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she’d come to T’Telir, determined to prove the problem wasn’t with her. It’d been with someone else. Anyone else. As long as Vivenna wasn’t ﬂawed. But Hallandren had repeatedly proved that she was ﬂawed. And now that she’d tried and failed so often, she found it hard to act. By choosing to act, she might fail—and that ...
plan together!” “Why did they turn on you?” She shook her head, glancing down. “They claimed I didn’t do my part. That I was withholding things from them.” “Were you?” She looked away, eyes tearstained. She looked very odd, sitting in her cell. A beautiful woman of deific proportions, wearing a delicate silk gown, sitt...
terror in her eyes. Such beautiful eyes. “No!” Lightsong screamed, slamming against the bars, reaching helplessly toward her. He strained his godly muscles, pressing himself against the steel as he felt his body begin to shake. It was useless. Even a perfect body couldn’t push its way through steel. “You bastards!” he ...
would change to make him realize that it was all just an elaborate scam. “Please,” he whispered. “Please, no....” Annotations for Chapter 53 Fifty-Four Annotations for Chapter 54 “What’s the word on the street, Tuft?” Vivenna asked, sidling up to a beggar. He snorted, holding out his cup to those few who passed in the ...
dark black hallways, and she could still hear fighting in places. What is going on? Someone was attacking the palace. But who? For a moment, she hoped it was her people—her father’s soldiers, coming to save her. She discarded that immediately. The men opposing the priests were using Lifeless soldiers; that ruled out Id...
sounds of fighting were growing closer. It seemed to Siri that their room was virtually surrounded by combat. “Perhaps,” Treledees said as one of his priests rushed to the door to peek out. The soldiers who had come with Bluefingers were resting by the wall, bleeding. One of them seemed to have stopped breathing. “We s...
“Wait!” Siri said, stopping. Things were suddenly falling into place. “Vessel?” Bluefingers asked. Susebron laid a hand on her shoulder, looking at her with confusion. Why would the priests sacrifice themselves if they were planning to kill Susebron? Why would they simply let us go, allow us to ﬂee, if the God King’s s...
she shoved her way through the crowd, ignoring yells that she should stay back. She climbed up the stairs, passing door after door. In her haste, she almost missed the one with black smoke creeping out under it. She froze. Then, taking a deep breath, she pushed the door open and stepped inside. The room was poorly kept...
that. A little cut. Not even as wide as my palm.” “I’m sorry,” Llarimar said. “She was a good woman, even among gods.” “She wasn’t a god,” Lightsong said. “None of us are. Those dreams are lies, if they led me to this. I’ve always known the truth, but nobody pays attention to what I say. Shouldn’t they listen to the on...
room near the front of the palace, desperate, yet unsure. Breaking through the Pahn Kahl fortification of the Court of Gods was bound to be difficult. She looked up at Susebron. His priests treated him like a child—they gave him respect, but they obviously gave no thought to ask his opinion. For his part, he stood, han...
away. “It does not arise. Why would the Returned care about Awakening? They have everything they need.” “Except knowledge,” Siri said. “You keep them in ignorance. I’m surprised you didn’t cut out all their tongues to hide your precious secrets.” Treledees looked back at her, expression hardening. “You judge us still. ...
through them, leaving the gates behind. Go to the side, Nightblood said. Vasher never asks if he can enter. He just goes in. Vivenna glanced at the side of the plateau. There was a short rocky ledge running around the outside of the wall. With the guards so distracted by the people wanting in... She slipped to the side...
to risk pushing her way through fighting men. So instead she ran to the side of the massive palace. The lower levels were made of the steplike black blocks that gave the palace its pyramidlike quality. Above these, it grew into a more traditional fortress, with steep walls. There were windows, if she could reach them. ...
through the tunnel, then sitting in his cage. His thigh ached from where it had been struck with the sword, though the wound had not been bad, and it was barely bleeding anymore. He ignored the pain. It was insignificant compared to the pain inside. The priests talked quietly on the far side of the room. Oddly, as he g...
