Karux had waited for days in fear of the horn. When he was outside, he wished he were back in Jomel's tent, drinking chaia and trying to stay warm. When he was inside, he wished he were out checking the barrier. With each passing hour he grew more certain the horn was about to blow so that each time Jomel sat down his bowl of hot chaia a little too forcefully on the table, he would jump and have to remind himself to relax. The moment it did sound, Karux, Jomel and Brakus all looked at each other, rose without a word, grabbed their spears and left the tent.

They and the other tacarchs had continually challenged their own plans seeking some way to improve it. But now the enemy had come and Karux felt he was being swept along, caught in the currents of a fate beyond his control. The battle is about to begin, Karux told himself, trying to break out of a curious sense of unreality. Keep your wits about you.

Karux tossed a log on a watch fire and kept one eye on the picket, praying the structure would hold. He watched the first black wave smash against the picket, claws and fangs flashing white in the firelight and relaxed a bit when they were beaten back. The defenders cheered, then watched in horror as the drwg leaped over the barricade to savage them while the angorym crashed through. In seconds the battle had turned against them and everywhere Karux looked he saw the drwg running down both men and dwerka, mauling them where they fell.

Karux shifted his awareness to the world of shapes and tried to focus on the drwg, but it was like attempting to catch lightning in one's hand. He looked to the angorym whom the men were trying with some success to keep contained near the breech. Remembering the incident with Eiraena and the runaway schema, he began to summon the elemental shapes of the Void.

"Kenos! Akuros! Kenos! Akuros!" Karux chanted, and the crisscrossed spirals began to appear in his vision, each a hole in space linked to the Void. He directed them with his awareness, attaching them to the bodies of the angorym, building up chains of symbols on each enemy, though the chaos of the battle made it hard to do. More than once the symbols would attach themselves to a human or dwerkan defender as if hungry to destroy any and all living things.

"Kenos! Akuros! Kenos! Akuros!" As he chanted, that same dark presence he saw in the maelstrom at Korion-Doulon and felt near the gold-covered stone at Korion-Crusomosc grew until the weight of its awareness fell heavy upon him. He heard the cynical laughter echo in his head and felt the pull of the elementals inviting him to glory in their power.

As the bronze knives fell, the blood spilled and the men died, he uttered the final command to collapse the patterns he had built.

"Ataeros!"

The schemas snapped backwards, pulling inwards, coiling around and through each other in a churning funnel of self-destruction. He felt the slap of force as the patterns which had comprised the angorym exploded, knocking him to his knees and forcing him back into the world of light and shadows.

Jomel caught his arm as he fell and held him upright. Karux looked up at the green mist rolled over them and tiny chunks of flesh fell hissing into the snow. The reavers all stopped and gaped in horror. Then, one by one, they turned fearful looks on him.

-=====|==

Haydonae hid in the smallest corner of her home, cold, tired and hungry. It was her turn, she knew that, but she'd rather starve to death than go outside where the men with the knives waited. She hoped, by making herself scarce, they might somehow overlook her and forget it was her turn, but then her door opened with a blast of wintry air and two men came in.

"Now Haydonae, don't be like that," Temnein said. He was a large man with long black hair pulled back from a high forehead. "We've all taken our turns and now it's yours."

"Don't make this difficult," Carak warned. He was nearly as big as Temnein with a square face, short curly hair of a reddish brown color and a receding hairline. "Methus has gone in your place more than once. Its time you did your part. It's for the good of the community."

"No," she whimpered. "I don't want to do it anymore. I don't care if I eat or not."

The men calmly walked over and pulled her out from under her table. Multiple scars ran up and down their forearms and Temnein still had blood-stained bandages on one of his. They grabbed her wrists and hauled her up as she struggled feebly. They had all lost weight. Haydonae often found herself getting light-headed if she exerted herself too much.

Temnein and Carak dragged her out into the village common area. The other villagers slipped out of their houses, bundled in whatever coats and blankets they had, their breath frosting the air. They held their bowls expectantly, watching with ravenous eyes as the two men dragged the whimpering girl to the stone.

Carak held out a knife chipped from polished obsidian. They found it cut more easily than the metal knifes. "Are you going to do it? Or do you want Temnein to do it? He won't be gentle."

Haydonae, sank to the ground sobbing. "I can't. I just can't."

"Have it your way, then." Carak handed the knife over to Temnein then picked Haydonae up by her wrists. She went limp, refusing to stand. Carak dragged her over the stone draping both of her arms over it. He held one out for Temnein who, with some hesitation, ran the knife down the inside of one arm. Haydonae sobbed as her arm opened up in a long gash and thick blood oozed out, dripping down the stone's side.

The crowd took an expectant step closer. The two men stopped and watched the stone for a minute then Carak looked at Temnein.

"You better do the other arm."

"No! Please, no! You already cut me once. Don't do it again!" Haydonae squirmed and cried as Carak held out the other one.

Temnein cut and blood oozed thick and dark onto the stone.

