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Show Dr'Anya. "Who, good sir?" "Lusela's Lieutenant of the GarGantuas," Phrapp said, getting excited. "She comes! In faith, she comes!" Just then-as if in answer to Phrapp's warning-they heard the roar of hoarse female voices and the sound of hooves from the direction of the Zettian valley pass, and the ground fairly shook beneath their feet. Everyone at the table started up to see three hundred mounted Gargantuas charging down the path from the pass and into the valley. A veritable giantess was storming along at their head, and dust rose up among them and drifted to the tops of the cliffs. They were screaming like YellowBison and had lances braced, heading straight for the parley table. Zud screamed in return, gnashing his huge teeth. Lusela pulled herself up regally and lifted her hand to the approaching hoard which stopped in a great cloud of dust and horse spittle a few yards short of running the table down. "Welcome!" Lusela crowed. Then she turned to the Commendium folk who had rushed out immediately on hearing the uproar; all agape at this fresh enemy sitting astride the largest horses they had ever seen. "Look ye at what my Lieutenant holds!" screamed Lusela, and Rollanda raised aloft a shining instrument with a barrel and a handle, glinting at them in the Twinlight. '"Twill disintegrate any wight who comes near us!" She stepped up on a chair and then onto the table amid a chorus of gasps and murmuring among the Commendium folk. "Ye are all our prisoners now," she shouted at the top of her voice. "The rest of y e . . . . " She gestured to the Provincials moving in a great shuffling, wondering mass toward them from the far corners of the valley. " . . . t h e rest of ye will come with us to march on 324 |
