The rabbits were not the real problem.
Samuel realized that the morning he arrived at the fields and found Jorcx already kneeling there—not studying the soil as he usually did, but turning a stalk slowly between his fingers. Morra stood behind him with her arms crossed, wearing the expression of someone who had found something she did not like.
Samuel stepped closer.
The stalk had not been bitten through. It had been eaten away—small, precise bites along the sides, a pattern of damage that had nothing to do with rabbits. Samuel looked at the surrounding plants.
The same.
And on the leaves—he had to lean in to see them—small insects. Not many, but enough. Dark, tiny things whose movements felt wrong somehow. Too fast. Not the sluggish wandering he expected from beetles and field pests, but something frantic and purposeful.
"These aren't rabbits."
"No," said Jorcx.
He stood and looked out across the field. Samuel followed his gaze. From here it looked normal enough—green rows, healthy soil. But the longer he stared, the more he noticed the small changes. A leaf peppered with tiny holes. A row that looked slightly duller than the one beside it.
Morra crouched and held her hand motionless above one of the plants. An insect crawled across her glove. She studied it for a moment, then stood.
"I know this kind."
"And?" Samuel asked.
"They come in swarms."
The three of them stood silent for a moment.
That's worse than rabbits.
Durrak was informed.
He listened to Morra, looked over the field, then turned to Jorcx.
"How long do we have?"
Jorcx considered.
"If they breed the way I think they will—a week. Maybe ten days."
"And then?"
Jorcx did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
The settlement received the news with the calm of people who had long ago learned that panic never saved a harvest. Still, it showed in their eyes—a sharpened attention, quieter conversations, more frequent glances toward the fields.
Keth immediately began reducing the rabbit population. It was the smaller problem, but it was the one he could actually do something about. Barak and Brox threw together makeshift fences from whatever materials remained. Setha and Vranna watered the fields more heavily than usual and watched how the insects behaved.
They behaved quickly.
Very quickly.
Samuel saw Setha pause when one ran across her hand—not out of disgust, but surprise. She looked down at her fingers, then at the insect, which had already vanished into the plants again, and muttered something under her breath.
Samuel walked over.
"What did you say?"
"They're too fast." She shook her head.
"Normal ones aren't like that."
"Jorcx said the same thing."
"He's right."
Samuel looked across the fields and thought.
The insects were fast—that was the problem.
Fences worked against rabbits, but not against creatures this small and this mobile. They had to be stopped before they spread further, and to do that they somehow needed to be slowed down.
He thought about the moth.
About Setha's crystal.
He went to Sarva.
She sat inside her dwelling, sorting dried herbs into small containers with the same quiet concentration she always carried. Weva sat beside her, watching. When Samuel entered, Sarva glanced up briefly before returning to her work.
"The crystals," Samuel said without preamble.
"The enchanted ones. What exactly do they do?"
Sarva stopped sorting.
She looked at him with the expression of someone taking a question seriously.
"Different things, depending on the charge. Some create warmth. Some produce light. Some create a kind of resonance that affects small living creatures."
"Affects them how?"
"Attracts them. Or slows them." She paused.
"Some can do both."
Samuel considered that.
"If you had one that attracted and slowed things down—would it work on the insects in the fields?"
Sarva studied him for a long moment.
"How do you know about that property?"
"I watched Setha use one. With a moth."
Sarva nodded slowly.
"In theory, yes. But I don't know whether the effect would be strong enough for a swarm."
"What would make it stronger?"
"More crystals. Or larger ones."
Samuel glanced around the small room.
"How many does the settlement have?"
"Not many. They aren't tools. Most people keep them as protection, or as keepsakes."
Samuel nodded.
That was a problem.
But not an impossible one.
He went to Vorzak next.
The old storyteller sat outside in the spring sunlight, slowly carving at a wooden staff. He watched Samuel approach without looking surprised.
"You have questions."
"About crystals."
Vorzak set the staff aside.
"Sit."
Samuel sat.
