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"Easy for you to say, eating like a queen and sleeping between the beast’s silks Maybe he threw you out now, but that doesn’t change what you were before"
She pointed the stick at hi hard enough that he skipped back a half step No one laughed, or even spoke They had fallen silent "It’s true I ate the food he gave me, and ate better than any of you have But I never slept between his silks He never rapedit ready for a fast strike, and turned so they could all see her Eagle’s badge "He didn’t dare touch me" She hesitated A complicated kind of hope and cynicism warred in their expressions What did these folk know of Kerayit women and shamans who had the body of a woman joined with that of a mare? "He didn’t dare touchHenry For what he does tohie For me For all of us"
As would she, by God
At that instant, she knehat she had to do Bulkezu had forgotten one thing when he’d thrown her out of his tent
"But the king needs our help And I need yours"
The guards did not stop her as she gathered firewood at the fringe of the forest, althougha fire on such a hot day, especially when she had nothing to eat Twilight closed over them as she laid sticks for a fire Wool thread teased off the sleeve of her tunicand a supple branch the tiny boood scraps and dry leaves the tinder, and a notched wedge of wood a cup for her hand With the bowstring looped around a stick, she drilled the end of that stick into the tinder until friction woke heat, heat sh the kindling Prisoners gathered around, asso in order to block the view of the Qu a story
"Here we begin by telling the tale of Sigisfrid, on the gold of the Hevelli He was born out of a she-wolf and a warrior--"
Hanna sat cross-legged by the fire, letting the tale drift past her, riding the flow of the words Under Bulkezu’s constant watch, she dared not use her Eagle’s sight But here, a, not even the flames," Wolfhere had told her "It is the stillness that lies at the heart of all things that links us"
"Liath," she whispered The fire wavered, and for a moment she saw faint shadows of men clothed in armor, she heard the clash of arms, but the vision faded into the snap of flame Liath remained hidden from her Was she dead?
Was everyone she cared for dead?
"Ai, God," she whispered, "can I not find you, Ivar? Where have you gone?"
A new log ht Were there worave olden as the sun, but they held out eleaods, the Huntress, the Fat One, and the Toothless Hag who cuts the thread of life
Ivar was lost to her
For a while she sat rief while some other hand fed the fla
She is the owl, gliding over the treetops, searching for the one she has lost The strearass grows as high as ain on their prey
Tents shi on the shore of the desert who catches her eye Here, aatani has no need of veils or concealment As she walks, she speaks passionately to her companion
Hanna has never before seen the Bwr sharay mare’s coat and the creamy color of her woreen-and-gold paint Pointed ears, tufted with coarse black hair, peek out through her unbound hair which falls like silver water all the way to the place where her torso slips easily from a woman’s hips into a mare’s shoulders She holds a bow in her hands, the horn curve carved with the seons
"Why can we not attack?" Sorgatani is saying fiercely, hands gesturing wildly "He spits on us by holding her prisoner"
"She had a chance to come to you," replies her companion "Now she suffers the fate she chose"
"Is there no way to rescue her? Is our ic protects hi the ruins of her once nificent church "We are not ere Our nuue Now is our tireatest weakness, so we must use caution We dare not reveal ourselves too soon But do not fear--" She glances up, her gaze sharp as an arrow "Who watches?"