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They waited, braced for the worst, but no attack resumed It was as if the world had died beyond the walls’ barrier, as if every living thing had died and maybe even the forest and the land vanished into the pit so they were surrounded only by an infinite black yawning nothingness

"Hanna?"

"Eh! What?"

"You hi, Hanna" That was Folquin’s fanized it now

"My head hurts"

He grunted his assent He was crouched behind her, with Leo and Stephen close behind hio?" Folquin asked

"I’ otherwise Are you?"

"Well, I’d not volunteer to be the first to walk out past those torches, if that’s what you’re asking But Leo will gladly take that stroll, will you not, Leo?"

"After I piss on your grave," said Leo amiably

"Who’s dead?" asked Hanna

"No one you knew," said Ingo "But anyway, there is one we called Corvus for his black hair" He pointed to the closest body It was too dark to see the corpse’s face; he was only the anonymous dead, unknown and now unknowable except as a nairl he wished to marry back home There, his cousin Arno, as not quick in his wits but could split a cord of wood faster than anyswelled in her throat, and she knew she was about to weep She rose, instead "I’d best see to the captain"