About two hundred years ago, Adom was a formidable kingdom, but it fell into ruin and most of its old cities were abandoned. The people became semi-nomadic. Most of the villages, even those that seemed pretty well settled, could be packed up and carted off in a day if the people felt the need for it. As a result, the Adomites were notoriously difficult to govern. There were hundreds of mostly independent clans that were loosely grouped into a few dozen banners that drew their lineage from the vassals of the late King. House would feud with house in a clan, clan with clan in a banner, and banner against banner. The way they were always fighting amongst themselves, they couldn't put up much of an effective resistance to the advance of Zadok.

While Zadok was able to conquer the land, it never really conquered the people in any meaningful sense. The Adomites proved to be more trouble defeated and occupied than independent in open battle. Zadok mostly opted to import forced labor from other tributaries to work in the mines to extract their tribute. The Adomites weren't much interested in digging in the ground, so it was a fairly convenient arrangement for both sides. It didn't stop the them from clashing regularly, though.

Of course Toma didn't know any of this beforehand, but Marius was part travelogue, part history professor and part troubadour. Duran no doubt knew a lot of the same things from his travels, but he wasn't so eager to share. Honestly, Toma found it a bit annoying, but he kept it to himself. He didn't want to put a man like Marius in a bad mood.

In Greland and Ilyria, Toma could mostly follow along with what people were saying. Here he was entirely reliant on Dru or Marius interpreting for him. Apparently the only Adomite Duran or Crescenza knew was a selection of curses. The rest of them were completely helpless.

As they approached the latest village, they went through much the same process as every time before. Marius would go ahead on his own to determine how friendly the place was. He would go rather than Shaya because Adomites were actually more likely to extend their hospitality to a foreigner than a fellow Adomite from a rival clan. Shaya tended to keep silent rather than risk turning the locals against the group. She did this so much that Toma wondered if all of Adom was against her or if she simply didn't put much trust in her fellow countrymen. Toma couldn't begin to make sense of it all and only focused on getting from one location to the next.

When Marius returned, he told the group, "Good news, ladies an' gents. We're the guests of honor of the chief elder. No straw mats on dirt floors for us this time. Maybe."

Just because they were being taken under the roof of the chief elder didn't mean they could expect much luxury. Most of the people were bitterly poor. Toma thought that they had it bad in LeBlanc, but they lived like kings by comparison. The lives of actual royalty like Dru and Goldie or an aristocrat like Crescenza would be unimaginable.

The chief elder's hut was larger than any of the others in the village, but it wasn't too different otherwise. It wasn't uncommon for Adomites to have three or four generations under one roof, but when the male children other than the firstborn became adults, they were expected to leave the nest. Because clan cohesion was so important, they rarely went far and the huts in the villages tended to be clustered by clan or family branch for the larger clans.

The son of the chief elder, who was old enough to be counted among the village elders himself, ceded his room to the guests. In some villages, their host would insist on separating the males from the females, but with as many people as there were in the chief elder's hut, some twenty in total, sparing a single room was about as much as he could manage. Contrary to what Marius said, most of them were going to have to settle for straw mats on the dirt floor, but there was a rug covering most of the floor and a couple woolen blankets for each mat, which was more than they got in some of the previous villages they stayed at.

The Adomites had a peculiar custom where they demonstrated their trust by the state of the room they would lend to guests. If the room was stripped of everything of value, it meant the host only had the barest level of trust for his guest, but if he would openly display his most valuable possessions, it was the loftiest compliment that could be paid. Naturally, breaking that trust would have dire consequences. You would either be beaten within an inch of your life and thrown out of the village or you might be forced to serve the family you offended until you worked of the value of whatever was stolen plus two-fifths extra. This particular host seemed to take the middle-of-the-road approach and simply left the room much in its original state.

One extravagance that was bestowed on them was a change of clothes. Now, a gift of clothes was one of the highest honors in Adomite culture. It was one of the reasons Shaya was so insistent that Crescenza not destroy the dress she was wearing when treating her bullet wounds. The other reason was that Adomites had a very strict prohibition on crossdressing. A woman could wear trousers, especially if she worked outdoors, but she had to wear a dress over them or she would face punishment. There was a minor incident in the first village they went to on account of Crescenza. (Molly would have been included as well, but she was mistaken for a boy. Honestly, the villagers seemed more suspicious of Goldie being another crossdresser than her.) Interestingly enough, apparently the Ilyrians also took a dim view to women dressing as men, which was part of the reason why Crescenza did it as part of her highway robber persona. To avoid causing an incident, Crescenza made the concession of keeping her longcoat braced when walking about, which was enough to satisfy the first group of villagers. It didn't satisfy the second village, though, so she had to take to wearing a skirt over her trousers. Molly started doing the same because she didn't want to be confused for a boy anymore, even though it would have offered her more latitude than she would have enjoyed otherwise.

