Pronos dined with Amantis that afternoon in what seemed an absurdly large feast, but which Amantis assured him was an ordinary meal. Amantis tried repeatedly to ask him what the forces of the north were doing and planning, but kept interrupting Pronos' replies with stories of how he had driven the elders of Nur away and seized unquestioned power over the lives of everyone in the city. He had just interrupted Pronos' account of the destruction of Korion-Garanth when Pronos asked him, "So, whatever happened to that Charissa girl you left with?"

Amantis and Apaidia exchanged glances-his looked uncomfortable, hers smoldered with anger. "Let's just say I put her in her place," Amantis muttered.

Pronos chuckled. He could never tell what Amantis had seen in that skinny thing anyway. At least his new woman had a large chest and wasn't afraid to flaunt it. He held his drinking bowl up in a toast to Apaidia. "You don't seem to be doing too poorly for yourself."

Amantis returned a polite laugh and Apaidia gave him a bemused half-smile and an evaluating look.

Pronos was about to ask about the local women, but Amantis had turned the conversation back to himself. Eventually the time came to leave and the meal ended. A young serving girl came to clean off the table. Pronos tried to catch her eye, thinking he might try to lure her into his bed that night, but she only seemed to have eyes for Amantis. She kept snatching furtive glances at him and blushing.

-=====|==

The Lord's house was a massive pile of cut stone fashioned in blasphemous imitation of the sacred mountain Archetor. A small building rested on its summit from which, Pronos surmised, Amantis probably liked to look down on all the land he ruled. A series of stone steps cascaded down its side like a stone waterfall, dividing as it neared the base at the lintel of a massive door.

Following Amantis through the portal, Pronos gazed up in amazement at the vast space inside. Each course of stone overhung the one beneath it until they met in a vast shadowy corbelled ceiling. A square of stone pillars helped support the ceiling and another square of taller pillars rose up inside those near the room's center.

Pronos turned in a circle, scanning the hushed shadowy space, unable to guess its purpose. The hairs on the back of his neck rose in the unnatural atmosphere.

The Faithful Sons filed in behind them and stood silently like yellow stone pillars between their taller stone counterparts.

"Close the doors," Amantis ordered as the last of the sunlight drained from the sky outside. "Put out the torches."

The Faithful plunged the room into darkness and, after a moment, a familiar whispering echoed in Pronos' head. A dim light appeared and grew until he could see the stone in Amantis' hand.

Pronos was suddenly transported to a distant spring night when the lights came out of Amantis' stone and the whole world hung upside-down over an endless black Void.

The cold lights grew and filled the room, driving the shadows of both pillars and people away at strange angles so that each stood not behind but slid up next to the other.

"Ctonos." Amantis stood in the center of the space and gestured for him to approach. "Kneel."

The lights swirling from the stone reflected off people and pillars, obscuring more than they revealed.

Pronos felt as though he stood in a boundless black void. He kept sensing movement as if some new presence had joined them, but every time he looked, he saw only a pillar or shadow transformed into the appearance of a man by a trick of the light.

Amantis put the stone on a pedestal and walked around the kneeling Ctonos so they both faced the stone. "Lords of Heaven! Lords of Beyond!" Amantis called out. "Hear our plea and answer our request." He raised his arms and light glinted from an obsidian knife in his hand. "With our breath we call to you. With our blood we open the way. Come!" Holding Ctonos' head still with a hand across his forehead, Amantis put the knife to the side of his neck.

Ctonos stiffened with a hiss of indrawn air, but didn't move for several moments. Amantis raised both hands, took a step back and Ctonos slowly slumped to the ground. A pool of blackness spread out beneath his body, glistening in the flickering darkness.

The shadows seemed to lean in hungrily. The air itself pressed down on Pronos as if an invisible weight hung overhead. The lights left the stone and flit about the chamber, circling Amantis and Ctonos' body.

I should leave, Pronos thought. I need to get out of this accursed place. He tried to turn away, but the air had solidified around him. It forced him to stand like one of the pillars and watch the circling lights collect on Ctonos' corpse.

