Usharat ran through the Gap of Rohan. He hardly thought now—that was how it was on a run. His only hunger was for battle, his vision was the first kill. His thirst was blood. He was with three hundred as powerful and hungry as himself. He was invincible.

"And sooo…" Mela prompted, stirring her finger in her ale and sucking the foam. "Did you?"

"Of course not!" Tara smacked Mela's hand lightly.

" He'd have to find it first, right? Knock his way through the cobwebs?" Gwenna grinned, bringing over a mouthwatering roasted chicken. None of them mentioned the fact that it was a gangly old rooster bought at a ridiculously inflated price.

"Disgusting," Tara said. "Anyway… He went back to his barracks, and he said he'd meet me again tomorrow. But I'm not going to go."

"You said that already," Gwenna said, sitting down on the wooden bench. "Four times. What's going on, missy?"

Tara tucked her head away from them. "Nothing at all."

Mela grinned over the board to Gwenna.

"He's not… my type. Not that I would. I like being on my own. Don't need another man telling me what to do and taking my money."

"Darlin', I don't think he's thinking about that. It's you he wants, I can see it."

"Sure, Gwenna," Tara said, smiling. "I bet he'll take me to meet his mother tomorrow. The Constable himself can give me away at our wedding. Or better yet, why not the Lord Steward?"

"You don't have to marry him, Tara," Mela said. "But he'd keep you nice for a while, in your own house, and you'd keep it when he's done with you. Have you dressed in nice things, teach you to ride a fine horse… Maybe he'd even love you forever."

"Are we talking about me or you now?" Tara asked, rolling her eyes.

"It could happen," Mela said, smiling seductively. "Isn't that right, Gwenna. Didn't that—What was her name, Diendria, didn't she meet a nice man?"

"Aye, it happens, sometimes. Always nice to dream. But me? I put my money up, and bought this place, and now I keep sluts like you around. Oh—beggin yer pardon, Miss Tara Cobwebs. A dream is a fine thing, Mela, but a good plan is better. Then maybe the dream will come along."

"Did it come for you, Gwenna?" Mela asked.

Gwenna pursed her lips for a moment, her grey-green eyes reflective. "He died a long time ago." Then she slapped her thick, sturdy hands on the table and stood up. "But I still got the house, and a shitload of coin. I'm goin' to the well now, before it gets dark."

"It's not even evening yet," Tara said, her fingers making a sign against evil. "We still have… time."

"Never leave off for later what can be done right away! Eat up, my lovelies!"

Osgiliath died at night, in almost every way. The streets were emptied, even the livestock inside. People lay in their beds, or in such hiding places as they made for themselves, holding their breath. Most lights were extinguished. The only life in the streets was that of the brave soldiers of Gondor, but they were stretched in these days, their dominion under attack. At first dawn one could hear the exhale of the city, and the people emerged from their sturdy stone houses to go about their business.

Tara helped clean up after her early dinner. She had to see a woman about a coat near the center of the poor quarter. Winter was coming, and it seemed to be a harsh one. The breeze was cold in her face, but the sun was strong. A handful of laughing boys ran by, taking turns pushing a great rolling hoop with their sticks. Tara watched them, thinking of better days when there would have been a gang of fifteen or twenty. It seemed their very laughter echoed into a chill void where the silence was louder than the sounds.

"Get on home, girl," Gwenna said, passing Tara with a bucket of water in her arms. "Strange feeling in the air today."

Tara felt her knees weaken a little, her stomach turn sour. There were still threats in the day, though very rare. Men from the far south and east sent by the Evil One from the place of dread across the mountains, and pirates from the coast who sailed up the river to raid the city. It was late afternoon now; the light was deepening, diminishing. Like everyone in Osgiliath, Tara measured daylight by her every breath.

Madam Willan—one could call her no less—ran a decent trade as a seamstress. Her husband had killed a man over a bad debt and ruined the family's reputation, and so Madam Willian started off getting her hands on scraps of cloth the wealthy merchants' wives threw away. Now she made dresses for all Gwenna's girls, but Tara wanted a nice wool coat lined with sheepskin, and a large enough hood to shadow her face for her work.

The seamstress was quick with Tara: she was in a furious conversation with her first tenant in a small shack she'd bought to rent out. Still, she insisted on fitting Tara, doing up the carved bone buttons, checking the hood. "I made it wide, so you can show your pretty little face a bit, when you dare it. Catch yourself a nice fella. Maybe a soldier boy?"

"You know about Darian too? What's wrong with this place, no one has anything better to do?"

Madam Willian fixed Tara with a hard stare. "No one wants to see you dead in the gutter for snatching from the wrong one. That's all. If the gent is kind, you shouldn't let him slip away."

"I'm careful, Madam Willian. I'm always careful."

"You're young. You think no one is faster, no one is smarter. Until you meet him. Go on, now, I've got a cheat to scold."

Tara stepped out into the street, instantly grateful for the coat as a frigid wind blew by. She began to walk back towards her home, the sound stone cottage that belonged to her father in a warren of small, smoky houses. The house was one of the only things from the long ago time when her father worked, and Tara took great pride in keeping it up alone.

Far away, at the northern edge of the city, a bell began to clang faintly. Tara's blood ran cold. The sound was picked up immediately by other watchtowers, and then the criers in the quarters, a panicked cacophony of screaming metal. The streets turned to chaos as citizens began to run, some screaming, some seizing planks of wood or clay amphorae, whatever cheap weapon was at hand until they got to their homes. The bulk of the soldiers were in the better areas, so there was no comforting rush of boots on the pitted cobbled street.

And then the screams changed, and Tara froze for a moment at the completely new wail of terror. It was almost animalistic: people's senses left them, and the only thing left behind was pure primal fear. Tara started to run as the first immense black forms blew like a black wind into her neighborhood, with a speed and agility belonging more to wolves than Men. She couldn't name the thing: it was no Man, but a monster, and twice the size of an Orc.

Not too much father, she told herself, dashing madly for her door. She didn't even want to think about what it was now slaughtering people in the street behind her. There was a cruel, sneering, guttural roar mixed with the squealing of terrified pigs at butchering time. Only they were not pigs, but Tara's friends and enemies and neighbors. She didn't want to see, didn't want to know it. Tara skidded into her house and dropped the heavy oak and iron plank to bar her door. The house was one large room with a hearth on the first floor, with stone stairs leading up to a second story above. There were three small rooms divided by wooden walls on the second floor. In the last room another stone staircase led to the narrow rooftop. Behind the staircase was a false wall. Tara ran into that cold, tight, quiet place and pulled a grey blanket across the narrow gap of space. Anyone looking in would see nothing but stone. Tara, now in complete darkness, listening to the muffled slaughter outside, closed her eyes and counted her breaths to stay calm.