“Made your tea, Alan.” A crimson haired elf, waifish and young, stooped to offer the human a steaming cup while he sat by the fire. Her jeweled eyes searched his pallid features as he took it from her hands. “You look pale. Are you well?”

“As ever,” Alan muttered, bringing the cup to lips. Oh f—burned his tongue again. A curse was caught in his hand as he rubbed his mouth.  “Father always hated that question. Do you hear thunder?”

The elf straightened and tilted her head, listening to something beyond the crackling campfire. Even the dwarf nearby, buried nosedeep in his poetry, paused his writing for a moment when Alan posed the question. The disguised king watched them both, waiting to be assured that he wasn’t insane.

“Aye.” The dwarf nodded. The man wasn’t quite as stocky or burly as his subterranean brothers, being built for art rather than smithy or battle. Probably why he was so far from home. “Must be a storm comin’.”

“No…” A melodious murmur from the elf. “It doesn’t sound right.” Feeling Alan’s questioning look, she shrugged apologetically. “Though I cannot think of what else it could be.”

Alan returned his eyes to the fire with a disconcerted hum, sipping his sage tea though its medicinal scent stung his nostrils. 
[hr]
[center][h2]The Mummers[/h2][/center]
When they stood together, humans could be fierce and valiant in the face of mortal danger. But when routed and separated, they became like animals, blind to sense and basic logic. Despite the fires and the bellowing elves, some chose to hide in larders and cellars, thinking themselves safe from the flames and commotion. Others fought madly, and had to either be convinced to flee or simply felled before he could gather more allies. Most, fortunately, had the good sense to run. It was always an animal’s smartest tactic for survival.

The Ytharien had done this before, and had become efficient at knowing how to scatter the villagers by spreading through the square. Hiding families were flushed from their homes, herded by the end of a blade or the nose of a firearm. The brave were educated with blows and threats and learned to accept their defeat.

Go. There is nothing left for you here but burning timber. Flee west, to Nilum along the river.

Lothren brought his horse to the highest point in the village, where he could see the humans fleeing outward from their home, which had become gilded in flame.

He thought of rats. 

[center]***[/center]

The village was nearly empty by now, and black phantoms passed on horse and on foot amid the firelit streets, searching for scragglers. Lothen emerged from a sandstone hut, on foot and alone. Someone had taken his horse for the moment. When a mounted woman began to speed past him, he called out her name.

“Juna!” Lothren’s voice slipped through the chaos to find the mounted elf. While he waited for her to come within earshot, his eyes followed a dog speeding down a distant road, desperate to find safety. A family pet? “Juna, there’s a complication here. I need you to fetch some others. I saw Annara and Aust near a home over there.”

The elf looked over his shoulder and grimaced.

“The villagers had a prisoner. An Aretan Royal Knight.” With the King among them, it wouldn’t do to simply kill a Knight. Innocents had not gone unharmed in the Ytharien’s mission, but slaying a Knight would be a full on act of war. “He is young and strong. I will need help.”

It was tempting to simply shoot the man and never inform Alan at all, but that would be veering too far from what the Ytharien had set out to accomplish. They were wolves, murderers, and thieves, but they were not without their honor. They did not kill without need. If they did, they would no longer be the Ytharien. They would be the savages the Aretans believed them to be.

“Meet me downstairs when you’ve assembled the others.”

[center]***[/center]

A Viceni Magus, dressed in regal gold and violet, lied sprawled in front of Gawain’s cell.

The jailhouse was situated toward the center of the village, the only sandstone structure amid Vicenna’s usual dark, oaken architecture. Even this far in the desert, the Viceni had rich tastes, and magic made many things possible. The village’s militia however offered no wooden comforts to what few prisoners they held within their singular, underground cell.

Past a brief office and a desk, a narrow set of stairs led to a rectangular space separated into two halves: the half in front of the grid of flat iron bars and the half behind. An Aretan Knight had been placed in the unfortunate side, stripped of his armor and weapons. His belonging were locked in a chest upstairs, where they remained unless any parts were repurposed or stolen.

At the unbarred end of the room, an injured Viceni Magus had been knocked out cold by Lothren’s elbow. After taking one look at the man behind the bars, the elf’s eyes widened and suddenly vanished.

The key to the door was on the Magus’s belt. If only the man had fallen a little closer, but his hand was laid out as if in offering. If Gawain reached, he might be able to pull the body closer and free himself.  The smell of smoke had slipped into the jailhouse by now, and Knight’s impending fate was becoming clear.
[hr]
[center][h2]The Knights[/h2][/center]
Blotting out the stars and much of everything else, a murky cloud of sand had been coughed up by the trembling earth. There was no moonlight, no stars. Only breath that tasted like dirt and a coating of dust on the teeth that couldn’t be licked away. The next thing Amon could identify was enormous pain in his arm, where Linus had gripped him. While the treacherous earth fell away and consumed the hamlet with a defeaning groan, and the reaper himself spoke through Kolbe’s mouth, Amon had been waiting for the end.

When it all stopped, when the thunder ceased, he was somhow still here. Still aware and alive. Death had brushed its bony fingers over his cheek and decided to let him stay.

“What—” Amon abruptly coughed as the sand stung his throat. Loose sand fell away from his body as he assembled himself and sat up. The sand no longer coarsed like a river, but lied still an innocent. When it seeped into the creases of his cuirass, he felt it cold against his skin. “Kolbe?”

Pulling him limbs free of the loose earth, the Captain managed to shakily turn himself over and push himself to his feet. The sand was still up to his shins.

Couldn’t see a blasted thing.

“Kolbe?!” He was right here, wasn’t he? Amon bent over to cough again, the sand filling his mouth as much as it blinded his eyes. “Gerald! Falkenburg! [i]Khff[/i]!” 

Dawn began to tease the sky as the dust gradually settled. The desert had been swirled like wine and then left, frozen in motion. A gaping chasm where the cattle had once laid, as large as ten men across, lied open and hungry. The sinkhole had transformed the small village into a bowl, where two small fingers clung to its side. At its center, solid pieces of earth were cracked and threatened to cave inward even further.

“What in the name of…” An attempt to pull his boot free from the and brought Amon to one knee. His hands plunged into the sand. “Magic? Devilry…? [i]Falkenburg[/i]?!”