“How was your vacation, Guardian?” Thea called out when they were close enough for speech.

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

“Were you here for . . . ?” Aloê waved at the ruined tower and its environs.

“No, thank God Sustainer. Banyon Fourthstone was here, though. Seems to be dead now, along with everyone else.”

“How’d you hear about it?”

“The boy on duty in the Maze managed to ring the warning bell before the invaders got him. Banyon sent a brief report through the message sock before he led the thains out to die.”

“Uselessly?”

“Depends. They must have taken some of the invaders with them.”

“And afterwards he provided the invaders with a hearty meal.”

“Thank God Avenger you said that. But I’ve been thinking it.”

Aloê tried to put herself in Banyon’s place. She had never liked or respected him much; the Graith had voted him in out of respect for Lernaion, whose great-nephew he was, and Aloê thought that kind of thing was always a mistake. But what could have driven him to lead all his thains against what must have been a superior force? Maybe he couldn’t stand the thought of staying safe in the Gray Tower while the Guarded suffered. Maybe that was it: Maintain the Guard! and all that. It covered a multitude of sins. But it didn’t cover a failure of this magnitude.

“How’d you hear about it?” Thea asked, and then Aloê had to tell her about the grisly soupfest at the Raenli homestead.

“So they went up the Whitewell?” Thea asked. “And Morlock went after them alone? That’s some kind of man you’ve got.”

If I’ve got him, why isn’t he here? Aloê thought peevishly, but she managed to avoid saying it aloud. They all had their jobs to do.

“Earno will want to know about this,” Thea continued. “He and Noreê are around here someplace.”

“What is it that you’re doing?”

“They broke through the Wards somehow. The Maze in the Gap of Lone is gone entirely.”

“God Avenger.”

“And all the other gods, too. The Wards hereabout are anchored at the base of the Gray Tower, so I’m seeing what’s left of them. Want to help?”

“No. But I’ll be back after I’ve seen Earno.”

Earno was the Summoner of the Outer Lands—the highest-ranking Guardian, except for his two peers, the Summoners Bleys and Lernaion. Aloê found him shoveling dirt into a pit. Noreê was shoveling alongside him, wearing the red cloak that marked her as a vocate, and quite a few gray-caped thains were also flinging dirt. Apparently the Graith of Guardians had become a company of ditch diggers.

“A dark, cold day, Guardians,” she greeted them all.

Earno nodded, but did not stop throwing dirt. Aloê was about to ask what they were doing when she realized this must be a mass grave for the remains of the people who had died here. She sighed. There was no shovel that wasn’t being used so she began throwing double handfuls of dirt from the heap into the pit.

Before they were done, Thea had come to join them, dragging her cloak behind her and carrying her shovel. Aloê took the shovel and finished the burial while Noreê and Thea stood conferring over the contents of her cloak.

When the pit was full, Earno threw down his shovel and turned away. Apparently any ceremony, if there even was one, preceded the burial. Aloê stayed to say a few quiet words to the departed spirits of the dead Guardians. She wasn’t sure that it did any good, even for her, but she had caught the habit of talking to ghosts from Morlock’s dwarvish kin.

When she lifted her head she saw the thains were making fires and setting up shelters. Earno was assisting them. Noreê and Thea were still standing together talking. Aloê joined them.

Thea’s cloak contained a set of bluestone wedges shot through with crystal: the anchors for the Wards on this side of the Maze.

“What’s wrong with them?” asked Aloê.

“Nothing, in a way,” Noreê replied. “They are structurally sound. But they bear no more talic imprint than any other piece of stone—less than some. I’ll look at the other anchors, but I expect to find the same.”

Aloê nodded. It had to be something like this, of course. The Wards were not a physical barrier, in the ordinary sense. They were a vast talic web that made it difficult, not impossible, for a conscious entity to decide to enter the Wardlands—or to execute a decision already made. A skilled seer or a sufficiently determined individual could make it through the Wards. But in the Gap of Lone a shifting, multifarious set of Wards were (or had been) in place that would allow anyone to enter—but only by taking a long and constantly shifting path over the plain. If the horde of cannibals had walked in with no warning, either they were all seers of a very high order or the Maze must have been completely suppressed somehow. The question was . . .

“How?” Aloê asked Noreê.

The white-haired seer shook her head. “I don’t know. I’ll stay here and see what I can do about it. If the Wards can be broken beyond repair . . . the Guard is not maintained.”

“Maintain the Guard!” whispered Thea through pale lips.

Noreê said, “I think you two should go north after the cannibals. Take as many of the thains as you can pry loose from Earno. We must save as many as we can of the Guarded.”

Aloê met Thea’s bright, brown eyes, and they both nodded.

“A good plan,” said Aloê. “We’ll meet you back here when the battle is done.”

“I hope you will,” said the cold, white woman. “Go as soon as you can, if you would be guided by me. I fear our world is ending, but we must fight as long as we can. . . .”

On the first night of the month of Rain (ill-named in that bitterly cold year), deep in the southern marches of the Whitethorn Mountains, Sharvetr Ûlkhyn was shaken out of his nest by an insistent knabe.

Sharvetr had been the Longtooth of Graytown for five years now, and he had almost grown to like the job. But he did not like it—he would never like it when he was awakened in the middle of the night to deal with some terrible crisis. A cow that had failed to return to its pen, or the terrible discovery of a horde of cookies secreted by some ill-informed youngling.

So he snarled, “What is it?” at the knabe who came to wake him, and be damned to kithness.

The knabe, a female named Vyvlidh, said curtly, “Morlock’s here. He says there’s trouble.”

“Thanks, kithling. Where’s my kilt?”

“You’re wearing it.”

Sharvetr rolled out of his nest and strode away to the guest hall. Morlock was sitting there, drinking wine from the guesting cup. He set it by and stood as the Longtooth entered.

“Longtooth Sharvetr. I come with bad news, I’m afraid.”

“Morlock, my oldest friend: you are welcome here with whatever news you choose to bring, or none. Sit. Drink your wine. We’ll talk it out.”

Morlock was an old friend to everyone in Graytown. He was one of the few who had argued against killing the mandrakes, born by the hundreds in the Year of Fire, hatching out of the teeth of slain dragons.

The mandrakes had been planted carefully in an empty valley of the North and tended like plants. When their minds awoke they were taken and taught the New Way of Theornn, gently but urgently, as if their lives depended on it.

Which they did. The Graith of Guardians was ruthless when it came to threats, or even potential threats. If the mandrakes could not resist the dragon-change, they were too dangerous to live in the Wardlands.

But the New Way blossomed in the hearts of the Gray Folk: the words of patience, hospitality, generosity, loyalty. Most resisted the dragon-change, and they took on themselves the honor and burden of destroying or exiling the occasional throwback.

Now Morlock sat on the couch and Sharvetr sat beside him and listened to his troubles.