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Show Lodyan had, with her Elders, watched the buildup of knights and foot soldiers at the risings of the Tartars on the East, and she was puzzled. They had killed each other often, indeed were always killing each other. But she knew for a fact that the general run of Provincial knights feared the HighTartars and would only go through the passes into the West for the most urgent reasons. They were massing along the border and were actually traveling back and forth on the passes below Westwick and Round Valley. Were they out to destroy the Zetts? She had squatted often in her eyrie above the Zettian valleys, watching the knights with her large, sharp eyes, and wondered. Now, standing in the middle of the clearing, she could see them fighting in her mind's eye, milling around, clashing swords against armor...they were fighting.. .killing each other. . .again. A vast battle. The Zett was saddened. To kill for nothing, to kill one's own and let the flesh putrify in some h o l e . . .. She hung her head. A waste-to kill for nothing. The DreamingStone which hung on a chain around her neck quivered with the sound of the battle. She closed her hand around the stone and walked back to the spit. The bird had been done to a turn. Two of the males were cutting juicy pieces of thigh and breast and handing them around, stuck on the ends of their knives. The receiving Zetts gleefully took the pieces from them on their own knives and began pulling off pieces of meat with their small, sharp teeth. Soon everyone was eating and laughing, juices running down their furry chins. The JumbleDogs tied to the nettle trees had lifted their huge, knobby 282 |