Gronw and his clan found his dunum occupied when they arrived.  A small community of Brackish and Chroani refugees had made the ruined dunum their home.  At first intimidated by the cings and suspicious of their intentions, the refugees were at first hesitant to stay, but eventually an understanding was made.  The refugees were permitted to remain so long as they serve Gronw and the dunum’s needs as cottars and slugs.  In return, they are permitted to enjoy the protection of the dunum’s walls and the cings’ swords.

Already, the efforts of cing, cottar, and slug have begun to show.  Breaches in the walls are being repaired.  Roofs for new homes are being raised.  All around the dunum, the soil of the hills is being broken and cleared of stones in preparation for plowing in the spring.  The windows of Gronw’s hall glow warmly, its doors open to all.

Esmeree has insisted on an unconventional social order within this place.  Not all Bracks are cottars, not all Chroani are slugs, and all refugees are welcome.  And Brack or not, Logan clan or not, no women get their tongues cut out.  She has vowed that no more stone-summoners will be captured by the likes of Hiisi.  She has vowed to make this place a safe-haven for those seeking a better life.

These have been the conditions for her remaining in the dunum, and Gronw accepted them without question.  Word is spreading, and already new refugees have begun to arrive.  Even some rare Drungi have come.  The refugees’ hands fill the gaps and perform needed jobs in the ruined keep.  There have been several marriages as displaced families seek ties with their new cing protectors.  There are pektus to play with Iall and odocos to keep Myrdd company.  Slowly, this ruin is beginning to look like a living dunum.  It is becoming the New Mill.

Esmeree stands upon the cai’on of the dunum.  The rough stone wall rises 5 feet above the thick earthworks surrounding the hall and subordinate structures.  It’s not as impressive as Naw’s mighty fortress—it’s not even as big as the Orphan’s Bag—but strangely, Esmeree feels safe here.

Fat rain clouds tumble across the bright sky overhead.  Frost Season is nearly over.  Soon, the warm rains will begin, planting season will come, and before she knows it, it will be Green Season and New Year’s.

“What are you looking for, Esmeree?”

She looks down at Llydaw.  The asp sits on the stone wall next to her, looking up at her with his curious mask.

“I was just thinking,” she sighs, “of the future, of the unknowable.”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

She looks down at him with surprise.  “To plan?  To try to predict.  To make order from chaos.”

He switches to his solemn mask.  “A soul questing for perfection, Esmeree, is a soul in pain.  You must follow the whims of your spirit.  Live in the moment, and follow your heart.  Live not in fear but in love.”

“Love?”

“Love is a mirror of the divine, Esmeree.  Fear not the future, for it will come whether you prepare for it or not.”

“Easy for you to say,” she sighs.  “You’re asp.”

“It is the way of the asp,” he corrects.

“You don’t eat, you don’t drink, you don’t sleep,” she snaps.

“I don’t need to,” he corrects.

“—so of course you don’t need to plan!  Clothes, money, food.  Comfort.  What would you need to plan for?  Nothing!”

“It’s not as easy as that.”

“Oh?  I could do that now.  I have not the coils, but I don’t need them.”

“How do you mean?”  He’s wearing his curious mask again.  She notes for the first time how monkey-like it is.  She’d seen Ulbandi nobles with the tiny man-things on their shoulders.  The furry homunculi were always getting themselves into trouble.

“My ember can provide all I need,” she says smugly.  “It feeds me, warms me, heals me, cures me.  It can even provide me with companionship.  I need not the Dragon’s coils to deliver these things.”

“That’s not the same, Esmeree!”  Looking down at him, she’s surprised and dismayed to see him wearing his shocked mask.  “Not the same at all!  Have you not noticed the effects your stone has upon the world?”

“What do you mean?”

“The wind, the cold.  You cast your spells, and the stone and trees and works of man around you are aged!  Stone and iron crumble!  Have you not noticed these things?”

Esmeree looks away and pouts, “Yäh, I’ve seen them.  So what?  I’ve gotten good at controlling the side-effects.  Hardly notice them any more.”

“You mustn’t use your magic to take from the world, Esmeree!  To heal yourself and others—to feed them and warm them—these are powerful gifts, but they are committed at the expense of other things!”

“So if someone sticks a knife into me,” she snaps, “you don’t expect me to heal myself?”

Much to her surprise, Llydaw actually nods in agreement as he switches to his solemn mask.  “If you are safe and no longer in danger, yes.  The healing will come in time.  Why hurry it?”  He raises a finger.  “You must learn when to sacrifice yourself for the good of other things.”

“I try,” she sighs.

“A good lesson for anyone, but all the more important when you’re a stone-summoner.  This spell-summoning, this planning, all pointless quests to force the world and your life to fit perfectly.  I have no stone, and yet these things come to me easily.”

She frowns.  It is strange that he should say that, for it is something that’s been troubling her ever since her reunion with him at the Orphan’s Bag.  When she cast her spell that night, she detected no sorcerers other than Iall—no magic of any kind—and yet Llydaw was inside.  Surely, he is the most magical man she has ever encountered, and if Ongram was correct, he should be nothing but pure ember.  Yet, her spell failed to find him.  Just to satisfy her curiosity, she casts the spell again.  Just as before, she finds no magic—sorcery or otherwise—in the man.

“I don’t seek perfection, Llydaw, but some planning is necessary.  Without planning, the crops will never be planted, we will be unable to defend our homes and loved-ones from our enemies, and we will die without ever achieving our potential.  Without planning, when the Primate comes, he will walk right through us.”

