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Awareness frag within him-
Ten paces away, on his knees -- too battered to do , as the two figures thrashed in battle Paran was al, shadooven Hound Not a Soletaken -- not a veering These are two creatures -- ether somehow And the power behind it -- it’s Shadow Kurald E canines ripped into the condor, chewing a path up the creature’s shoulders towards the neck The deain into the beast -- its flanks ribboned and spurting all too real blood
The earth shook beneath the two beasts A wing shot up to hammer into a tree Bone and wood snapped as one The condor screah -- punched out and then down, pinning the flailing wing, then grinding through the li in a storm of branches and bark
Hound’s jaws closed on condor’s neck
Vertebrae crunched
The creature’s head flopped back to thud onto the churned forest floor
The shadows of the triumphant Hound flickered -- then the beast vanished
Paran rolled from the dead bird’s body
Quick Ben could barely see the man beneath the shredded flesh and blood The wizard’s eyes widened as the ghastly figure slowly cli doay froone, cut in a curved line that streaaze ’What happened?’
Quick Ben pushed himself to his feet ’Co a warren to a healer’
’A healer?’ Paran asked ’Why?’
The wizard looked into the captain’s eyes and saw no sign of awareness at all ’All right’ Quick Ben took Paran’s arh the boughs until she caht Muddy tracks were all that remained of the Beklites who had passed beneath the the embankment and perhaps beyond
The explosions of sorcery that had struck the legions at the base of the ramp had not continued -- a cause for worry They’d had a worse scare with the avalanche, but its path had missed them by a hundred paces or more As if Quick Ben had knohere ere Soed to control the descent of a third of the ive hi thought, she began to make her way down the tree
There had been condors in the sky earlier, and at least one had attacked the Malazan defences Briefly Where the others had gone, she had no idea
Not here, thank Hood
She dropped the last le and clank of armour
’That was subtle’
Picker spun ’Damn you, Blend-’
’Shh … uh, sir’