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“Lyria,” Lia He follows it up till his hands find my face He’s alive Covered with h tears

“I’ht hand “I’ the corpses “I’m here”

So withhas ever hurt Blood leaks fro ar bodies The Red Hand are dead or fled to cover to fire up at the sky The two bone-white Republic ships fire at the Hand trucks and landed transports Steel h the air

It’s toothe few survivors of the st the reeds in the riverbed

There, hunkered in fear, we listen to the battle A dozen others survived They flinch when a bo back and forth, watching bugs go out over the water My sister is safe Her children are safe We’ll see them soon and share a smile Liam and I will be with the up The knight with the canine hel smoke He lands with a splash in the river thirty e I look around at the survivors Not one moves

&nbs

p; He’s going to drown

“We gotta help hi teeth Cold despite the heat No one looks otta help his” I tell Lia out into it until it’s at ht I won’t be able to lift hith of rope tethering a half dozen of the fishing boats together, I wade back to the boats and unravel the rope, then press back into the depths as the boats drift apart The current tugs atto pull me downriver Soon the water’s over h the ht

I can’t see him

The silt is so thick I have to surface twice before I find hiht foot kicks a piece of metal I trace my feet over the armor, barely able to find the outline of theas best I can with my wrecked shoulder and kickthe rope behind When I roup of Reds waits to help me, all brave and heroic after I do all the bloody work

Ten sets of hands tug on the rope till, with a great heave, we ht free of the water and into the shallows

We hunch over hie ar hit hiest bastard I’ve ever seen His helauntlets of the ar Water pulses out of the holes in theit to be hot for some reason It’s cold and faintly iridescent

“Look at the size of hiasps

“Has to be a bloodydamn Obsidian”

“No, they hite feathers…”