Instead, she tried to grab Bluefingers, but a Lifeless was too quick. It took her arm, holding her firm, even when she batted at it. A couple of men wearing the robes of Susebron’s priesthood came out of a stairwell ahead of them, carrying lanterns. Siri, looking closely, immediately recognized them as being from Pahn ...
who survive the night will confirm the story.” Siri blinked out tears. Everyone will assume that Blushweaver and Lightsong sent the armies as retribution for the death of the God King. And with the king dead, the people will be furious. “I wish you hadn’t gotten involved in all of this,” Bluefingers said, motioning for...
rope pieces, telling them to grab when thrown. She said a quiet prayer to Austre, then pulled herself up through the window and into the room. Vasher was groaning. Tonk Fah was dozing in the corner. Denth, holding a bloody knife, looked up immediately as she landed. The look of utter shock on his face was, in itself, a...
said. “My life to yours,” she said. “My Breath become yours.” Her world became a thing of dullness. Beside her, Vasher gasped, then began to convulse at the bestowal of Breath. Denth stood up, spinning. “You do it, Vasher,” Vivenna whispered. “You’ll be far better at it than I will be.” “Stubborn woman,” Vasher said as...
Vasher stepped up on the table by the far wall, seeking high ground. She looked back at Tonk Fah, his cloak still touching her cheek. “Your Breath to mine,” she said. She felt a sudden, welcoming burst of Breath. “Huh?” Tonk Fah said. “Nothing,” she said. “Just...Attack and grab Denth!” Command made, visualization made...
quick efficiency. He wasn’t as good as Denth, but he had practiced for a very, very long time. Unfortunately, there were a lot of men. Maybe too many to fight. Vasher cursed, spinning between them, dropping another one. He bent down, slapping his hand against the waist of a fallen soldier, touching both shirt and pants...
Each creature he struck with the blade immediately ﬂashed and became smoke. A single scratch and the bodies dissolved like paper being consumed by an invisible fire, leaving behind only a large stain of blackness in the air. Vasher spun among them, striking with wrath, killing Lifeless after Lifeless. Black smoke churn...
the Lifeless in the city are controlled by Bluefingers and his scribes, she thought. But even before that, the scribes had great power over the bureaucracy and workings of the kingdom. Did the Hallandren realize that they were dooming themselves by relegating the Pahn Kahl people to such lowly—yet important—positions? ...
religion. Why do this?” Bluefingers stood to the side, holding a knife. She could see the shame in his eyes. “Bluefingers,” she said, forcing her voice to remain even, her hair to stay black. “Bluefingers, you don’t have to do this.” Bluefingers finally looked at her. “After all I’ve already done, do you think one more...
the deck, trying to stay upright on the slick boards. Part of him knew it was simply a hallucination, that he was still back in the prison cell, but it felt real. Very real. The waves churned, black sky ripped by lightning ahead, and the ship’s motion slammed his face against the wall of the ship’s cabin. Light from a ...
golden hair twisting in the water. A weak splash of color passing his side of the ship. It would soon be gone. Men cursed. Llarimar screamed. A woman wept. Lightsong just stared into the bubbling deep, with its alternating froth and blackness. The terrible, terrible blackness. He still held the rope in his hand. Withou...
through the bars and grasped the God King’s hand. A fake priest looked up with alarm. Lightsong met the man’s eyes, then smiled broadly, looking down at the God King. “My life to yours,” Lightsong said. “My Breath become yours.” ~ Denth slashed, wounding Vasher in the leg. Vasher stumbled, going down on one knee. Denth...
blood to the side. “Well, now you do.” ~ Bluefingers picked up a knife. “The least I can do,” he decided, “is to kill you myself, rather than letting the Lifeless do it. I promise it will be quick. We will make it look like a pagan ritual afterward, sparing you the need to die in a painful way.” He turned to her Lifele...
ram his knife into Siri’s chest, but the God King raised a hand. “You will stop!” Susebron said in a clear voice. Bluefingers froze, looking toward the God King in amazement. The dagger slipped from his stunned fingers as an Awakened carpet twisted around him, pulling him away from Siri. Siri stood, dumbfounded. Susebr...
color. He led her into a particular chamber, and she saw what he’d told her to expect. Scribes crushed by the carpets that he’d awakened, bars ripped from their mountings, walls broken down. A ribbon shot from Susebron, turning over a body so that she wouldn’t have to see its wound. She wasn’t paying much attention. In...
