When his scouts returned, Tirlav learned that the North Grove was overrun. Canaen riders patrolled the Meadow. The scouts had diverted through paths in the woods, only to discover the aftermath of battle and the grove overrun by quth. They could not get close enough for a detailed count of the enemy, but they supposed the force was comparable to that which had assaulted the South Grove.

Tirlav had already sent a detachment of twenty riders to the Liel High Commander Sholrodan to report on the battle and beg for reinforcements. He didn't know how he stayed on his feet, but once those too wounded to aid in the labors had been moved to the grove, he set about refreshing the defenses. Every face around him showed fatigue and grim resignation, but no one complained at the orders.

One detachment dragged bodies out into the Meadow. In the heat and humidity of the Mingling, they were in a race to avoid the stench. For a time, Tirlav assisted them, and as they worked heavy clouds rolled in and a steady rain fell, soaking the grass and their hair and clothes. Tirlav pitied the wounded, lying isolated in their damp and moldy hammocks with little aid for their pain. Why did they live in such deprivation? The companies had guarded the Mingling for thousands of years. Should there not be great fortifications? An earthen wall and hedge from coast to coast?

As the rain fell, the grime and blood of battle smeared and ran down their bodies. At the eastern opening of the path to the Meadow, where the fighting had been fiercest, Tirlav came upon the body of a Canaen archer. Part of the Canaen's face was cleaved open, but Tirlav could still see hints of the Change upon it, and streaks of violet ran through his damp hair. Tirlav had never had the opportunity to let his gaze linger upon the form of a Canaen. Marred as the body was, he might not have known him for Canaen if he had come across him in the Aelor woods, except for the marks of the Change.

Reaching down to grab the Canaen's legs and drag him into the Meadow, Tirlav froze. The rain had cleaned his hands enough to wash away the blood, but there was yet color there. He raised his fingers. The tips were dark. He looked down and found a patch of the wet grass unstained by blood and wiped his hands. The stain did not come away. Looking closer, he could see that the mark was of deepest violet.

What was this? He would have thought he was too tired for feelings, but he felt a flutter in his chest. He knew that the Change first started at the extremities, yet how could the Change have come upon him? Confused memories of the battle returned to him. He had not grasped the Current, had he? He looked around to make sure no one was observing him, but those nearby stared at the ground, too occupied with the exhausting duty of dragging bodies away.

The Canaen at his feet wore gloves of a fine grey material, reinforced at the inner fingers. Reaching down, he pulled them off the body, turned them right-side out again, and slipped them on. They fit well enough. Nothing marked them as an obvious product of Isecan. He grabbed the Canaen's legs and dragged the body toward the meadow. When he tried to toss the body onto the growing pile, he felt a pain in his side. Reaching back, it was then he found his mail rent and the flesh of his flank open.

That night, Tirlav rotated the watches as usual, keeping half on guard. He stood for the first watch, a moldy silk bandage wrapped around his abdomen. Never had he felt more spent, like he had poured himself out to the final dregs, and yet the hours wore on and on. Quth hooed in the woods, sending a few stray arrows toward the Grove, but apart from irritating the defenders, they did not assault. Tirlav ordered that no response should be given unless an assault was made. So they listened and watched. If he could order half his company to fight and work all day and stand watch half the night, then he could do it, too. When the guard finally changed, he collapsed into his hammock. The rain fell on him as he slept.

The morning dawned with clearer skies, as cheerful a light as one could hope for in the Mingling, though compared to Aelor the air was already heavy with humidity and hot. No assault had been made during the night. Tirlav found that odd; he would have pressed them, but perhaps even the Canaen felt spent after yesterday's fighting, or the quth lacked leadership. How soon would they strike again? Tirlav could not hope to take back the North or Center Groves. There were simply not vien to hold two, let alone three groves.

He knew that the riders he had sent back to Liel High Commander Sholrodan would still be riding, sleeping in turns upon their vaela's backs as the hooves beat the damp soil of the narrow path. By Findel's blessing, he hoped they made it through and Sholrodan sent aid. In the meantime, Tirlav would fortify his position as best he could. They had axes in plenty, now, and he set work parties to cut trees from the outer edge of the clearing, sharpen stakes, re-dig ditches, and clear brush and vines away from the outer embankments so the Canaen would have less cover. Why these basic defenses weren't maintained around every grove, Tirlav could not conceive. It made him angry, for he knew that the others were not idiots—not even Kelnere, who had thrown his life away and many others with it. Tirlav could have used those riders, now.