Vorzak spoke about crystals with a different sort of knowledge than Sarva possessed—not practical or medicinal, but historical. He spoke of how crystals had been used throughout the region for generations, how some of the southern peoples protected entire fields with them, how their effectiveness depended on both their charge and their arrangement.
He spoke of a particular pattern from an old tale—crystals placed in a ring around whatever was being protected, neither too close nor too far apart, so that their resonances overlapped.
"Have you seen it yourself?"
"No." Vorzak picked up the staff again.
"But the story is old enough to be true."
Samuel looked at him.
"What kills them, then? If the crystals slow them down, what actually kills them?"
Vorzak thought.
"In the story, it was a juice. From a fruit."
He described it—round, yellowish, with bitter flesh that most Orcs disliked eating.
Samuel knew it.
It grew along the field edges, ignored by almost everyone.
He stood.
"Thank you."
Vorzak watched him go.
"Samuel."
Samuel turned.
"If the story is true, it requires patience. You have to wait for the crystals to work."
Samuel nodded and left.
He spoke to Morra.
He explained everything Sarva and Vorzak had told him—the crystals arranged in rings around the affected fields, positioned so their resonances overlapped, then the fruit juice sprayed onto the slowed insects.
Morra listened without interrupting.
Then she looked at the fields, and back at Samuel.
"How do you know it works?"
"I don't."
She was silent for a moment.
"But you believe it will."
"Yes."
Morra looked back toward the fields. The outer rows looked worse than they had yesterday morning.
"I'll speak with Durrak."
The conversation with Durrak was shorter than Samuel expected.
Durrak listened, asked two questions, then looked toward Jorcx.
Jorcx was quiet for a moment.
"I know the fruit."
He thought for a second.
"I wouldn't have thought of it."
That was all he said.
For Jorcx, it was a great deal.
Durrak looked around at Morra, Jorcx, and Samuel.
"We'll try it. What do we need?"
Gathering the crystals took time.
Not because anyone refused.
No one did.
But because each crystal represented a quiet sacrifice.
A crystal hanging from a leather cord around someone's neck was not decoration. It was a keepsake. A safeguard. Sometimes the only thing a person still possessed from a place that no longer existed.
Durrak asked no one directly.
He simply told the settlement what was needed and why.
Then he left the decision to them.
Samuel watched what happened next.
Setha came first.
She removed the dark-blue crystal from her wrist—smaller than the end of a thumb—and placed it in the bowl Durrak had set out.
Then she walked away without a word.
Rhan followed.
Then Thessa.
Then Harra, who held hers for a moment before letting it go.
Barak stepped forward with a smooth, dark-gray crystal he pulled from his coat pocket. He had not worn it openly. He simply carried it.
He placed it in the bowl without looking at it.
Not everyone contributed.
Greth kept his.
Tira kept hers.
Kessa rested a hand briefly on the crystal hanging at her throat, looked at it once, then finally dropped it into the bowl.
In the end there were thirteen.
Some large. Some tiny.
Some clear, some cloudy.
Some carrying a faint inner glow visible only when viewed from exactly the right angle.
Sarva examined them, rearranging several, holding some near others.
"Enough for two rings."
"Two will be enough?"
"For the outer rows, yes. The inner rows we'll have to protect another way."
Samuel looked toward Vorzak, who was watching from a short distance away.
"The arrangement?"
Vorzak stepped closer.
He examined the crystals and began sorting them without explanation, placing the brighter ones in one group and the darker ones in another.
"The stronger ones go in the outer ring. The weaker ones inside."
He looked at Samuel.
"The resonances must meet, not overwhelm one another."
Samuel nodded.
Meanwhile Jorcx gathered the fruit.
He returned with a basket full of the yellow spheres Samuel had seen countless times along the field edges.
Jorcx cut one open with a knife.
The flesh inside was pale, almost white, with a sharp scent that was slightly unpleasant.
He squeezed half of it over an empty bowl.
A thin, cloudy juice dripped out.
"How much do we need?"
"I don't know."
Samuel watched the juice collect.
"Enough to spray the insects once they slow down."
"With what?"
That was a good question.
Samuel looked around.
Vranna had been listening nearby.
