Raveler: The Dark God Book 3 by John D. Brown

people to one place. Shim will come to protect them. And when they are all gathered together, we’ll cut them down.”
    “You’re talking tens of thousands of souls,” Loyal, the chief Divine of Nilliam, said.
    “A large harvest,” Berosus said, “and your masters will each get their share as agreed on.”
    The Divines nodded.
    “What about the power that killed Lumen and Rubaloth?” Loyal asked.
    Berosus looked at the other Divines. Any one of their Sublimes might have done it; there was no reason to trust any of them. Or maybe the Bone Faces had something to do with it, although he doubted that. Or maybe it was something else entirely; the New Lands presented a vast unexplored wilderness. “That is a separate matter. Our mission was to quell this herd, to quash the uprising. When that is finished, your task is done, and you may return to your Sublimes with your treasure.”
    The Divines seemed satisfied. Berosus motioned at one of his dreadmen to unroll a map on the table in the center of the room. Then Berosus explained his strategy. They would go into the Shoka lands and kill all the humans in the villages he identified. They’d make sure word of the massacres traveled. Other villages, seeing the slaughter, would sue for peace. But they’d slaughter them as well. That should put all the clans that allied with Shim into a panic.
    But they wouldn’t be able to flee because he’d move ships into the various harbors. And then he’d position the armies of Urz, Cath, and Nilliam to block all the main roads except for those leading to the place he wanted to push them. He wanted a line many miles long, driving the people to one place. The dogmen would work the gaps between the four armies, looking for strays and putting fear into the hearts of those who tried to flee. Shim would come to their aid. And Berosus would leave an escape route open until he had them where he wanted them. Then he would close the trap, just as you closed the gate on a group of cattle you’d herded into a paddock.
    When he finished explaining the strategy, Loyal of Nilliam asked, “How can you be sure Shim won’t figure out exactly what you’re doing?” He pointed at the map. “If they get around us here and head south, it will be a chore fetching them out of those woods.”
    “Just organize your men. Be ready to march on the morrow.”

8
    Weem
    THE WOODIKIN TOOK Talen, River, and Harnock to another level of the tanglewood and locked them in a tiny, one-room hut that looked like a hollowed-out onion. When they entered, a single green lizard scampered up a wall and out a small window. The hut itself was so small none of them could stand up. They barely had room for all of them to sit.
    Like all the other structures they’d seen, this one had been grown from the fat limb of the tanglewood tree it rested upon. It appeared the builders had first grown four limbs straight out from the side of the branch. These became the main beams for the floor. Smaller limbs had then been urged to grow from the sides of these four to tangle together, filling in the gaps to form a solid floor. A similar technique had been used to grow the walls. The small window at the back and another in the door provided ventilation.
    River ran her hand over the smoothed wood. “How do they do this?”
    Harnock shook his head. “I don’t know. Grafts maybe. There must be some lore to make the tree sprout a limb precisely where they want it to.”
    “You’d think our carpenters would want a look here,” said Talen. “I don’t understand why we don’t let the tanglewood trees grow on the coast.”
    “Because you don’t have tanglewoods without woodikin coming to live in them,” said Harnock.
    “It’s a shame,” said Talen.
    Harnock scratched the fur on his chest. “I think the early settlers would have said different.”
    Talen looked at Harnock. He had turned all attention away from Talen in the meeting with the Queen. “You saved us back there,”