Hwilli’s eyes filled with tears beyond her power to stop them. Jantalaber smiled sadly, then pointedly looked away while she wiped the tears on her napkin.

“The Meradan, however,” Vela said, “have no such excuse beyond their own evil natures.”

“Indeed,” Jantalaber said, “I wonder what started them off. It was last winter when they began raiding. They came out of nowhere, it seemed. A famine, I thought, but it seems that wasn’t the case.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Vela said. “Our men have doubtless told your prince all of this already. I don’t understand all of it, but I’ll tell you what I know.”

“Please do.”

“First of all, you doubtless know already that Tanbalapalim’s threatened.”

“I’d heard that.” Jantalaber looked Hwilli’s way. “Had you?”

“Yes,” Hwilli said. “Rhodorix told me. The leader of the Mountain axemen had talked to him on the way here. He thinks that the Meradan have made a winter camp somewhere up in the wild mountains. Rhodorix says that the princes don’t have enough men to go attack it, even if they could find it.”

“Alas, that’s true.” Vela abruptly shuddered. “I wonder, though, if they’ll go back to Lin Rej. Even in ruins, it’s warmer than the wild hills.”

“If you could bring yourself to scry into Lin Rej—” Jantalaber said.

“Eventually.” Vela moved uneasily in her chair. “Not yet.”

They ate in silence for some moments.

“But to go back to your question.” Vela nodded at Jantalaber. “Some months ago the council in Lin Rej decided we should strike back instead of sitting in our tunnels like rabbits in their warren. They sent a fighting force against those Meradan who lived in—well, I suppose you’d call that mess of theirs a city. It was really a lot of villages more or less joined together around a harbor.”

“Was?” Master Jantalaber interrupted her. “Was a city?”

“Just that,” Vela said with a grim smile. “Messengers came back with the tale. The place had been burnt to the ground. Skeletons lay all over in pieces, pulled around by the ravens and foxes. The axemen never found any heads or skulls, though.”

Jantalaber pressed a hand over his mouth. Hwilli laid her spoon down in her bowl. She could no longer eat.

“Oh, it was horrible, all right,” Vela went on. “A survivor told our men that a horde of strangers had come out of the sea. A god brought them, he said, in great big ships bound around with iron chains.”

“But that’s ridiculous!” Jantalaber said. “No one puts chains on their ships.”

“I suppose the disaster had driven the survivors mad.” Her voice dropped to a near-whisper. “I can understand now how such could happen.”

“One of those ghastly Meradan feuds, I suppose,” Jantalaber considered for a moment. “Some stronger tribe probably rode in and took revenge on them for some reason. Maybe they did come by sea, for all we know. I’ll wager the trouble has spread from there, tribe turning upon tribe, and now the losers are fleeing south.”