“Thanks again for the ride,” Sam said, sitting beside the farmer while Faera kicked her feet off the back of his wagon. The entire wagon was filled to the brim with potatoes, and Sam found himself marveling at the sheer quantity being hauled to market by a team of four massive horses.

“Don’t mention it,” Hank said. The man was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, looking like nothing more than a sack with three holes cut into it. The shirt went down to his knees, and Sam was suspicious that the man wasn’t wearing anything else underneath. “You saved me a lot of money, in truth.”

“How’s that?” Sam asked. “You had all the tools to do it yourself.”

“Would have taken me a whole day to fix it,” Hank said. “Maybe longer, just finding a way to prop up the wagon while I worked. All the while, the potatoes would’ve been rotting in the heat. You did me a hell of a favor, kid.”

“I guess timing is everything,” Sam said.

“That it is,” Hank said, nodding in agreement. “Tell you what. Take an armload of potatoes with you when we get to town. Your wife looks like she could use the food.”

Sam chuckled, glancing over his shoulder at Faera. “Thank you, sir,” he said with a grin. “Faera, thank the man.”

Faera’s stiffened for an instant, then twisted to peer over her shoulder. “You are very gracious, Hank,” she said sweetly.

Hank grunted in agreement. “Keep some of them. If you’re planning on starting a family in the wilds with nothing but sheep, you’ll need all the help you can get.”

Sam twirled the hook in his hand, enjoying the smooth feel of the wood as it spun. “I don’t have any sheep, unfortunately. This is an heirloom from my grandfather.”

“All the more reason,” Hank said. “I spent a good fifteen years clearing the land with my Hanna, before she passed, and it was a struggle. We would have died several times if not for the kindness of strangers.”

Hank tilted his head before glancing over. “Say, if you have a daughter in the next five years, do you suppose you’d be willing to trade her for a wagon and some horses? My son is turning eight soon, and I gotta think about the future, y’know?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Sam said.

“Time flies, my friend,” Hank said, spitting a dark brown glob off the side of the wagon. “But you’re right. It seems a little premature to ask before you’ve even been through your first winter.”

“Are they bad here?” Sam asked.

“Not particularly,” Hank said with a shrug. “The winters are pretty gentle--not like up north--but it is winter that separates the men who are serious about homesteading from the ones who are playacting.”

“I see,” Sam said. He leaned back in the bench seat, gazing up at the fluffy clouds rolling by.

“Want some chew?” Hank said, holding out some cured leaves.

“Nah, tobacco is a carcinogen,” Sam answered.

Hank gave him a funny look.

“It’s a fancy word for unhealthy,” Sam said, covering his slip. “My grandpa taught it to me.”

Hank squinted at Sam. “Sounds like one of those fancy elf-words.”

Sam grunted as Hank tucked the leaves back into their built-in cubby.

The three of them rode on in silence, the wagon bouncing as they crested hill after hill. In the distance, a haze was forming.

Sam stood in the gently rocking seat. “What is that?” he asked, unable to make out the shape of the mountains in the distance.

“Just give it a minute,” Hank said, tapping the horses with his switch to pick up the pace. “Once we reach the top of this hill, we’ll have a good view of the valley.” The wagon crested the hill a short while later, and it was just as he’d promised.

The dirt road spooled down into the valley, slicing between farms that had carved plots out of the forest’s edge. Below that, a river wound through the valley bottom. And in the distance, Sam could barely make out a solid line, a man-made structure engulfed by a cloud of dust.

A city wall, Sam realized. And around the city was a swath of shining steel milling slowly around the perimeter.

“By Tyranus, the city’s under siege,” Hank said softly. “Damn, damn, damn!” He glanced over at Sam. “I’m going to trade for tools with the nearby farms and then head back. I’ll lose a lot of profit this year, but I’m not ready to orphan my children just yet,” he said, glancing back down at the army kicking up dust.

“What’s going on?” Sam asked.

“The empire’s attacking us,” Hank said. “Are you blind?”

“No,” Sam said, stepping off the wagon as he watched the army shift. “We’ll get off here. But, real quick, Hank: If I were to say, catch an elf, where would I take it?”

“What, are you looking to catch prisoners of war?” Hank asked, turning the wagon after Faera jumped down. “No place to sell those blighted elves in this country, that’s for sure.”

He paused to look Sam and Faera over. “You ain’t homesteaders, are ya?”

Sam shrugged.