Llydaw guffaws, switching to his Trickster mask.  “Primate,” he titters.  “You know what that word means in my tongue?”

She laughs, “No.  I don’t even know what land you’re from.”

“Good,” he sighs smugly, and Esmeree can only roll her eyes and shake her head.

How can Llydaw criticize her planning and preparation?  Surely, asps do it.  Surely, they don’t live in a state of perpetual chaos.  Do they?

She remembers the asp that died in Cliffs Reach.  She carries a piece of him within her—among the souls of her other dead companions within the animus of her ember—and will for as long as she lives.  If asps live in the moment, then what drove him to lay siege to the gates of Cliffs Reach?  What drove him to travel that distance into Palpi?  What drove him to seek her out and hand over that piece of his being?  Spontaneity?

“And what,” her ember whispers, “compelled you to stand on the street at just the moment when he was led past?  What compelled you to be at the just the right place to receive his soul?  Was that planning as well?  Perhaps it is all planned.”

Esmeree shakes her head in an effort to drive away her stone’s voices.  If her ember’s homunculus is formed of many voices, how is it that it speaks with only one?

She looks down at Llydaw and notes the similarity of the two asps.  As far as she can recall, short of the masks, the two men are identical.  Could they be one and the same?  She’d need to get a better look at Llydaw’s face to be sure.

Looking down at him, her eyes widen with surprise.  He still wears his Trickster mask.  Llydaw is almost never quiet—even less so when wearing that prankster mask—but now he just sits in silence, his shoulders trembling slightly.

She rests her hand on his shoulder.  “Llydaw?”

Beneath her hand, she feels his body spasm, and choking noises come from his throat.  She frowns when she realizes there is nothing wrong with him.  The fool is laughing.  All around her, she hears the dunum erupt in panicked activity.  Cings shout and run for the gates.

“You enjoy planning, Esmeree?” Llydaw gasps between laughing fits.  He points towards the object of his amusement.  “Then how would you plan for something like that?”

Esmeree looks out over the hills, and her jaw drops.  Behind her in the dunum, she hears Iall shouting up to her, “Can you see it?  Can you see it?  I want to see it!”

Esmeree can only stare in amazement.  Taking strides twice as long as a man is tall, the cauaros stalks towards to the walls of the dunum.

The giant sits on its haunches, peering down at the cings assembled around him.  Ropes of saliva slowly coil down from its fangs, and its long tusks cut the air every time it turns its head.  It watches the debate raging around it, not really understanding but gamely listening anyway.

“I didn’t think the cauaros migrated this early,” Esmeree whispers.  She is awestruck by the size of this creature.

Gronw only shakes his head as he stares up at it.  “It’s been warm and wet past couple weeks.  Maybe he’s early.”

“Maybe it’s just the beginning,” growls Twrch.

“Maybe he’s lost?” she wonders.

“Koljo come, good place, igen, igen!” the giant roars.  The inhumanly deep bass of its voice shakes the viscera in her belly.  A primal, instinctual sense of fear fills her, but she resists it.  The giant’s language is close to Brackish, but not a dialect she can recognize.  “Koljo want buzur!  Food!  Me comin’ kaldyk!  Koljo come in now?”

“Nage!” Twrch shouts.  “Absolutely NOT!”  He looks at Gronw and Esmeree, “This thing will NOT be enterin’ our dunum!”

Esmeree looks at Koljo speculatively.  The shape of its body is only remotely man-like.  Long, black fur runs from its mane across its crested back, down its arms and legs, and shrouding its hooves.  Heavy ridges of bone and sinew run across its skull and limbs, turning its hands into massive, mallet-like battering rams, its face into a sneering, brutal gargoyle’s leer.  “Why not?” she muses.

“Don’t tell me yer ignorant of the habits of cauaros!” he snaps.

She shakes her head, stepping closer to get a better look at Koljo’s eyes.  She listens to the silent voice of her stone as it whispers to her.  “I’ve heard all the usual Fée tales,” she murmurs, “but I’ve never seen nor heard anything reliable.”

Koljo furrows its brow as she approaches and drops to all fours to bring its face closer to hers.  Twrch hisses nervously, and the cings nearby finger their weapons.  Should the cauaros lash out at her, there is no question their numbers could slay it, but by that time, it would do her little good.

“Yä be careful, lady,” Gronw warns.

She gingerly touches Koljo’s heavy tusks.  Though long and elegantly curved, they are also scarred from violent use, probably during the cauaros’s brutal mating duels.  She knows their ivory is likely worth a king’s ransom.  Stepping between them, she stands nearly nose-to-snout with the giant and stares into its eyes.  They are dark and deeply recessed beneath a bony forehead adorned with massive, curling horns.

Touching her ember, she nods silently to its voice.  Her stone trembles and summons.  The giant frowns and shudders as the charm settles within its brow—this breed of Fée must be sensitive to magic—and then it sniffs and snuffles against Esmeree like a gigantic dog.  “What doing?” it grunts, “Büyü?”

Esmeree concentrates, trying to reach the charm she just cast.  In this creature’s simple heart, she senses hunger and isolation.  Loneliness.  She senses an injury and subsequent abandonment by its crash.  She senses a need for acceptance by a  new crash.

Opening her eyes, she smiles and steps back.  The cauaros surges back up to its haunches and cocks its head questioningly at Esmeree.  Gronw approaches and touches her on the shoulder.  “What did yä do?”

