The cold winds of fall stripped the trees of their foliage and brought with them dull gray skies.  The villagers of Korion-Crusomosc hid in their doorways peering out at the gold covered stone on its column of rock.  No one wanted to get too close for fear of starting another riot as when the milk first stopped flowing, yet no one wanted to miss it if the milk started again.

After the riot, the elders attempted to organize the milk's distribution.  This ensured that everyone got a fair share until one day when the barrel stopped refilling.  A couple of days passed and the villagers were becoming desperate before it was discovered that a woman named Thaesori had hidden a bowl of milk against future deprivations and was sneaking off to sip from it.  Once the bowl was emptied, the milk began to flow.

Then the milk stopped again.  This led to a frantic but fruitless search of everyone's houses, desperate accusations and finally violence.  A number were injured and Thaesori was seriously hurt.  The elders finally decided that the milk had stopped on its own and that no milk remained hidden, and so they waited and watched and grew desperate as fall set in.

Haydonae sat in her doorway listlessly staring at the stone when she thought she heard a faint trickle.  She sat up straighter.  A small stream of milk flowed into the barrel and stopped.  Other villagers took notice from their doorways.  They made eye contact and then, as if by some silently signaled agreement, rushed to the barrel.  Haydonae crashed into Methus.  He caromed off and fell against the rock column scraping his arm and cutting his hand.  Someone bigger and stronger got to the milk first, and held off the others as he drank.  He quickly emptied the barrel while others swiped at its sides with strips of cloth that they would suck, hoping to get the last few drops.

Methus climbed to his feet, smearing one bloody hand across the stone as he did so.  Immediately milk gushed out, over filing the barrel before trickling to a stop.  Once again the villagers stood around the stone and stared, not at the barrel full of milk, but at the blood smeared across the stone's golden surface.

-=====|==

"What is it about the angorym always fighting in the winter?" Bazma complained, stamping his feet by the fire and staring out over the snow covered pass they guarded.

"I don't know, Baz," Macander snapped irritably.  "Maybe it has something to do with the fact they come from the frozen north.  Fighting in winter certainly inconveniences use more than them.  Maybe they know that."  The cold and the waiting were getting on his nerves.  He had grown a lot over the summer in both size and confidence.  Though he still sometimes felt like a big kid, he had repeatedly demonstrated his fighting ability on the practice field to all the men he had helped train.

"It is, perhaps, too much to hope the angorym will wait until spring and give us the time we need to prepare," Pedias offered.  Though one of the dwerka, he was helping the humans stand guard.

"You don't think they'd pick a moonless night like tonight to attack, do you?" Bazma asked.

Macander just gave him a disbelieving look.

Each of them led a "hand of hands" of reavers guarding a hastily erected wooden barricade across the pass between the Pelavale and the southern valley.  Guards had been stationed at intervals along the fence and at the tops of the hills which had been incorporated into the barrier.

The dwerka, who had devised the barrier and helped them construct it, apparently thought on large scales. The idea of walling off entire valleys was not strange to them. They assured the humans the barrier was necessary because of the drwg. The angorym would use the giant wolves to flank their enemies or attack them from the rear, while the angorym launched a frontal assault.

The dwerka had also sent several hands to help the humans fight the angorym, but they had neither the time, materials, nor the inclination to fashion metal armor for the humans, such as they wore.  Each of those suits was personally crafted by their wearer in an ancient dwerkan rite.  They had offered to help the humans fashion their own protective clothing which had resulted in the garments they now wore under their cloaks, sleeveless knee-length leather coats of bronze plates.

Macander had stifled a laugh when he'd seen Karux's armor, for Karux had special shapes engraved into each plate.  When asked, Karux said he was testing an idea and Macander hadn't questioned him further.  To Macander, Karux's behavior had grown strange over the last few months, as if he were preoccupied or lost in a dream.  Eiraena continued to follow him around whenever he was in Har-Tor as if she expected him to burst into flames or something.  Macander wasn't sure her influence had been good for Karux as Karux was becoming more like her than she like him.

"Do you hear something?" Pedias asked.

Macander and Bazma each paused to listen.

"Have the men on the hills signaled?" Bazma asked.

"Not yet," Macander said.

"There it is again," Pedias said.

Macander thought he heard a distant howling.

"Do you think that was drwg?" Bazma asked.

Macander shrugged.  "Could be.  Or it could be a lone wolf."

"Not in that valley." Pedias scowled.  "Wolves and drwg don't get along."