Milk gushed out, stained pink with Haydonae's blood, and ran steaming into the barrel. The villagers cautiously held their drinking bowls in the flow one by one, being careful not to waste a drop.

The villagers stood in a silent circle drinking their milk until the barrel was empty. Carak held out a bowl for Haydonae, but she just turned her head away. One of the old women knelt beside her and wrapped her bleeding arms. Blood soon soaked the thin bandages, but at least the wounds were closed. Carak knelt and forced the drinking bowl to her lips. She would rather have died than drink it, yet she found she could not refuse to swallow as they poured it into her mouth.

How she hated it with all her soul.

-=====|==

Though the battle had been won, the men of Har-Tor did not feel victorious. Too many men had died, Akonti, Pedias and even little Tareuk among them. The wounded were taken into tents and Karux saw to them as best he could, though he found it difficult to concentrate after the schema he had set loose. Some of the men, upon seeing the destruction he had wrought, were reluctant to let him chant over them. Karux couldn't really blame them. He was able to close their wounds, but he wasn't sure he had been able to heal all the damage the drwg's teeth and claws or the angorym's long knifes had done inside their bodies. He could only hope their bodies' natural healing abilities could finish the job.

The dead were set aside to be buried when weather permitted, but the most important thing the men had to see to was the repair of the picket fence. Though this was the largest group of angorym anyone, even the dwerka, had ever seen together, Jomel assured them that many more occupied the valley and it was entirely possible that another attack could happen at any moment.

While Karux had reduced the angorym to a light green smear across the ice, a number of drwg corpses littered the snow of the battlefield on both sides of the picket. As they dragged the stinking bodies across the ice, Bazma complained, "Why can't we have big dogs of our own to fight with?"

"You should talk to my cousin in Korion-Stathmos," a reaver by the name of Cyoen suggested. "He raises maccunai."

"Maccunai? Are they a type of dog?" Bazma asked.

"Yes. They are huge. Not as big as these," Cyoen kicked the drwg they had been dragging, "But big enough to hold their own against such as these. Some koria who cannot afford donkeys actually use them to pull plows."

Bazma whistled. "I wonder if they can be trained to fight."

Cyoen grunted as he and Bazma rolled a drwg corpse into a ravine. "I don't see why not," he gasped. "I've heard tales of maccunai successfully defending their owners against some of the big cats like the pardos or even bears."

Bazma looked back at the tent where their leaders planned. "I think we should tell them about the maccunai."

Bazma and Cyoen barged into Karux's tent while he was packing. "Hey Karux, we have this really great idea!" They started talking about the drwg and large dogs and how they had an answer to their problems.

"Sounds good," Karux said. "Why don't you go tell Jomel and Brakus?"

"Sure," Bazma looked around. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Yes, I'm going back to Har-Tor with the dead and wounded."

"But, what if the angorym return?" Cyoen asked, his heavy brows curling together in a frown.

"I'm sure you'll manage," Karux said. "The new reavers have arrived and we are rotating some out."

The two young men watched with puzzled expressions as Karux shouldered one pack and picked up his short spear and two other bags and left.

-=====|==

Karux almost didn't recognize Har-Tor when he returned. Instead of a roughly conical pile of jagged rock, smooth walls reached up impossibly high, guarding a smooth ramp that curved beneath walled walkways. At the foot of the ramp, the dwerka had constructed a tower from neatly cut stone blocks to protect a large heavy wooden gate before which Gerron stood directing workers.

"Karux! You're back," Gerron said, interrupting a conversation he'd been having with some dwerkan workers. "Just continue to pile it on the south side of the mountain for now." Gerron turned back to Karux. "I hear you had a tough time at the pass."

"Yes," Karux said. "We lost a lot of good men, Akonti among them."

Gerron looked grim. "I heard. I'd watched him grow up from a young lad. He was always a good kid. He would have been a respected elder of his tribe. Now he is, like his tribe, gone.

In the awkward silence that followed, Karux looked up the wide ramp in which half a dozen men could easily walk abreast. "I see you've been busy."

"Yes! Let me show you around! The dwerka have done an amazing job." He indicated the construction around the ramp with a sweep of his hand. "Here, let me take your bags." Gerron hefted them and started upwards. "They're not such bad fellows," he added. "A little quiet perhaps, but they do like their beer and will loosen up a bit after a few bowls."

At the top of the ramp, Karux paused to look up at a pair of towers which the dwerka had carved out of the rock itself and another heavy pair of wooden doors. Inside this second wall of stone, the dwerka had carved a series of buildings from out of the mountain itself.

"You wouldn't believe the amount of stone they've moved. I think we could build a wall completely around N'shia-Potoma itself! And all this is nothing compared to what they've done underground."

Gerron led Karux on a tour through endless halls and galleries, dorm rooms, store rooms and cisterns. Karux quickly got lost so that Gerron led him back to a bedroom not far from a main hall near the entrance. "You can stay here if you like. Or if you find a better room, let me know and I'll have a bed moved wherever necessary."