She looks back at the Rix.  “Looked into its heart.”

“What?  Like readin’ its mind?”

“No, not quite,” she smiles.  “I can’t do that yet.  I just felt its feelings.”

“And what did yä learn?”

“He’s hungry.”  Twrch and several cing moan anxiously.  “He’s also lonely and looking to join us.”

Gronw frowns with concern.  “Any possibility it is deceivin’ yä?”

She shrugs.  “It’s possible.  Anything is possible.  But I’m wagering that I’m right.”

“And what does that mean?”

She smiles up at Koljo.  The giant shakes its long, black mane and paws at its face, apparently still distressed by her spell.  “I guess that means that I’d let him join us.”

“What?” Twrch explodes.  “These boduus animals are baby-killers!  They’re cannibals!  They steal livestock!  Commit murder!”

“Perhaps,” Esmeree says, “but this one isn’t anything like that.”

“Of course it is!  That’s what Rhiadaf built the breed fer!  He made them graney and mean!”

Esmeree steps forward and touches the cauaros on the shin.  “You have to look deeper than ugliness, Twrch.  If I hadn’t, we all would still be halogedig in Naw’s tents.”

Twrch curses and spits.  “Me lord, Gronw,” he appeals to his rix, “I hear and respect this caragus’s words, but as yer dunum’s châtelain, I can’t recommend yä allow this creature intä our walls.  We have bnas and pektus tä think about.  Even if its intentions are peaceful, it still might step on someone.”

Twrch’s unintentional humor causes Esmeree to burst into laughter.  She does her best to suppress it, but others also begin chuckling, including Gronw.  When even Koljo begins to guffaw, all Twrch can do is smile and shake his head.

Slapping his châtelain on the back, Gronw waves the cings to silence.  He addresses Llydaw, who has been watching the encounter from his place on the wall.  “Honored asp!  What think yä on this?”

Llydaw switches to his thoughtful mask.  “Strong backs come with large stomachs.”

There is silence as everyone waits for more, but the asp falls silent once again.

“Ah,” Gronw hazards.  “With apologies tä our adgarios, the dangers of the cauaros are well-known.  This one may be different—it may not be—it seems only Johlpa and Esmeree can tell.”  He looks at her.  “I trust yer judgement, lady, but we must keep this dunum safe.”

Gronw looks up at the giant and shouts, “Yä can stay here, Koljo, understand?”

Koljo nods its heavy head.  “Igen, igen!”

“But yä have tä stay outside these walls!  Outside, kirze?”

The giant pouts but eventually agrees.

Nodding his head, Gronw turns to Esmeree.  “Yä keep an eye on him.  Teach him.  Put him tä work in the fields.  Make sure he’s clear on who is in his crash and who is not.  If he proves controllable, and he behaves himself,” Gronw shrugs, “we’ll let him in.”

Esmeree beams.  “Bratos, my lord Gronw!”

Gronw chuckles.  “Yer welcome, me lady Esmeree.”

Esmeree hesitates and frowns.  There is a blemish on the Rix’s face.  Taking him by the arm, she rushes him from the circle of cings.  “Gronw,” she whispers, “We have to talk.”

Alone in his chambers, they peer at the rash closely in a polished metal mirror.  Setting it down sadly, Gronw sighs.  “It is the halogrwydd.  It’s come back.”

Esmeree closes her eyes and summons.  Deep within the Rix’s body, she sees the black form of the curse.  It has come back.  “The curse runs deeper than I expected,” she whispers.

“And me cings?” he demands.

Esmeree glances outside while the spell is still active.  The residents of the dunum are still healthy.  “They’re fine, my Rix.”

Gronw sighs with relief.  She approaches cautiously.  “Gronw,” she whispers, “I’m sorry.”

He smiles as he looks at her.  “I suppose I’m fated tä be the Leper King forever, yäh?”

She bows her head.  “I’m sorry.”

He wraps an arm around her shoulders and gives her a squeeze.  “I understand that yä did all yä could.  What is most important is yä freed me men from the halogrwydd.”

She touches his blemish with her free hand.  “I can cast the spell again, Gronw.  I can cast it as often as you need.  We’ll keep this under control.  No one will ever know of your halogrwydd, and none of your cings will become afflicted by it.”

He wraps his other arm around her and holds her tightly.  “Bratos, me inigena.  Again and always, I am in yer debt.”

* * *

“Iall, please,” Esmeree pleads.  “You can play with Koljo after your lessons!”

The fry turns away from the tower’s window and pouts.  “But we’ve done this for so long!” she moans.

Esmeree smiles understandingly and walks over to the girl.  The two of them press their faces against the glass.  An early spring sun beams welcome warmth onto their skin as they look down upon the dunum’s enceintes and the fields beyond.

Outside, Esmeree can see other fry squealing and laughing as they climb over and across the giant.  Who would have thought Koljo would have become such a handsome creature once he was cleaned up a little?  Her ember was right, of course.  The cauaros are very much like dogs or wolves.  Once it gets attached to a crash, it will die to protect it.  Like the rest of the fry, Iall is delighted by the gigantic, gentle creature, and he seems fascinated by the music her stone plays.  The two have become close, although disproportionate, friends.

Esmeree and Iall laugh as cottars and slugs rush over and shout up at Koljo in frustration.  He has been put to work clearing fields of the largest boulders and repairing the dunum’s walls with them, but he keeps getting distracted by the pektus’s games.  The farmers roundly chastise the sulking giant and box the ears of the intruding children.  Soon, all is quiet in the fields again.

