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“The pass is fast, don’t fear, don’t fear!” she cried, shrinking from the dark We never shrink—but we have pity for those who do

“Of course it is, it is our pass, our irl, away from the dark” I touched her hand with my paw, but she drew it away and curled her lips back

“Duty may not be shirked,” she hissed

“Who gave you this duty? Surely not us, yet we are masters of this place”

She pulled up her shield to cover her, not unlike a blanket, and spoke echoes into all the chambers of the mountain

“I a night now forgotten, and ill not now abandon it…”

THE

SOLDIER’S

TALE

DO YOU KNOW WHAT VESICANT MEANS?

I didn’t think so What good can such vocabularies perfor in stone? But I know—I kno

The far was thick and furred heat I had two brothers, and they hadelse in the world but a father whose knees knocked hollow in the wind I see in the dust, pigs and roving deer and great shaggy cows But if ever I saw the to do much but pull at the tail of one or the ear of another In my youth the livestock of our country sloindled to nothing at all—there were no blights or faers at the fields, but there were strange tales of a far-off kinsworeen ritten on velluh it But I could not read the tail

“Kin runted, and off went our dappled horse and our last milk cow

My father took the plow onto his own shoulders with straps and brass buckles and withwelts on his broad back, he tilled our fields We grew up, h not too often But I sometimes think that if we had not once had plow horses anddeer and great shaggy coould not have given so ain

One evening when the blue lay deep and even as water on the wheat, a loneup our ith a sword at his hip and velvet in his coat and a warm helmet on his head He led a cluster of horses behind hi who lived so far from us that his name was to our ears as an oar presented to awas in need of soldiers for his conquests, which the lorious This is what all Kings say They are words a monarch learns before mother and father