Several skirmishes broke out along the road to the Summer Palace. Though most people accepted the orders to leave the city there were inevitably a few who refused to leave their homes.

Had Merros Dulver been there to discuss the matter with Welliso Libari he'd have likely told the older man to let them stay if their lives meant less than their possessions. But Merros was not there; he had his own troubles to deal with at the edge of the Empire.

Instead Welliso did what he thought best. His people followed orders and the Imperial Guard followed his orders as well. It was only a matter of hours before the city's cells were filled with angry citizens who'd attempted to fight. There had been no fatalities because Welliso refused his forces the right to attack with swords, but there were broken bones and busted skulls aplenty, and that was on both sides of the law. More than one of the aggressors were either soldiers themselves or trained to defend their homes. Tempers flared and fights broke out, and in the end peace was restored again and again only to face another disruption.

And that was only on the first day of the forced evacuation of Tyrne. There were plans in place to start sweeps of all the streets after the majority left the area. City Guard walked the areas where people had already moved on, making sure that homes were left abandoned and did not become victims of looting.

Libari Welliso came home from his first day of the evacuation in a state of exhaustion unlike any he had dealt with in his career. Tyrne had always been a peaceful town, regardless of its size, and he had never run across the sheer volume of people in motion, the large number of angry citizens or the massive swell of traffic at any point in his life. Dealing with all of that together was enough to make him consider moving on and forgoing the rest of his career with the Guard.

Of course his wife, Annushi, would have put an end to that notion. He smiled when he thought of her. Annushi was more than he had ever hoped for when he agreed to the arranged marriage. She was smart, funny, lovely and strong of will. All things that he admired.

They were fighting just now, because after sending the children on to Canhoon she had insisted on staying in the town with him until he was ready to leave with her. She was a stubborn woman and he loved her for it, even when the risk to her health made him nervous.

He opened the door to his apartment and started to call for her when he saw her corpse on the ground.

Annushi. Dead. He walked into the room and looked down, his eyes staring at the ruin of his beloved, uncomprehending.

There was no moment when he thought it was a joke. There was no time when he expected his wife to get up. She was dead and there was no denying it. Her throat was cut. He could see that as soon as he entered the room. She had been bathing, perhaps, or she had planned to bathe, because her body was naked and Annushi was nothing if not modest. She seldom let him see her without clothes unless they were making love.

"Annu?" She did not respond. She could not. She was dead. He knew that. But even though he could see she was dead, murdered, surely, he could not make his mind accept it. "Annu, what are you doing down there?"

All thoughts of the City Guard he had to punish, the people he had to let free from their cells when they had calmed down and the evacuation of the city were gone. What little they planned to take with them from the city was already packed into several bundles, Annushi had been busy preparing for their journey. She'd been optimistic about his promotion and looked forward to seeing new places. Like Welliso she had spent most of her life in Tyrne and had considered Canhoon only as a place where powerful people lived. The thought that they would move there had excited her and her enthusiasm had been infectious enough to make him look forward to the idea.

Annushi did not answer him.

Could not.

Still dead.

He stepped into the room properly and walked toward her body. Annushi stared past him at the wall near the door. There was nothing particularly exciting about that spot. He had looked at it many times. It hardly seemed like a thing she should have been stuck with as her last sight in her life. He would have hoped she could see a thing of beauty as she died.

Libari did not believe in the gods or in any sort of afterlife. He had always believed solely in what he could see with his own eyes.

There was a dryness in his mouth. His eyes felt wrong. His heart had gone still, near as he could tell, and his ears rang with a light note that took away all other sounds.

Annushi still stared at the wall, dead, as he moved closer to her and crouched beside her, reached to touch her face. Maybe she was injured, but alive. Perhaps there was a chance that she could still be mended, saved from death. He did not truly believe that, but he had to try because the thought that she was gone from his life was simply too large for him to consider.

His hand touched her lips, felt for a hint of breath. Her skin was cold. She was not freshly dead, but had been killed at least a few hours earlier. He had seen enough dead bodies to know that much.

Libari tried to stand but his legs did not work.

"Annu?" How had his voice gotten so small? He wasn't quite sure.

"She will not answer you. She is dead."

Libari turned his head and looked to the voice that spoke. A woman looked back at him, her eyes studying his face.

"Did you do this?" Blood surged in him as he stared. She had dark hair and dark eyes and was dressed for the road. He had seen a hundred or more just like her through the course of the day and wondered if the woman he looked at was one he had offended somehow through his actions.

She did not seem offended. She looked at him without much expression on her face at all.

"She had to die. Just as you have to die."

When Libari tried to move again it was easy. He thought of Annushi and the woman who had killed her and he thought of how much she would suffer at his hands. He was not angry, not really. He merely knew that she would be dead soon and then he would allow anger and grief to take better rein of his heart.

