“What happened to being an honored guest?” she demanded.

He smiled. “The Kwihna Saapi is an honor.”

“Well aren’t I just tickled,” she muttered, stepping into the hole.

The earth came to the middle of her thighs and, as she looked up toward the Urghul chief for some further sign, a pair of young riders leapt down from the stone wall, crude shovels in hand, and began filling in the earth around her.

Gwenna forced herself to remain still, to think. The Annurian in the other hole had already surrendered to panic. He was trying to hoist himself from the small pit, half screaming, half begging, thrashing with both hands at the shovel and the youth wielding it, trying ineffectually to knock aside the dirt. He managed to get one leg out when three more Urghul jumped down from the stone wall and, to the ululation and cheering of the crowd, shoved him into the hole once more and held him there, writhing and biting, while the dirt piled up around him. When the work was done, Gwenna found herself immobilized in the earth facing the terrified young man across from her.

He was all forehead and ear and wide, baffled eyes set in a pimply face.

“Quit thrashing,” she said. She couldn’t think with him carrying on, and besides, the Urghul were clearly enjoying the show.

“What are they going to do?” he moaned. “What’s happening? What are they going to do?”

“Do I look like a scholar of obscure Urghul ass-fuckery?” she snapped. His panic was starting to dig at her, to creep, cold and lizardlike up her neck, over her skin, to bore into her belly. “What are you doing here?” she asked, more to distract herself from the fear than anything else. “How did these bastards get you?”

He stared, as though he himself didn’t know the answer to the question.

“Were you scouting?” Gwenna pressed. “Some mission north of the White?”

“I’m not a scout,” he protested. “I’m a ’Kent-kissing infantryman, barely even that. I been in the legion only four months. The Urghul hit us at the L-fort three nights back.” He stared back up at the ring of faces and started scrabbling at the earth again. “What’re they gonna do to us?”

“The L-fort?” Gwenna demanded, ignoring the last question. “They came south?”

“Yes,” he wailed. “ ’Bout a million of them. The whole fort’s gone.”