Esmeree tousles Iall’s hair.  “See?  The games are over for now.  Koljo can’t play even if your lessons were finished.”

Iall slaps her thighs in frustration, and Esmeree sighs sadly.  She wishes there was a way she could make these exercises more fun for her.  She looks over at the giant reflectively.

Maybe there is a way.

“Iall,” she says, kneeling to look the girl in the eye.  “Let’s practice your charm for a little while.”

Iall rolls her eyes and moans.  “That is so useless!”

“Actually,” Esmeree murmurs, “You’d be surprised how useful it’s become.”

Iall frowns, but Esmeree waves the question away before she can ask it.  “Don’t you mind.  I’ll tell you about it some other time.”  She turns her back towards the window and whispers, “Now, summon your magic vision.”

Iall sighs and closes her eyes.  Esmeree can feel her tiny ember flame and summon, and she knows the girl’s eyes can now see the magic around her.  Aside from the sorceress’s stones, the only magic shining in the dunum is Koljo.  The giant glimmers faintly with its own inherent power.

Esmeree smiles.  “Now watch…”

She summons her charm and casts it towards the cauaros.  The small ball of light passes through the wall and into the fields without slowing.  Esmeree guides it until it hovers just in front of Koljo’s face.  At first, he doesn’t see it.  Iall gasps in surprise when he suddenly jerks up and peers closely at it.  Even as he gingerly reaches for it, Esmeree tugs it back.

Frowning with honest bafflement, Koljo follows, abandoning his chores again and ignoring the complaints of the nearby farmers.  Iall laughs gleefully as the ball spins and twirls around him, the giant turning and grabbing at it desperately.  To the others who cannot see the charm, they must be thinking the poor creature has gone insane.

At last, Esmeree stops the ball, and Koljo crushes it between his two hands with a thunder-like smack.  Spreading his hands open again, he frowns to find his prize missing.  Esmeree and Iall laugh and cheer.

“Now you try,” she says.

Iall sobers slightly and nods.  Closing her eyes, she summons her own charm.  Esmeree watches as it floats uncertainly towards the cauaros.  “Now you have to concentrate,” she whispers.  “Keep in mind where you want it to go.  Don’t let him catch it!”

She smiles as she watches her apprentice play and the giant tumble across the fields.  She’s sure Gronw will forgive her, though the farmers might not.  What was it Llydaw always says?  Live for the moment.  She laughs and applauds as Koljo makes a leaping dive.  Iall struggles to get the charm away in time, but he manages to catch it.

Even as Iall summons a new charm, something in the distance catches Esmeree’s eye.  A heavy, stocky figure stands on a distant hilltop.  Esmeree begins to tremble.  It is a rraakk.

A trickle of blood runs down the glass of the window.  Reaching out, she is surprised to realize that it is on the inside of the glass.  She backs away in shock as more blood flows through the seams of the stones and begins spilling onto the floor.  Her sandals step into a pool of the warm fluid.  The walls flex and moan as if alive—sphincters open and close reflexively, spewing forth foul yellow fluid—long ropes of viscera descend from the hidden ceiling, reaching for her limbs and throat.

“Iall!” she screams, “Get away from the window!”

The fry turns, and Esmeree shrieks when she sees her eyes and nose have been gouged away.  The deep, violent wounds are fresh and bleeding freely.  Iall struggles slightly in her bag, and the frayed scraps of skin and sinew hanging from the stumps of her arms wave about like sad little flags.  Her bag hangs from a cruel tooth-like hook erupting from the fleshy wall where the window used to be, and Esmeree sees its fabric soaking through with blood leaking from her newly amputated legs.

Baring her teeth, the fry hisses at her.  Esmeree presses her hands against her ears, but she can still hear it.

“I command, I am commanded,” Iall whines.  “The circle completes me.”

“No!”

“The circle calls, trespasser.  Speak the words.”

Esmeree blinks.  Suddenly, she realizes what’s happening.  “What does the circle want?” she asks quietly.

“The circle calls, trespasser.  Your presence offends us.  Price must be paid.”

“What price is this?” Esmeree asks, trying to remember the image she is looking at is not really her fry, though one day it may be.

“The circle calls, trespasser.  The price is your softest flesh.”

“Our dearest flesh?” she whispers.

“I serve, I am served,” the disfigured child hisses, “The circle is complete.  The circle comes 3 days hence.  The circle comes to take your softest flesh.”

Esmeree glares at this gory mockery of her precious fry, and sudden fury fills her.  She spits at it.  “No!  You come, you come at your own peril!  You hear?  You’ll not get our softest flesh!”

Suddenly, the vision is gone.  Iall stands at the window, looking at up Esmeree with some concern.  “What’s the matter?”

Esmeree blinks and shudders, dropping to her knees and embracing the girl.  “What’s the matter?” Iall asks again, sensing Esmeree’s fear.

Esmeree buries her face in her hair and holds her even tighter.  “They won’t get you, I swear,” she whispers.

Standing suddenly, she looks out the window.  The distant rraakk is gone.  Backing away from the window, she screams, “Llydaw!”

They will be coming in 3 days.

She turns and runs from the room.  “Gronw!”

The cings stand in one grim line.  Their hands grip their heavy spathas, gæsum spears, and bwyell war axes.  Only the whiteness of their knuckles betray their nervousness.