Hank rolled his eyes. “Whatever your purpose, don’t go getting yourself killed trying for a big score. You seem like decent folk.” Hank reached behind him and tossed them each a couple potatoes. “For the road,” Hank said, shaking his head as he drove the horses back down the hill, toward the farmsteads they’d passed.

“Let’s get closer,” Faera said, setting out down the road. “I need to get close enough to see their uniforms.”

Sam pocketed the potatoes and walked after her, his longer stride eating the distance. As the sinking sun was turning red, the density of the farms increased, until they were trekking from one field to the next. The farmers must have sought shelter elsewhere, because the farms nearest the city were not only abandoned--they were also stripped of food. They made camp for the night in an abandoned house, roasting Hank’s potatoes for a change from the stale, dry bread they had packed for the trip.

The next morning they came in sight of the army. Row upon row of grim-faced men stood in massive formations surrounding the city. The soldiers wore indigo blue under their polished steel helmets, giving the impression of a blue ocean bristling with steel. The rear ranks rested while the ones in front pushed forward, attempting to climb the city’s walls using wooden towers and ladders.

“These aren’t the people responsible,” Faera said, overlooking the battlefield. “Their clothes are totally different. I wanted to be sure they weren’t just wearing a different color, and now I am. The design of their uniform is from a completely different era than the soldiers who attacked my home. In addition, I see no artillery, no jeeps. Nothing more advanced than thirteenth century.”

“So, do we go on inside and ask around, then?” Sam asked as he watched a forty-foot ladder pushed away from the wall by long poles, sending a dozen men screaming to the ground. He took a bite of his baked potato.

“We’ll have to,” Faera said. She glanced back at Sam with a raised brow. “Do you have any suggestions?”

Sam shook his head and finished off the last of his leftover potato. He watched a man in an elaborate outfit step forward, covered by the massive shields of his guards. With a wave of his hand, a section of the wall sagged, then toppled to the ground.

“Might not be too hard,” Sam said, watching the army surge forward, attempting to mount the pile of stone and force their way in.

The massive stone blocks that had made up the wall suddenly began to move. They spun violently, grinding the men climbing on top of them into paste. The soldiers who had been allowed in were surrounded and dispatched while the stone field was impassable.

In a matter of moments, the fallen wall was still again, but this time it held a predatory stillness, like a spider waiting for more flies to catch in its web.

“Maybe it will be hard,” Sam said, eyes widening as blood oozed from the rubble.

“Does it bother you?” Faera asked.

“What?”

“Watching humans kill each other en masse?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “I was always supposed to take part in violence, so it doesn’t bother me much. But I always kind of assumed it would be for a good reason, like protecting the law or defending the nation. Now that it’s all gone… Yeah, I guess it kinda sucks, watching Americans kill each other like this.”

“They’re doing something,” Faera said, pointing.

They were loading massive barrels onto trebuchets that dwarfed the height of the city’s walls. The first trebuchet fired, and its barrel came down on the meat-grinding stones. Black liquid exploded.

“Is that oil?” Sam asked.

“It’s pitch. They’re trying to stick the blocks together,” Faera said.

“Why aren’t the defenders trying to stop it?”

“Because they can’t,” Faera said. “Besides, the defending side need simply light the bricks on fire to prevent an incursion.”

“Then why try to cover the bricks in pitch?” Sam asked.

“Because if the defending side does light the blocks, they will crumble into gravel, and the next wave will be able to cross unharmed.”

“But no one wants to be the first over the pitch,” Sam said. “A stalemate,”

“In essence. The two armies will temporarily divert their attention elsewhere until the battle grows more desperate.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Sam asked.

“Cover our clothes in soot and sneak in under cover of darkness, risking immolation on discovery?” Another barrel shattered across the mountain of stone.

“When you say it like that, it doesn’t sound as good,” Sam said.

Sam and Faera crawled along the base of the wall, their clothes covered in soot from an abandoned farm’s hearth. Sam’s face pressed into the dirt as he inched forward, never moving faster than a sloth. He could see the edge of Faera’s thigh out of the corner of his eye, and the high walls above him, the glowing lights of the patrolling soldiers just out of sight.

They were pressed up against the towering walls, climbing over the rotting bodies from the morning’s assault. Sam tried his damndest to shut off his sense of smell, to not meet the staring eyes of a dead teenage boy as he edged past.

“We’re at the blocks,” Faera whispered. Sam tilted his head the tiniest fraction, watching Faera’s blackened hand work its way up the first big block. She slowly pulled herself up, sliding sideways to stay in the shadow created by the uneven stone.

