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The luster of brass ainst the ground One uses an auxiliary pincer to lift up the corner of a striped awning to examine what lies beneath One has unfolded into a pair of blades, ready to strike anyone who co, because it is cut off froht by the spider’s carapace head and sleek abdomen

Puffs of sorcerous mist rise from the metal belly The tilted carapace shelters a soldier, his back protected by the shell and his front by boiled leather ar fro for a dangerous criminal or a traitorous spy People scurry out of the way like verilant housekeeper

I take another slow step back, hoping the scout will not noticewo to hold her back and runs under the spider Two of its legs le I can now see the eighth leg Horribly its splayed foot has crushed the hips and legs of a child The tiny head lolls peacefully, a chubby hand tucked under the chin as if the child were merely asleep instead of dead

Several people race out and drag the wohts to stay

Suddenly the pincer leg rips free of the striped awning and points right at the stall where I’ With a curse, the burly man shoves the youth into the back rooround I barely have ti slams down so close that air shudders in front of my face With a shout of fear I skip back Its pincers tear apart the canvas and pinion the youth like a fish caught by a sea eagle As easily as I would pick up one of Aives up Tears stain the burly ut is clenched, and et out of here I don’t owe the other people I hurry up the lane in the direction in which Aods that she has already reached the proet to the stairs, soldiers in boiled leather armor march out to block our way

I am trapped between the spider scout and the infantrymen on foot

The soldiers push forward fro up all of us who look like Coround That is one of the first lessons the wos It’s also whatbattle

When I aiting for Amaya at the ht and one on the iside a two-story building with a narrow balcony I shove through the , I catch the ri up to hook over the railing, the sheath skirt of oon’t letup the cloth just as two Patron soldiers run into the alley A burst of fear and deter myself over

One soldier levels his crossbow at me as I pry at the closed shutters but they won’t open The other kicks down the door and stomps inside as the inhabitants cry out in fear A crossbow bolt thunks into a shutter a handbreadth from my shoulder

"The next one will be in your head," calls the soldier

A shutter slae to claet away Then I see the other soldier inside He holds a spear in one hand and a baby in the other

"Please, Do in the shadows

In the distance the wo over her dead child I let the soldier take me into custody He see me in the ribs with the spear as the twoto come up with any kind of a plan I stumble into the clot of huddled prisoners The woman who nizes me and pushes aith a curse as if I a misfortune People examine me with so much hostility that I tense

A second spider scout stamps up, crested with a captain’s horns Soldiers shove Coriander’s brother forward His arms are already trussed up behind his back, and his face is dirty, like they deliberately and , and for an instant I feel sorry for him

"That’s hihtened craftspeople "These people itive!"