Twrch shakes his head as he turns to Esmeree and Gronw.  “That’s every man that can fight and carry a weapon… even the Chroani.”

Esmeree doesn’t understand Gronw and Twrch’s disappointment.  There are over 120 strong men here, and of them, over 90 are fierce Brackish cings of the Logan clan.

She looks from Gronw to Twrch.  “You’ve faced rraakks before, right?”

“Of course we have,” growls Twrch as he turns and follows Gronw back into the hall.  Esmeree has to hurry to keep up with them.  “We’ve hunted down and killed scores.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Gronw circles the inside of the hall, sucking speculatively on a Chroani salt stick.  It is in this large room that they plan to keep those cottars and slugs that can’t fight.  It is the most enclosed, defensible place in the dunum.  “The problem,” he says, “is we’ve hunted down and killed rraakk before.  We’ve never actually fought them.”

She frowns.  “What does that mean?”

Gronw sits heavily on his faldstool and chews on the seasoned salt noisily.  “Who can understand the rraakks?” he sighs.  “Sometimes, they come in twos and threes, they destroy a homestead, steal the pektus, and are waitin’ fer us when our cings arrive.  Other times, they strike and fade away without a trace.”

“Yeah?  So—”

“—but never have we been attacked by rraakks.  Never.  Not by any numbers.”

“Did yä know,” Twrch says solemnly, “That the Orphan’s Bag used tä be a dunum?”

“Yes,” she says quickly.  “I heard about what happened there.”  She looks at Gronw.  “Is that what you think will happen here?”

“Nage!” Gronw says sharply.  “That’s what we’re goin’ tä prevent!”

“The third day is tomorrow,” Twrch observes.  “Na much time left.”

“They will come at night,” agrees Gronw.  “Tonight probably, after midnight.”

“Most of our cings have weapons of quality—a few of the Chroani still insist on carrying those childish farmer’s blades of theirs—but only a few of our men have armor.”

“Twrch,” Gronw mutters speculatively, “We have little time tä waste.  In the hours we have left, focus our smiths on the repair of what armor we have and the sharpening of our blades.”

“We’ll seal the doors and windows and keep the hearths burning hot.”  Twrch nods.  “With our cings arrayed inside and out, that should keep them from getting’ in.”

Esmeree has the sudden terrible memory of the ruined Citadel on the Ymyl Gwland moors, the massive castle built without windows.  “Twrch, my Rix,” she says to them, “The rraakks are known for getting into places thought sealed and safe, are they not?”

Gronw grimaces and pulls the stick from his mouth.  “There is little else we can do, inigena.”

His halogrwydd blemish has gotten much worse over the past couple days—probably something to do with stress and lack of sleep—but he refuses to allow Esmeree to heal him.  He insists, should he survive the rraakks, only then can she use her energies to help him.

“Yäh,” spits Twrch irritably.  “Shall we just leave the doors and windows open just because a couple rraakks were clever in the past?”

“No, Twrch,” she sighs, “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t think blocking the doors and windows was all you needed to do.”

“I’ve hunted rraakks ever since I was strong enough to lift a spatha,” snarls Twrch.  “Yä leave the plannin’ tä us, caragus, yäh?”

Esmeree bites her lip as she turns away.  Outside, Koljo peers in through a window, her deep concern mirrored on his bestial face.

The hour of midnight comes and goes.  Esmeree paces just inside the hall’s large, barred doors, occasionally peering out through a gap in the boards covering a window.  Outside, she can hear Koljo snuffle and snort worriedly to himself; for some reason, he very much wanted to be locked into the hall with Esmeree and the children.  Some cings muttered angrily about the cauaros’s apparent cowardice, but Esmeree suspects something else.  This giant and his race have lived in Ymyl Gwland with the rraakks for countless years.  They probably know more about the creatures than any Brack.

Twrch and the other cings are murmuring to each other doubtfully, impatient with the delay.  She knows, already questions are circulating as to whether or not her prophecy of rraakk invasion is valid.  Right or wrong, she hopes they don’t relax their vigil until dawn.

“Esmeree?”

She turns and searches the frightened, huddling crowd for the source of the voice.  The long hall is filled with frightened bnas, pektus, and odocos.  Standing among the cottars are five of Gronw’s best cings.  Only slightly put out about being locked in this hall with children and the elderly, they nevertheless understand their importance.  Should the rraakks somehow break in, they are their last line of defense.

“Esmeree?” Iall repeats and waves.

Stepping away from the doors, she wades through the press of people and crouches by the little girl.  Iall shrinks back into the embrace of Myrdd, and Esmeree smiles.  She remembers how those old arms always made her feel safe too.  Myrdd smiles back at her and murmurs reassuringly to the little girl.  The relationship between Myrdd and Iall has proven magical.  Since their introduction in Cliffs Reach, the old man has come alive with the little girl, becoming more like his old self than Esmeree has seen since before his imprisonment.

Esmeree touches Iall’s cheek, “What is it, sweet one?”

“She fears this night, my child,” Myrdd answers.

Esmeree nods.  “As we all do, old man.”

“Something bad’s going to happen,” whispers the girl.

Esmeree shakes her head sadly.  “All these cings are here to make sure nothing bad will happen, Iall.”

Iall retreats further into Myrdd’s embrace.  “I want Koljo, Esmeree,” she cries.  “I want him with me!”