He had ordered his men not to draw their swords against the citizens of Tyrne. Libari Welliso did not follow that rule himself. His blade slid from the scabbard with a whisper and then sang as it cut the air and sliced toward the bitch who'd murdered his wife.

She was not there.

The blade clattered and rang out against the wall where she had been leaning, but struck nothing aside from the plaster over the stone of the wall itself.

He looked around, eyes rolling with a sort of madness all their own, and heard himself growl as he sought the woman out.

She crouched on the other side of Annushi's body, her left foot resting in the blood that was congealing into the floor.

Her face was still calm and she continued to look at him.

"Kill you. I. Will. Kill. You." He spoke the vow softly and adjusted his grip on the blade.

"No. You will not. You are already dead."

Libari moved one step forward and his leg collapsed under him. He fell to his knee and grunted, puzzled by the lack of strength.

It was only then that he felt the pain of the cut. As he had tried to strike, she had done the same, but she had been successful. The blood flowed down his side, from a deep incision in his stomach.

A cut, yes, but not enough to stop him from his revenge.

Libari tried to rise a second time and moaned instead. His legs would not hold him, would not move. His arms felt too heavy to lift. The sword dropped down, cutting a bloodless wound into Annushi's calf.

He looked down at his wife's new wound and felt his eyes water. Never in his life had he ever meant to cause her harm.

Libari toppled then, falling across his dead wife's body.

The poison in his system was quick but not quite fast enough to avoid his suffering. The last thing he ever saw was the floor beside Annushi's cold hip. He had hoped his last sight would be something more beautiful.

Swech searched the man's corpse and found the key she was looking for around his neck. There were things she needed from the palace and without a key it would have taken too long to get to them.

Time was becoming a rare commodity and she had spent too much of it already in the city of Tyrne. She had places she needed to be that had nothing to do with the place.

The blade went back into the sheath along her left hip. Moments later she was gone from the building and heading for the offices of the General of the City Guard.

The gods made demands and Swech obeyed, grateful for the chance to please the Daxar Taalor.

Chapter Seventeen.

Tuskandru looked down from the top of Durhallem and studied the Blasted Lands. The air was thin here and the cloud that usually hid away the devastation beyond the Seven Forges was thinner than he had ever seen it. He could see the Mounds from where he stood and he could see the distant wall of the barrier that separated the Blasted Lands from the Fellein Empire. Somewhere in that vast distance an army moved and prepared themselves for parley.

A thin smile crossed his lips as he considered that notion.

Beyond him the rest of the mountains stood silent guard over the valley. The gods were generous with their protection. How then could the Sa'ba Taalor be any less than obedient to the wishes of their benefactors?

Durhallem touched him, allowed him to see further than should have been possible. It was almost time. Before the sun set, the world would be changed by the Daxar Taalor and he would be prepared for his part in that change. He had to be. It was what he was meant to do and what his god demanded of him.

He reached down and grabbed the helmet resting by his foot. The great skull-shaped helm slipped over his head and fit as perfectly as it ever had. The teeth of his foes moved around his neck and along the edges of his vision. The teeth were reminders to him, yes, but mostly they were simple adornment. The enemies of his people were odd indeed and many of them looked upon death as something to fear. He did not share in that sentiment. Death merely was. It held no power over the gods and therefore held no power over the faithful.

Stastha came up from behind him, the horns of her helmet pointing toward the ground as she stepped closer.

"We are ready when you call us, Tusk."

He nodded his head without answering. Tusk did not like to speak at times like this. He preferred the silence. Stastha knew that and slapped his shoulder with her hand as she turned to walk away.

"Sound the horns, Stastha. Call them all home. It is time." He did not have to turn his head to know that she was smiling. Stastha was a warrior, one of the best he knew, and like him she thrived on the smell of blood and the sound of battle.

Stastha raised her horn to her lips and blew a long harsh note that echoed down the side of Durhallem and carried across the valley before coming back as a whisper. Long before that soft sound returned, the other horns called, demanding that the followers of Durhallem join together in the time of war. The Wounder called to his children and they obeyed.

It did Tuskandru proud. "Brodem! Come to me!" Tusk's voice called out and was answered a moment later by the content rumble of his mount. The great beast rose from the rocks where he had been staring into Durhallem's blazing heart and pounced down to where Tusk waited. Tusk climbed aboard Brodem's broad back and checked that his weapons were in place. The beast roared and he roared as well, his blood rising in preparation.

The sun would soon set and before that happened the world would change. He intended to make the Wounder proud.

Along the Mounds the air was surprisingly calm. The clouds were a thin scrawl above, and the sun almost managed to show through. Tega looked at her target and sighed. There would be no better time.

