The moment Loren heard the noise that woke him, he knew it was not a normal sound of the night. It was not the faint vibration of insects or the familiar creaking of wooden platforms shifting over the water. This was different, louder and sharper. Too many Urtu were shouting at once.
He was already moving before he fully understood why. His hand reached for the bone sickle he had left beside his bedding, and he stepped toward the door. The moment he opened it, the sight in front of him froze him where he stood.
Men, women, and children were running in every direction across the wooden walkways. Some carried bundles in their arms, while others had not even managed to take anything with them. Shouts mixed with screams, and somewhere nearby something heavy collapsed into the water with a deep echoing splash. But what truly made the scene terrifying were the fields.
The vast rice fields surrounding the settlement were burning. Hundreds of acres of crops were being swallowed by long lines of orange fire spreading across the wetlands. Thick columns of smoke rose into the purple sky and covered the faint pulsing lights above, turning the air into something heavy and difficult to breathe.
For several seconds, Loren could do nothing but stare.
At that moment, the door of the neighboring house burst open and Nurk and Maya rushed outside. They stopped the instant they saw the burning fields. Their eyes immediately turned toward Loren. The silence between them lasted only a heartbeat.
"What's happening, Loren?" Nurk shouted.
Loren's mind felt as if it had stopped. He did not know what to say, yet the words still left his mouth.
"I don't know."
Nurk stepped closer and grabbed him by the front of his clothing.
"What are we going to do? Say something."
Loren forced himself to think. His mind was still struggling to process what he was seeing, but there was no time to hesitate.
"Where's Dunk?" he asked quickly as he pushed Nurk slightly aside.
Both of them shook their heads.
"We don't know."
"Get your weapons and go to the Lurgim immediately," Loren said in a hard voice. "If something happens to them, we are finished. I will find him."
They hesitated. Fear was clearly visible on their faces even though neither of them spoke it aloud. Loren noticed their hesitation but did not slow down.
"What are you waiting for?" he shouted. "Move."
After seeing Nurk and Maya disappear back inside the house to gather their weapons, Loren did not wait any longer. Tightening his grip around the handle of his bone sickle, he began running along the narrow wooden walkways between the houses. Smoke drifted low across the platforms, filling the air with the sharp smell of burning grain and wet timber.
Somewhere nearby, a structure collapsed into the water with a heavy crash, and another wave of shouting spread through the village like a ripple. By the time he reached the small harbor where the settlement's boats were tied, the chaos had already grown worse.
Hundreds of Urtu were pushing against one another along the narrow platform, struggling to reach the boats. Some dragged children behind them. Others carried sacks of supplies. Many had not even managed to take anything at all. The problem was obvious at a glance. Each boat could carry no more than six people, and there were only fifteen tied along the dock. This was not an evacuation. It was panic made visible.
Forcing his way through the crowd, Loren called out to a man trying to reach one of the boats.
"What is happening?" he shouted, but the man either did not hear him or chose not to answer. The noise drowned everything else out.
This time Loren grabbed him by the neck and pulled him back, pressing the edge of his sickle against the man's stomach. The man froze instantly. Several people nearby noticed and stepped back in alarm.
"What is happening?" Loren shouted again. "Someone speak."
There was a brief silence.
Then an older Urtu stepped forward from the crowd. Loren recognized him from the trade the day before.
"Loren," the man said, breathing hard. "The wild tribes are attacking. We have to flee."
The words struck harder than Loren expected. Only yesterday he had treated the threat as something distant. Now everything around him was burning.
His eyes swept across the dock as he forced himself to think clearly.
"Then what are you doing here?" he shouted. "If all of you try to climb into the boats at once, none of you will escape and none of you will be able to defend yourselves."
At that moment the crowd stirred again.
The village chief arrived with five warriors at his side. Blood was running from the corner of his mouth, yet he was still standing upright. He had heard what Loren said.
"He is right," the chief shouted. "We brought down several of them already. There cannot be more than fifty. They set the fields on fire to throw us into chaos so we scatter and they can hunt us one by one."
The fear in the crowd did not disappear completely, but it began to change. Seeing their chief still standing before them and hearing him explain the situation steadied the panic that had gripped the harbor.
"Listen to me," he continued. "This is not the night we die. This is the night they die. Children and elders go to the boats. Those who cannot fight wait here."
Then he turned to his warriors.
