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Through the shredded black clouds a fireback to earth

-but unlike any star had ever done before, it so, so down

Snoed briefly on the mountain slopes when it crackled overhead

Under it, the land itself started to fall away The fire was reflected off walls of blue ice as the light dropped into the beginnings of a canyon and thundered now through its twists and turns

The light snapped off Solided down the moonlit ribbon between the rocks

It shot out of the canyon at the top of a cliff, where ed down into a distant pool

Against all reason there was a valley here, or a network of valleys, clinging to the edge of the leamed in the warmer air There were forests There were tiny fields, like a patchwork quilt thrown across the rocks

The wind had died The air armer

The shadow began to circle

Far below, unheeded and unheeding, so this little handful of valleys It was hard to see exactly what it was; furze rippled, heather rustled, as if a very large ar with one purpose

The shadow reached a flat rock that offered a nificent view of the fields and wood below, and there the ar the roots It waspointy blue caps but most of them with their red hair uncovered They carried swords None of theh

They lined up and looked down into the new place and then, weapons waving, raised a battle cry It would have been reed on one before, but as it was it sounded as though every single sht anyone who tried to take it away from him

'Nac le!'

'Ach, stickit yer trakkans!'

'Gie you sich a kickin'!'