<strong>Thane</strong><br/><br/>The old woman was old indeed.  Not toothless, not feeble, in either mind or body.  She was frail, her hair tin and white.  But her eyes were as sharp as winter stars at midnight, and just as cold.  And she wasn ot alone.  A younger woman attended her, a mature woman in her thirties, perhaps there was a resemblance about the eyes and nose.  She kept quite, bustled about the small house with deomestic chores.  Another woman, still younger, barely an adul, watched from an upper loft with very calm eyes.  Something seemd to move in the shadows behind her.<br/><br/>And there were others.  half-seen things in the woods surrounding the small clearing.  Dangerous things, that watched the armed Children of Kolyat who had escorted Thane.  Watched them with suspicion and a confidence that Thane's troops did not share.<br/><br/>There was a reason scattered foragers had not already looted this deep-woods home.<br/><br/>"I have long beheld the wisdom and learning of the Serpent God."  There were no serpents in sight.  But there were no rats or mice to be seen, or even their scat.  Something had to be keeping the house free of them.  Certainly there were no cats lunging about.<br/><br/>The old woman gave no no name, no allegiance, her eyes bored into his like drillbits.  "I do not worship as you do, but I respect the power you give homage to."  her voice was dry and wispy, but clear and cold.  Something about it reminded him very strongly of the voice he could feel as much as hear in his head.  "You need a victory, Thane."  He wasn't sure if his name had been made known to her or not.  " A clean victory.  Yuo need that city.  you need  not just a new home, you need a base, a springboard."  She accepted a cup of tea from the younger woman, sipped it, passed it to him, accepted another from her companion.  "You need the workshops, you need the warehouses of goods.  You even need the people.  Many of them anyway."<br/><br/>"You cannot starve them out soon, their navy is too strong for you to blockade them fully.  You cannot go over their walls, you tried.  Through their walls?  That will take time you do not have."  She sipped again.<br/><br/>"So, under the walls.  Again, it will take time.  But there is a way to dig deeper and faster than humanly possible.  Tell me, have you heard legends of the Umber Hulk?  A mystic beast.  Very rare.  But I know where a very few  can be found.  And you do not have to travel far."