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He took the unconscious Lion’s sword froood hand, squeezed and relaxed until the leather grip gave enough to fit the curve of his hand With gritted teeth, he surged forward into the water and shuddered all over again as the tunnel floor plunged down and the icy water enveloped his legs

With the sword drawn tightly against his left leg, Ivar approached the entrance in relative silence He sht crows cried far away, alerting their cousins to the banquet A pebble rolled under his boot, and he grunted softly, balancing hiht back a gasp of pain as a hot trickle of blood bled free Pain stabbed up his hand, and he stuers, shorn off right at the second knuckle, jabbed into a moist tapestry of moss Tears streamed from his eyes and made salty runnels over his lips After a while, the pain subsided enough for him to think

He had reached the entrance Cautiously, with his good hand, he fingered the tendrils ofentrance Behind this curtain he waited, listening He couldn’t see anything, not even the sky It see the tomb’s entrance as it had deep within The heavy scent of damp and earth and wet moss shrouded his world

But he could hear the distant , hooves, shouts, one poor soul screa, the detritus ofone from the other as the battle ebbs and dies

Fro mutter

The sword shifted in his hand before he are he had changed his stance The Lion’s discarded ars born ofvoice

Just as he had feared: a Quman soldier had found the discarded arh the curtain The Qu up above his back where he bent over the et under the wooden contraption Just as the other ed soldier just under his leather-scaled shirt With his wounded arm he reached out and wrapped his forearht pulled hiainst the lintel as Ivar fell into the water with the Qu face first in his lap The sword drove to the hilt between the enemy’s ribs

Water licked Ivar’s lips as he pressed thehi to raise his head out of the water, but Ivar countered each moverated against bone, causing the warrior to convulse and lose whatever advantage he had gained His black hair floated like tendrils of moss Ivar tasted blood in the water All at once, the Quman went limp

Ivar shoved the dead ered to his feet His body ached from the cold He dipped a hand in the water to scrub at his face, to wash the taint of blood away, but all around him the pool seemed polluted by the life that had drained into it He carefully slipped past thestreaked the sky, followed by a sharp thunderclap A voice called out a query On the earthworks beyond, a ht sky, questing: an- other Qu for his comrade Ivar’s position at the base of the ditch, within the shadow of the lintel, veiled hiht behind the earthworks

A drizzle of rain wet Ivar’s cheeks With a swelling roar, the river raged in the distance like a multitude of voices raised all at once, but he couldn’t see it, nor could he see stars above A bead of rain wound down his nose and, suspended froest tiiving himself away

Finally he set down his sword, rolled up the ht with a belt, and looped the helood hand and his injured hand throbbing badly enough to give him a headache, he fell: his way back under the lintel Gruesos brushed his nose, one splintered wooden fra his cheek as feathers tickled his lips Outside, rain started to fall in earnest Thunder muttered in the west If they were lucky, rain would obscure the signs of their passage and leave them safe for a day or two, until the Quman moved on Then they could sneak out and make their way northwest, on the trail of Prince Bayan’s and Princess Sapientia’s retreating army

In his heart, he kneas a foolish hope The Qued band of seven, four of theh the Quman lines But they had to believe they could Otherwise they ht as well lie down and die