[Corvid]

The Orro war-chief growled.

The Sylesians crowded deeper into the wilderness each year, claiming trade routes and fertile spaces that had long been neutral territories. They had harried his people all winter as they tried to drive their livestock back through those once-uncontested lands, stealing many animals and slaying many riders.

Thosee "civilized" people, with their matriarchal ways and their poisonous lies, had played at diplomacy while they continued to steal and lie and kill. The patience of the Orro had come to an end. Now the clans were mobilized, and driving south for war.

The taut muscles in his arms bunched as he listened to the scouts make their reports. How he tired of riding and waiting and planning. How he longed for action!

Noises outside the tent interrupted the reports. Half-glad for the interruption, he pulled back the flap and strode into the open air.

Dozens of warriors stood in a circle, watching as the raiding party rode into their midst, bearing a screeching bundle over the back of a horse. Rurik, the raiders' leader, smoothly dismounted and pitched the struggling figure, head wrapped in cloth, into the dust at the warriors' feet.

"The Sylesians have sent a spy into our territory." He squatted, yanking away the cloth.

Her red hair flashed in the mid-day light as she spat and him, struggling against the leather straps that bound her wrists and ankles. Her full breasts heaved under her deerskin jerkin as she struggled, lithe arms and legs lashing against her bonds, rounded flanks arching as her hips writhed.

The war-chief smiled cruelly. "Well, pretty spy. I'm sure your masters would like to know exactly how many men are camped here..."