Several days later, seventeen of us approached the northwest fortress of Shurchester lurching above the prairie on a rocky hilltop. Her towers gave the defenders an almost infinite vantage while the men-at-arms would die for the right kind of leader. A series of civilian structures surrounded the hill and the farmhands prepared the ground for this season's harvest.

"How is this working?" Hendron asked from under his hood. "We look like a band of assassins and they'll rain arrows ...