Six years before the founding of the first kingdom

The wheat rippled like an endless golden sea in the rising morning breeze. Though bright and warm, the sun's heat was not oppressive as Theris swung his scythe in time with the chants of his fellow villagers. He enjoyed the stretch and pull of muscle across his broad back and shoulders as he cut the wheat down in great arching swaths. He paused to catch his breath and look back on his work and saw his village's streets littered with torn bodies of his neighbors.

Theris staggered, his limbs grown suddenly weak. His son's body lay in the street outside his house, a gaping hole in his belly where the enemy had caught him on their spears. A broad spray of blood and brains, splashed against his doorpost, marked the place where his infant daughter's crushed body lay.

How could he have forgotten? How could he be harvesting grain while the enemy killed his children and stole his wife and daughters?

"Asophra!"

Theris awoke, kicking up dust in the dim light of predawn. He sat up, disoriented, pushing aside a shriveled branch which snapped off in his hand, and tried to find south—the direction from which the raiders had come. The other men stirred, rolling up ragged blankets and dusty furs, though most had simply covered themselves in dead grass and leaves. In a brief moment of clarity he realized he had no idea of who these ragged and men were. Thin, with tanned skins over corded muscles, they clutched spears or pointed sticks with hungry and fearful eyes set in bony faces.

He thought he should know them. They were probably the other victims of the raiders. He looked to the horizon, looking—he hoped—southward for any signs of smoke or habitation. One of the men wordlessly put a piece of raw meat in his hand. It was tough and chewy, but it gave his mouth something to do other than gnaw on his own tongue in anguish. One of the other men gave him some water in a curved piece of bone. It looked as if it might have been part of a skull. He sipped it and handed it back.

"Baru?" he asked, the name coming suddenly to him. It was a new recruit. A lost soul he had come across in this accursed wasteland.

Baru nodded, but Theris had already forgotten the name as his eyes returned to the horizon, a faint question nagged him from the dark places of his ravaged memory. How long had they been doing this? How long had the search gone on? The atrocity was as fresh as if it had happened yesterday, but he suspected they had been doing this for more than a few days.

Theris put a gnarled arm across the new recruit's shoulders. He grimaced in an attempt to reassure him. "Fear not," he said in a rough and little used voice. "We shall catch them."

The men gathered around him. He raised his weapon and pointed it southward. "We hunt the blood of the guilty!"

The pack surged onward, spears ready for blood.

<====|==|====>

Two hundred and fifty men, wearing leather tunics covered in bronze plates, shields strapped to their backs and carrying the three types of spears marched south from Har-Tor. Before them marched another fifty men armed with swords and shields. Karux, Garanth, Netac, Harkin and Corha led the procession.

Netac watched Corha cast nervous glances over her shoulder. He didn't think she was just looking at the rising column of dust following them. He wondered if, like him, she felt a sense of menace and violent purpose in the mere presence of those warriors. He knew Karux hoped to negotiate more agreements with the koria of the south, but he feared the very presence of the warriors was so confrontational that the negotiations would all go wrong.

The procession veered to the southeast following the edge of the blight as they headed toward Korion-Amelein. Netac occupied his time by making small rocks float into the air and circle Harkin's head. This both amused and irritated Harkin who tried to retaliate and failed. He was only able to send rocks shooting off in random directions, sometimes pinging off the legs of the people around them. Once he succeeded in picking Netac up, holding him upside down until Netac scrambled around and found a way to dismantle his schema. After that Karux yelled at them to leave each other alone.

Korion-Amelein, like most koria, sat in the middle of a circle of cultivated fields that stretched between one and two miles in radius. A single road passed through this circle right across the front of the main gate to the korion. There being no cleared space outside the korion for three hundred men to camp, and certainly no room inside the korion, Karux's tireav stopped and camped in the road outside.

A guard standing at the gate ran inside the moment the tireav appeared. Soon, Arcanth Labrose strode out angrily and found Karux. "What are you doing here? Why are all these men here?"

"Don't tell me you've already forgotten our conversation from last spring?" Karux chuckled. These men have come with me to fight gob-bocari and to help me carry off all that extra food I helped you grow."

"Now I never agreed to that," Labrose said.

"Did I not put poles in our fields?"

"Yes, I allowed you to use my field to test them, but that does not give you the right to take our food.

"Not all your food," Karux sighed, "just one half of the second harvest—one quarter of the food."

