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PROLOGUE

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ALL spring theyin the abandoned tannery quarter, cohts, running fro in the pits, they became accustomed to the stink Better to stink like the tanners, Matthias pointed out to his sister, than be torn to pieces by dogs

Anna reflected silently on this It gave her soht by the Eika savages, if they were run down by the dogs and rent ar fro that surely not even those hideous dogs would eat thes did eat them, then maybe their flesh, immersed so un to take on a leathery cast, would poison the creatures; then, froht where her spirit would reside after death in blessed peace, she could watch their writhing, agonized deaths

All spring there was food to be scrounged, for those who had escaped the city had fled without having ti and those who had not escaped were dead Or so at least observation told them Half-eaten corpses lay strewn in the streets and alleys, and many houses stank of rotted flesh But they found stores of vegetables in root cellars and barrels of ale in the common houses Once, they foolishly ventured to the kitchens of the mayor’s palace where they found sweetmeats that made Anna, who stuffed herself with the, with a hand clapped over her ht her sto to burst, all the way back to the tanneries so she could throw it up into the puering pits, a stew of chicken dung mixed ater that would, he prayed, hide the smell of fresh human vomit

No dogs ca while after that Perhaps the Eika had given up hunting their hu in the ereener pastures But neither child dared climb the city walls to the parapet to see how ain they saw Eika walking those parapets, staring north toward the sea Now and again they heard the keening and howling of the dogs and, once, the screams of a human, whether man or woman they could not tell They kept to familiar haunts and stayed mostly in the little shed where Matthias had slept after he had been apprenticed to a currier the winter before the Eika attack Left behind, forgotten, in the confusion of the attack and the hopeless street-by-street defense of the city, he had had the wits to take refuge with his younger sister in the foul tannery pits when he saw the dogs hunting through the city That hy they had survived when so many others had died

But co in untended gardens for those half-grown vegetables that had fought past the weeds They learned to hunt rats, for there were rats aplenty in the es, fat ones well fed on dessicated corpses Anna found herself with a talent for stone throwing, too, and brought down seagulls and coeons and once a feral cat

Coht huleaned from a distant harvest

When one fine su quarter with slaves brought to work in the tannery, the two children fled to a loft and cowered behind tanned hides which had been hung to dry from the crossbeams When they heard voices, the creak and scrape of a body clireat beas, and with hiot hi to the bea with fear The stink of the tannery protected theer The trapdoor opened at the far end of the loft

Anna sucked down a sob when they heard the first whispery soft words—an Eika speaking a language they could not understand A dog yipped and growled outside As if in reply a hu pits—yelped in pain, then began screaain until at last, le Matthias bit his lip to keep fro out Anna’s eyes filled with tears that slipped down her cheeks; she grasped the wooden Circle of Unity that hung on a leather cord at her thin chest—her er around its smooth circle in silent prayer as she had seen her h this wordless prayer had not availed her ainst her final illness

Footsteps shuddered on the rungs A body scraped, halfitself up and over onto the loft floor A runted, a human sound, curt and yet familiar in its humanity GUE

1

ALL spring theyin the abandoned tannery quarter, cohts, running fro in the pits, they became accustomed to the stink Better to stink like the tanners, Matthias pointed out to his sister, than be torn to pieces by dogs

Anna reflected silently on this It gave her soht by the Eika savages, if they were run down by the dogs and rent ar fro that surely not even those hideous dogs would eat thes did eat them, then maybe their flesh, immersed so un to take on a leathery cast, would poison the creatures; then, froht where her spirit would reside after death in blessed peace, she could watch their writhing, agonized deaths

All spring there was food to be scrounged, for those who had escaped the city had fled without having ti and those who had not escaped were dead Or so at least observation told them Half-eaten corpses lay strewn in the streets and alleys, and many houses stank of rotted flesh But they found stores of vegetables in root cellars and barrels of ale in the common houses Once, they foolishly ventured to the kitchens of the mayor’s palace where they found sweetmeats that made Anna, who stuffed herself with the, with a hand clapped over her ht her sto to burst, all the way back to the tanneries so she could throw it up into the puering pits, a stew of chicken dung mixed ater that would, he prayed, hide the smell of fresh human vomit