Amantis bent over the body and whispered in its ear one word which sounded like "Karux."

Ctonos' leg gave a sudden kick. A spasm ran the length of the body. It sucked in a gasp of air with a death-rattle sound and the lights disappeared down its throat, plunging the room into darkness.

Pronos broke into a cold sweat and trembled against his invisible bonds. A scraping, rustling sound echoed in the darkness. Three dim lights appeared in the darkness. Two of them blinked, and then all three grew brighter as his eyes adjusted. Pronos could see the light came from Ctonos' eyes and mouth.

Ctonos watched Amantis, shining his light on him as Amantis examined his lifeless stone with a puzzled frown.

Amantis slipped the stone into his pouch. "You know what to do."

Ctonos turned, taking his light with him and strode toward the doors which exploded from their hinges at his passing shove.

The heaviness left and the air released Pronos. Somewhere in the night outside a cricket chirped and he realized the whispering in his head had stopped. Though free to go, he was afraid to leave the safety of the darkness.

-=====|==

The shield fighters led the charge on Korion-Tamia, smashing through the defenders grouped at the town's northern entrance. They poured in, shields high, forming two lines north to south across the commons, a protected alley through which the spear throwers charged. The defenders stood in doorways or between buildings hurling a storm of spears at them while ducking the returning attacks.

At a double blast from Karux's horn, both lines charged the enemy, chasing them into and between houses. Karux had carefully instructed them to not harm the women and children, however several men were injured and one killed by women wielding kitchen knives and improvised clubs.

"Karux! Karux!" Bazma shouted over the chaos and noise. He pointed to a group of reavers fleeing out of the village's south entrance.

"Use the dogs!" Karux yelled back.

Bazma whistled loudly and managed to convey with gestures what needed to be done by the maccunai handlers. They aimed their dogs at the fleeing men and shouted the attack commands, chasing after them with spears.

The main fighting ended after a few minutes but an hour later small pockets of fighters were still being found hiding.

"Found another group hiding in some sort of lumber yard," Macander said as he kept pace with Karux.

"We should just burn the whole town," Somek suggested. "That would flush them all out."

"Throw them in the barn with the others." Karux circled the town with Somek stationing guards. After nearly a hundred men had fled, regrouped east of town and counter-attacked, Karux wasn't taking any chances.

"That's just more guards were going to need," Somek complained.

"We certainly can't release them. Not after what happened last time."

"We've got their wives and children. We could hold them hostage."

"I think that will only guarantee they'll come back and try to rescue them."

"What if we let them go with their families," Macander suggested. If their warriors are busy protecting their loved ones, they won't be attacking us."

"Until they drop their families off at the next korion and come back with more men." Karux stopped at the town's southern entrance. The mauled corpses of a score of men lay on the path where they had tried to flee. "We only have to survive the night. Tomorrow we should make it to Nur."

"I can think of a more permanent solution," Somek grumbled.

"No we won't do that either," Karux said. "We need to pick some men to gather and move the dead from the commons. In fact we should collect our own dead from the fields-" Karux jerked around. He had forgotten Eiraena.

Karux raced across the commons and out of the town's north entrance. The crows, which had already gathered and were tearing at the corpses, scattered into the air as he ran leaping over the bodies. He found Eiraena kneeling besides Jomel's body.

He stopped, out of breath, surprised she seemed to remember Jomel from the time she stayed with his family. He watched her stare down at the body a while then noticed the gaping hole in his chest was missing. He slipped into the realm of shapes and saw she had tried to reconstruct his heart, but it was all for nothing as he could see the schemas uncoil and break apart as death consumed Jomel's body. He watched Eiraena's awareness flicker over the schemas, recoiling and remaking them almost as fast as they came undone. He didn't think she was trying to heal him. She was just playing as children do but, no doubt, learning something of the forces of life and death in the process. He began to wonder if one could hold off death or turned it back with the right skill. Then, as he watched, Eiraena flipped one of the coils over and attached it to another one. They each pulled against the other, preventing each other from uncoiling.

