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The Oht badly And Vorbis had gone Certainties seemed less certain when those eyes were elsewhere

The Tyrant was released from his prison He spent his first day of freedoes to the other s the coast

It was ti

His voice echoed off the rocks Flocks of scalbies shook off their lazy pedestrian habits and took off frantically, leaving feathers behind in their rush to get airborne Snakes wriggled into cracks in the stone

You could live in the desert Or at least survive

Getting back to Omnia could only be a matter of ti a little behind hin that he had understood what had been said to hian to feel the acute depression that steals over every realist in the presence of an optimist

The strained strains of Claws of Iron shall Rend the Ungodly faded away There was a small rockslide, some way off

"We're alive," said Brutha

"For now"

"And we're close to hooat on the rocks back there"

"There's still a lot of 'em about"

"Goats?"

"Gods And the ones we had back there were the puny ones, hed "It's reasonable, isn't it? Think about it The stronger ones hang around the edge, where there's preyI et pushed out to the sandy places, where people hardly ever go-

"The strong gods," said Brutha, thoughtfully "Gods that know about being strong"

"That's right"

"Not gods that knohat it feels like to be weak"

"What? They wouldn't last five od world"

"Perhaps that explains soth is hereditary Like sin"

His face clouded

"Except thatit isn't Sin, I et back, I shall talk to some people"

"Oh, and they'll listen, will they?"

"Wisdom comes out of the wilderness, they say"

"Only the wisdom that people want Andto clioat It stood patiently while O it, Brutha noticed

Then they found shade again There were bushes here, loing, spiky, every tiny leaf barricaded behind its crown of thorns

Oe of the wilderness were ent They'd be here, probably at noon, when the sun turned the landscape into a hellish glare He'd hear them In the h the bushes, their thorns scraping har his shell He passed another tortoise, which wasn't inhabited by a god and gave hi whether so is there to be eaten or s on a normal tortoise mind He avoided it, and found a couple of leaves it had ritty soil and watch the sleepers

And then he saw Vorbis sit up, look around him in a slow methodical way, pick up a stone, study it carefully, and then bring it down sharply on Brutha's head

Brutha didn't even groan

Vorbis got up and strode directly toward the bushes that hid Oardless of the thorns, and pulled out the tortoise Osslowly, before the deacon threw it overarm into the rocks

Then he picked up Brutha with so him across his shoulders, and set off towards Oht to stop his head and legs retracting automatically into his shell, a tortoise's instinctive panic reaction

Vorbis was already disappearing round some rocks

He disappeared

Om started to move forward and then ducked into his shell as a shadow skiround It was a familiar shadow, and one fiIled with tortoise dread

The eagle swept down and towards the spot where the stricken tortoise was struggling and, with barely a pause in the stoop, snatched the reptile and soared back up into the sky with long, lazy sweeps of its wings

Om watched it until it became a dot, and then looked away as a smaller dot detached itself and tumbled over and over toward the rocks below

The eagle descended slowly, preparing to feed

A breeze rattled the thornbushes and stirred the sand O voices of all the sulant, on his bony knees, smashed open the hard swollen leaf of a stone plant

Nice lad, he thought Talked to himself a lot, but that was only to be expected The desert took sous?

Yes, said Angus

Angus didn't want any of the brackish water He said it gave hiulant "Well, well! Here's a little treat"

You didn't often get Chilopoda aridius out here in the open desert, and here were three, all under one rock!

Funny how you felt like a little nibble, even after a good meal of Petit porc rôti avec porave;re glacée avec figs of the second one out of his tooth when the lion padded to the top of the nearest dune behind hiratitude It felt it should catch up with the nice food that had tended to it and, well, refrain fro it in some sy it any attention Well, it didn't owe this one anything

It padded forward, then lumbered up into a run

Oblivious to his fate, St Ungulant started on the third centipede

The lion leapt

And things would have looked very bad for St Ungulant if Angus hadn't caught it right behind the ear with a rock

Brutha was standing in the desert, except that the sand was as black as the sky and there was no sun, although everything was brilliantly lit