Once they had changed into the new clothes they were given, they joined their hosts for supper. Because this was a special occasion, a number of members of the chief elder's extended family were invited as well, making the already cramped hut even more tightly packed and forcing everyone to sit shoulder-to-shoulder. If you were in any way claustrophobic, it would have been a nightmare.

For the most part, Adomites considered themselves to be either farmers or herders and you could tell which group a particular household belonged to based on what they drank. Farmers drank what they called kvass, made from fermented bread, while the herders drank fermented goat milk. Toma didn't much like the taste of either, but he kept that to himself.

As guests, Toma and his companions were seated close to the chief elder near the head of the table, or what passed for the head of a round table. Only the oldest women and the youngest girl children were seated with the males. It was the job of most of the household's females to serve the meal and attend to the guests. First came the ritual hand washing, where the females of the family would take warm, wet cloths and wash the diners' hands, first the guests', then the patriarch's. followed by everyone else from oldest to youngest. The patriarch then led a prayer and when that was concluded, offered up the opening toast. Marius would always give the response. He seemed to know just what to say to please their hosts. Once the toast was concluded, the women began serving the meal.

The first course was a stew made from sheep offal. It wasn't too bad if you didn't think about it too much. Next were some little meat pies, leading into the main course, a whole roasted lamb that was set in the middle of the table. The meat was all but falling off the bones and everyone was supposed to just reach out with their forks and pull off morsels. While they were working on the lamb, the women then brought out little bowls of curds and some flatbread. Lastly, dessert was a cup of runny yogurt with a precious few raisins for flavor. All told, it was one of the biggest meals they had enjoyed since coming into the country.

Apparently when a family is by itself, everyone can converse freely, albeit with priority given to the elder members. In the presence of guests, however, the men would talk to men and the women to women, if they spoke up at all, while the children were to remain silent. This was a bit of a problem as Dru was one of the main interpreters and Marius was usually busy entertaining the patriarch. Fortunately, Marius seemed to be entertaining enough to hold most of the men's attention, so they were too busy listening to him to attempt striking up a conversation with Toma and the others that they couldn't follow.

Marius had apparently gotten to the punchline of his latest story because the men all burst out laughing. Even though he couldn't follow along, Toma's attention was on Marius, so he almost didn't notice Dru whispering in Shaya's ear and her starting to look around.

Keeping her voice low, mindful of the fact that it was impolite for her to speak up, Dru said, "I was just noticing that the ladies have taken their leave, along with the youngest of the children. I was asking Shaya about it and she said it wasn't normal."

Even though he didn't have much logical reason for it, Toma was immediately put on edge. No doubt it came with being a hunted man, but why would he have to worry about that here?

Dru apparently wasn't the only one who noticed. Marius didn't change his tone in the slightest, but whatever he said caused a silence to fall over the men of the household.

Switching to Grelish, presumably for the benefit of Molly and Schwartz, Marius said, "Well, turns out the hospitality here's a bit sour. How d'ye wanna play it?"

Nodding to Shaya, Schwartz asked, "All these Adomites tough as the She-Bear there?"

Marius grinned.

Too late. Shaya sprang to her feet, pouring out a furious stream of curses at their treacherous hosts. The men of the household jumped up as well, brandishing an assortment of weapons. Toma had been told that it was taboo to bring weapons to the dinner table, but so was breaching the trust of sacred hospitality.

The chief elder started speaking and Dru interpreted for the others.

Before she could plead with Marius for help talking down Duran, Shaya seized the table and used it as a shield as she charged at the men of the household. The ones with pistols fired haphazardly before the table hit them. No one seemed to get hit by the shots, thankfully, but now the situation was devolving into an all-out brawl.

Toma grabbed Goldie by his shirt and flung him to the other side of the room with Dru. The men of the household hadn't moved to surround them and there was no way in or out from the far wall, so he could better protect them from the back corner.

Part of him thought he should be helping the others, who were outnumbered nearly three to one, but he knew that by keeping Dru and Goldie out of the fray, he was giving them one less thing to worry about. It didn't mean he wouldn't have to fight, though. One of the boys—not even Toma's age, stockily built but still rather baby-faced—managed to slip through and come at Toma with a knife.

