly on what they might mean. They had drunk and talked themselves into a bored stupor when a young man came striding purposefully down the street.

He wore a fine linen tunic over tailored trousers and new suede shoes. In a sash tied around his waist he had tucked a ridiculously over-sized knife. Tied around his shoulders, he wore a long cloak fashioned from a shaggy black pelt. Over that a long fang dangled on a leather thong. In his hand he carried a strange short spear with extra-long sharp spearheads fashioned at both ends. The thing looked as dangerous to the wielder as the people around him, yet he carried it purposefully and planted one sharp tip confidently in the hard-packed ground as he came to a stop before the elders, presenting a strange image of both civilization and barbarity.

The elders were used to people coming up and announcing their problems but Amantis just stood waiting until their muttering ceased and one of them spoke.

"Do you have a problem we can help you with?"

"No. But I believe you do."

This got the attention of all fourteen elders. Twenty-seven eyes stared back at him from beneath furrowed or raised brows. "And what problem would that be?"

"The angorym."

"What? How do you mean?"

"Who are you?"

"Where do you come from?"

"My name is Amantis. I assist Corago the merchant in his business."

"I've heard Corago has a sharp new assistant," one elder said.

"I've heard its best to count your kerma before and after you deal with him," another frowned.

"The complaints of jealous competitors," Amantis dismissed the accusation with a casual wave of his hand.

"Are you saying you know something about the angorym?"

"I've been telling everyone this was going to happen for nearly a year now."

"I thought Corago's assistant was warning of famine" one elder suggested to another.

"And trying to run up the price of grain for a nice profit," another accused.

"The famine will come first," Amantis assured them, "then, when we are weak, the monsters will come. Corago and I are doing what we can about the first by storing as much grain as we can afford, but only you can help me deal with the second."

"Why should we believe you? How could you know this?"

A knowing smile slid across Amantis' face.

-=====|==

Everything was occurring exactly as the spirits in the stone had told him it would. Amantis looked down at his feet until he could compose himself. "When I was a child, I lived among the tribes of the northern vale. While there, as was their custom, I went on a pilgrimage to the sacred mountain. There I found a cave in the mountain itself which I entered and heard the voice of the Lord in the Mountain. He warned me of an angoran attack on that korion the winter before last and I was able to prepare reavers to meet it. The Most High also gave me a stone..." Amantis patted the small leather pouch hanging from his belt, "...with which he continues to speak with me."

The elders stared at him with mixed expressions of shock and disbelief.

"You really expect us to believe this stone told you how to kill angorym?"

"Not the stone. The Most High."

"This is outrageous," one elder sputtered.

Amantis unfastened his cloak and toss it at the nearest of the elders. It unfolded as it spun through the air like the wings of a giant black bat. It landed in the laps of three of the nearest elders, the pelt of the beast's head landing in the lap of the fourth. "This is the skin of one of the angoran's drwg." Amantis drew the long knife and held it out to another of the elders, dropping it in his hands where it landed with an unexpected weight. "And this is the knife with which it tried to kill me." He held up the fang and dangled it from the leather thong around his neck. "And this is a tooth I pulled out of his head after I killed it."

Amantis glared at them all, watching shocked disbelief shift to shocked belief. He knew they would be forced to turn to him for help since he was the only one offering any. He just had to give them the room they needed to come to that decision themselves.

"It is only a matter of time before the angorym come here to Nur. I figure you've got from nine to eighteen mahts to prepare. If you want the help of someone who has actually fought and killed an angoran, well you know where to find me." With that, Amantis took back his cloak and threw it over one shoulder. Then he took back his knife and walked away.

-=====|== 

The knock came just after the evening meal. Apaidia answered Amantis' door to find a handful of village elders waiting outside.

"May we speak with your husband?" Mosond, a wealthy shipwright and the elders' chief spokesman, asked.

"I have no husband," Apaidia smiled, but you may speak with Amantis if you like.

Their eyebrows had not yet settled before Amantis, who had been waiting for this moment, greeted them at the door.

"I take it that you have decided it would be best to be prepared?"

"Let's just say that we would like to discuss this further."

Amantis knew his modest little house would be too small to entertain his visitors and it would certainly fail to impress them. "I expect all this talking may make us dry. May I suggest we go to Destrin's for drinks?"

"Very well."

Amantis bought the first round of drinks for everyone, not out of generosity, but from a sense of investment. As they sipped their bowls he asked. "So what have you decided?"

"Let us say we agreed that the city must be prepared to defend itself. What resources would you say we would need?"

Amantis sipped thoughtfully from his bowl. He, of course, had already worked the answers out for all the questions they would ask, but he had to gauge their commitment and adjust his response by how much they were willing to spend. As he looked from face to face, he realized they were afraid of the angorym and sold on the idea of raising the reavers needed, but at the same time they were looking to negotiate the cheapest possible price. As he set down his bowl he decided he needed to be blunt and hit them with the high figure rather than get them to agree to a low figure and then creep it up once they were committed.

"We'll need men, weapons and supplies."

"Those weapons won't be cheap," muttered a thin faced man with a short salt and pepper beard.

"No," agreed Amantis. "Neither will the supplies."

"Supplies?" Mosond asked. "What kind of supplies?"

"Clothes, tents, miscellaneous tools and utensils. And, of course, food."

"Food?"

"Absolutely. These men won't have time to farm or fish. If they are going to train to fight angorym, they are going to have to start right away and work non-stop. They won't have time for anything else."

The elders exchanged unhappy glances as they digested the news. Amantis got up and walked back to the bar to order a refill and chatted with Destrin.

"How's business?" Destrin asked with a knowing grin.

Amantis couldn't hide his smirk. "It couldn't be better. I'm about to seal the biggest deal I've ever made."

"Oh? That's good. What is it?"

"We're haggling over the lives of everyone in the city." Amantis raised his bowl in a toast then turned back to the table, leaving a stunned looking Destrin to stare after him.

The elders were whispering urgently as Amantis returned.

"Very well, enough! Enough!" Mosond choked out in a sort of stage whisper, his hands spread out before the other elders as if he could physically press down their objections.

"What have you decided?" Amantis asked sipping confidently from his bowl.

"If we were somehow able to arrange this, how many men would you need?"

Amantis stared up at the moons in the sky as if working out the math in his head. "I estimate that I'm going to need one reaver for every ten people you wish to save."

The man with the short beard twitched and dropped his bowl. The man in the fisherman's hat choked and had to walk away coughing.

"You can't be serious. Ten percent of the population?"

"Oh I could certainly train fewer, but you'll have to start deciding who will live and who will die when we are attacked. Below a certain number of reavers, though, it's really not going to matter if we have any."

"Ten percent?" Mosond repeated in disbelief. "I don't know if we could even bring in the harvests or the daily catch with so many of our best men occupied in this way."

"I'm just talking about saving the city," Amantis added. "I'm not talking about any of the surrounding farms or koria. They'll need to contribute as well if they are to be saved."

"The city can't survive without those koria," the short bearded elder nearly shouted.

"Yes, yes," Mosond agreed, preoccupied with his own mental math. "We'll have to lean on all the merchants to support this cause—including your own Corago..." Mosond looked up sharply as he said this.

"Oh course." Amantis smiled. "Everyone will have to do their part."

"I'm pretty certain we can raise half that number fairly quickly. It may take some time to get the rest and we may have to temporarily release some of them during harvests and for other special occasions..." Mosond continued.

Amantis gave a conciliatory yet non-committal shrug.

"But I think we can at least get this started."

"Send me your biggest and most aggressive men first. I'll train them and they can help me train the rest."