Turning death against itself was a clever solution to the problem. The pattern eventually broke from the internal tension, but by then she had flipped and reconnected a hundred others. As she worked, the nature of the whole schema changed. It took on the semblance of life without any of the power of life. A tickle of horror shivered through Karux.

He groped blindly for the bright pattern of her hand. "It's time to bury him."

They took a few steps back and Karux called the name of the elements of the land, pulling it over the body. Eiraena joined him as he changed the patterns from soil to stone in a great puff of steam. He had intended to create a stone cairn over the grave but Eiraena extended it underground to form a hollow stone sphere like a closed stoma.

When they had finished, they turned and walked hand-in-hand back to town leaving the stone sphere sunk to its equator in the blood-soaked field.

-=====|==

The attack occurred near dawn. A group of escaped defenders had indeed gone to a nearby village for reinforcements. Karux jerked awake at the sound of the southern guard post being overrun by reavers. He scrambled around until he found his horn and blew a single long blast. Every man still asleep in the encampment in the commons bolted upright. The maccunai barked and pulled on their leashes and Bazma shouted instructions to their handlers.

"Get back to your posts!" Somek shouted as the other guards raced to the commons in answer to the horn. "There may be other attacks!"

"Baz!" Karux called, using his spear to pull himself to his feet. "Watch Eiraena!"

Bazma cast a puzzled glance at the girl still sleeping curled up next to Karux's bedroll and gave him a curt nod.

Macander and Somek rallied their men and charged the southern entrance, trying to push the attackers back. The attackers were a confused mix of long and short spears. The defenders were mixed up as well, though Hejom's cries of "Shield fighters to the fore!" were gradually heeded. They began to provide cover for the long spears while the short spears chased down those of the enemy who had charged deep into the camp.

Karux stood with his short spear at the ready as fierce hand-to-hand combat swirled around him. He wanted to slip into the world of schemas but feared to be blinded to the world of light and shadows at the moment. He also knew the churning patterns of possibilities would be uncontrollable.

A reaver charged him. Karux knocked the spear aside as the man crashed into him, and staggered backwards. Karux's bad leg collapsed and he went down on one knee. The attacker collected himself and charged again. Karux felt his armored tunic press against him as the schemas pushed the spearhead aside. Karux struggled to lift his own spearhead and the attacker gave a look of surprise to find he had not only missed Karux, but impaled himself on the point of Karux's spear.

The crack of splintering wood sounded from the prison barn in the east. The captured warriors from the day before charged out, surprised their guards and cut them down with farm tools they had found inside. They swept out behind the shield fighters overrunning the long spears and pulled down Hejom. They fell upon him, stabbing him with sickles and pruning hooks until one short, middle-aged, barrel-chested man smashed his head in with a club.

"Attack them from the east!" Macander shouted to his short spears, pointing at the new attackers, "Push them into the others!"

More men rushed into the fray.

The maccunai's barking took on an urgent tone. Karux glanced behind and saw more enemy spearmen running in from the west. The dog handlers loosed their beasts and charged behind with ready spears.

This is out of control, Karux thought. Our forces are getting too spread out. He gripped the horn wanting to call the rally to me signal but feared that, once they fell back, their entire defense might crumble. He thought of turning to the elementals and fashioning a schema to distract everyone, something big and flashy that might frighten the attackers into falling back and allow his forces to regroup, but he could think of nothing.

The attackers pressed in. The defenders fell back as more men dropped, run through with spears. Karux stumbled over the sleeping Eiraena. He hoped the enemy wouldn't harm her if they won. A spear flew past and he felt its pressure on his armor.

A commotion began at the back of the enemy forces. Men were shoved aside or recoiled as a new figure charged through their ranks. A large man with unhealthy gray skin and a double-headed short spear pushed his way through the front ranks. He raised a shaggy head revealing empty black sockets from which two pin-pricks of light shone.