Sam couldn’t help but silently admire her body as she made her way up the stone hill. It required strength to move that slow, grace to move that silently. Plus, there were the curves of her hips and butt by moonlight…

Once Faera was clear, Sam began his own ascent. It was one of the worst isometric exercises he’d ever done, slowly pulling himself up, body absolutely controlled as he oozed his way upward. His arms and legs were trembling by the time they got halfway up the mountain of tacky blocks.

The tar had cooled, but it was still sticky against Sam’s skin, tugging at his clothes, doing everything in its power to slow him down. Sam was simply wishing he wouldn’t have to add burning alive or perforated by arrows to the list of ways he’d experienced death.

Halfway up the hill, Sam had been forced to take a longer path than Faera, since she could fit into smaller shadows on the way up. He actually hadn’t seen her at all in a couple hours. He knew she couldn’t have been caught, since they would have raised the alarm and lit them on fire, but not being able to see his partner made him anxious.

Sam glanced slowly behind him, and saw the horizon beginning to lighten. Crap. Not letting his worry make him move any faster, he continued climbing from shadow to shadow.

An hour later, the sky was getting lighter, and Sam was near the top. He suddenly heard the ringing of bells and shouting that make his guts twist with panic. Did they notice her? Did they notice me? Sam froze, holding perfectly still.

The alarm kept ringing, but no one set him on fire or shot him, so Sam slowly glanced around to figure out what was going on. Off in the distance, the opposing army was approaching with something like massive bulldozer blades pushed by ten-ton animals.

In front of the two of themhundreds of men lined up, their flaming arrows trained on the very mountain of flammable stone that Sam rested upon.

“Faera,” Sam whispered, the sound almost lost in the clamor of troops lining up on the walls on either side of them. If the men above them bothered to look straight down at the rubble, they would most likely be able to pick them out.

“Yeah, I see it,” came Faera’s soft voice, and with it, a flood of relief. She was alive.

“We might have to run.”

The burning arrows leapt from the bows, sailing through the air toward the dark hole in the city’s defenses, and bringing Sam a flash of insight. If the attackers lit the stone on fire and hit it with dozers, they could carve a nice, easy path into the city.

Sam and Faera lunged to their feet and into a sprint, two fleet shadows in the darkness. Sam hurt from head to toe, but he didn’t let it slow him. Faera had been slightly above him and to his right, and she glided up the hill in a matter of seconds, jumping from one man-sized block to another. Sam was right behind her, anticipating one of those arrows in his back.

They were halfway down the hill when the tar caught fire. The flames nipped at their heels as they descended into the city, leaping over the hastily constructed palisade inside the walls. Once they hit the street, Sam punched the goggle-eyed watchman in the jaw, making the kid sink to the ground.

The glow of torches came from the alley, hundreds of soldiers coming to man the palisades in case the enemy tried to push inward. The two of them had only seconds before they were spotted.

“Here!” Faera whispered, guiding Sam into a narrow, smelly crack between two buildings. Sam jammed his shoulder up against the crack and tried to squirm in as the torchlight drew closer. Sometimes there were downsides to being big.

Sam took a breath, then exhaled all the air in his lungs, and was finally able to fit. He scraped along for a claustrophobic ten feet before a temporary widening of the alley allowed him to catch his breath.

The men with torches ran past the crack, and Sam closed his eyes so they didn’t see the whites of his eyes in the darkness. Once they were past, the two of them kept moving through the alleys until they found an opening. They stripped off their soot-blackened farmer’s overalls and stashed them out of sight.

“You stay in the alleys for now,” Faera said, unfolding her clothes from the grain sack she’d carried in with her.

Sam rinsed the soot from his body in the smelly water of the river that passed through the city, dreading getting it into his eyes or mouth. “Why?” he asked, wiping himself dry.

“You are almost seven feet tall,” Faera said, her back turned. “You can do nothing but draw attention. I’m going to make some inquiries about the elves. If the city falls and we get separated… try not to kill all of them.”

Sam snorted. “Not likely,” he said, examining the deep alleys surrounding the river. “I’ll be haunting the alleys, then. If the city falls, I’ll meet you downriver, wherever it happens to branch.”

“Sounds good,” Faera said. “It should only take a day.”

She shook her hair, flinging water across the stone-reinforced riverbank, before setting off deeper into the city, taking half the rope of coins with her. Sam watched her leave, casting an appreciative gaze at her figure.

He shook himself when she turned a corner, leaving him alone by the river. “To hell with that,” Sam said, and followed the alleys toward the main street.