She disappeared for a moment and returned carrying a small bellows—the sort normally used to feed a fire. With the right attachment, though, it could disperse liquid as a fine mist.
Samuel looked at her.
"That'll work."
Vranna shrugged.
"Thought it might."
They went to the fields.
The work was patient and quiet.
Vorzak showed them where each crystal belonged. Samuel and Morra pressed them into the soil—not deeply, just enough to keep them upright and pointed toward the sky.
Jorcx followed behind, checking every distance.
Too close was as wrong as too far.
The first section was finished after about an hour.
Then they waited.
Samuel had expected something immediate—a flash of light, some visible reaction.
Nothing.
The field looked exactly the same.
The insects moved exactly the same.
Maybe it doesn't work.
He let the thought remain unfinished.
At some point Dravan appeared and stood with his arms crossed, watching from a distance. Yeva sat in the grass beside him, pulling apart handfuls of blades.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Then Morra pointed.
"There."
Samuel followed her gaze.
The insects in that area moved differently.
The change was subtle. You had to look carefully.
But it was there.
Their movements were slower.
Not frozen. Not paralyzed.
Just dulled, as though the air itself had become slightly thicker around them.
"Jorcx."
Jorcx knelt.
Looked.
Stood again.
Then nodded once.
Samuel picked up the bellows and the bowl of juice.
He stepped toward the first affected patch, crouched, and sprayed a fine mist over the plants.
The juice smelled sharp up close, almost acrid.
The slowed insects reacted immediately—a brief convulsion, a frantic twitch.
Then stillness.
They were dead.
Samuel stood.
Behind him he heard Dravan make a small sound—not loud, more like someone finally releasing a breath they had been holding.
He kept working.
Row by row.
Checking crystals.
Applying juice.
Moving forward.
Morra helped refill the bellows.
Jorcx followed behind them, inspecting the plants for damage.
Two hours later the outer rows were finished.
The numbers were not zero.
There were still insects deeper within the fields. Still fresh signs of feeding.
But the outer rows were secure.
And without them, the swarm could no longer spread.
Morra stood at the edge of the field, looking across the rows.
Samuel stepped beside her.
Nothing was said.
For a while they simply stood there, looking at what they had done.
Then Morra spoke quietly, without turning her head.
"Good."
Just that one word.
Samuel did not answer.
He didn't need to.
Jorcx walked over.
He looked at the field.
At the crystals still standing in the soil.
At Samuel.
He opened his mouth, closed it again, and returned his gaze to the crops.
That is the most Jorcx has ever not said while still meaning it.
Durrak arrived late that afternoon.
Morra explained what had happened.
He listened, inspected the outer rows, studied the dead insects and the crystals.
Then he looked at Samuel.
"Inner rows tomorrow."
"Yes."
"Need more juice?"
"Yes."
"You'll have it."
Then he left.
The evening was quiet.
The fire burned.
The settlement gathered as it always did.
Yet something in the air had changed.
Not relief—not yet. The problem was not fully solved.
Something else.
A shift.
A situation that had seemed hopeless no longer did.
Dravan sat beside Samuel and studied him for a while.
"How did you know about the crystals?"
"I watched Setha."
"And Vorzak knew the rest?"
"And Sarva."
Dravan thought about that.
"So you just asked."
"Yes."
Dravan nodded as though this were an important lesson.
"That's actually not very hard."
"Usually it isn't."
Dravan stared into the fire.
Yeva climbed silently onto Samuel's other side and leaned against him without warning.
From farther away, Kessa noticed.
She looked toward Samuel briefly.
Then looked away again.
Gorc sat in his usual place and glanced at Samuel once before turning his attention elsewhere.
Wunn made his nightly rounds, paused beside the fields, looked at the crystals still standing there, nodded to himself, and moved on.
Tomorrow the inner rows.
Then maybe it would be over.
Samuel drank his herbal brew and let the evening settle around him.
Sometime during the night, after most of the settlement had gone to sleep, he heard Bercx speaking softly to one of the horses.
The familiar sound of a voice soothing someone who could not rest.
Outside, across the plains, everything was still.