Vasher said, sighing and opening his eyes. She didn’t argue. They used to call him other things, too, Nightblood said. “If you’re really one of them,” Vivenna said, “then you’ll know how to stop the Lifeless.” “Sure,” Vasher said wryly. “With other Lifeless.” “That’s it?” “The easiest. Barring that, we can chase them d...
for the city. Don’t you remember? It was just yesterday. “Yesterday?” Vivenna asked. When the Manywar stopped, Nightblood said. When was that? “He doesn’t understand time,” Vasher said. “Don’t listen to him.” “No,” Vivenna said, studying him. “He knows something.” She thought for a moment, then her eyes opened wide. “K...
chest. “Your people...” “We’ll send messengers,” she said, “explaining our regret. My people can withdraw, ambush the Lifeless. We can send troops to help.” “We don’t have many,” he said. “And they won’t get there very quickly. Could your people really get away?” No, she thought, heart wrenching. You don’t know that, t...
preparing messengers to send to Father.” “I have a better way,” Vivenna said. “But you’ll have to trust me.” “Of course,” Siri said. “I have a friend who needs to speak with the God King,” Vivenna said. “Where he can’t be overheard by guards.” Siri hesitated. Silly, she thought. This is Vivenna. I can trust her. She’d ...
Yet suddenly, he started to glow. Not as a lantern would glow, not as the sun glowed, but with an aura that made colors brighter. Vivenna started as Vasher increased in size. He opened his eyes and adjusted the wrap at his waist, making room for his growth. His chest became more firm, the muscles bulging, and the scruf...
impossible to hurt or break? Awakened objects could be so much stronger than human muscles. If a Lifeless could be created from bones, made strong enough to move a rock body around it...You’d have soldiers unlike any that had ever existed. Colors! she thought. “There are some thousand original D’Denir in the city,” Vas...
for Chapter Forty-Six Chapter Forty-Seven Annotations for Chapter Forty-Seven Chapter Forty-Eight Annotations for Chapter Forty-Eight Chapter Forty-Nine Annotations for Chapter Forty-Nine Chapter Fifty Annotations for Chapter Fifty Chapter Fifty-One Annotations for Chapter Fifty-One Chapter Fifty-Two Annotations for Ch...
be able to live a happy life in either a plush palace or a quiet town.” “You’ll think differently, after a little time on the road. It’s a difficult life.” “I know,” she said. “But...well, everything I’ve been—everything I was trained to do—has been a lie wrapped in hatred. I don’t want to go back to it. I’m not that p...
years and years to...” She trailed off. He’d been alive for over three hundred years. If he absorbed fifty Breaths a year, that was thousands of Breaths. “You’re an expensive guy to keep around,” she noted. “How do you keep yourself from looking like a Returned? And why don’t you die when you give away your Breaths?” “...
me.” “Well?” she asked. “What was it?” “Warbreaker the Peaceful,” he finally admitted. She raised an eyebrow. “What I can’t figure out,” he said, “is whether that was truly prophetic, or if I’m just trying to live up to it.” “Does it matter?” she asked. He walked for a time in silence. “No,” he finally said. “No, I gue...
themselves with Vasher’s belongings. “They say you’re pretty tough,” the man said, sizing up Vasher. Vasher did not respond. “The bartender says you beat down some twenty men in the brawl.” The guard rubbed his chin. “You don’t look that tough to me. Either way, you should have known better than to strike a priest. The...
other two followed, bearing Vasher’s duffel, entering the guard room at the end of the hallway. The door thumped shut. Vasher immediately knelt beside the patch of straw, selecting a handful of sturdy lengths. He pulled threads from his cloak—it was beginning to fray at the bottom—and tied the straw into the shape of a...
he normally took for granted. It was the awareness all men had for others—that thing which whispered a warning, in the drowsiness of sleep, when someone entered the room. In Vasher, that sense had been magnified fifty times. And now it was gone. Sucked into the cloak and the straw person, giving them power. The cloak j...
