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the near silence outside the village and in the forest or the cave. Here, the sounds of thousands of people moving, talking, and shouting seeped through and over the walls, joined by the sounds of men and women creating and building as they tried to earn a living, buying and selling within the many markets inside the city walls. He let his hearing reach out, enjoying the banter in the marketplace, as a farmer argued and bartered with a woman over the price of the grain he offered for sale. It was a discussion that reminded him of the many trips he’d made with the Traders over the past three years, trips he’d never again enjoy. All of the Traders were dead. Officially.
    Will heard the sound of chains and wheels moving, and realized that it meant he’d soon see the two Traders who were still alive. Unofficially. The gates of the military city of Abrecan were opening, the yawning doors providing entry to a city certain to provide Will with copious amounts of unpredictable adventure.

 
     
     
     
     
    IV
    Abrecan
     
     
    1021 A.D.
    Stepping inside the city of Abrecan was, for Will, like entering a major twenty-first century metropolis after weeks or months in the smaller, cleaner, quieter city of Pleasanton. The Aliomenti village offered an efficient, planned layout designed to keep common resources together. They’d put the Stores and Shops next to each other to eliminate the need for the craftspeople to cross great distances to store finished goods; they’d save time they could better use creating more. Will asked why they didn’t have the Shop fronts and Store fronts facing each other, rather than back-to-back. Eva explained that the back-to-back design meant fewer walls to build and used less space. They’d also realized that, unless they spaced the facing fronts a significant distance from each other, they’d struggle to pull the horse-drawn wagons between the buildings during loading or unloading of material.
    Abrecan was, in contrast, built in a chaotic fashion. It seemed that they’d built what they needed, when they needed it, in whatever open spot they could find. Lodging, training grounds, apothecaries, bakeries, markets, latrines... all were crammed together with no thought as to the efficiency, safety, or hygienic propriety of the layout. As if to illustrate that point, Will watched a young girl dance out of her home, right into the midst of two knights engaged in swordplay just outside her door. She was saved from immediate death only because the blade that struck her was made of wood with a dull edge.
    The knight seized the unconscious child, looked around, and spotted Will. “Here,” he snapped, thrusting the unmoving child into Will’s arms. “Take her.”
    Will blinked. “Shouldn’t we get her back to her parents?”
    The knight ignored him, instead returning to his swordplay with his counterpart.
    Will shook his head, threw a wall of nanos around himself and the child, dispatched some of his healing nanos into her body, and moved to the door of the residence from which she’d emerged. Shifting the child in his arms to free up one hand, he knocked.
    The door opened a few moments later, revealing a woman in disheveled clothing with a blank, emotionless face. “Your daughter has been struck on the head by the knights behind me, ma’am. We should get her medical attention.”
    She stared at the child, as if unwilling to admit what she was seeing in front of her, her face growing ever more devoid of any life or emotion. Will trickled a small bit of Energy to her, both to help her respond to the situation and to try to determine the cause of the misery shrouding her face.
    The knights had been practicing with wooden swords today due to a similar accident a week earlier, when her husband, a carpenter, had exited their small home at the moment a sharpened metal blade slashed toward the door. With his brutal death, all joy had left her, and though she’d fought to maintain her grip on life for