The logger spat into the mud. “Urghul,” he said curtly. The smallest child began sobbing. “Burned our house, field, and half our forest. Killed anyone couldn’t run.”

Adare stared. “This far south?”

“Nah, we’re from up north. Way up past the north end of Scar Lake. Thought about stopping in Aats-Kyl, but the army camped there ain’t gonna stop what’s comin’—I’ll tell you that for free.” He glanced down the ranks of the Sons of Flame. “Hope you got more where these came from.”

“What is the army doing?” Adare asked. “The one in Aats-Kyl?”

“Didn’t stop to ask,” he replied. “Been talkin’ to you too long as it is.”

The logger started to move, but Lehav brought him up short.

“One more question, friend. The army in Aats-Kyl: which way is it facing?”

The logger shook his head. “Not facing any ’Kent-kissing way at all.”

“They’re not dug in for an attack from the south?”

“What would they do that for? Just got done tellin’ you—the Urghul are comin’ down from the north.”

Adare waited until the loggers were well behind them to turn to Nira and Lehav.

“Sounds like the Urghul really are coming.”

As she said the words she realized that she’d been praying ever since leaving Annur that the whole thing was a trick, a hoax. If il Tornja had lied about the threat, it would just be one more crime to hang around his neck when the time came. She could fight him, hopefully kill him, and have done with it. The handful of filthy farmers, however, that gash across the arm, changed everything.

“The family could have been trumped up,” Lehav observed, jaw tight. “A few coins in their pocket to play a part, to make us complacent.”

Nira chuckled. “It’d be a good trick.”

“I’d prefer to be the one playing the tricks,” Adare said, trying not to glare at the woman.

“And I’d prefer to have a brother who wasn’t busted in the head,” Nira replied. “Turns out, though, that preferrin’ don’t have much to do with things.”

Lehav, as was his habit, ignored the old woman entirely. “We’ll know more when the scouts return.”

The scouts, as it turned out, confirmed the logger’s account, at least the latter part of it. The men had come across no sign of the Urghul, but they insisted that the Army of the North was peacefully encamped just to the east of Aats-Kyl and that more refugees were headed south, some on the main road, some on the crooked forest tracks.

“The kenarang hasn’t barricaded the road?” Lehav pressed. “No earth walls?”

The lead scout shook his head. “There’s just the normal palisade around the camp itself, the kind of thing every army on the march puts up. There are a few score men working on the dam, but the rest are just encamped.”