### 11

The town of Eula has been turned into a huge army encampment, its people having long since fled to the north, abandoning their homes and livestock to the gold-hungry soldiers. Soldiers from a dozen different nations rub shoulders with fighters of a less-than-human origin, united by their common greed. As you watch endless columns of soldiers marching towards the pall of black smoke rising in the south, your heart begins to sink. The city in which the Lorestone lies, Tekaro, is a city under siege, a city that can withstand the onslaught of ten thousand fighting men. As you ride across the soot-blackened fields towards the siege-works and entrenchments at the bank of the River Quarl, you curse the war that threatens to defeat your quest.

Turn to 280.