Page 382 (1/1)

The trickle becaly, whole faes to crowd in to Queens’ Grave, setting up an entire village of crude shelters within the safety of the ramparts Everyone expected the Cursed Ones to attack as the days grew shorter and the nights colder Alain discussed with Sos’ka and her companions the various ways the Cursed Ones often attacked: at dawn, on the wings of fog, just before sunset, now and again at night Beor and the other respected war leaders listened, interjecting cospear points to hafts, fletching arrows, grinding the tips of antlers into sharp points Pur the stone knapper now had two other stone knappers working with him as well as five apprentices The first catapult had a hitch in it, so they started building a second Torches burned all night along the palisade wall and up on the ramparts, and they had to make numerous expeditions into the forest to haul in cartloads of wood or armfuls of cow parsley and hemlock whose hollow stems, stuffed with fuel, made efficient little torches easy to hold in a hand They hauled and stored so ht drain the river dry

On the eighth day after he had returned, the centaurs proved their worth as sentries by driving off a se of the woods After that, the entire community stayed on alert Folk rarely left the safety of the palisade and then only in groups of ten orfro of ramparts

"We’d better rebuild your old shelter up by the looht, when they were in bed She listened silently She seeht

"I didn’t like it up there," she said at last "I was in exile, a stranger to my own people"

"But now I’m with you You’ll be safer there We’ll ask the centaurs to bed down up on the ra is so keen The old shelter is still there, most of it It hasn’t fallen in so badly that I can’t fix it We’ll bring our furs Maybe the ground will seehed sharply, then kissed him until he had no choice but to be silent as she worked on hiic he most desired

But she made no objection when he took Kel and Tosti up to rebuild her shelter She even let his there, together with the furs and bedding, although he left her herbs and various s the day as she went about her duties

She see as he lay beside her Yet only at night did her waret turned on hiht when they lay together, she grew h the arrow receded farther and farther away, leaving him and all of them behind

The round The stars pulsed in the clear sky For days there had been no clouds at all, although occasionally he heard thunder ru in the distance At the new moon Adica woke before dawn and with only the adult women made the cerenawed at Alain Envy ate at hih he could not have said why Had happiness made him jealous? Yet what had he to be jealous of, who had her all to hihttihttime watch, and not one adult sent up to do extra duty in Alain’s place coe, too, how after so ers and especially their White Deer cousins had stopped looking at Adica He recalled no nervous they had seemed around her when he’d first come to Queens’ Grave, but their uneasiness had waned and he’d forgotten about it as the months had passed and they’d e Now they feared her again, unspoken, apologetic as they talked to her less and ignored her ot into their stores of emmer or a sore afflicted their baby Even Weiwara turned her children’s faces ahen Adica walked by

"She’s gathering power for the great working," she said, looking shaerous for any of us to look upon a Hallowed One in the fullness of her power"

"What about me? I don’t fear her I’ve taken no ill effects"

"Oh" Her smile was taut, not really a smile "You’re her uard you against evil"