Command. The harmonics and the hues, some called it. The Iridescent Tones, the relationship between color and sound. A Command had to be spoken clearly and firmly in the Awakener’s native language—any stuttering, any mispronunciation, would invalidate the Awakening. The Breath would be drawn out, but the object would b...
Awaken. Vasher walked around the chained man, finding it very difficult to offer any sympathy. Vahr had earned his fate. Yet the priests would not let him die while he held so much Breath; if he died, it would be wasted. Gone. Irretrievable. Not even the government of Hallandren—which had such strict laws about the buy...
felt such...life. He gasped, falling to his knees as it overwhelmed him, and he had to drop a hand to the stone ﬂoor to keep himself from toppling over. How did I live without this? He knew that his senses hadn’t actually improved, yet he felt so much more alert. More aware of the beauty of sensation. When he touched t...
an American fantasy and science fiction writer. He lives in Utah with his wife and children and teaches creative writing at Brigham Young University. In addition to completing Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time, he is the author of such bestsellers as the Mistborn saga, Warbreaker, The Stormlight Archive series beginnin...
said, his voice cracking slightly as he spoke. “I have suffered your insolence and games for eight years. The Sand Lord only knows how much trouble you’ve caused. Why must you constantly defy me?” Kenton shrugged. “Because I’m good at it?” Praxton scowled. “Lord Mastrell,” Kenton continued, more serious but no less def...
paused. No, that was one thing he couldn’t do. Slatrification, the ability to change sand into water, was the ultimate art of sand mastery. It was wildly different from sand mastery’s other abilities, and none of Kenton’s creativity or ingenuity could replicate it. “There have been mastrells who couldn’t slatrify,” Ken...
find the fifth sphere.” Kenton looked up. The moon circled the sky once per day, hovering just above the horizon the entire time. Soon it would pass behind Mount KraeDa. He would probably have about an hour, a hundred minutes, to run the path. “So don’t have to make it back to the starting point?” Kenton clarified. Elo...
society was ancient and stratified—new students were immediately given positions of leadership and favor based on their power. Those with lesser ability were made the virtual servants and attendants of those more talented—and such was a situation that continued up through the entire sand master hierarchy. To them, powe...
the body of the sand master. A sand master had to be careful not to master to the point that his body took permanent damage from dehydration. Kenton reached the second cliff and looked up, gathering his strength. In the distance he could see a group of white-robed forms. The mastrells, evaluating his progress. Even at ...
by his commands, the rope of sand wrapped around the sphere and brought it back to its master. There were only two spheres left to find. Unfortunately, he had just over thirty minutes to do so. The group of mastrells watched him with dumbfounded frowns as he jogged past the marking flag and located the next one in the ...
sand around it. Kenton raised his eyes from the sand, looking at the wall directly above it. Just over his head he noticed a trail of black grains sitting on the lip of one of the holes. Kenton reached into the hole, retrieving the red sandstone sphere that was hidden in its depths. Though there was a smile on his lips...
the smooth rock wall. His breath was beginning to come more and more difficulty; both running and sand mastery sapped strength, and his dry throat made each breath painful. The mastrells held his qido and its water—he anticipated that first drink with such ferocity that he almost didn’t care that he had failed. And he ...
wave of sand. Kenton gasped in amazement as he regarded the creature that slid from the ground. Sand streamed like water off the twenty-foot tall monstrosity’s carapace as it rose into the air. Its body was formed of bulbous, chitenous segments stacked on top of one another. A pair of arms sprouted from each ‘waist’ wh...
as he spun away from a claw. He raised his sword, deflecting a second attack. The creature’s strength was such that his parry barely seemed to do much good, but it did allow him to dodge the attack just long enough to strike. Even as he turned, Kenton raised his fist, commanding his sand forward. The sand tore out of h...