“Oh, Iall,” she sighs, infected by the girl’s terror despite herself, “He has to stay outside to protect us—”

“We need him inside!” she insists.

“He can’t fit inside, even if we invited him, silly,” Esmeree answers reasonably.

Iall’s face crumbles in tears, and she turns away into Myrdd’s chest.  He cradles her with shaking, thin arms and hands.  Esmeree touches his leg and then turns to return to her place by the doors.

“You love that naked man, don’t you?”

She turns back and looks down at Myrdd.  He is little more than a skeleton wrapped in soft, sagging skin now—what hair he has is long and wispy, and most of his teeth are gone—but his one remaining eye is clear and bright.

“Yes,” she admits, not daring to lie while under that gaze.

His lips tremble as though close to tears, and his hands caress the back of Iall’s head.  “I had hoped to walk with you one day in a Wedding Day procession,” he says sadly.

“I know,” she says, “but you must have known that was never to be.”

He looks down at Iall’s shuddering form.  “About this naked man... I do not think you should trust him.”

Esmeree is taken aback.  “Why not?  How could you say such a thing?”

“Remember what I told you of the people at the Poles—the people closest to the Hells?”

“They lacked culture,” she answers, “They wore no clothes.”

“They are formless, without direction or purpose.”

“They have no beliefs,” she says sadly, “no laws or religion.  They live for the moment, without a care for the future.  Magic for them is such that they need not eat or drink and can simply pluck what they desire from the thin air.”

She can no longer meet his gaze.

“They are the minions of Gock, Esmeree,” Myrdd mutters, “and their existence is contrary to the wishes of God.  Do not be led astray by this man, Esmeree.”

“He is not like that, old man,” she whispers.  “He is a good man.”

“Let us hope so, sweet Esmeree,” he pouts and looks away.  “You need not heed my advice, but I fear for your soul.”

She smiles awkwardly as she looks towards the door.  Right now, she’s not sure what to feel.  What is she to do when her mentor and kindest patron disapproves of her love?  What would she do if he knew that she too was a witch, contrary to the wishes of God?  But he must know by now!  It is well-known that she is this dunum’s adgarios!  How could he not know?  Funny that he hasn’t said anything.

She sighs.  Has she become a love-torn character from some dour EroBernac romance?

Love-torn perhaps, but is this a romance or a blood-soaked Muttese tragedy?

She is treacherously convinced that this night will not bode well for everyone here.  Acting on impulse, she forms a powerful charm and casts it upon her young inigena.  Iall shudders as she senses the spell settling into her body.

“Myrdd,” Esmeree asks suddenly, “Why shouldn't you run from rraakks?”

“What?”

“I was told once that no matter what happens, you shouldn’t run from rraakks.  Why?”

He rolls his eye and chews his gums.  “Because, when rraakks are around, you never know where you are.  They fear not the hand of God.  They live not beneath the eyes of God.  When they are around, you are with them.  They are never with you.”

Esmeree waits for more, but he only looks down at Iall and asks her to recite the names of the first 50 Medianist saints.  Seeing he has no more to say, she sighs and returns to her place by the doors.

It is a cool night, and the brisk, chill air blowing in through the boarded window feels good against her face.  Listening to the noises of Koljo and the cings outside, she closes her eyes and rests.

Esmeree’s eyes snap open to sudden screams and shouts in the courtyard.  Did she fall asleep?  Looking around, the people inside the hall seem to be sitting in the same places as she remembers them, so she doubts it.  Her five Brack defenders have drawn their spathas and stab them nervously into the floor as they can only listen to the chaos outside.

Pressing her face against the gap in the window, she can easily hear the horrible grinding, grinding rasp of the rraakks.  The air is thick with their fetid odor.

The hulking invaders are somehow already among the defenders.  They move faster than she ever could have expected, their huge blades cutting through the cings with cruel, crushing blows.  Never has she seen bodies so tortured and destroyed in combat, never has she seen such wounds inflicted.  The defenders are many and the rraakks are few, but much to Esmeree's dismay, the sides seem even.

Koljo roars wrathfully, swinging all about him with his massive fists.  Strangely though, he seems unmotivated for the battle.  Rather than pursue rraakks battling the cings just a scant few yards away, he instead prefers crouching by the doors of the hall, attacking only those who stray within arm’s reach.  The blows he lands are indiscriminate, and before the rraakks fell him with well-thrown ango spears, he inflicts nearly as much damage to his comrades as he does to the enemy.

The brave cings fight fiercely—but it takes many wounds to bring down a rraakk—and only a single swing from a scramasax to cut a man asunder.  Gronw with his huge bwyell war ax and Twrch with his spatha desperately try to consolidate and rally their panicking men.

Esmeree is about to despair when she suddenly sees Llydaw.  Like a leaf blown by the wind, he moves as if at random, spinning his blade with terrifyingly lethal efficiency.  It moves in a blur, and with every blow, it seems to fell a rraakk, as if their thick skin and powerful muscles are but soft cheese to its edge.

He wears a new mask—one she’s never seen before—and she is chilled and terrified to see the naked rage it depicts.

Soon, as if by his hands alone, there are no rraakks left standing, and the courtyard is littered with bodies.  In the air, the pathetic moans and screams of the dead and dying have replaced the grinding of the rraakks.  Koljo moans and sobs in agony, and Esmeree is relieved that at least the mighty cauaros is still alive.  Twrch and Gronw hurry around the dunum, checking on the living and tending to the wounded.

