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Dorian dropped the shields This was no attack At least not on his body "What is this?"

Ashaiah glanced at Jenine, then, obviously deciding he must speak the truth, said, "Should the wild men invade, this is your salvation, Your Holiness It is your corpusariu an aro, a barbarian chieftain found an ancient ht was ours alone"

"Raising the dead?"

"Sort of, Your Holiness"

"Sort of?"

"The souls of men are inviolate," Ashaiah Vul said

"I always liked purple"

Ashaiah blinked, not daring to chuckle Jenine was too busy staring around in wonder He didn’t think she even heard him "We don’t have the power to bind men’s souls to their bodies Your predecessors tried tothat, but it never worked well This is different We call it raising because we use the bones of the dead and unite theers The result is the krul They were originally called the Fallen because whenever they fall in battle, they can be raised again if a Vürdmeister is present"

"Take me one step at a ti

"It starts in the pits It always has The Godkings have always said that the ore beneath Khaliras was powerful, and that that’s why the slaves and criminals and captured enemies are forced to work there It’s a lie We don’t need their service; we don’t need the ore We need the prisoners’ bones and their agony Their bones give us a fraers?" Dorian asked

"We don’t know Soth of their experiences, we are a puzzle to theh my master said that once they walked the earth, took lovers, and had children ere the heroes of old, the nephiliers were once children of their One God ere thrown out of heaven" He s about a southron religion

"What happened?"

"We don’t know But the Strangers long to wear flesh again So we take the bones of our dead and sanctify thes have themselves cremated; they wish to avoid our use of their bones"

"And then?"

"Real bones are necessary but not sufficient to give the fallen a sense of embodiment, and it is for eive thes believed that any shape is possible, putting hu the fallen more difficult as they wish to be men, not horses, but it makes a fine horse"

"And the musculature, the skin and so forth, does it need to be crafted as painstakingly as the skeletons?" Dorian asked He’d trained as a Healer, and he couldn’t i body

"Given the correct skeleton and enough clay and water, the Strangers help the aaris was able to craft krul that lived for a decade or more, but he was a brilliant anatoers, and er have nas?"