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Show of Zud's people whose fields are full empty and the young King Damon's as well!" Jothra looked at the eastern king and RedDesert regent. The eastern kingdom folk may well starve, with no full storehouses to plunder from other kingdoms! he thought. They will slaughter their horses for food and keep it from the mouths of their women and children. 'Tis no wonder they are without exception runtish and sickly as a folk. Zud himself was small by BauerWorlde standards, though largest and strongest in his kingdom-for why else did he become king but by brute strength? But even he had been coughing all last spring with the lung fever before the drought brought about a remission. And the RedDesert folk be such haphazard husbandfolk that, without the usual abundance of wildlife in the pink hills surrounding their kingdom, they could well starve and that rightly! And the folk of the house of Damon be all good friends of Jothra's, that were true indeed. Jothra capitulated. "And so ye suggest we try yet again?" he said. "If ye think," ground out Zud darkly, "they do not already insult us enough to do battle with them now!" "Battle?" cried Jothra. Lusela poked Zud viciously with a mailed finger. "Be ye quiet, ye great horned ass!" She turned to Jothra reasonably. "Let us one last time try an appeal. Say that we be full troubled with a shortfall of crops and that " The miserable fall harvest had been brought into the Northern Kingdom 310 |