then releasing them. Sand flew from the ground where he knelt; he commanded and released ribbons in such quick succession that it almost seemed like he could control more than one at a time. Unfortunately, the sandling did not leave him to his digging. Kenton’s jump had confused it, but it quickly reoriented itself. It...
cry of determination, Kenton slammed his sword into the creature’s side. The blade slipped off a segment of carapace and crunched through a less-protected line of skin, digging deeply into the soft area between plates. Kenton jammed the weapon in with all the strength he had left. Suddenly, his sword jerked, then rippe...
her bunk. Finally, she located the thick, darkened spectacles and placed them on her face. The burning didn’t stop, of course. The afterimage of what she’d seen remained like a sparkling sheet in front of her, and her mind continued to throb. As she lay on the bunk, however, her teeth clinched against the pain, her vis...
So this what a star looks like up close, she thought. Such was the current theory back in Elis. It’s a wonder that anything can survive in its constant heat. The deck was busy with men. The sailors, excited to arrive after two months of sailing, were enthusiastically climbing riggings and doing other sailorly things Kh...
daring, exciting, and new—precisely the sort of thing that Khriss usually avoided. What in the name of the Divine am I doing? Khriss thought with an inward groan. Just as the approaching continent brought excitement to the soldiers, it carried dread into Khriss’ heart. I’m not a solider or an explorer. I hate travellin...
Dayside, and we go home. Who knows, perhaps the Daysiders will be the ones who end up helping us.” Baon snorted. “Duchess, if you’re intending to find something on Dayside to help you stop the Dynasty, then the legends about this place better not just be true—they’d better be gross underestimations.” Khriss didn’t resp...
agreed. The large man nodded, turning back across the deck to climb down to the lower cabins. Khriss was left alone with the three noblemen, whose faces now betrayed none of their earlier looks of resentment. Do they dislike me too? She wondered. I am the one that put Baon in charge of them. Even more than her decision...
the two stood Baon, who had donned a functional knee-length jacket to obscure the two pistols at his hips. Seeing the jacket reminded Khriss of just how hot she was. She had assumed that perhaps she would get used to it, but so far she’d had no luck. Her clothing, which had seemed so reasonable in her shaded cabin, now...
or no pistols.” The ‘useless’ comment didn’t gain Baon any ground with Flennid and the others, who were just within earshot. Honesty is one thing, Baon, but there’s also something to be said for tact. “We’re in a foreign land, Baon,” Khriss said in reemphasizing her earlier stance. “An ocean away from civilization. If ...
Khriss mumbled testily, taking the spyglass back, though they were close enough now that she barely needed it. Baon was right, of course. Every woman visible, even the children, had her hair tied up and kept under a hood-like cloth. They wore one-piece dresses—actually, they fit more like robes—that were loose around t...
Khriss said. Confusion she had expected—the language had probably changed dramatically over the last five centuries. But fear? It didn’t make sense. They stood a short distance from the docks—they had been careful to keep the ship in sight, though what good that would do Khriss didn’t know. They were obviously in a mar...
His hand kept straying to his pistol. Beside her, Baon was frowning, but not at Flennid. He was regarding Acron. “What is it?” she asked of the large warrior. He had watched Cynder’s communication attempts with disinterest—for the most part, he had instead been focused on the crowds, his eyes watchful, his posture aler...
a difficult thing to realize you’re not as unique as you thought.” Khriss snorted. “It is a difficult thing to realize no one in this entire town would have taken note of Prince Gevalden’s arrival two years ago. I was counting on the event having been unique enough that people still remembered it. Now we have no idea w...
similar to them, ended nearly half the sentences written in dayside, one of the reasons the dayside books were so incredibly thick. “I understand it too,” Cynder whispered. “It seems to be a speech of some sort. A religious ceremony?” Khriss frowned. He obviously understood more than she did. Cynder stepped forward int...
a new voice said. “Go and fetch mastrell Traiben as you were instructed.” Dirin nodded, moving away as a taller, blondish form entered. One of the physicians maintained by the Diem, a cool man who prominently wore a Kershtian sun medallion around his chest even when working on sand masters. He walked over, feeling Kent...
