He heard numerous accusations of petty theft, and four serious accusations of assault. Twelve children had vanished since reaching the haven, there were nine abandoned children no one would claim, and one chubby infant girl that two clans both swore on all the gods belonged to their house. He finally sent an exhausted Volias to rest but was himself up half the night, and the demands never slackened. Nor, when he made a judgment, were the petitioners satisfied, but would want to keep arguing for a different outcome.

Finally a new watch came on, headed by a vigorous old woman who took one look at his face by the light of her lantern and, turning to the crowd, declared the assizes closed for the night. She had a hard face and a bullying manner, and he’d never been so grateful for either.

“Get you some rest, lad,” she said in her country way. “You can’t make good judgments when you’re so tired, and them too tired to listen to what you do have to say. They’ll not pester you if you take your rest now.”

“No, truly, they won’t. If you’ll lend me a light, or someone to escort me, I’ll sleep by my eagle.”

She chuckled. “Eh! You’ll get no petitioners bothering you there, I’m thinking.” Then she winked at him. “Although you’re the kind might want bothering.”

He laughed for the first time in days, it seemed. “Truly, I need to sleep.”

A burly man escorted him most of the way, humbly silent out of respect for Joss’s exhaustion, or perhaps exhausted himself, for he had a stiff gait and favored one leg. Only over by the rocks, atop which Scar perched in his night drowse, did the man venture a question.

“Think you that northern army will attack a second time?”

“We have to prepare.”

“It’s said the soldiers wear a talisman, this ‘Star of Life.’ I saw one for myself, a starburst sigil hammered out of cheap tin. But what do they want? Where did they come from? The tales tell of war and trouble in the days before the Guardians came to stand at the assizes. And now—well—begging your pardon and no disrespect to you reeves, but it seems that with the Guardians vanished from the Hundred, bad times have fallen again.”

They were honest questions, and deserved an honest answer.

“I know not much more than you do, ver. I’ve heard tell that a man named Lord Radas commands another army in the north, likely larger and better disciplined although we don’t know for sure. We do know that the city of High Haldia has been overrun. What do they mean to do next? That I don’t know. March on Toskala? Or march again on Olossi? We’ll fight. Don’t doubt that. As for you and your people, you must return to your homes and fortify them. And plant your crops, else we’ll have famine on top of all else.”

“Are the Guardians gone forever? Or is it true, as some whisper, that they’ll return? I’ve heard it said that the Guardians never left the Hundred, but that they became cloaked in darkness and now mean to kill us all and rule those who are left behind. I heard it said that the man who commands this dark army is a Guardian.”