"What's the name of this place?" Ctonos asked as he led his soreav past the fields of withered wheat.

"Korion-Pthora," a spearman named Kaelis said. He had a large wine colored birthmark on his face and he normally led the soreav.

"Hmf. Looks like the last one we visited," Ctonos said.

"Yes," Kaelis agreed. "They are all much alike."

Ctonos spat. "You'd think they'd be glad to leave this place."

"I was born in a place like this and I was glad to get out," Kaelis shrugged.

"Well, let's go round up all the workers we can get for the oracle of Nur."

The group of fifty reavers tramped into the village leading a train of donkeys. The villagers gathered around them, eyeing the large bundles strapped to their animals with curious expressions.

Ctonos, spying a trestle table nearby, nodded at a couple of his men. "Go set that table up." He caught another man's eye and pointed at some baskets strapped to one of the donkeys. "Fill up a couple of those with grain." He smirked at Kaelis, "I like to dangle a little hope in front of them before we round them up. It makes the sheep more cooperative."

Kaelis chuckled as the reavers opened a bag, poured the grain out and watched the people rush forward hungrily. The reavers stepped up to guard the baskets and the villagers recoiled uncertainly.

"Good day, people of Korion-Pthora," Ctonos began. "The oracle of Nur sends you his greetings and gifts of food." The guards stepped back and the people's faces took on hopeful expressions.

"Thank you for coming!" a skinny snaggle-toothed elder said. "We desperately need your help."

"The Lord of the Mountain has sent visions to the oracle of Nur warning him of the blight. He has been able to put aside food so that the people will not starve. If you would share in his blessings, you must come with us to Nur."

"Nur?" A heavy middle-aged woman turned to her husband. "I ain't never been to Nur. Isn't that far away?"

"You must leave behind just enough men to work the fields; the rest of you will come with us. Your young men will learn the ways of the spear. The rest of you will do your part to help the community by laboring for the oracle." This comment brought a few frowns, but Ctonos noticed that no one left. He stepped aside with a gesture to the food. "Join us and eat."

The villagers surged forwards.

-=====|==

Charissa held the two-year-old boy on her lap cooing over him and laughing with him as she gently tickled him. Motherhood had transformed her far more than the mere two years since Karux had seen her. She had left him little more than a child on the edge of adulthood, but now she was a woman in her breathtakingly beautiful prime. Karux felt a stabbing pang of loneliness and a longing so intense he felt his heart had seized up. He gasped, clutching his chest. He longed to reach out and touch her, but whether or not he saw a true vision, it was all still just a dream.

I will find you, he thought, you and the child. I will take you both back to Korion-Garanth and we will rebuild it and fill it with our children.

"A beautiful sight, no?"

Recognizing Amantis' voice, Karux turned around. Amantis stood on the top edge of a pyramid of stones looking down on a city that, Karux knew with a dream-like certainty, was Nur—though he'd never been there. Below him, the city's streets were filled with the too familiar horror of acres of dead. Their mutilated corpses, wearing only tattered shrouds of dried blood, lay in twisted patterns forming a giant city-wide schema.

Karux recognized patterns for destruction and for opening, but couldn't quite grasp the shape of the whole thing. Just as he had nearly puzzled out its strangely familiar meaning, the bodies all stood up, brandishing long bronze-tipped spears. The butt-ends of the spears all thudded into the ground with a sound like thunder rumbling across the silent city. The dim sunlight left a dull-red gleam on the bronze spearheads which rose tall and straight like wheat ready for a harvest of blood.

"We did it," Amantis laughed. "We actually united the tribes of men." He cast a grin over his shoulder back at Karux, the racing clouds overhead reflected in his mad eyes. "It's a shame there can be only one oracle."

Karux didn't see the blow, but felt the impact in his chest from the knife and the sensation of falling.

"We'll be coming for your men soon," Amantis called down to him from the top of the pyramid as Karux fell.

-=====|==

Karux woke with a start, arms and legs spread wide as if he could somehow catch himself from falling. His blanket had flown across the tent and he lay on his bedroll in a cold sweat.

Karux dressed and went outside to break his evening fast with the elders who had gathered at Korion-Antaema. For the last year, Karux had played the messenger running back and forth between the elders gathered at Har-Tor and the reavers chasing the angorym from the north valley. Now that the angorym seemed to have been defeated and the keuthmones reclaimed by the dwerka, only a few wild packs of drwg remained to be hunted down, the elders had come to the small village near Lake Telma on the southern end of Pelavale to discuss the resettlement of the valley.

Karux got a bowl of porridge from the common fire, a fresh loaf of sweet bread and a hot cup of chaia. He juggled them as he walked over to the benches on which the elders sat and discussed the tribe's future.

"I don't understand the need for all this discussion," Hasamo said testily. "Each family should simply return to their home korion. That would be simplest."

"Some of those koria were completely wiped out," Gerron replied. "Some of the survivors have inter-married. Not everyone may want or be able to go back to the same place they left."

"But we can't have everyone rushing back to claim the best grazing lands," Kapalos objected. "There's a limit to the number of families they can support."

"It'll be several generations before the herds are rebuilt to anything like their former size," Tragophan said with a dismissive wave.

"And by then it will be too late to move them."

"I still say that those men who fought in the tireavs should be allowed to settle wherever they wish," Sidaro said while Jomel nodded in agreement.

"Half those men are farmers," Gerron said. "Even with Karux's best efforts, the blight has reduced the crops to little more than what they were before."

"But the blight can't last forever, can it?" Hasamo looked back and forth between the other elders for confirmation.

"Actually, it can," Karux said around a mouthful of bread.

The elders all looked at him with raised eyebrows.

