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What does that matter? It is who you say it is.
Zavidesht Pan Nov, what are you saying to me?
I am saying you will burn this body as the Marn s tomorrow and you
will Mask my daughter
Motylla day after.
I will not.
Nov snapped his fingers.
Ravach set his handgun at the base of the elder Se-tra s skull and pulled the
trigger, taking a quick step back so she wouldn t fall on him. Another step
and he had the muzzle of the handgun pressed against the temple of the
younger.
One by one, Nov said. We ll bring them in and you can watch them die. If we
finish the Setras, .
we ll start on the sekalaries. One by one.
The Preörchmat stood with her hand pressed across her mouth, gazing at the
threatened Setra who had her eyes closed, her lips moving in whispered
prayers. She was very young, just out of the Novitiate.
Well?
If you gain what you deserve, you will spend eons in zhagdeep whimpering in
pain.
Ra .
y
Nik. I ll do it. Send the girl to me tonight so I can prepare her.
Nov thumbed his mustache. With two guards who will not leave her side.
If you feel it necessary.
Don t the Songs say avoid the occasion of temp-tation?
We would not harm a child. It s not her fault you re her father.
> >
The great black trax spiraled upward above the scat-tered trees along the
River Road. Lightning leaped around him without touching him despite his
immense wingspan; he rode the angry wind as if it were a zephyr wafting from
bloom to bloom.
Honeydew kicked at Heslin s thigh.
He clicked his macai into an easy lope; several of the Harozh guard closed
around him, the others gath-ered about K vestmilly Vos, longguns resting on
their thighs, heads turning as they scanned the surrounding ground as
far as they could see in the intense gloom, taking turns to keep their eyes
closed so the lightning wouldn t destroy the nightsight of all at once.
The beat in the soil got louder and louder, the road seemed to bump and sway
under the feet of the ma-cain. K vestmilly s mount hooted and complained,
threatened to squat, but kept on moving because the unnatural mobility of the
earth frightened him. She could feel him trembling, see his head jerking up
and down, side to side as he moved. She leaned forward, murmuring words lost
to the wind and the beat, scratching his neck folds, trying to reassure him;
he was tired already and his fidgets were wasting energy. Just a little more,
my druh .... Her mouth twitched. Sheee! K vestmilly Vos, you better stop
saying that sort of thing, every time you do, something horrible happens ....
Heslin turned, turned again, winding through a maze of hedges and
rocky knolls, plantings and windrows. The rain broke and came hard into
their faces, the wind hammered at them, the earth humped under them, up and
down, up and down like ocean surge.
K vestmilly was too tired to shiver; she just clung to the saddle and ached.
She knew she should be thinking what to do when they got to Vedouce, what to
say, but her mind had found a rut that she couldn t break out of. She
kept seeing her mother exploding, her father beaten and broken, falling dead,
she kept seeing the shop exploding, feeling the power of the bomb as it hurled
her across the street into a wall, seeing again and groaning again at the
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blood and death, worse than death, the men women children still alive but torn
until they were not recognizable, screaming, burning, she heard their screams
in the beat beneath the earth, that demon heart drumming away louder and
louder ....
Heslin stopped.
The trax spiraled down, landed clumsily, and shifted.
I came to warn you, Adlayr shouted, you re go-ing to have to fight through
to Vedouce, there s no clear way. I brought you to the thinnest part but
there s a mix of gritz and crazies ahead. Zas will tell ours where we are so
they won t get us by mistake, she says just use your sabers, otherwise you
could hit some you don t want to. He shifted again and went loping ahead of
them, a black sicamar with werefire crackling at the ends of his fur.
The sicamar screamed his kill-cry and leapt into the mass of crazies, lashing
out with claws and teeth;
the Guards were close behind him, sabers swinging, ma-cain squealing and
striking out. Struggling for every inch of ground gained, the wedge of
riders drove to-ward the flicker of Vedouce s fire,, intermittently
visible as a spark between trees. As the crazies closed with them, the
Harozhni guard began using handguns, shooting down so they wouldn t hit the
defenders. K vestmilly Vos and Heslin rode knee to knee, hand-guns ready for
anything that broke past the Guard ring.
On and on till they burst through the defending lines to a shout of welcome
from the beleaguered fighters. Marn, Marn, Marn, Marn.
They were answered by cries from the crazies. Ka-zim, kazim, kazim, kazim.
Marn. Kazim. Marn. Kazim. Marn. Kazim.
The twined chants fought with rain and wind and the throb of the earth,
shots, groans, screams, grunts, all the noises of death.
Vedouce crouched beside the fire in an improvised shelter made of panels from
the pavilion stretched be-tween three trees, another tied above them in a
crude roof. He spoke into a corn, thumb on the wheel, changing channels
repeatedly, gave orders through the corn and to the boy runners that scurried
in and out, barely pausing to catch their breath.
He looked up as K vestmilly Vos and Heslin stepped into the circle of light.
Marn.
Vedouce Pen s Heir.
He nodded to Heslin, turned back to the com. Burning? All of them? Go.
Hedivy s voice came, small but clear. Most of the bargeveks were caught by
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