The Muraks stormed the southern gate and poured through, setting off waves of panic. As soon as Herrit's company, on the eastern gate, was aware of what had happened, it broke up. Herrit grabbed Nopin by the arm and hurried home, only a few streets away, and shouted out to the rest of the family as he burst through the door.
There was silence.
He dashed around the house, almost blinded by tears, and then Nopin was calling. "They're out here!"
Kassi and the four younger children were in the yard, huddled among the piles of timber and the few barrels which were waiting to be repaired or completed. Herrit put the baby Brojan and her sister Harra into one of the barrels. Tesk and his younger brother Addiran climbed into another, and Nopin into a third. There were still three more, but Kassi, just about to climb into one of them, announced that she was going to fetch her sister, Affran, and her newly-born baby son. They lived in the same quarter, quite close.
Herrit tried to stop her, but she struggled free and went through the house to the lane beyond. He hesitated a moment and then followed.
In the lane he called after her but she hurried on. He ran to catch her up and called out again as she turned into a side alley. He had just about reached it himself when suddenly she reappeared and ran straight into him.
"Get back," she gasped. Then, in exasperation at his lack of comprehension, she screamed "They're coming!"
Now he understood, and he was turning back when suddenly she clutched his arm; the lane behind them was filled with Muraks too. They were advancing quickly, and at each house they passed, three or four peeled off from the main body to break down the door and go inside.
Herrit could not see if they had yet reached his own house; all he could think of were his poor dear children, and bellowing with rage he rushed at the leaders, and was knocked to the ground as soon as he reached them. He was dragged to the side of the lane where he was hauled to his feet, and while many hands held him against a wall, fists rained into his head and body.
Kassi hardly had time to register what had happened before the leading Murak was directly in front of her, staring down into her face. His expression remained unaltered as he struck her a vicious back-hand blow that sent her staggering to the ground. Hardly had she fallen than she was being pulled to her feet, and then she found herself in the middle of a throng of men, women and children who were being herded along behind the main body of Muraks.
At first it was all she could do to keep her footing, for she was still dazed.
After a while she asked, of no one in particular, where they were being taken.
In answer, a voice said "They're killing the old people." Someone else pointed to an upstairs window slightly ahead of them: something was being pushed out of it; a bundle of clothes, she thought, until she saw the arms and legs splaying out as the body fell.
"They killed my father," said a voice close to Kassi, as though in answer to the earlier remark. "They killed mine," said another.
The prisoners were taken outside the city. Herrit, semi-conscious, had been dragged along with them, and been propped up against a large stone. For a while he was not sure what was going on. His head and body were aching from the beating he had had, and all he could think about were Kassi and the children.

Crowds of people were milling around him, getting in his way so he was unable to see properly. But when he tried to stand up his head throbbed and his knees buckled and he collapsed back against the stone. He groaned and clutched his head, then the sound of someone shouting near-by made him look up.
A Murak, a commander of some sort judging by his imperious baring, was shouting and pointing at a white haired woman, bent with age. Herrit knew her; she was the aunt of one of his friends.
The shouting brought three of four other Muraks; the commander pointed at the old woman again, and Herrit stared in disbelief as one of the new arrivals walked up to her, and with a sudden thrust impaled her on the point of his sword. She fell to her knees before him, her hands holding the blade. Contemptuously he pushed her away with his foot, and with a soft sucking sound the sword slid out of her thin body. She remained kneeling, her head now bowed, and then slowly she fell to her side; as she did so there were wails and screams from among the prisoners, her relatives and family perhaps, who had been momentarily mesmerized by the sudden act of violence in front of their eyes.
Herrit was to grow hardened to such sights. A continuous stream of prisoners was brought out of the city, and the cold-blooded murder of the elderly and infirm among their number - poor wretches who had escaped death within the walls of their own homes - was routine.
The prisoners were roped together and marched away but some, including Herrit, were forced to remain behind. They formed a working party and were soon cutting trees from the near-by forest and using the timber to erect a tall structure on the plain outside the city walls.
Herrit's immediate overseer was a Sairian, a rather thin man with receding hair. He often referred to the Murak's commander, a man called Cregitzig, and when Herrit asked him what had happened to the people who had been taken away, he said they were to work in the mines of Kroya. He was less forthcoming, however, when Herrit asked what it was they were building for the Muraks.
"It's to do with their religion," was all he would say.
Over the next few days Herrit noticed that the Muraks observed numerous religious rites and were served by a much-feared priesthood whose austere members were often to be seen striding purposefully around in long white robes and tall, highly-ornamented head-gear. They looked nothing like the priests and priestesses of the Goddess Tin Wina or of her fellow deities Agnomi, Lahanaha and Arwarnhi.
A rumour went through the working party that not all the prisoners taken from Felewith had been sent off to the Kroyan mines; it was said that a large number of children were still in the city. Herrit thought of Kassi and his own children, whom he had not seen since the day the Muraks had first entered Felewith.
The wooden structure proved to be a tall tower. On the platform at the top, reached by a series of ladders, a canopy was raised over a stone altar which had been hauled up on ropes. At the foot of the tower, sharpened staves were driven into the ground, their freshly cut points white in the sunlight. The Murak's blood sacrifice was ready to begin.
The children who had been kept within the city were brought out by the Muraks and carried by the priests to the top of the tower. There they were thrown off one by one to die on the sharpened staves below, sacrifices to Histigga, the Murak's God of War.
The Death Tower of Felewith was to become the Murak's holiest, bloodiest, shrine; victims were brought to it from wherever their armies triumphed. And Herrit, when he saw what he had helped to build tore his jerkin into narrow strips which he tied together into a crude rope, and escaping the attention of the guards, he hanged himself.