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NONA GREY RAISES her head and regards her foe through ht eyes Perhaps it is just the reflection of the torchlight but somewhere in their darkness a red flame seems to burn

“I ae” She lifts her sword “And I have opened the door”

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THERE ARE MANY poisons that will induce madness but none perhaps quite so effective as love Sister Apple carried a hundred antidotes but she had drunk that particular draught of her own free will, knowing there was no cure

Thorn and briar tore at her, the ice-wind howled, even the land opposed her with its steepness, with the long round iron-hard The Poisoner pressed on, worn, feeling each of her thirty years, her range-coat shredded in places, the tatters dancing to please the wind

When the deer-track broke from cover to cross a broad and rutted track Apple folloithout hesitation, eyes on the ranks of trees resu their march on the far side

“Stop!” A harsh cry close at hand

Apple ignored it Kettle had summoned her She knew the direction, the distance, and the pain Kettle had called her Kettle would never call her froer But she had called

“Stop!” More voices raised, the dialect sharp-angled and hard to attachto

The treeline stood ten yards away across a ditch Once she reached the shadows beneath the branches she would be safe An arrow zipped past her Apple glanced along the road

Five Durnishmen spanned the width, their quilted armour salt-stained and mud-spattered, the iron plates sewn on shoulders and forearms broith rust Apple could reach the trees before the ht her—but not before the next arrow or spear did

Cursing, she reached both hands into her coat pockets Some of the obscenities she uttered had probably never been spoken by a nun before Even the Durnishmen seemed surprised

“Don’t kill me I’m worth more to you alive” Apple tried not to sound as if she were lecturing a class She drew her hands out, a wax capsule of boneless in one, a wrap of grey er and thu it was bitterwill She had all the antidotes ordered inside thein to recover one would be asking to get shot, so she chanced toin the outer pocket of her range-coat

“Youare nun?” The tallest of them took a pace forward, spear levelled He was older than the other four Weathered

“Yes A Holy Sister” She sed the pill, grier raiders, all with the sarip on their weapons, ods Perhaps one nun in a hundred was anything other than a Holy Sister but with the stories told in Durn they couldn’t be bla every wo to blast the ruin “A nun From the convent”