“Oh, we still need them,” I said. Everyone looked at me again. “We need them even more than we did before. The feeders at the river yesterday shouldn’t have been able to disobey my edict, and yet they did.” “Because they were infected by the rot,” Ren said, slowly. His shoulders slumped, his face falling. “And the rot is spreading. If the horde at Ammontraíeth becomes infected…”