"We did have a small second harvest, but you have no proof that your—"

A man in a yellow robe stepped out of the korion's gate. Behind him stood ten men holding spears and wearing armor.

"Who are those men?" Karux interrupted.

"That is Gorvia, speaker for the Collective," Labrose said a little defensively.

"Why are they here?"

"To discuss how the Collective can help us."

"Is there a problem here?" Gorvia asked, walking up to the two men.

"That depends on whether Arcanth Labrose, here, is the type to go back on his word or not."

Labrose stood up straighter and pushed his chest out. "I resent your implication and I resent all these men and weapons you've brought."

Gorvia eyed the warriors setting up camp in the middle of the road. The road was little more than a narrow trail so the line of men stretched down to the bend and around the next hill. "Perhaps we should go back inside to discuss this. We were about to complete the arrangements over a meal."

Something like a cunning smile slid across Labrose face and Netac felt vicariously embarrassed for him. "Yes. Let's go back inside and discuss this and you can each present your case for what you can do for our korion." He turned to leave, then paused and looked back at Karux. "Unfortunately, you'll have to leave your men out here. We simply do not have the room for them."

"Of course," Karux said and followed him and Gorvia towards the gate. "But I'll bring my students along."

"If you must."

Netac, Harking and Corha followed. Garanth remained behind. He was already directing men where to set up their tents and dig latrines. Not actually doing any of the work, Netac noted, but enjoying his authority.

Ten of Gorvia's reavers followed them inside the city, then Labrose's reavers closed the village gate and barred it. Karux cast a glance back to the gate but said nothing. A cold nervous feeling stole over Netac. Korion-Amelein already felt too much like Nur.

Gorvia's reavers and Karux's students sat at separate tables, as did Karux, Gorvia and Labrose.

"I noticed you closed your gates," Karux said as the servers brought them their trenchers and bowls.

"I like to close them when they're not in use." Labrose paused to take a sip.

"And you don't expect them to be used, though it is the middle of the day?"

"Not while we're eating." Labrose set down his bowl and looked from one to the other. "So, our friend Karux here says he can, with his wooden poles, double our harvests," Labrose told Gorvia, "in exchange for a fourth of our harvest. What can the Collective do for me?"

"We know all about his poles. We can easily reproduce them..." Gorvia said.

"And curse his lands in the process," Karux added. "The schemas on the poles must be adjusted for each location. If you get it wrong, you'll do more harm than good."

"He's exaggerating," Gorvia said, "taking credit for what is mostly nature's work."

"Of course that wouldn't be the first time Nur has cursed the land," Karux added. "Since the blight came from you in the first place."

"We believe differently," Gorvia snapped. "The Oracle of the North cursed the lands to try to force us to submit to his will, as he is trying to trick you to do the same."

"If there's any deception here—"

"Gentlemen!" Labrose chuckled. "We're getting off the subject. You're supposed to be telling me what you're going to do for me. So far I'm hearing you both want to stick a bunch of wooden poles in my fields."

"We can also send men to help plant and harvest," Gorvia said. "You can double the area you farm as well as double the harvest you get from them, and while our men are not working the fields they will defend you from the gob-bocari."

Labrose considered this with an appreciative nod.

"And you keep your own food." Gorvia said the last with a glare at Karux.

"But what will it cost him?" Karux asked.

"Nothing!"

"So you will agree to provide for your own men as well as allow him to store all his food here?"

"Well, no," Gorvia hesitated. "We'd expect him to feed and house the men working for him, but since they're doing the work they would, in truth, be providing for themselves."

"And the harvests?" Karux prompted.

"Well, there you're going to need our help as well," Labrose smiled weakly. "You will find that you have too much food to store locally. What's more, large stores tend to attract the gob-bocari as well as ruthless and desperate men."

Karux snorted in obvious disdain.

Gorvia leaned toward Labrose. "We will store and protect it all for you."

"Your food will do you no good in Nur," Karux said.

"And we can promise that your people never need go hungry. Even if the blight comes to your fields, as it looks like it may, our koria will share their excess food with you. That's the whole idea behind the Collective."

Karux laughed. "And force you to do the same for their koria—though 'force' might not be the right word since they'll already have your food. They'll simply eat it."

"Have you no decency?" Gorvia shouted.

Karux leaned back in his chair looking smug.

Labrose studied them both for a moment, then turned to Karux. "Have you nothing else to offer?"

