Sartore had no trouble hearing the intruders approaching the small village. They reveled in the chaos that they created. They were laughing drunkenly as they stumbled down the dirt walkway that cut through the center of the village. Sartore could hear them entering the first house, a couple of them it sounded like, wedging the door open and stuffing the entrance. They greedily snapped up whatever belongings had remained on the ground and kept moving. Sartore couldn’t remember which house he’d scavenged from first, but he imagined that once this band had discovered the mark that he’d left on these things they wouldn’t be happy with it.

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And sure enough, he could hear a sudden quieting of the crowd outside, and then some violent shuffling, before Sartore heard what must have been the house being torn from its roots and tossed aside like a weed. They were moving more quickly now, and the extent of Sartore’s borrowing was laid bare, with more shouting and destruction as though a riot had broken out in the village square.

Sartore scrambled into a small closet in the small house that he had been sleeping in, and waited.