Not far away the fires still burned. She tried not to think about them or about the smell of roasting meat. Her stomach rumbled in appreciation of that odor but the notion of eating that particular flesh repulsed her. Maun had not been a friend, but he had been a companion, and both he and his partner in the flames, Darus Leeds, deserved better than a funeral pyre in the Blasted Lands.

Still, they were dead and she had been given a mission by Desh Krohan. It was time to fulfill her orders.

Nolan March let out a small cheer and Vonders Orly joined him. The fourth arrow that Tolpen Hart fired into the wall of the Mound stuck true and the rope dangling from it swayed enticingly in the breeze.

Now, finally, was the time for her to prove her worth.

Tega concentrated on the arrow and the rope and focused her will. This was a subtle thing, not a harsh assault, and her faith in her abilities was higher. Still, it would not do to allow herself to lose control and so she settled herself on the ground and cleared her mind of distractions.

Her hand touched the rope, felt its coarse texture and the thickness of it. Then she let her senses follow the rope to the anchoring arrow and to the stone of the surface where it stuck precariously.

A gentle touch, a strong will and she forced the change to occur.

The rope sang beneath her touch and the arrow's head pulsed where it broke the surface of the stone. All three men with her let out small noises as the fibers surged and changed and the arrow changed with it.

"Done. It is done." She looked at the finished result of her spell and smiled.

Nolan was the first to touch the silk. It was thick and would hold them with ease.

"Where is the arrow?"

"It's still there. It has just become something stronger than it was. It will hold us. Have no doubt of that." She tried not to sound smug. It wasn't easy.

Tolpen grabbed the silk chord and pulled, throwing his weight into the maneuver, as well he should. After too much time spent searching and hoping for a better entrance into the Mounds the had finally accepted that the hole high in the side of one malformed column was their best bet.

They had to climb to use it. The first two arrows Vonders managed to use had broken against the stone. The third had held but only until he pulled with his body weight. After that Tega said she would try to help with the anchoring of their only hope of reaching the proper entrance and now, finally she had succeeded.

Vonders pulled several times, making certain for himself, and then he started climbing the side of the column. His grip on the heavy silk was solid, but he moved it around his waist for extra support as he climbed, careful to place his feet firmly with each step he took on the slippery surface.

The rest of them waited below until he reached the hole in the side of their target. It had seemed a small area when viewed without perspective, but the higher Vonders scaled, the more readily Tega realized the opening was anything but. She couldn't quite manage to park the wagon inside of that opening, but it was a close thing.

"This is madness." Tolpen spat and watched the other man climbing. "What if he falls?"

"Then we know this was a bad idea." Nolan shrugged and stepped closer to the silk cord. "We have been told to handle this. We must." Vonders slipped his leg over the lip of the wound in the side of their target and settled his eight, panting as he recovered from the climb.

"It's a tricky climb!" Vonders' voice called down to them and he settled himself as best he could within the spot.

"Can you see anything in there?" Tega wanted to know what they were in for if it was possible.

He nodded. "It's hollow. Hard to say how far it goes down. I can't very well climb it until the rest of you are up here."

"Or you could take another rope, tie it in place, and then climb down." Nolan spoke as he started up the cord himself. He had a bundle or rope around his waist. Vonders did not.

Nolan made the climb look easy until a little over half the distance to the top. That was when he slipped and nearly fell to his death. He caught himself and bounced along the side of the tower a couple of times, cursing and spinning before he managed to regain his stance and his composure.

When he finally settled himself, one leg on either side of the entrance into whatever lay inside, he carefully unwound the rope from around his waist and looked for something to anchor it with. Finally he tied it to the rope they'd scaled to reach the spot.

Tolpen looked at Tega for a moment and cleared his throat. "Do you know how to climb, milady?"

Truthfully, she did not. Because she had been trained to know that pride is often a waste of breath she confessed her ignorance.

"Would it be best if you waited here?" The man meant no insult. Her was simply trying to figure out what to do about the matter.

"Can you teach me to climb?"

"No more than I can teach you to properly hunt. That is to say it would take more time than we have. Perhaps after I've scaled the side we can pull you up with the rope." He sounded doubtful. It wasn't her weight and she knew that. It was that there was little enough for them to hold on to as it was and carrying a person's weight would make their perch even more dangerous.

Vonders said something from above and Nolan cursed softly.

"What is it?" They had a much higher vantage point. Whatever it was they saw, Tega saw nothing when she looked in the same direction.

"Don't know, but it looks like foot soldiers. A very large number of them. Hundreds at the least."

Tega felt her heart drop. Secrecy was the key to what they were doing. As far as they knew the Sa'ba Taalor could not come to the Mounds, were forbidden from entering the area, but that was only what they had been told and the truth of the matter simply had not been tested.