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Show cold frames behind them. Then she looked past Armand herself and turned pale at the sight of Hoqqam's sister stretched out on the ground. The girl's head was lying at an awkward angle next to the rosestone of the first cold frame. Dr'Anya hurried over and knelt down next to Janni, the IonFlare following her, and felt for the unconscious girl's pulse. Armand by this time had whirled around, taken one look at the girl's body and at the thin ribbon of blood issuing from behind her right ear, and collapsed with a groan against the granary wall, knocking over a pitchfork with a great clatter. This final noise enraged the reds-who'd become more and more restive during the argument-and they rose up in a flurry of scarlet wings and open beaks and flew at the befuddled Armand, squawking and screaming around him. He jerked backwards, startled, and then glared horribly at the creatures, his face turning livid. Their clamor and threatening postures were the ultimate aggravation. He would take abuse no longer. He was as good as anyone on the Hold. He w a s . .. In a fury he grabbed the pitchfork, sprang away from the wall, drove the birds against the corner formed by the fence and granary, and beat the pitchfork into their midst, killing several of them and breaking a multitude of cold frame windows-all this in less than a minute. Straw and dust were precipitated into the air and drifted like a cloud across the granary yard and the tumult, though of exceedingly short duration, was very near deafening. The granary wall, the ground, and Armand's striped sleeping shift were at length drenched in the birds' blood and Janni scrambled up from her place beside Hoqqam's sister and rushed, horrified, to the stricken birds. Those 223 |