in the sand, where even the most powerful mastrell wouldn’t be able to retrieve them. It is just assumed that they will never turn up again, but…” “One must have gotten lodged in the creature’s carapace,” Kenton realized, taking a ladle of water from the bucket next to the doorway. “For all we know, it could have been ...
thing burst from the sand I nearly died from the shock.” “Wait a minute,” Kenton interrupted. “You can slatrify. Why did it give you trouble?” “I did slatrify,” Traiben explained. “It fled beneath the sand as soon as I tossed a handful of water on it. Unfortunately, it took the sphere with it. Its digging probably buri...
two dozen. But, he still kept fighting. Even though he didn’t really think he deserved to be a mastrell, he claimed he did. “I guess I’m too much like him,” Kenton mumbled. “It isn’t the rank that bothers me; it’s his acknowledgement of what I’ve done. Of what I am.” Elorin laid a comforting hand on Kenton’s shoulder. ...
of the others, especially the lower ranks, respected him. He also knew that many sand masters—regardless of rank—disliked him. Even as he passed a group of acolents, he heard muffled snickers and comments. The students generally mocked their odd, over-aged companion. Young as they were, that hadn’t yet been forced to d...
Drile represented all that a sand master was supposed to be: powerful, controlling, and arrogant. He walked indifferently through the ranks, as if he were striding before a group of subjects, not being taken under guard to his own trial. At the front of the crowd he paused briefly, turning eyes on the gathered sand mas...
when necessary. The ceremony, however, didn’t need to wait for everyone to drink. As soon as Elorin had given away the bowl, he picked up a sack from beside Praxton’s chair and removed several colored sashes from within. Kenton squinted, counting. There were seven—none of them gold. There would be no new mastrells this...
way I can still keep an eye on you.” Drile continued to stare at the sash, his handsome face confused. “I…” To stay in the Diem would mean humiliation, but he would still be able to use his powers. Drile reached out, but then lowered his hand without accepting the sash. He looked up with determination, meeting Praxton’...
as underfen. Reject it, and I will expel you from the Diem. I will not continue to allow you to make a mockery of this ceremony.” Praxton thrust the sash toward him. You don’t even deserve this… The words were true; Kenton had never belonged in the Diem. He had forced them to accept him when they didn’t want to, had de...
them, the lower ranks will be envious of your favored position. You could have had purpose and fellowship in one of the lower ranks—you, more than anyone else, should have known how pointless a title is. What would it have mattered if people called you underfen instead of mastrell? Would that have altered your power, m...
the sand walls, attacking the unprepared sand masters with their bolts. Those who were powerful enough had made rings of sand around themselves instead, but that left them totally cut off from the battle—leaving the less powerful to fend for themselves. Kenton ran into the affray, whipping his sand to life. A Kershtian...
for a few minutes! He thought incredulously. He could go a half-hour without a drink, longer if he didn’t do anything strenuous. He couldn’t argue with his body, however, which was warning him he had wasted too much water. A short distance away he saw Traiben holding his face in agony. “Traiben!” Kenton yelled, rushing...
wild with anger as he roared, raising his hands above his head. The sand at his feet rumbled, then exploded with light, shining like a second sun. A column of sand fully thirty-feet in diameter rose up around him, swirling and pulsing like one of the horrible storms that sometimes struck the coast. Suddenly, the column...
in its unhurried, rhythmic way. She had been scared to climb on one at first, but they were really quite docile. She had even gotten used to the faint sulfurous smell they gave off. “Really?” Cynder asked in an unconcerned voice, his tonk walking beside her own. “What makes you think so?” “I used some of the change he ...
worn in the town. Despite the clothing and hat, she could feel the sun burning above her, its heat baking her skin. It had risen slowly in the sky as they moved to the southwest, and seemed to grow increasingly powerful the more lofty it became. She hadn’t realized how much she was capable of sweating. The others were ...