The second morning, sentries reported Canaen riders moving down the Meadow from the north, far enough from the eaves of the forest to be out of bowshot but near enough to pose a threat. Tirlav moved through the branches of the trees to the edge of the Meadow. He had commanded that the watch tower be left empty, and that no one remain exposed to sight from the Meadow. Whatever fighting happened would happen at the grove itself.

It was not that the Canaen wouldn't know the Findelvien were present; the quth had scattered through the forests, and no doubt they had their ways of communicating with their Canaen masters. He merely hoped that the fear of the unseen might be greater than the fear of the seen.

The Canaen riders numbered only twenty-two, and they skirted the rolling hill east of the South Grove and passed on. They kept their vaela at a steady trot. No more riders were seen that day, and if these returned north, it was beyond sight.

Tirlav did not actually expect another attack from the direction of the Meadow. There was nothing keeping the Canaen from crossing the open ground, now. If he had to attack a grove, he would assault from the woods, ringing the clearing and moving in from all sides. That was why he still had his vien working to clear away brush and trees, hauling logs and branches to form a dense breastwork atop the embankment. Half his force worked, swords at their sashes, and half stood guard with arrows nocked. They rotated often, for the humidity and heat of the day was oppressive. Tirlav did his part with the rest.

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That night, quth harassed them with arrows in the dark, but they were better shielded than ever and sustained no injuries. By the sounds, no more than the usual groups of scouting quth lurked around the edges of the clearing, although that might be what they wanted Tirlav to believe. The Findelvien still slept in two shifts, half their numbers awake and half asleep. They had lost eight hundred and seventeen in the fighting, with over a thousand wounded. Of those wounded, three-quarters were able to walk and manage a tool or weapon. Wounds received from quth weapons often festered. Some even swore that the beasts used poison or fouled the blades with their filth. Keeping the wounded working would not help matters, but he felt he had little choice. With the remainder of his own company and the remnants from the Center and South Groves, Tirlav had a little more than two thousand two hundred able to fight, including those wounded, and he hoped it would require double those numbers to take the grove.

Apart from numbers, the grove was large. The eaves of the grove were nearly a mile long from point to point. The space within allowed the vaela to graze, supplemented by fresh branches from the woods, but it made it difficult to defend so long a perimeter. If the quth concentrated an attack in one place, they might break through before they could reinforce the spot. Such an attack could be easily feinted, when the real thrust would come as soon as Tirlav moved his fighters. As a result, he kept the remnants of three of his contingents ready in the center of the clearing with their vaela, able to quickly reinforce where needed. He hoped that the vien of the Northern Grove had sold their lives dearly, and that the Canaen felt the loss of warriors as keenly as he did. Above all, he hoped Sholrodan had a company or more to send him.

"Liel, what is your command?" Glentel asked the next morning as the grey of dawn lightened the eastern sky. Tereth was badly wounded, his foot split in two by a quth axe. He had taken to sitting in the trees at the edge of the grove with his bow, for he could not walk. Glentel had taken on more of the duties within the Aelor contingent. Only two of the company's plumes had survived—Menlane, though he was wounded, and Reen. Both of the other heirs of High Trees had fallen, the Son of Namian and the Son of Piev, though only the Son of Piev had remained a plume. Because of Sholrodan's directive, there had been no gap in command. As soon as the dead and wounded had been identified by the survivors of contingents, those next in line had taken up the plumes of the fallen and presented themselves to Tirlav. The new plume of Lishni had looked the grimmest among them. Less than fifty of that contingent survived. The plume newly affixed to the vien's helm was no longer yellow, stained brown in the dried blood of the fallen Lenai. Glentel was next in line for the plume of Aelor. How soon would he wear it?

"Liel?" Glentel asked again.

"We continue with the defenses," Tirlav said.

In addition to fortifying the embankments, Tirlav ordered the construction of another ditch around the grove, filled with sharpened stakes. It could take a week to complete, but every moment that the quth did not attack, they would grow stronger. So they labored.