Karux slipped the pack from his shoulders and leaned his short spear against the wall. "It will be good to sleep in an actual bed," he sighed as he sat down. He looked around at his bedroom and noticed that is was about the size of his father's house back in Korion-Garanth. "I can't believe we have all this room."

"I think we nearly have enough room for everyone in the upper and lower valleys," Gerron smiled. "We may even be as big as Nur. I am told that the dwerka have already dug out the mountain to the level of the ground outside and that they show no sign of slowing down. We've given permission for their tribes to live here with us until the mountains of the northern valley are retaken, though they seem to prefer the lower portions."

When Karux let loose with the latest in a series of jaw-cracking yawns, Gerron made to leave. "Supper will be in the main hall at the end of the corridor soon after sundown." He pointed down the passage outside. "Do let me know if you need anything."

Karux lay down on the bed, still in his traveling clothes. "Thank you. I will." He had grown so tired during the tour that he'd had difficulty keeping his eyes open as Gerron talked. However after Gerron left, Karux found that sleep left with him. He lay on the bed for a few moments growing more wakeful and irritated by the moment, so he finally got up and began prowling the halls of Har-Tor.

He was just as awed the second time around as he had been on his initial whirlwind tour. The dwerka had decorated the margins where the walls met the floors and the ceilings and around the doorways and stairways in detailed geometric patterns. He passed, at regular intervals, small white-washed shafts that let in air and reflected light, yet kept out the rain and weather. As he descended lower, however, he came to passages that had a rough unfinished look to them. He followed one that bore signs of recent tool marks until it opened into the large empty space of a naturally formed stoma.

A dim beam of red light, reflected down a shaft from the setting sun, fell across the vast spherical expanse striking the far wall near the curve of the floor. A small movement caught his eye and he walked over. It was a large greenish-black beetle. It seemed to be wrestling another beetle. As he watched, another raced across the floor to join them, then another and another. Karux looked around and realized that the floor and walls of the stoma writhed in scuttling insects.

Afraid to move, the rustling tide of dark green wing casings brushed past his feet and piled up on top of one another forming a thick column nearly a yard into the air. As it grew, the atmosphere became heavy. Karux felt a presence draw near, its awareness pressing down on him from every direction.

Instinctively, Karux shifted his awareness to the world of shapes. The symbols of land, of rock, of soil and of the life of all green and growing things were fading into existence, coiling in onto themselves to form a shape much like that of a man.

Karux licked his lips nervously. "Who are you?"

A million chitenous wing casings rattled and a million wings beat the air until it hummed. "What do you call this place?"

"It is called Har-Tor," Karux replied.

"We are n'phesh Har-Tor," the elemental hummed in answer.

"What do you want?" Karux asked.

"We want...." Here it said something that sounded like "a lord/husband/king/body" all at the same time.

Fear pounded in Karux chest and he slid a foot back in preparations to run. "Where would I find such a thing?"

"Join with us," the n'phesh said.

A chill ran down his spine freezing him to the spot or he would have run right then. "I c-cannot."

"Bring us a lord/husband/king/body."

The patterns of the elements swirled together in a rising spiral. It had some similarity to the maelstrom he saw at Korion-Doulon, yet lacked the infinite black hole of the Void. "Whom do you serve?" Karux asked.

"We serve the lord/husband/king/body," the elemental replied.

Karux swallowed hard. "Do you serve the n'kroi?"

"No. We do not, but others of us serve their oracle."

"Their oracle?" Karux asked.

"The Fallen Ones use him to corrupt the n'phesh. n'phesh Nur serves the oracle of Nur who serves the n'kroi. You are the oracle of Har-Tor. Join us and we shall serve you."

Every time they said the word "join", Karux received a mental image that was something like a wedding and something like two pieces of clay being mashed together into a single lump. The mention of Nur brought a growing suspicion to his mind. Hoping to change the subject, he asked, "Do you know what the oracle of Nur calls himself?"

"Amantis. He has summoned n'phesh Nur. He has asked n'phesh Nur to strike the land. The land is now cursed to please the n'kroi."

"I cannot join with you," Karux said.

"Bring us the lord/husband/king/body."

"I don't know where to find that."

"n'phesh Nur will grow strong for the n'kroi. n'phesh Har-Tor will grow weaker until we join."

"I'll see what I can do," Karux offered.

With that the spiraling schemas broke apart and the presence was snuffed out. Karux blinked himself back to the land of light and shadows—though mostly shadows—and the man-shaped pillar of insects crashed down in a frightened skittering mass of beetles running in every direction. Some even ran up Karux's legs so that he had to jump and stamp his feet to dislodge them, crushing insects with every step.

He turned and ran from the stoma leaving a trail of smashed beetles, passing a pair of surprised dwerka walking down the corridor with hammers and chisels.

"Join with us" they had said. Was it true that that was the only way to defeat Amantis and the n'kroi? If they were to stop the curse he had foreseen, would he have to sacrifice his humanity and become like them? Could he pay that price? Would anyone?