"Nobody but angorym gets along with drwg," Macander chuckled.  "Drwg don't even get along with other drwg."

Bazma nervously fingered a large horn and scanned the dark night.  "Do you think we should sound the alarm?"

"Not yet, let's make certain first." Macander picked up a handful of throwing spears and headed for the barrier.  "Let's join the men at the picket though, just in case.

The picket was simply a series of large wooden polls that stood lashed together like a fence.  It had gaps between the posts through which one could shove the heavier spears and a crude catwalk near the top from which men could stand and throw the lighter spears.  The whole thing was improvised with help and advice of the dwerka who had some experience fighting angorym, though they preferred, more often than not, to attack from hiding before running back to hide again.  If it weren't for the need to keep the angorym from leaving the valley, they would have advised the humans to do the same.

"I don't suppose you could have brought some of that fire up here?" Tephra said with an ironic smile when the three had joined him, Sykane and Akonti at the wall.

"Did you hear it?" Macander asked.

"What, the drwg?  I've been hearing them in my sleep," Sykane said.

"It's the waking world I'm worried about." Bazma said.

Just then they heard yipping and snarling of drwg.

"That's more than one," Macander turned to Bazma.  "I think you better blow that horn."  The words had barely left his lips before Bazma sucked in a great lungful of air and sounded it.  The blast was answered by scores of howling drwg. 

The men grabbed their spears and rushed to the picket before Bazma could take a second breath.

"I see them," Akonti called out.

The men stoked up the fires behind them, hoping to spoil the attacker's night vision and to light the field before them.  The picket cast a long shadow into the night gloom and scores of red eyes appeared just beyond its reach.

Bazma let fly one of the lighter throwing spears which arced out and fell into the snow, a black splinter half-way between them and the eyes.

"You should probably wait until they're in range," Pedias suggested without the least trace of sarcasm.

"Love the enthusiasm, though," Sykane laughed.

The attack came so fast the men on the picket didn't have a chance to throw their spears.  Dark shapes flowed across the grey snow like flashes of black lightning.  Before the defender's startled hearts could even start beating, fangs snarled and snapped between the posts as the drwg clawed at the lashings holding the picket together.

Men charged the barrier with the long spears, ramming the drwg and throwing their weight into the attack as they had been trained.  The drwg yelped in pain and surprise, but did not flee.  They backed off and charged again, running up and down the picket worrying the defenders and chewing at the lashings as if they somehow understood the nature of its construction.

The men on the scaffolding above spied the first of a dozen angorym to come stumping through the snow.  Eleven more followed behind, spread out across the pass.  As soon as the first had trudged past Bazma's spear, a dozen throwing spears arced out towards the lead angoran.  At least three or four hit it, most bouncing off its leather armor, though one stuck in its thigh, staggering it.

The men cheered and Akonti called out, "That's it boys, let's show the eaters of pain what real pain is."  The men laughed and grabbed up more spears, loosing them at each angoran as it came into range.  The first angoran, just pulled the spear from its thigh, stood up and trudged on through the snow.

"We need more spears!" Akonti called out from atop the scaffolding.  Down below, two young boys grabbed armfuls of throwing spears and raced up to the scaffolding with them, lifting them as high as they could reach. 

Macander dropped to his belly and reached down for a bundle, surprised to find Jaemin, standing below.  "Jaemin!  What are you doing here?"

"Helping!" he called out.

"Does your mother know?" Macander asked

Jaemin's mouth turned grim and his chin quivered.  "I don't know where she is."

"Oh."  She was, no doubt, lost during the flight from Korion-Garanth.  "Who is looking after you?"  Macander took the bundle of spears.

Jaemin nodded toward the other young boy.  "Tareuk's mom."

Macander looked down the line of scaffolding and saw Tareuk lifting up a similar bundle of spears.  "Find a good hiding place and go hide there until this is over," Macander ordered.  He turned around and began handing out spears to the other defenders when a cheer went up.  The angorym were retreating back beyond spear-shot range and calling their drwg after them.

"They're done for!" the men called out.  "They're beaten!"

"Not so fast."  Bazma peered into the darkness, spear in hand.

Macander's suspicions prickled as well, and he took up one of his own spears.

The angorym called out something in their guttural language and the drwg shot towards the picket, leaping impossibly high into the air.  They sailed over the picket taking with them two defenders from the scaffold. 

Everything seemed to slow down for Macander as it sometimes did in a tough practice fight.