The sun had crested the heavens and begun its descent when someone hurried over to Tirlav. It was one of the South Grove's remnants, his arm in a sling.

"Liel," he said. "There is something amiss with the wounded."

"What amiss?"

"I do not know. Please come and see."

Tirlav wiped sweat away from his eyes and followed the vien. It was miserable working in his armor. He felt he could not drink enough water. His silks were soaked. As he walked, he dreamed of bathing in the cold streams of the Aelor Woods.

In the center of the grove, the miserable wounded lay in hammocks just above the ground, attended by a few of the wounded who were able to walk enough to carry water among them and keep the wrapper beasts away at night. Apart from bandaging and cleaning wounds and administering pieces of tlna root to suck on for pain, there was little Tirlav or anyone else could do for their hurts. One or two more had died that day. He tried to make eye contact with those alert enough to care, to show his presence among them as he passed by.

The vien led him toward the end of one of the rows of hammocks, stopping at the foot of one of the wounded. It looked like the vien in the hammock had been pierced through both thighs with a pike. His legs were bare, bandaged around both thighs. Sweat beaded on the vien's brow. His eyes were closed and his breaths shallow.

"Look, Liel," said the vien who had brought him, pointing to the wounded vien's feet.

Tirlav squinted. Streaks of color rose along the veins, or maybe the veins themselves had swollen and tinted, running up above the ankles. Tirlav flexed his hands inside the gloves he had worn since the battle. He looked at the veteran who had brought him and raised an eyebrow. The vien leaned in to whisper:

"It is the Malady. I have seen it before. It will spread over his whole body and kill him."

Tirlav recoiled, stepping back from the hammock.

"There are two more among the wounded," the veteran continued. "Maybe more among the rest." He motioned vaguely at the grove.

"Can anything be done?" Tirlav asked. It was a weak hope, but maybe the companies at the front knew something Jareen had not. With how much was hidden about the Mingling, it was plausible.

The vien lowered his voice even more:

"They can be sent into the woods, lest it spread."

Tirlav furrowed his brow.

"Has that been done before?"

The vien nodded.

"Liel Kelnere. . ." He trailed off.

"I see."

"Lest it spread," the veteran said again.

"Let the wounded who show signs be set apart."

"There might be Malady among the others, too. It often strikes in clusters."

"And if they can walk and wield a blade, they will prepare to fight the quth with the rest," Tirlav said. Jareen had told him of the risk of contagion, but she had also said it was a slow spreading disease compared to some she had known. Perhaps if Liel Sholrodan provided reinforcements, he could do differently.

"Liel, it may spread."

And we might all be dead tomorrow, Tirlav thought, but he said:

"We are already dead."

"As you say, Liel."

With that, Tirlav headed back toward the new ditch, but as he walked he passed beneath Kelnere's platform and canopy. He had not stepped inside it before, but he grasped a low branch and lifted himself upward, taking to the netting until he reached the simple platform. The inside of the canvas canopy was discolored and moldy, and apart from a mat rolled up to one side and a low table, it was empty. Tirlav slipped off his gloves and looked at his fingers. The pigmentation had not changed or spread, and it did not appear to follow the veins like the afflicted vien he had just seen. A shiver passed through him. A foe that could be impaled upon a blade he no longer feared. At least, he was too tired to fear. Yet a foe that infected one's own body? That he still had the strength to fear.

Maybe he should send those with signs of the Malady into the Mingling. Maybe it was the wisest and safest thing. . . Or the most cowardly. He thought of Jareen. Every day she tended the afflicted. But she was Insensitive. Was it truly brave of her? Tirlav was the Son of the High Tree of Aelor, and as such he was more at risk.

It was a horrid thing to be alone with his thoughts, so he slid his gloves back over his hands and fled the canopy, heading back to the abundant work at the edge of the grove. Once, he had loved solitude. Now, it was a danger. It was not safe to look inside his heart and mind, anymore—better to look outward.

That night, the harassment of the perimeter grew in intensity. A few skirmishes touched off as quth approached the grove, but the foe took the worst. Only one vien was wounded by an arrow through the cheek. He was taken among the wounded. They had run out of tlna root, and the vien would suffer without relief. Tirlav took the skirmishes as a sign that the quth were exploring their strength, perhaps prodding for weakness. So, he continued to prepare for a defense.

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