“We don’t have much.” His accent was thick and reminded me of Russian. His English was very good, however. Habros set a plate in front of me with some fruit that resembled blackberries and a piece of what I thought was a pita pocket filled with some sort of fish. “Our rations for this month are pretty much gone, so we’re down to what we can grow or hunt.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes before I found the nerve to open my mouth again. “How long has it been like this?”
“A long time,” Habros seemed to sink into himself across from me. “First it was more Kabeshi rhetoric and threats, then Loland joined them. No one knew they had magic workers, not until the first of the bombs hit. They wiped out border towns in days. They had more ground troops than anyone could believe. Everywhere the
