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CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

IREACTEDquicker to the flames than Harkat - I’d been badly burnt ain I hurled myself into the Little Person, knocked him clear of the blast and rolled after him As the flames zipped past us, out over the water of the Lake -the faces of the dead trapped within - I reached for a globe and hurled it at the ground beneath the dragon There was a large explosion and the dragon peeled away, roaring - this was his first exposure to our explosives

"Hurry!" I shouted at Harkat "Give rab the net and fish your soul out!"

"I don’t kno - to fish!" Harkat howled

"There’s no better tilobe as one of the felobes and laid the Spits’s abandoned net, he pulled it out of the Lake, paused a hts, and slowly fed the net in As he did, he muttered softly, "I seek my soul, spirits - of the dead I seek my soul, spirits - of the dead I seek my?"

"Don’t talk!" I yelled "Fish!"

"Quiet!" Harkat hissed "This is the way I sense it I must call upon my soul to - lure it into the net"

I wanted to ask how he’d figured that out, but there was no ti, the fe out over the Lake, in front of us Scaring off the feling doards the surface of the Lake If I threw a globe at the Lake, it wouldn’t burst That on itself, and possibly kill him It see a fix on the dragon when an idea struck lobe out on to the water in front of the approaching beast, I grabbed a nearby pebble, took careful aion was nearing the globe, showering the creature’s face with a seething funnel of water

The dragon pulled out of its attack and arced away into the air, screeching its frustration The fe with the male, but I spotted them just in tions regrouped overhead, I did a quick globe count - eight remained, plus the vial

I wanted to tell Harkat to hurry, but his face was knitted together fiercely as he bent over the net, whispering softly to the souls in the Lake, searching for the soul of the person he used to be To disturb hiain, in the saain I successfully repelled thelobes As I picked up threeto kill - after these three, I’d be down toin the air, I was again struck by their awesoht to kill theons, and iped out an entire species just to save our own necks?

As the dragons attacked once more, I still wasn’t sure what I intended to do with the explosive globes Clearing my mind, I allowed my self-defence mechanism to kick in and lobes short of the dragons, scaring thehed, then called to Harkat, "I can’t kill them After the next attack, we’re done for Do you want to take the globes and?"