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At first he thought she was still alive The wounds he could see were bad, but there would have been more blood if she had bled out When he brushed her hair away from her neck, he sahy there wasn’t a lot of blood

He rested a hand on her head All right The body was dead, but she was strong enough to n that she was still there, fresh blood would strengthen her

He probed cautiously so that he wouldn’t punch through her inner barriers and inadvertently finish the kill

Just outside her inner barriers was an odd little bubble of power He paused, considered The bubble had a feeling of emotional wars he associated with Luthvian But there was nothing he could detect that er, so he brushed a psychic tendril against it, lightly

Lucivar I rong about Marian You chose well I wish you both happy

Tears stung his eyes He brushed against the inner barriers They opened with no resistance He searched for her, searched for the least little flicker of her spirit Nothing

Luthvian had returned to the Darkness

One tear spilled over "Hell’s fire, Luthvian," he said in a broken voice "Why did you have to wait until you were dead to tell me that? Why--"

"Lucivar!"

He shot to his feet, responding to the grief and anger in Falonar’s voice He paused at the door, looked back "May the Darkness e for him in the kitchen

"Palanar?" Lucivar asked

Falonar shook his head He didn’t need to ask about Luthvian "I saw that" He pointed to a folded sheet of paper on the table

Lucivar stared at the paper that had his na and felt an instinctive revulsion against touching it Using Craft, he unfolded the paper, read it, and stor after hi?"

"Get back to the eyries," Lucivar said as he strapped the fighting gauntlets over his foreare now, Prince Falonar"

"Where are you going?"

Lucivar rose to the killing edge, felt the sweet, cold rage wash through hiet my wife and son away from those bitches"

12 / Kaeleer

The attack started the moment Falonar returned to the eyries His Sapphire shield snapped up around hih his back He called in his longbow, nocked an arrow, added a bit of Sapphire power to the head, and let it fly

He took a moment to probe the area and assess the enemy Then he swore viciously There was a full company of Eyrien warriors out there None of them wore a Jewel darker than the Green, so his Sapphire Jeould balance the odds a little, but his oarriors were far outnu, but that wasn’t going to save the women and children

"The communal eyrie!" Hallevar shouted as he herded women and children in that direction "Move! Move!"

Sly as he let another arrow fly It was big enough to hold all of theround instead of scattered ones

His shield deflected a dozen e, he eht with a ets

So with an Eyrien Warlord He started to turn, but before he could draw his bow, another warrior rushed at hi the bow and arrow, he called in his own bladed stick and , Nurian screaain

Screw honor This ar When his adversary caain, he met the bloith a dirty, nasty maneuver he’d recently learned froeance

Even as he turned, expecting to be too late to save the Healer, he heard Jillian shout, "Down, Nurian!"

Hearing Jillian changed Nurian from helpless woman to apprentice warrior She kicked viciously at the Warlord’s groin at the same time she threw herself backward The kick didn’t land solidly, but it was enough to startle the o of her, and the unexpected ht hih the air and buried itself in his chest

Jillian was already nocking another arrow and taking aim while Nurian scrambled to her feet and ran, hunched over to stay out of the line of fire

He threw a Sapphire shield in front of Jillian just in tih her "Retreat!" he shouted, ready to foa "Damn you, warrior,retreat !"

That startled her, but it was Nurian’s shout that lanced back--and swore every vicious curse he knew Nurian was now standing braced to fight with nothing but an Eyrien stick Not even abladed stick What in the name of Hell did the woman think she could do with that? Did she think a warrior was going to come at her barehanded? FoolIdiot

He backed toward her, alatching for the next attack "Retreat," he snarled at her--and then noticed that Jillian, instead of running all the way to the couard position "Disobey ain and I’ll personally whip the skin off your backsBoth of you Nowretreat !"