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“I saw a group of horses being gathered a short way off, the tribesreat prize I knew if I could just get us to a horse we could ride free, kneith all certainty I stared at the them to hear my desperationAnd they ca free of the tribes and kicking Two halted at our side, both standing still as if frozen I et Father into the saddle and we rode away, every surviving horse following at our backs We rode blindly for an age, until I too began to slu, fro from the horse then all was blackness
“We were found by a Varitai scouting party the nextsenseless amidst a herd of riderless horses They took us back to camp where the slave-healer was able to wake Father with so at ibberish only he could understand Loon though he noas, General Tokrev still deeed to watch as he was beheaded, the general decreeing his line unworthy of freedoed party, all my family’s wealth was now his
“A slave’s life is rarely an easy one, but to be a slave in army service is a particular form of torment My comrades were s to crush any defiance, the slightest sign of disobedience punishable by prolonged torture and death, a fate suffered by three ofthe march north We were employed as beasts of burden, laden with packs that would have tried the strongest h to sustain life, our numbers dwindled from two hundred to less than fifty by the tian with the destruction of a small settlement on the shore of the frozen ocean Perhaps five hundred people, small in stature and clad in furs It should have been an easy victory but these people were far from defenceless, for they somehow had command of bears Great white bears unlike any seen before, bears that see as arrows or spears pierced their hides, bears that tore whole coeneral was coht, and as expected to be an easy victory turned into a prolonged slaughter The settleh many of its inhabitants had fled onto the ice The few captives, uard action to buy tiardless of what tored into cages but refused to eat, perishing shortly after, none speaking a single word
“Although Tokrev was quick to send an inflated account of his victory to Volar, his troops didn’t share his exultation The cold was already clai lives and winter had not yet fully fallen, and the Free Swords looked upon the vast expanse of ice before theainsay the general when he ordered the advance and I soon found side a dozen other unfortunates Everyould wake to find our numbers diminished until soon only I and three others were left The overseers cursed and beat us but had little option but to lighten the load, vital provisions being left behind because there were insufficient slaves to haul thean to ru with every step on the ice, fears that proved well justified
“The Bear People bided their ti rew so short the arely I found myself better fed than before, the chief overseer had contrived to plunge to his death at the botto subordinates were too wearied by the cold to preventmyself to my fellow slaves’ rations They had all perished by now, sos, but eneral, standing alone at the head of the colu with i Thanks to un to harbour insane notions of revenge The ever-lectful overseers, themselves reduced in number to only two, had failed to notice when I procured a key from one of their fallen coetting to properly secure his furs It would be a simple matter to unfasten eneral, and hook the chains over his head, strangling him before his Kuritai could respond It was a hopeless scheme, of course The man ice my size and his Kuritai would have been on , and hope is ever bright in the young And the sight of h he was
“So, as the general paced back and forth I slipped the key into the lock and made ready to execute my plan I often wonder ould have transpired then had not the eyeless man appeared, most likely there would have been onethe course of this madman’s army across the ice But still, in my less reflective moments, I often think hoould have felt to have that man at my htened around his throat
“But the arrival of the eyeless hts frohtered on the shore, clad in furs, sht cats, very large cats that appeared out of thehorses rear in alaran to draords but stopped at a coan to converse with the eyeless ue, but in Volarian Evenwas his dehtly bowed, the posture of a subservient man Their words were faint but I heard a few snatches of conversation above the constant wind, ‘You were told to wait,’ the eyelessthe kind of on my father rejoiced in but barely understood, talk of seized initiative and bold thrusts The eyeless man told him he was a fool ‘Co away ‘If they leave you anything to return with’ Then he was gone, and his cats with hiht ca Tokrev to order a retreat co In the event, the Bear People left him no decision in theout of the night sky by the hundred to rip eyes froers so that it see all around Panic seized the Free Swords and only the Varitai and Kuritai responded to the bugle blasts, for a defensive cordon around the caht nothing but a silent void, but then the sound caht, the roar of a thousand bears stirred to fury
“They ca h the Varitai as if they were h the ca, slashed open or decapitated by sweeping claws, the bears rising and falling as they pounded ht of hi with all their expertise to keep the bears at bay as he fled, a dense knot of fear- close behind
“As for me, I still crouched next to the sled, now liberally adorned with the re had happened with such speed I could scarcely believe it The bears see corpses, but then I sawfroside thes I knew in an instant to linger here another moment meant death
“I unlockedto seize sos burned with the frozen air, collapsing only whento recover soht it ht have fallen to an endless slumber had I not heard the steady crunch of a bear’s claws on the ice behindon, fuelled only by terror, but even that was not enough tomy cause to be hopeless I forcedshape looht, claws and snout red fro there are no gods or ascended souls to hear theain of my father’s foolish dreae to ask hiaze distant now, a puzzled frown on his brow as if he recalled so not fully understood Vaelin knew the expression well, having worn it ave a slight s, eyes bright with a malice that I had only ever seen in the eyes ofcloser until its bloody snout was only inches away, its breath, hot and stinking on my faceThen it stopped