"Leave ten men to guard the docks."
After that he faced the crowd again.
"Everyone who can fight comes with me. We will defend our homes and our food. We will crush them with our numbers."
Without waiting to measure the effect of his words, the chief turned and began moving toward the inner sections of the village. This time the people followed him.
Loren joined them without hesitation.
As they advanced together, they saw several raiders who had already pushed deep into the inner platforms. Their faces were hidden behind frightening bone masks, and in their hands they carried heavy clubs tipped with carved skull heads.
Some were setting houses on fire. Others were dragging Urtu from inside their homes.
But the moment the attackers saw the defenders flooding into the streets as one body, they began to retreat. Three of them fled immediately. Several others were trapped inside the houses they had entered.
Around twenty armed defenders rushed forward, with dozens more following behind them. They split into groups of five and stormed the nearby structures. The raiders inside had no chance to escape. Within moments they were overwhelmed and beaten down.
Those without weapons seized the fallen attackers' clubs and bone blades. Others searched the houses for anything that could be used as a weapon.
The panic that had ruled the harbor only minutes earlier was already giving way to resistance.
It took nearly fifteen minutes for the chief to secure the central streets of the settlement completely.
Every house had been entered one by one. They made certain not a single raider remained in the inner districts. Fires that could be extinguished were put out, and every weapon they could find was gathered and distributed among those capable of fighting. The defenders moved quickly but with discipline, clearing each structure carefully until the heart of the village was once again under their control.
But the southern outer streets were still burning.
Flames had spread along the walkways and beneath the lower platforms of the houses. From beyond the thick smoke came the constant sound of screaming. It was clear that the real fighting was still happening there.
Even so, the chief did not rush.
Only after he was certain the inner districts were fully secured and all available weapons had been distributed did he give the order to advance toward the outer edge of the settlement.
More than a hundred Urtu moved together through the streets at a run. When they reached the southern quarter, they split into three groups and attempted to enter the burning streets at the same time. But the paths were choked with collapsed beams and burning debris. Charred planks cracked beneath their feet, and the smoke made it difficult to see more than a few steps ahead.
Loren remained in the central group, just behind Chief Aktar. Together they pushed forward through the flames, moving toward the source of the screams.
Through the smoke he began to see them.
Masked raiders.
Dozens of them were still moving between the houses, dragging captives as they withdrew toward the edge of the settlement.
They were already retreating.
But they were taking people with them.
After the front of the group forced its way over fallen beams and shattered platforms, the door of a burning house roughly twenty meters ahead suddenly burst open.
A wounded woman stumbled out.
Loren and Chief Aktar were the first to see the woman.
She stumbled out through the doorway of the burning house, barely able to keep her balance. One of her legs would not support her properly, and each step looked as though she might collapse at any moment. Her face was covered in blood. One hand clutched at her injured leg while the other stretched toward the defenders as she cried out for help. Heat shimmered behind her as flames roared inside the structure, her shadow breaking apart across the wooden platform beneath her feet.
She managed only a few more steps toward them.
Then something round flew from the shattered window behind her.
The object struck her head with a heavy, solid impact, and she collapsed instantly without making a sound.
The round shape bounced once across the platform, rolled through drifting ash and sparks, and finally came to a stop several meters in front of Loren. At the same moment, his fingers loosened and the sickle slipped from his grasp, striking the wooden boards below. He barely noticed the sound.
He did not move to pick it up.
He could not.
He stood frozen in shock.
The shape was unmistakable. For a brief moment Loren's mind refused to accept what he was seeing. He tried to look away, but he could not. His eyes returned to it again, against his will.
Because what lay on the platform was a head.
Dunk's head.
Only hours earlier he had been walking beside him, unfolding maps and pointing out their route, grumbling impatiently at Nurk's endless questions. Now his eyes were half open, empty and unfocused, as if frozen in the middle of an unfinished sentence. Blood still ran fresh along the edge of his jaw. It had not even begun to dry.
Loren's chest tightened.
Breathing suddenly became difficult. For a moment his knees nearly gave way beneath him, yet he remained standing where he was.
The street was still filled with noise. People were still shouting. Fire still roared around them.
But Loren heard none of it.
His gaze would not leave Dunk's face. His fingers trembled faintly in the empty air.
But a moment later he squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again and fixed his gaze on the burning house. What he saw was nothing but a savage wearing a bone mask painted red.
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