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‘Not as far as I know, they aren’t,’ Andar agreed

The introduction of fire-ite catapults elevated the sobow’s opinion Naptha, pitch, and tar in the proper proportions -boas able to deterot its i on fire probably would be just a little distracting

The only proble of the fire-bow dropped several dozen hard-shelled spiders with venom-tipped arrows planted in their eyes, but the bodies he wanted to retrieve in an intact condition inevitably were at least partially consumed by the indiscriminate distribution of fire

‘Andar!’ he finally shouted ‘Would you please stop throwing fire out there? You’re burning everything in sight’

‘That was sort of e had in e it, I always say’

‘That’s the problem It doesn’t work - not for me, anyway I want a raw turtle, not a cooked one’

‘Oh,to take you to kill one of theboept his eyes across the stake-dotted slope between this third barricade and the one perhaps a hundred paces on down below There were several hundred dead ene between the two barricades, but none that were intact ‘Why don’t you tell your ested ‘They’re probably a bit tired after all this hard work, anyway Let a few eneet close to us I’ll decide which one I want, kill it, and retrieve the body Then your ht’

He looked out over the top of the barrier and saw several of the oversized bug-, but the hard-shelled spiders seeite fire-h a bit nervous

When the advancing bug-men reached the center of the open space between the two barricades without being showered with fire, however, the spider servants grewover the barricade on down the slope

‘Not the best decision there,’ Longbow muttered under his breath as he carefully drew another arrow froh were obviously bow and his friends had encountered in the Ravine above Lattash, but their expanded intelligence seemed to have been limited to the introduction of a certain aet the immediate attention of alboaited until one of the hard-shelled spiders was no more than a few yards from the front of the barricade, and then he loosed his arrow directly at one of the large eyes at the front of the creature’s head The creature collapsed instantly, and several Trogite soldiers vaulted over the barricade and dragged the dead enemy back behind the protective wall

‘That’s all we need, Andar!’ Longbow shouted ‘Build up the fire again!’

‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Andar bellowed Then the catapults lashed forward again, raining fire down on the servants of the Vlagh once more

Dahlaine spent h’sout there never ceases to abow, Veltan, and Zelana after he’d finished ‘This particular creation isn’t what it see’s nothing more than a modified spider’

‘That shell doesn’t look very spider-like to reed, as Rabbit and Narasan joined the more than a modification of an ordinary spider’s outer skeleton, Veltan Evidently, the Vlagh saw the value of the Trogite breastplate, and then it looked around in the ani that closely resembled it - the turtle shell, of course Then it altered a spider to add that defensive shell to ward off the arrows that eli the war in our sister’s Do that troubles h’s experimentation with spiders There’s no real connection between spiders and the Vlagh’s usual servants The average spider lives on a steady diet of creatures that closely reseot here is soet if you crossed a cat with a mouse’

‘That’s absurd, Dahlaine!’ Zelana protested

‘The Vlagh is an absurdity, dear sister Hadn’t you noticed that? What baffles h chose spiders to serve as its armored servants There are several varieties of beetles that would probably have worked just as well, and beetles are h’s species than spiders are Spiders are solitary creatures, and the original servants of the Vlagh cluster up’

‘The world of bugs is awfully complicated, isn’t it?’ Rabbit observed

‘Indeed it is,’ Dahlaine agreed

‘Wilt thou not hear bow from his sleep ‘The victory is h they know it not, the armies that come up fro I command thee to stand aside and impede them no more Go frobow caether all at once Torl’s account of the ridiculous fairy tale the farmers far to the south in Veltan’s Domain had autoold’, and the Trogite soldiers’ obsessive response to the tale suddenly began to make sense Somebody - soold for bait, and she’d just nearly caught about a half-ht about it, the more certain he becaet out of the way’ meant exactly that And the instruction was clearly not bow alone His friends were also supposed to stand aside so that the two distinctly separate enemies could fall upon each other in a war of mutual extinction

‘Good boy,’ the now-faet my point - eventually’