Dru started speaking to the boy in Adomite, but he wasn't listening. He tried slashing at Toma. Either he didn't understand that the three of them were supposed to be taken alive or he didn't care. Toma couldn't afford to pull his punches. When the boy made another slash, Toma seized the opening and stabbed him in the chest, then drove the shard as far in as it would go. They boy just stood there in shock. The knife fell from his hand and he weakly reached for the shard, but the strength was draining out of his body too quickly for him to do anything—not that pulling it out would've accomplished anything besides kill him quicker. As the blood spilled out of his mouth, he fell to his knees, then toppled over.

One of the boy's kinsmen saw him fall and cried out his name. Letting out a feral roar, he managed to push his way past Schwartz and charged at Toma. Toma was able to dodge a swing of the man's club, but he wasn't fast enough to avoid a fierce backfist with his off-hand. It was a big man and the blow hit Toma like a sledgehammer, laying him out flat and making him see stars.

Even though Toma wasn't in full command of his senses, he had enough presence of mind—or at least instinctual response—to kick the man in the groin as he came at him again. The man didn't even flinch and he struck Toma's shin with his club. The pain was much sharper than the previous blow and Toma couldn't help but cry out and hold his injured leg.

The man moved in with his club raised to crater in Toma's skull, but then his eyes bulged in pain. He turned his head to see Dru stabbing him in the back with the boy's knife. The man swung wildly, knocking Dru away, and he took a moment looking back and forth, apparently trying to decide who he wanted to kill first. However, in that moment of hesitation, Marius swept in, plucking the knife from the man's back and driving it up into his lung. Despite the man being as big as he was, Marius tossed his body aside with little apparent effort.

He went over to Toma and offered his hand.

Toma let Marius help him up, but his attention immediately went elsewhere.

As he shifted his weight onto his injured leg, he felt a fresh spike of pain that nearly made his leg buckle under him, but he ignored it and limped over to Dru. She had hit the wall, it would seem, and was hurting but still conscious.

Dru moaned a little and tried to get up, saying, "I'll be alright, Toma."

Dru managed a pained smile and said, "I believe the words you're looking for are 'Thank you.'"

He said that, but the numbers of their opponents had thinned considerably. The dead, wounded or unconscious were lying in heaps, leaving only a few more left. One of the men of the household still standing delivered a brutal punch to Molly that knocked her out cold, but when Schwartz saw it he took hold of the man and smashed his head into the wall. The few that remained were finished off in short order, but even as the dust settled, Shaya was still pounding one man's face into pulp. Dru had to call out to her to get her to stop.

Toma surveyed the damage. He wasn't even sure of the count of the bodies on the floor. The room was a total wreck, of course. Marius was busy reviving Molly while Crescenza was binding up a gash on her arm. It seemed they got off fairly easy given the odds against them.

There was a great riotous din going on outside. Toma remembered what the chief elder said about there being two hundred men outside for them.

Before anyone could answer, the noise from outside got louder as people burst into the house. As the mob made its way to the dining room, everyone braced themselves to fight, but when the man at the head of the mob saw the scene, he held up his hands and started speaking quickly. Shaya and Marius both responded to him and after a brief exchange, Marius looked to Duran and said, "Well, brother, it seems that you shouldn't underestimate that girl's luck."

Dru said something to the man called Stepan and he flashed a toothy grin and gave her what sounded like a boastful reply.

For those who couldn't follow along with the Adomite, Dru said, "Mr. Arkadian and his people say they are prepared to accept the danger for a chance to strike back at Zadok."

After everything that had happened, Toma wasn't feeling all that trusting and so he asked her, "How do we know they're not doing all this because they want fewer shares to go around?"

Presumably Stepan couldn't follow a word of what they were saying, yet he walked up to Toma, drew the knife from his belt and turned it over, offering the hilt to him. Toma warily accepted the knife and Stepan opened up his shirt to expose his chest. He said something, which Toma could guess, but Dru interpreted anyway.

And then what? Get torn to pieces by the mob? Either Stepan was a liar with stones of solid brass or he was telling the truth... and had stones of solid brass. Toma's choice was no choice at all. He turned the knife back around and returned it to Stepan. Stepan grinned broadly as he put the knife back in its sheath, then clapped Toma on the shoulders.

It was just as well that he was making a show of being friendly. If this was all a ruse, Toma didn't think they could keep it up for long. Better to play along and look for an opportunity more to their advantage, which was exactly what Dru proposed earlier before Shaya went berserk. Speaking of Shaya, she seemed to be cautiously accepting the new situation and if she wasn't being set off at the moment, it might just be alright.

He looked back to Dru. He didn't know how anyone could have so many rotten turns twist back around to their benefit. It was a peculiar sort of luck she had, but part of him worried that there'd eventually be a bad turn they couldn't come back from. However, there was nowhere else for him to go, so he would just have to see where her strange luck would lead him.