"What can we do?" Prithvi asked. "Perhaps the time has come to just open our doors. Once inside the city they will see we have nothing left worth conquering and they'll go."
"They would certainly go, but I doubt very much they'd leave any one of us alive. I have seen them up close; these are men who have been too hungry for too long. Our Mother has been hard on the People, but she has been harder still on her other children. The nomad's clothes are not familiar to me. They've come a long way, drawn by tales of a city filled with gold. They'll probably blame us for the spread of those lies."
"Or kill us for keeping secret the location of all that gold," Prithvi sighed. Her back twinged again and she pressed the heel of her hand on it. She felt achy all over and desperately wanted to sleep