The shield-fighters recoiled. The gray man spun his weapon, slicing through the throat of the nearest man, then in the same fluid motion, pushed his spear through the next man's shield and into his chest. Without pausing he slashed and speared the next closest men and the defenders began to collapse. They're about to run, Karux thought. Unable to come up with any other strategy but attacking, he charged forward. Then, with a roar, Somek attacked.

With a loud clang, Somek struck the other man's spearhead, knocking it aside. He flung himself at the gray man, shoving his own spear into the man's chest, the spearhead bursting out of his back.

The gray man staggered backwards a single step, but did not fall. He didn't even bleed. He simply raised his own spear and shoved it through Somek's chest and out the other side. Somek staggered backwards and fell.

The front line turned and the defenders ran.

Karux raised his horn and blew his desperation, rally to me. His men's heads jerked towards him almost involuntarily and they slowed in their flight.

Macander jumped into the gap the shield fighters had left and slashed at the gray man with his spear. He spun the weapon, forming a circle of bronze fire in the reflected light of the morning sun. He lashed out slashing and thrusting, cutting at the gray man's face, arms and chest. The gray man did not flinch when struck. He simply raised his spear which Macander knocked aside. The gray man thrust out at him, but Macander danced around it.

Karux's defenders gathered to him forming a defensive wall with the shield fighters in front and long spears hovering over their shoulders. The other attackers froze and watched the duel, having apparently forgotten Karux and his men for the moment.

As Macander danced around the gray man striking him and dodging the counter attacks, Karux could see him begin to slow as he tired. With loud grunts of effort, Macander made more forceful attacks to the knees and other joints. It seemed he had decided the gray man could not be killed and was trying to disable him. Yet each attack clearly cost him more energy and each recovery came slower. The gray man began to press his advantage and Karux knew Macander's time was running out.

"Asophra!"

The cry came from a single throat south of the city and was immediately echoed by scores of men. The attackers surged backwards, heads turning as they were attacked from behind.

The gray man ignored the new threat, his unnatural gaze focused on Macander like a serpent preparing to strike. Macander spun his spear, reversed it, stepped in close to make it difficult for the gray man to attack and blocked the thrusts with the shaft of his own weapon. Gasping, hair plastered to his head in sweat, he seemed to only have the strength to defend.

"For the blood of the innocent!"

A figure dressed in tattered blood-stained rags crashed into the enemy like an avalanche. He swung a long thin piece of metal about him. It flashed like lightning cutting off arms and heads and cutting deep into torsos, leaving a trail of blood and bowels in his wake. A hundred wild-eyed men dressed in the clothes of a dozen different villages, charged along behind him shouting about blood.

"Theris?" Karux called out, unheard amid the chaos. He watched in amazement as Theris cut through the men and puzzled over his weapon which had the speed of a knife, the power of an axe and nearly the reach of a short spear.

Macander tripped and fell on his spear. The gray man stepped up, lifting his spear for a final downward thrust. Macander rolled on one hip, trying to pull his spear out from under him.

Theris charged up behind the gray man who, somehow sensing his presence, spun about and lunged. Theris laughed as he cut off the spearhead. He struck back and the gray man blocked the attack with his spear shaft, a few more inches of wood flew away. The gray man stepped back and Macander rolling away as Theris pressed his attack. The shield fighters, seeing the gray man's back approaching as he retreated from Theris, lunged forward with victorious cries. Though a half-dozen spears pierced his flesh through, the gray man did not seem to notice.

Theris screamed and lunged forward. The gray man flung himself sideways, eyes on Theris' weapon. Theris attacked again and again the gray man retreated as if afraid to touch his blade. The gray man reached behind himself and pulled out a spear, blocking Theris' next attack with the bronze head. He turned his broken spear around and tossed it at Theris, who narrowly dodged its point. The gray man pulled out another two-headed spear and held one in each hand. With unnatural strength, he launched into a slashing jabbing attack and forced Theris to back away uncertainly.

Karux watched the gray man's attack and felt his last hope ebb. Was there any escape for them now?