a guide, she guessed they had only crossed about a third of the distance to their destination. Their water was already halfway gone. Their inability to communicate with Indan was proving to be a major difficulty in this one important area: water. Khriss had assumed that the Daysider would provide a way for them to fill...
were mutually unable to communicate, and though the darksiders’s odd skin usually caused some stir amongst the children, most people paid them little heed. Apparently, these villages weren’t unaccustomed to visitors. The guards watched them pass, squatting in the shadow of a tent wall. As far as Khriss could tell, ther...
the growing season.” “Either that, or the crops never break the surface of the sand,” Cynder said with a shrug. “Perhaps they even grow in layers, one on top of the other—that would explain why the pens are so relatively small. Remember this, My Lady, we are in a world completely foreign from our own. Any assumptions w...
want him to turn,” the warrior instructed, demonstrating but snapping his hammer lightly against the side of the beast’s carapace just below the neck. The tonk turned slightly. “The harder you hit, the sharper the turn. If you hit it on the head, it will speed up. Hit it back near your saddle, and it will slow down, de...
for a proper burial in the deep sands. Soon he stopped paying attention to the bodies, moving with a monotonous roteness. He forgot why he was moving. He forgot where he was going. He even forgot why it mattered that he arrive. And so he was completely amazed when, by pure fortune, he crawled into the shade of a tent. ...
hiding as a mercenary. He would have been prepared for the desert. Of course, his expedition had started out much better outfitted than her own. He had been given twenty veteran soldiers to guard him, not a handful of hirelings and novices. His expedition to dayside had been extolled; her own proposed expedition had ba...
reminded. “I know,” he said simply. “You shouldn’t let me get away with it either.” Khriss sighed, walking over to Stump, who sat huddled in the sand, his legs buried. As she swung on his back, however, his thick legs rose beneath him and he began to waddle forward. Baon said nothing further, climbing on his own mount ...
they approached, was the first to make the determination. “Dead bodies,” he announced quietly. “Hundreds of them.” “Ridos,” Flennid swore silently, growing even more nervous as he scanned around the crater’s rim. “Looks like they’ve been dead for some time,” Baon continued. Then, almost hesitantly, he added, “Duchess, ...
however, and several bulbous chambers underneath. The front of the contraption held three thin carapace tubes, the ends of which just barely jutted out from underneath the dome-like shield on the top. The weapon, however, was hardly in good condition—even ignorant of its workings, Khriss could tell that much. Several o...
had weapons?” Acron asked. With a disrespect for the dead that appalled Khriss, the stoopy professor had confiscated a robe from the room’s chest, and was cutting it into spare handkerchiefs. “You’re the one who is always talking about primitive cultures, professor,” Baon said. “Primitive people don’t fight the same wa...
teach in that university of yours. “Lossand,” Khriss decided. “It’s the only place where there would be enough water to grow proper lumber.” “If you say—” “Duchess!” a voice screamed. A second later, Baon was out of his seat, pistol cocked. Jeron’s cries were not warnings of danger, however. The thick-armed soldier pul...
weapons, “we only have ten charges, plus the four loaded in my pistols. We also have my sword,” he said, nodding to the sheathed weapon tied at his side. “We have barely enough water to fill our three canteens,” Acron said nervously. “I searched through the tents—the water we found earlier had already been packed on th...
only three remained—and it appeared it was her prerogative to choose which way they were going to die. “We stay,” she finally said. “For now, at least. The map shows a four-day hike to the border of Lossand, and it’s a few days further before we reach the first marked town. If there’s anything closer, then it’s not on ...
voice said. Kenton turned his head slightly, focusing on a second darksider, a balding man of perhaps sixty. He wore one of the strange, constrictive suits that darksiders were fond of, and he also seemed excited, though his emotions were much harder to read than those of the girl. The man reached out, taking Kenton’s ...
Baon, replied. The girl’s eyes opened wide in disbelief, and the other Darksider, still sitting on a stool beside Kenton, chuckled softly to himself. “The water?” Baon reminded. “How can you be out of water?” Kenton asked, shaking his head. “You aren’t in the desert yet.” Baon raised an eyebrow, lifting the tent flap a...

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