A scrawny man with rotting teeth jumped up as Sam approached, his hand hovering near the handle of his knife as he snarled. The man’s eyes traveled up…and up, until they reached Sam’s face. Sam regarded him with a stillness one breath away from violence. The cutthroat swallowed, sat back down, and averted his eyes.

Sam squatted down in front of the man and took out two coins from the roll, waving them in front of his face. “If I wanted to sell some elves in bulk, where would you suggest I go?” Sam asked, setting the coins on the cobbles between them.

“No elf-flesh trade in this city, fool,” the man said, shrinking away from Sam. “By order of Tyranus, everyone knows that.”

“It’s a basic fact of human nature that illegality will create a demand which can only be filled by an underground market,” Sam said, resting on his haunches. “It’s not a matter of asking whether or not it’s happening, simply where.”

The man stared at him, wide-eyed. “You sound like him,” he whispered.

“Who?” Sam asked.

“Are you with the Force of God?” the man asked, scrambling up to press himself against the alley wall. “I’ve done nothing wrong. I do my daily work, and no more. You’ll get no confessions from me, s-sir.” The man edged down the alley, keeping his eyes on Sam, until he finally turned his back and ran.

Sam sighed and stood up, staring after the lean man, then down at his feet. “Shit,” he muttered. Despite his panicked appearance, the man had enough of his wits about him to snag the two coins on the ground as he sprang away.

Sam shrugged. It was like Faera had said; he stood out, in a colossal way. Sam ran through the conversation in his mind, noting where it had broken down, probably because of his use of language. He also considered the name the man had mentioned. ‘Tyranus’, Sam mused, had some pretty haughty undertones.

Perhaps he would be better-served learning more about the man who dictated how the slave trade was handled. Oftentimes, officials in positions of enforcement could be bribed by the very vices they were meant to regulate. Sam’s basic education had included many of these more gritty aspects of reality.

He continued down the alley to the main street, where the distant clamor of battle and the muted murmur of women were the only sounds. Sam glanced out and saw women going about their daily business, occasionally sending worried glances up to the city wall. If Sam were to walk out, he would become the center of attention, visible from all angles, surrounded by women who barely brushed five feet tall.

Sam grunted and turned around, winding his way through the back-alleys until he stumbled upon a young boy playing by himself. Sam knelt down beside him, wondering if the boy would know anything useful.

“Hello,” Sam said.

“Hi,” the boy responded without looking up.

“Who is Tyranus?” Sam asked.

“Momma says he’s God,” the boy said, hitting small stones against each other, knocking them out of a scratched ring in the dirt. “Says he led our people away from the bad people who were hurting them, and now the bad people are trying to come get us, but Tyranus will stop them.”

Sam’s brows rose. Was Tyranus a title, then? “How long ago did that happen?”

The boy glanced up at the sky. “Ummm,” he moaned as though making some great effort, probably studied from his father. “Momma said my grandfather’s grandfather was Tyranus’s first, umm… loo tannic.”

“Lieutenant,” Sam supplied.

“Yeah, that one,” the boy said, returning to his game. “She says he’ll remember our family one day and give us his blessing, but Da said she’s full of shit.”

“That’s mean,” Sam said, to which the boy shrugged. “How about elves?” Sam asked. “How does the current Tyranus feel about elves?”

“Elves are evil,” the boy said as he flicked rocks together. “They steal and lie and strangle the money, and crowd out real people with their long lives, and hurt them with their evil magic. They have to be purged for the golden age of humanity to return.”

“I’ll assume you didn’t come to that conclusion yourself?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” the boy said, glancing up at Sam. His eyes went wide as he noticed Sam’s size. “Are you with the Force of God? Momma says they ask questions and make sure our minds and bodies are pure, or else we disappear. Are you going to make Da disappear? He argues with Momma a lot about Tyranus, and she says he’s not pure when she gets mad at him.”

“If I were a Force of God,” Sam said quietly, “would it be a good idea to tell me that?”

Wide-eyed, the boy shook his head.

Sam ruffled his hair. “I’ll give you a pass this time, kid, but next time a stranger comes up to you and asks strange questions, think a little more first, okay?”

“Ralian!” a voice screeched from a window. Clattering and thumping sounded from the house next door, and the door flew open. A young woman grabbed the boy by the wrist and hauled him into the house, sparing a fearful glance at Sam.

Sam tucked himself away in an alley. Squatting against the wall with his forearms resting on his knees, he went over the facts.

“Secret police, and a god-king who directs the people’s discontent at a small, easily identifiable fraction of the population, while maintaining their feeling of victimization by a larger force,” Sam said with a sigh. “It’s almost textbook.”