Behind Raj Ahten, beside the deserted farms that dotted the edge of the woods, Raj Ahten’s troops began to emerge from the gloom. Five flameweavers, so close to becoming one with the elements that they could no longer wear clothes, shone like blazing beacons, clad in twisting tongues of green fire. The dry grasses at their feet burst aflame.

As warriors moved out of the shadowed woods, the light blazing from the flameweavers suddenly reflected on polished armor, glinted from swords.

Among the thousands of warriors who began to advance, stranger things than flameweavers could be seen.

The shaggy frowth giants, twenty feet tall at the brow, lumbered forward clumsily in their chain mail, clutching huge ironbound staves. They struggled to keep from crushing Raj Ahten’s swordsmen in their advance.

War dogs kept pace with the giants, huge beasts, mastiffs with runes branded into them.

Bowmen by the score.

And at the edge of the forest, black shadows flickered. Furred creatures with dark manes hissed and growled, loping forward in a crouched gait on clawed knuckles, each bearing an enormous spear. “Nomen!” someone shouted. “Nomen from beyond Inkarra!”

Nomen to scale the walls, scampering up the stone like monkeys. Nomen with their sharp teeth and red eyes.

Iome had never seen one—alive. Only once had she seen an ancient, shedding pelt. They were the stuff of legend.

Nomen. No wonder Raj Ahten’s army traveled by day only through the woods, attacked only at night.

It was all show of course. Raj Ahten appearing in his glory with all his entourage. The power of his army was astonishing, his wealth enormous.

You see me? he was saying. You Northerners squat here in your barren kingdom, never knowing how impoverished you are. Behold the Wolf Lord of the South. Behold my wealth.

But Iome’s people were ready for battle. She saw boys and old men shifting on the castle walls, gripping the hafts of their spears tighter, reaching over to make sure that the arrows placed beside them lay just so. Her people would put up a battle. Perhaps a battle that would be sung about in years to come.

Just then, Iome’s father finished dressing, grabbed his weapons, and came bounding up the steps of the tower behind her. His Days, an elderly scholar with white hair, hobbled behind as fast as possible.

Iome was not prepared for the change in her father. In the past few hours, he’d taken sixty endowments from his people, had grown much in power. He leapt up six stairs at a time, even while bearing his arms, wearing full armor. He moved like a panther.

When he reached the top of the tower, the frowth giants quit drumming, and Raj Ahten’s army halted. The untrained nomen growled and hissed in the distance, as if eager to do battle.