“Did any get inside, uh?” someone bellows.  “Did any get inside?”

“We held them off!” another cries triumphantly.

The cings begin to rejoice, and the odocos inside the hall sing prayers to Johlpa.  Only Llydaw appears troubled.  Standing alone, he surveys the battlefield and then lifts his face skyward, as though sampling the air for some elusive scent.

Suddenly, Esmeree smells it too—the distinct tang of rotting meat—but now it is no longer outside the hall.  Llydaw looks at her, and suddenly he is wearing the most horrible mask she has ever seen.  Set into its wood is a visage of stark, hopeless terror.

“Esmeree!  Get away from there!” he howls just as she becomes aware of the grinding roar behind her.  Has it always been there?  How was it that she didn’t notice it until now?

She turns to see rraakks standing among the surprised cottars inside the hall.  The room erupts in screams as people discover the monsters in their midst and scramble in panic.  Without hesitation, the rraakks draw their murderous seaxs and scramasaxes and begin laying into the people around them, cutting down cottars indiscriminately and yet somehow leaving the children untouched.

Esmeree’s cings bellow with fury and charge, but unlike the battle outside, these men are badly outnumbered.  Without thinking, she draws her scimitar and rushes forward, shoving the fleeing villeins out of the way.  She calls upon her ember, and her ember answers.  The familiar black flame roars across her body, and its power strengthens and quickens her limbs.

She falls upon the first rraakk from behind, cutting it deeply across its back.  Its split flesh swells, and thick black blood plops onto the floor like curdled milk.  The creature roars an ear-shattering shriek and spins to face her, but Esmeree’s life on the streets of Cliffs Reach has honed her reflexes.  Even as the rraakk’s “wound-knife” seeks her throat, she ducks beneath the cut, slicing low with her scimitar where she hopes its knees should be.

She meets its back swing with a vicious parry that nearly severs its arm at the elbow.  Esmeree begins to feel the rhythm of the battle, the beat of this fatal dance.  Her tarnished Palpi scimitar functions perfectly, like an extension of her own arm.  Dodging a weak swipe from the rraakk’s good arm, she lays in two fast cuts across its abdomen, followed by a third across its wrinkled, eyeless face.  Even as it collapses to one shuddering knee, she beheads it with one massive stroke.

Her victory leaves her exhilarated—and her flames burn higher and brighter than they ever have before—but she doesn’t allow herself any further celebration.  In the moments that she delays, countless lives may be lost.  Rushing forward, she finds Iall and Myrdd huddling behind an overturned banquet table.

“Myrdd!” she screams as she shakes him by the shoulder.  “Old man!  Have you still your senses?”

“Of course I do, child,” he replies almost mildly, “so much as this Hell will allow.”

Hauling him to his feet, she points at the barricaded door with her sword.  “Then open the door.  Our friends outside cannot reach us!  Our defenders in here are hard-pressed and need help!”

“I’ll not leave the child!” he screams.

“Leave her, Gock damn you!” she shouts as she pushes him towards the door.  “I’ll tend to her!  Get that door open, or we all die!”

She can’t spare any more time with him; she can only hope he obeys.  Four rraakks have cornered the remaining three cings, while eight others continue attacking the cottars and snatching up the children.  With a hoarse battle cry, she charges to the aid of the cings.  She sends one rraakk up into a pillar of screaming black flame, while she dispatches a second with the blade of her scimitar.  By the time they can regroup, there are only she and two other cings left.

Following her lead, they press forward towards the rraakks, sending the surviving villeins behind them.

Beyond the chaos of the battle, she sees Myrdd remove the final barricade from the hall’s main doors and swing them open.  She freezes in her tracks as bright yellow mucus pours into the hall.  Her mind tries to deny the sight that she sees.  Beyond the doors is a world of rotting flesh and malodorous vistas.  Fleshy intestine-like tentacles sway in an unfelt breeze from an unseen ceiling.

Rank after rank of rraakks march into the hall.

Myrdd desperately tries to close the doors, but the first rraakk contemptuously throws him aside.  His old body flies like a rag doll, smashing into a hard oak table nearby.  The table moves not an inch, and poor Myrdd crushes and bends around its edges.  Wrecked and broken, he lays unmoving beneath its shadow.  The mucus pools and runs around him.

Esmeree screams in horror and helplessness.  She can feel his life ebb away and die.  Dropping her sword, she crumbles to the blood-soaked floor, clawing at her eyes and howling as if her mind and soul had just died along with her mentor.

Part of her hears the screams of the Bracks and Chroani around her, but alone in her bubble of grief, she is insulated from them.  They have taken him from her!  She had hoped to bring him all the peace and safety in his old age that he had served her as a child, and now they have taken from her the best man she had ever known.  She has failed.

They have taken him from her.

They will pay for that.

Esmeree shudders as her grief turns to icy hatred.  There are still avenues to pursue here.  She isn’t a helpless, tongueless inigena.  Slowly she rises.  She is a stone-summoner.  “You fear not the hand of God?” she screams at the top of her lungs.  Rage fuels the fire already burning within her ember.  Rraakks now outnumber villeins, and they have become leisurely about the bloodbath.  “WE’LL SEE ABOUT THAT!!!”

Mirroring her rage, her flames swirl and grow, thickening and taking a life of their own.  With a final blast that knocks man and rraakk alike off their feet, the flames coalesce and land on the floor with a heavy crash.  Spreading wings whose tips brush the ceiling, the creature roars its challenge.

