through her defenses-even her curse-to hurt her, but anguish had no sense of
proportion: it was now. The Peres house, Moria, Stil-cho, even Haught; she
wanted those back through pride but the sandy-haired man who hated magic had a
different claim. Not love.
Partnership, perhaps-someone who, because he had shattered the walls which
surrounded her, lessened the loneliness of existence at the fringes. Someone
whose demands and responses were simple and who, like all the others, eventually
broke the rules which were not. She’d sent Straton away for his own good and
he’d come back, like all the others, with his simple, impossible demands. But,
unlike the others, he hadn’t died and that, the necromant realized with a
shiver, might be- for want of a better word-love.
He would not die, or be stripped of his dignity, in the Peres house, if she had
to destroy the world to stop it.
Walegrin paced the length of the dark, malodorous cellar. Life, specifically
combat, had been much easier when he had been responsible for no more than the
handful of men he personally led. Now he was a commander, forced to stay behind
the lines of imminent danger coordinating the activities of the entire garrison.
They said he did the job well but all he felt was a vicious burning in his gut
as bad as any arrow.
“Any sign?” he shouted through the slit window to the street.
“More smoke,” the lookout shouted back so Walegrin missed Thrusher’s hawk-call.
The wiry little man swung himself feet first through another window, landing
lightly but not before Walegrin had his knife drawn. Thrush took the arrows out