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Or so it should be, when peace ruled the tribes The past dozen years had seenout than any other kind, and so the people had on occasion suffered Until the war, hunger had never threatened the Edur Trull wanted an end to such depredations Hannan Mosag, Warlock King of the Hiroth, was now overlord to all the Edur tribes Froht, although Trull well knew that it was a confederacy in nae the firstborn sons of the subjugated chiefs – his K’risnan Cadre – and ruled as dictator Peace, then, at the point of a sword, but peace none the less
A recognizable figure was striding fro the fork in the trail where Trull now halted ‘I greet you, Binadas,’ he said
A spear was strapped to his younger brother’s back, a hide pack slung round one shoulder and resting against a hip; at the opposite side a single-edged longsword in a leather-wrapped wooden scabbard Binadas was half a head taller than Trull, his visage as weathered as his buckskin clothes Of Trull’s three brothers, Binadas was the most remote, evasive and thus difficult to predict, e only infrequently, see to prefer the wilds of the western forest and the mountains to the south He had rarely joined others in raids, yet often when he returned he carried trophies of coup, and so none doubted his bravery
‘You are winded, Trull,’ Binadas observed, ‘and I see distress once more upon your face’
‘There are Letherii moored off the Calach beds’
Binadas frowned ‘I shall not delay you, then’
‘Will you be gone long, brother?’
Thethe westerly fork of the trail
Trull Sengar e
Four smithies dominated this inland end of the vast walled interior, each surrounded by a deep sloping trench that drained into a buried channel that led away fro fields For what see al of weapons, and the stench of heavy, acrid fu up to coat nearby trees in white-crusted soot Now, as he passed, Trull saw that only tere occupied, and the dozen or so visible slaves were unhurried in their work
Beyond the se chas that held surplus grains, smoked fish and seal meat, whale oil and harvested fibre plants Si each village – most of which were empty at the moment, a consequence of the wars
The stone houses of the weavers, potters, carvers, lesser scribes, are rose round Trull once he was past the storage cha, to which he estures signifying to his acquaintances that he could not pause for conversation
The Edur warrior now hurried through the residential streets Letherii slaves called villages such as this one cities , but no citizen saw the need for changing their word usage – a village it had been at birth, thus a village it would always be, no matter that almost twenty thousand Edur and thrice that number of Letherii now resided within it
Shrines to the Father and his Favoured Daughter doed by living trees of the sacred Blackwood, the surface of the stone discs croith ilyphs Kurald Eed circle, rippling half-shapes dancing along the pictographs, the sorcerous emanations awakened by the propitiations that had accoed onto the Avenue of the Warlock, the sacred approach to the massive citadel that was both te, Hannan Mosag Black-barked cedars lined the approach The trees were a thousand years old, towering over the entire village They were devoid of branches except for the upper of theirout to fill the entire avenue with a shroud of gloom
At the far end, a lesser palisade enclosed the citadel and its grounds, constructed of the same black wood, these boles croith carved wards The e of unrelieved shadow leading to a footbridge spanning a canal in which sat a dozen K’orthan raider longboats The footbridge opened out onto a broad flagstoned compound flanked by barracks and storehouses Beyond stood the stone and tihouses of the noble fa’s own line – with their wood-shingled roofs and Blackwood ridgepoles, the array of residences neatly bisected by a resue to the citadel proper