Page 247 (1/1)

"He eak," said Stronghand at last, "and he was not loyal" He regarded his captains calrintheic that the tree sorcerers will cast at us But I do not fear them Do you?"

None stirred None dared shoeakness, or hesitation, now that they had seen what the ht

Perhaps the tree sorcerers were in fact capable of raising a storh he doubted it He did not doubt the danger the Alban wizards posed to those unprepared to ic did not reach far beyond their physical bodies: a shrouding fog, a teh a line of ships drawn up for battle, a uile The gale that had scattered his fleet had enco to his own observations as his ship had ridden out the gale and to the reports he had received as his loyal captains had straggled in to the Crackling Skerries afterward

Perhaps the tree sorcerers had called up that stor his fleet poised at their shore But whether it was born out of the sea or out of their ic, he knew just how to make use of such opportunities, blown to him on the wind

That hy he had told the merfolk, in the aftermath of the storm, to hunt down Ardaneka’s ships and destroy the him the chieftain’s body, drowned and broken

Let the capricious ones fear that they ic’s cold claw

Below, the red-and-yellow ship listed to one side Seawater swah the ship sank under the waves, ropes slithering down until, at last, nothing could be seen except scraps of flotsa on the swells Waves battered the bloated corpse One of the arms came loose, rotted away at the shoulder, and it rolled away like a lifeless slug A ripple stirred its steady course; a ridged back sounded Eels writhed,in eyeless faces, as one of the rueso array-blue sea

The headland ely where the sun lit them Clouds scudded away northwards Gulls screahand raised his standard once h a hive of bees lived within, but it was only the voice of the ic, always aware, always alert Always awake

The ic that protected him never slept, and never drea his co sea against the rocks and constant blowing ru to stop us"

6

IT all happened so fast: Henry’s and Adelheid’s trius and her delivery of a healthy daughter in the presence of a dozen witnesses on the sixteenth day of Cintre, a mere twenty days after their arrival The queen was too exhausted to bein the fullest nancy had worn her down Henry could not wait, nor did Adelheid counsel him to tarry in the palace while she recovered

So it was that a ain at the head of a triu Henry had h the northern counties and dukedohters and sons that Ironhead had held hostage and allowing the ladies and lords to feed and house his ih it was by no means clear that every count, lord, and duke was overjoyed at the prospect of Queen Adelheid restored to her throne at the hand of the Wendish king But the northern lords did not want to fight

"As long as they don’t want to fight this year, then we can hope for peace while Henry establishes his power in the south," said Villaates of Darre

The nificence of Darre still awed her The city was built on five hills, with the two palaces--representing spiritual and teht of Amurrine Hill The city walls remained more-or-less intact from the time of the old empire, repaired and rebuilt over the course of the four hundred years since the last e Bwr horde The Bwr army had left the walls intact and razed the temples instead, to show their hatred for the ee stone blocks quarried to the east, the walls rose to the height of ten ues on those parapets and not come to the end of them