"The n'phesh—specifically the elementals of the land—have struck the land with a curse at the command of Amantis."

Arnion frowned.

The elders gave him puzzled looks. "You keep speaking of this Amantis. How does he have this power?" Gerron asked.

Arnion lowered his head. "He was a troublemaker who lived among us until he was cast out for killing a boy from another korion."

"He has fallen under the influence of the n'kroi," Karux said. "He is using the fear and hunger caused by the blight to gain power for himself."

"How can we get the n'phesh to remove the curse?" Kapalos asked.

"The n'phesh have been asking for someone to join them and become their leader."

"Is that all?" Hasamo looked around. "Surely we can find one among us we can send?"

"What kind of man would willingly give up his humanity to join with the n'phesh and would you trust such a man with the power of life and death over the land itself?" Karux asked. He watched the elders all grow silently thoughtful. "We may have, however, a more immediate and more severe problem than the blight," Karux waited until he had all the elders' attention. "We must move the tireavs south to protect the koria below the pass."

"That's impossible," Hasamo said.

"Why do you think we've been discussing dividing up grazing rights?" Kapalos asked.

Karux turned a questioning look on Gerron, who replied gently, "The elders have already decided to disband the tireavs."

"Except for the northern group!" Brakus said. "You said they could go north with the dwerka to fight the angorym and free our brothers." Trakus, sitting next to him muttered translations into Perignon's ear, whose scowl deepened with every word.

"Yes, of course," Gerron added hastily. "The survivors of Korion-Vodash have all agreed to accompany you along with many survivors from the koria hardest hit."

Karux slammed his bowl down on the bench. "You can't do that! How can you leave us helpless exactly when our need is greatest?"

"Greatest? But the angorym are gone from the valley and the remaining drwg will not last long."

"Did I not say Amantis was gathering power for himself? He has turned virtually the entire city of Nur into a vast tireav and is currently adding to it all its surrounding koria. He will soon be able to fill the whole valley with his spears and they will not fight like the separate tribes of the angorym, but as a single vast host!"

Karux turned to the three dwerka. "We're going to need the dwerka's help. This is going to be bigger than the angorym. I don't know if we can do this alone."

As Trakus translated for Perignon, the chief elder shook his head sorrowfully and replied in their native tongue. "We will be happy to fight beside you when killing angorym, but we will not kill men."

"But Amantis is the tool of the n'kroi. He is the one who brought the angorym!"

"We will not kill men," Trakus translated.

"Even if he continues to bring the angorym—or worse?"

"We will fight the angorym or worse," Trakus said.

"This is so stupid!" Karux shouted. "Why would you allow him to continue to send things to attack you and not deal with the source of the problem?"

"Our decision is made."

"And if he sends men to kill you? Will you fight them?"

The dwerkan sat with his lips pressed into an angry thin line.

"Are you certain?" Hasamo asked. "How can you know this?"

"I just saw it in a dream." Karux watched the elders' concerned expressions melt into relief and anger flared up within him. "Do not be tempted to dismiss my dreams and visions. My dreams warned me of the angorym and no one but a few friends believed me. We were able to save our korion from the first attack but we could not save the valley. My dreams also warned me of the blight and showed me how to counter it. So do not dismiss my dreams as mere dreams. If you do, you better get used to the taste of grass for Amantis will soon have you on all fours, naked, like the animals of your herds."

"Karux!" Jomel Leaped to his feet. "You go too far. You should not talk to your elders like that!"

"I see no elders here," Karux sneered. "I only see sheep ready for the shearing." Karux stumped away, dragging his bad leg behind him, his good hand clenched in as tight of a fist as his left.

-=====|==

"Karux, wait a moment!" Jomel called out as he trotted up from behind.

Karux cast a furious glance over his shoulder and kept walking.

"I have never seen you so angry before. What is the matter?"

"We accord our elders respect because of the wisdom that should come with age, yet what good is that aged wisdom if they can only solve old problems and not new ones?"

To Karux's surprise, Jomel laughed. "There may be some truth in what you say." Jomel put a hand on his shoulder, pulling him up short as he neared his tent. "I know the elders have frustrated you, but that is not what has you so angry. So what is it?"

The image of Charissa and the baby flashed through his mind, bringing with it a crushing sense of loss and longing. "It's Charissa."

"Who?"

"She would have been my wife..." Had he ever said that secret thought out loud before? "...but Amantis stole her."

"Ah," Jomel said as if he understood.

"I saw her last night in the same dream with Amantis," Karux confessed.

"Has he wed her?"

"Yes."

Jomel took a deep breath and held it, grimacing thoughtfully, he exhaled. "It's never a good thing to get involved with another man's wife."

Karux glared at him. "It won't matter if he's dead.

Jomel looked a little frightened. "Killing a man and taking his wife is even worse. The High Lord would never allow you to return to the mountain."

"I'm not going to kill him for stealing Charissa. I'm going to kill him for destroying my korion, killing my family, bringing the angorym and serving the n'kroi."

Jomel shook his head. "Revenge is a terrible thing. It is not right to kill a man unless it is necessary to save another."

"What makes you think it isn't necessary?"

-=====|==

The sun had set but the late summer light still lingered hours later. Theris' daughter Iyanni had scurried all over the village of Korion-Noton chasing lightning bugs, long after her playmates had gone home. Nearing the barn behind Dra Onos' house, she heard old Blax the donkey braying and went to investigate.

"Hello? Dra Onos?" Iyanni walked around to the front of the barn and noticed the door was open. She heard movement inside and peered in to see three men tying down large bags of grain to Blax who didn't appear to want to leave the barn.

"You're not Dra Onos."

The three men started suddenly. One of them rushed over and grabbed her and she screamed.