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observe, that would give them their best possible chance.
    “The more we learn,” he said, “the more hope we have.”
    “You do not want any of our men stationed there?” Herme asked quietly.
    “My friend,” Zared said. “I ask only the Icarii because they can move between the border and back to our placement faster than can human or horse legs.” He stood up. “I profess myself sick at not knowing how to react, or what to do next. Until Faraday returns we must do what we can.”
    DareWing rose to his feet, nodded at Zared, and faded into the gloom of the forest.
    Fifteen paces away Askam sat with his back against a small sapling, his eyes narrow and unreadable as he watched Zared move to talk quietly with Caelum.
    His mouth thinned as he saw Caelum nod at Zared’s words and place a hand briefly on the King’s shoulder.
    After three days of observation, they had a better idea of the span of the Demonic Hours. From dusk to the time when the sun was well above the horizon was a time of horror, the time when first Raspu, then Rox and finally Mot ruled the land. Pestilence, terror and hunger roamed, and those few who were caught outside succumbed to the infection of whichever Demon had caught them. After the dawn hour there were three hours of peace, a time of recovery, before Barzula, tempest, struck at mid-morning.
    Although the occasional storm rolled across the landscape during Barzula’s time—whirlwinds of ice or of fire—the scouts reported that the primary influence of the tempest appeared to occur within the minds of those caught outside. Once Barzula’s hour had passed and he had fed, there was again a time of peace (or, rather, a time of frightful anticipation) for some four hours until Sheol struck at mid-afternoon. Again, an interval of three hours when it was safe to venture outside, then the long hours of pestilence and terror through dusk and night.
    The precise time span of the Demonic Hours were marked by a thin grey haze that slid over the land from a point to the east, probably the location of the Demons themselves. It was a sickening miasma that carried the demonic contagion withit, lying over the land in a drifting curtain of madness until it dissipated at the end of the appointed time.
    “And those caught outside?” Zared asked softly of the first group of scouts to report back.
    “Some die,” one of the scouts said, “but most live, although their horror is dreadful to watch.”
    “Live?”
    The scout took a moment to answer. “They live,” he finally said, “but in a state of madness. Sometimes they eat dirt, or chew on their own excrement. I have seen some try to couple with boulders, and others stuff pebbles into every orifice they can find until their bodies burst. But many who live past their first infection—and those dangerous few hours post-infection when they might kill themselves in their madness—wander westwards, sometimes north-west.”
    The scout paused again, locking eyes with his fellows. Then he turned back to Zared and Caelum. “It is as if they have been infused with a purpose.”
    At that Zared had shuddered. A purpose? To what end? What were the Demons planning?
    But the scouts had yet more to report. One group had also seen seven black shapes running eastwards across the Plains of Tare towards the Ancient Barrows. Horses they thought, but were not sure. Above them had flown a great dark cloud…that whispered.
    No-one knew quite what to make of it.
    “We have roughly three hours after dawn, four hours between mid-morning and mid-afternoon, and then another three hours before dusk,” Zared said to Caelum and Askam on the third morning since they had taken shelter in the Woods.
    “Time enough for an army to scamper from shelter to shelter?” Caelum said, his frustration clearly showing in his voice. “And what can an army do? Challenge Despair to one-on-one combat? Demand that Pestilence meet us on the battlefield, weapons of his choosing? What am I