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But the three on As soon as the demonic hand made contact with the riuards leapt back, leaving the ar from the wheel

’Oh, that’s just terrific!’ Haradas snapped ’And when-ever e get that off?’

’When the fingers wear through, I guess,’ a guard replied, frowning at the arm ’Gonna be a lumpy ride for a while, dear Sorry about that’

A troop of riders approached from the army’s train

’Your escort’s arrived,’ Whiskeyjack noted ’We will ask for a detailed report of the journey, , and leave the details of distribution to your second’

She nodded ’Good idea’

The commander searched for Silverfox She had resuod had stained the s

Across the plain, for two hundred or more paces, the earth looked like a reddisarray

As ever, Kallor’s thoughts were dark

Ashes and dust The fools prattle on and on in the coh the warrens -- what matter? Order ever succumbs to chaos, broken unto itself by the very strictures it ies I for one will not rue the demise of sorcery

The lone candle, streaked with the crushed frag the tent Shadows crawled beneath the drifting plulinted off ancient, oft-mended armour

Seated on the ornate, ironwood throne, Kallor breathed deep of the invigorating fuic The arcana of the natural world holds far more wonders than any wizard could conjure in a thousand lifetimes These Century Candles, for one, are well named Upon my life, yet another layer seeps into ood thing, too Who would want to live for ever in a body too frail to le night, in the depth of this one reach of columned wax And I have scores more

No matter the stretch of decades and centuries, no matter the interminable boredo, there were moments … moments when I must act, explosively, with certainty And all that see before was in truth preparation There are creatures that hunt without ; when they become perfectly still, perfectly erous I am as such a creature I have always been so, yet all who know one Ashes and dust The children who now surroundworries are blind to the hunter in theirthe ar the landscape of his own round, drawing their visages close for aon

Eightin unison Desperate for power Seeking it froe god in that strange place edged closer, then the trap was sprung Down he caht down, shattering a continent, obliterating warrens Hihty wizards, who sought to oppose htmare that rises once more, millennia later Fools Now, they are dust and ashes

Three gods, assailing my realone beyond irritation, and so they banded together to crush norance, they assuht, or yieldintobut charred bones and lifeless ash

They could not co Rather than surrender all I had fashioned, I destroyed it That is the privilege of the creator -- to give, then to take away I shall never forget the world’s death cry -- for it was the voice ofme once more Oh, I know it is you, K’rul But, instead ofyou Slowly, deliciously You have returned to this realm, only to die, as I said you would And did you know? Your sister has succumbed to my ancient curse as well So little left of her, will she ever recover? Not if I can help it

A faint smile spread across his withered, pallid face

His eyes narrowed as a portal began to take shape before hiaunt, a face shattered --in the candlelight The portal closed behind the Jaghut, who stood relaxed, eyes flickering pools of darkness