Karux shrugged. "We can do everything Gorvia here has promised, including letting you keep more of your own food, and—unlike them—we'll actually keep our agreement."

Labrose sighed and shook his head. "The truth is, Gorvia and I have already spoken and come to an agreement. I wanted to give you a chance to best his offer, but if you cannot..."

A strange look came over Karux's face. "Perhaps if you give me some more time to think about it."

Labrose shrugged. "I'll give you until we have finished dinner, then make my decision."

The conversation abruptly died and the three men concentrated on eating their food. Karux stared at his trencher, unmoving. The others ate in silence, eyes on their food, casting only furtive glances at Labrose or Gorvia or Karux. After several minutes Labrose abruptly lurched back in his chair. He stiffened all over, his eyes rolling back in his head, and he fell to the ground where his arms and legs and head shook violently. Karux and Gorvia leaped to their feet. One of Labrose' reavers knelt beside Labrose and tried to hold him down as his thrashing grew more violent. "What's wrong with him?" the reaver asked as blood oozed from Labrose's nose, eyes and ears.

Gorvia stepped back, his hand going to his throat. "Was he poisoned?"

Karux leaned over, staring at the stricken man. "No. I don't think so or we would all have felt it by now." He looked to the reaver kneeling over him. "Has he had these sorts of fits before?"

"No. Never."

"This should pass."

The reaver looked up to Karux. "You don't think this is the work of the N'k—the work of the spirits of the Void, do you?"

"I don't think so," he shot Gorvia a dark look. "But then you never know what new influences may bring with them."

Labrose groaned as the fit seemed to leave him. His reaver helped him sit up and Labrose wiped at his nose, and stared at his hand in apparent surprise at the blood. "What happened?" he groaned.

"Some sort of fit took you," Gorvia said. "How are you feeling?"

"My head aches." He sniffed and wiped at his nose again. "It was like a storm of darkness came over me, with blinding flashes of light appearing out of nowhere."

"Perhaps you'd like to rest?" the reaver supporting him suggested.

"Yes. I'm suddenly very tired."

The reaver helped Labrose to his feet and steadied him.

"Perhaps it might be best to send Karux and his men on their way?" Gorvia suggested.

Labrose looked at Gorvia and Karux and frowned uncertainly. His eyes seemed strangely unfocused. "No...I don't think so. I think they might be able to help. Yes. I would like their help. We can talk about this later." The reaver led him to the door.

Gorvia glared at Karux, then turned and gestured for his men to join him and stormed out of the longhouse.

Karux and his startled students were left alone in the building. A knowing smile slid across Karux's face.

"You did something didn't you," Netac accused.

"I may have."

"What?" Corha asked.

"I thought I felt a shift in the karis," Netac said. "How could you?"

"What did he do?" Corha asked.

"How could I what?" Karux frowned.

"Change his mind like that?"

"You might have noticed that Gorvia and I were both trying to change his mind."

"Through words, through persuasion," Netac said. "What you did was not the same thing."

"I merely reinforced his positive feelings toward us and his negative feelings toward Gorvia and the Collective. He did the rest."

"Can't you see that is wrong?" Netac shouted.

"Who are you to lecture me?"

"The ability to govern ourselves is what makes us human! Take that away and we become mere cattle, tools for others to use. It would be better if you had thrust a spear through his head."

"Now you're just getting hysterical. He's still free to do as he likes, I just made sure he likes us better."

"But he is no longer able to decide that on his own. You have limited his ability to decide for himself."

Karux stepped forward and loomed over Netac, who still sat at the table with the other students. He face grew very dark. "We are—all of us—limited in what we can and cannot do. None of us are allowed to decide our futures free and unfettered by the world around us. Do you think I chose to become the Oracle? If I had had the ability to decide for myself, the angorym would never have come and I'd be a herdsman living up north with Garanth's mother as my wife!"

Netac looked away abruptly feeling foolish and childish, but Karux wasn't finished yet.

"We do what necessity demands of us. We carry on even when none of the choices are good." Karux took a deep breath and looked away. "Labrose's abilities were limited by his greed and lack of vision. Tell me how Labrose or his people would be better served if we allowed them to fall into the Collective's trap?"

Netac had no answer for him.

In the end, they stayed a sennight, planting poles and hunting gob-bocari. Gorvia went away, surprised and angry. Labrose sent Karux and his men away with the food he had promised them, though he looked a little confused and reluctant to part with it.

Karux led the tireav to the next korion whistling as he strode down the road.