Esmeree slowly bends and picks up her scimitar as the griffin of black flame peruses the scene around it.  She’ll be needing the blade soon to finish off the wounded.  Though they lack eyes, the rraakks both standing and fallen stare back in mortal terror.  With a shriek of rage that shatters the glass of the windows, the griffin leaps upon the closest, pinning it to the floor with its talons and snapping it in two with its beak.

With a scream of her own, Esmeree charges forward, trying to cutoff the rraakks carrying children before they can flee the hall.

The griffin moves like ghost, passing harmlessly through Brack and Chroani, dealing all-too-solid blows to the rraakks that cross its path.  Its talons and beak carve deeper wounds than any seax or scramasax.

A sheen of frozen blood and sweat covers Esmeree, her breath is white and chill from the sympathetic side-effects of her sorcery, but she hardly notices as she cuts and slashes.  Near 50 rraakks invaded the hall.  A scant handful escapes.  As quickly as it began, it is all over.

Her body shuddering with exhaustion and shock, she looks up to see the griffin staring down at her.  In those shining black eyes, she sees the innocence of Candy, the wry mirth of the alf, the courage of Baran, the generosity of Eclipse, the savage power of the asp.  And the seasoned wisdom of Myrdd.

She smiles slightly as she reaches up and touches her stone.  It is burning hot to the touch.  The griffin inclines its head and nods towards an overturned table.  Has she forgotten something?

Icy fear begins to steal around her heart.  Closing her eyes, she seeks for her charm.  It is gone.  It is not in the hall.  She begins to find it hard to breathe.  She searches further, outside the hall, into the realm of the rraakks.

Distantly, she senses her charm and the little girl it protects.

With an implosion of fire, the griffin leaps onto and into Esmeree, its black flame embracing her once again.

Raising her scimitar, she races without hesitation from the hall and into the thick, oily realm of the rraakks.

The nightmarish terrain sucks and pulls at her flesh.  Countless stingers and barbs pierce her skin and drink her blood.  Esmeree tries to ignore the pain, focussing only on closing the distance between her and Iall.  With the glowing aura of her charm her only beacon, she pushes forward, swimming through miasma before her.  Strangely, beneath that her focussed intensity, this world’s barriers and nightmarish creatures become insubstantial and irrelevant, and she passes through them with only minor discomfort.  It is as if everything is merely an illusion, a horrible mask covering more sublime terrain.

But when Esmeree finally pushes into an open space, her vision clears into stark reality as she closes in on her quarry.  The room pulses and shudders in response to her presence.  Pores open and suck at her hungrily, and tentacles grope for her face and throat.  This is the place from her vision.

The huge rraakk turns slowly to face her, its heavy feet shuffling through the bloody mucus covering the fatty ground.  Around its neck hangs a mutilated child in a bag.  In its claws, it holds a placid, unresisting Iall.

The room is filled with the grinding of the rraakk’s beak and the hissing of the two children.  As Esmeree approaches, the two children speak in unison.  “I command, I am commanded.  The circle completes me.”

Esmeree notes with surprise the way the rraakk caresses the child in the bag.

“No!” she growls.  “Iall is not part of your circle!”

“We resolve, we are resolved.  The circle is completed.  You are the intruder.  The price was your softest flesh.”  As punctuation, the rraakk flexes its claws around Iall’s throat.

Esmeree’s ember whispers to her, and she gasps in surprise at what it suggests.  When it insists, she sneers and summons.  Covered in blood and effluvia, she looks akin to the darkest dusios.  Her breath billows out in icy white clouds as all the heat around her is sucked away.  The rraakk lurches backwards in surprise when to its perceptions Esmeree disappears completely.  She leaps forward, the blade of her scimitar snaking out with surgical precision.

The rraakk shrieks in outrage as its bag falls from its body.  Standing safely away, Esmeree drops her cloak of ice.  The rraakk shrieks anew when it senses the blade of her sword pressing against its child’s throat.

“I command, I am commanded,” she growls.  “Trespasser, interloper.  No longer will you take my softest flesh.”  She presses the blade harder against the child’s soft skin.  “Else, I shall take your softest flesh, yäh?”

It was a calculated gamble, but it seems to have paid off.  The rraakk pinwheels around, mindless in its distressed torment.  These rraakks commit unspeakable acts upon the pektus they steal, but they also seem to become quite attached to them.  Iall falls forgotten to the ground and lays inert and unmoving.

Esmeree makes two quick cuts in the air and then returns the blade to the child’s throat.  “Understand, graney?  Understand, lest I complete this circle?”

The rraakk freezes and turns to face her.  “I understand, I am understood,” the child in her arms whines.  “No more shall we take your softest flesh.”

“Good,” she drawls slowly.

“I command, I am commanded.  You return that which is ours.”

Esmeree narrows her eyes.  “No.  Much of my softest flesh was taken this night.  You will return them all first.”

“I call, I am called.  The softest flesh shall be returned.”

Esmeree removes the blade from the child’s throat.

In the hours following sunrise, the stolen pektus are found wandering all around the dunum.  They bore no memory nor carried any scars from their ordeals.

Llydaw finds Esmeree and Iall over a day’s ride northwest of the New Mill.  Naked and sleeping, they too bore no scars from that night’s events, though Esmeree still held her Palpi sword tightly in her hand.

From that point on, the dunum of the New Mill was known as a safe harbor from the deprecations of the rraakks.