A drwg sailed over his head and he almost leisurely shoved his spear into its belly.  It curled around the spear as it flew over and fell to the ground with a sickening thud.  A strange roar rose up from beyond the picket and a group of angorym charge en mass, running at a speed of which Macander hadn't thought them capable.

Snarling drwg tore into screaming men below.  Macander lifted a spear, aiming it at one of the drwg when he felt the whole scaffold shake beneath him.  Almost directly below him, on the outside of the picket, four angorym chopped at the lashing.  "Look below!" Macander called out.  "They've used the drwg as a distraction."

"Heck of a distraction!" Bazma shouted back hurling a spear down.

Macander heaved a spear at the nearest of the angorym and saw it slip inside his armor, sinking deep into its flesh where its neck met the shoulder.

A second crash shook the picket as another group of angorym charged through the loosened poles.  The scaffold ripped apart in the middle; broken pieces of wood flew into the air.  Akonti and two dwerka fell into the chaos below as the angorym and more drwg charged through.  Sykane toppled but caught a projecting pole and clung upside down to the remains of the scaffolding.

Macander snatched up another spear and surveyed the swirling chaos of men, dwerka, angorym and drwg.  A semi-circle of men had rushed in with long spears trying to hold the angorym to the gap while another group of men stood at their backs trying to fend off drwg attacks from behind.

Leaping from the scaffold, Macander landed on the back of a drwg, plunging his spear deep between its shoulders.  His spear snapped and the drwg collapsed beneath the blow.  He tossed the broken end and rose looked for his short spear which he'd left stuck in the snow next to the ladder.

"Tareuk!"  Jaemin's small form raced into the field of battle screaming.  He was following Tareuk who ran crying while a drwg followed hard upon his heels.  Macander spun around and snatched up his short spear and charged the drwg just as Tareuk fell.  The drwg pounced.  Tareuk screamed and Macander flung his spear, but it flew too late. 

The spearhead buried itself in the drwg's ribs as the drwg tore out Tareuk's throat.  Macander crashed into the huge beast and sent it tumbling and snapping.  He spear flew free and he scrambled for it as they rolled over each other.  He barely got the shaft up to block the fangs as they bore down on him.

Macander got a foot under himself and pushed up against the enormous weight of the thing.  He kneed the drwg in the throat to no effect.  It shook the spear, nearly ripping the shaft from his hands.  His feet left the ground as it flung him about.  Once he was able to get back on his feet, he pivoted and let go of one hand as the beast jerked.  The spear slid out from between the beast's jaws, the head slicing through the side of its muzzle. 

The drwg opened its mouth, snarling and Macander shoved the spear straight down its throat.  It reared back with a strangled yip.  Macander rose, leaning on the spear and the drwg collapsed with a whine.

Gasping, Macander returned to Tareuk whose body lay sprawled on the bloody snow.  Jaemin ran up, shouting Tareuk's name and stopped to stare in horror at his childhood friend who had been so like a brother.

Macander shoved him towards a brush-choked gully.  "Run!  Hide!"  He turned, jerked his spear free and found a small knot of men beset by angorym on one side and harried by drwg on the other.  Human and dwerka bodies lay scattered on the ground and Macander had to admit to himself that their chances didn't look good.  It took a concerted effort to bring even one angorym down, but the minute one's back was turned, the drwg swooped in and attacked, immediately killing their victim.

Hefting his bloody spear, he jogged back to the fight, trying to decide if he should attack the angorym from behind to distract them or if it would be slightly less futile to try and chase the drwg off. 

An expanding green cloud suddenly engulfed the defenders.  A crack like a wet slap from a giant hand echoed between the hills.

Macander skidded to a stop. 

The drwg paused in wide-legged crouches as if unsure in which direction to run.

A humming angorym long knife spun passed Macander's head, thudded into a hill twenty or thirty yards behind him.  When the green mist faded Macander realized that all the angorym were gone.

The drwg turned and fled.  The defenders cautiously lowered their weapons and looked around in a daze.  Macander ran to the shattered picket, slipping on the packed green snow.  A hand lay by itself on the ice, smoothly sheared off just below the wrist.  A foot still wearing its furred boot remained where its owner had planted it, boot and leg sheared off just above the ankle.  He scanned the lime-green snow, littered with clumps of darker green flesh and scattered weapons, and realized that the angorym were no more.  The fight was over, but he had no idea why.

Then he looked back to the tents and saw a staggered looking Karux on one knee while Jomel tried to hold him up.