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She was not Wendish; she had a flat, reddish-brown complexion and wore stiff skirts and heavy boots very like those of Kerayit woetation fell from her neck It hissed where it struck the stones

"Berda!" A youngsounds, like squirrels scrabbling on rocks, but she saw no one nearby

Below, Wendish riders pushed their horses up to the road, following their king Above, the woman who had appeared out of nowhere dashed up the ramp

Hanna shouted after her "Come back! There are Eika--"

A pair of Eika strode into view at the top of the ramp They paused to observe the battle with the kind of leisurely posture that ain a field overrun with grouse One held a spear and the other a banner pole fixed with a crosspiece and hung with strips and strands that waved in the wind tearing along the heights Storh in the heavens The woht up the broad ranized that voice

She turned

Wolfhere stood behind her

She shrieked and ju into another body They both fell in a tangle Now that she was touching hi reen and tris, and handso Laid flat on the slope just below the ri men, one Wendish and the other--she could never mistake those looks--born to the Quman tribes

"Where did you coet out of here!" the youth said raggedly He was out of breath Blisters had blossomed around his neck, which was curbed by a crudely woven necklace of dried leaves and fern fronds "But where do we go now, Berthold?"

She pulled away from him and pushed to her feet Eika above, battle on all sides, and below a tableau that fixed Hanna’s gaze as though she looked down a tunnel A ed solo against the dragon-hel the road, weapons raised

In one breath, they would collide

"It is ti to hiasp of exhalation as, beside Wolfhere, a cleric fell to his knees with gaze lifted heavenward and ht spun in the air, like the flash of a ht, but when she blinked to protect her eyes, it winked and vanished The cleric cru resounded One horse stumbled, but cagered and fell, turound Men cried out in fear, while others shouted "huz-zah!" or called frantic co back to his fellows, off the road "For God’s sake, let’s get out of here We’re right in the middle of the worst of it, and we have no weapons! We’d be better hiding in the byre!"

Wolfhere knelt beside the fallen cleric and shook what appeared to be little more than skin and bones wrapped in tattered robes

"What’s happened to hirabbed the body by the ankles and dragged hi?" cried Hanna She was stuck there, standing and staring first at Wolfhere, whose behavior lant alone on the road, unhorsed, with only a shield and sword and no ainst hundreds of mounted riders armed with spears and lances under the command of Conrad the Black

Maybe if she could reach the duke before he struck the killing blow

She took a step, and a second A hand closed on her ankle and tugged her so hard she felt flat and barely caught herself on her hands before her face sh her wrists and aro help hirip like iron chains "I swore an oath long ago Now, at last, I hand’s h to allow the Eika arh to adon that bore the Kerayit shahand pressed through the van and, together with Last Son, paused where level road hit the impressive ramp that carried the road down into the valley