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Show from both blows and fatigue. Lusela had been running ponderously in all directions, urging the warriors on, beating shirkers with the side of her broadsword. "Excrementi!" she'd screamed again and again. "Get on with it! Get on with it!" Then she'd spotted a group of three warriors stopping to mop their brows with the backs of their hands and started toward them, waving her sword in circles over her head. But just at that point, the air was split by a chorus of blood-curdling screeches echoing across the valley. All sounds of battle died out. Heads rose. Bloodshot and weary eyes looked up. Someone screamed in terror. "Nay! Nay!" roared Zud. He was crouched in the middle of a pack of ball- and chain-swinging knights just ready to storm a clutch of Commendium swordsfolk huddling in the nook of one eaved cliff. "Blench not, ye unmentionable. . .ye inutterable. . . ! " He smashed one stupified warrior on the side of the head with his fist and tore off his helmet to throw at another. But it was too late. The warriors were lumbering away in confusion and terror just ahead of a swooping Grendel, an enormous bird, guided by Lodyan-the-Zett. She was followed by three more of the huge beasts who were gliding down from the northern pass and toward the western cliffs, their golden hides glistening in the deep red rays of the late afternoon Twins. The Provincials began unqualified screaming then and for good reason-the birds' raucous cries issued from serrated beaks able to take within them a couple of good-sized Provincial heads. Moreover, the birds- excited to fever pitch-were emptying the sacks of oxygen-igniting gas high 294 |