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Warren Blount
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<DIV>His thoughts were more traitorous than any trick of Lucilius. He loved her. He must trust her. He shook his head. Hard enough to fight. Worse, if he had to reassure her.Would they be eager to go up against whatever fastness the Black Naacals had taken for their own? In this light, and with the Eagle gleaming beneath the moon, he thought they could do anything. Judging from the rate at which they traveled, the way they held up their heads, so did they. It was so simple, he thought. One simply...As the hours passed, the moon rose, climbing high overhead."Draupadi!" Ganesha snapped, a guard alerting other warriors.She grasped it, and the standard flared up with the same fierce joy that shone in her eyes. Quintus's hand went to his breast as if in salute, but instead he found the tiny bronze figure that had been his guard.THE TREMORS THAT had cracked the ancient sea basin through which they had marched for so long had dealt more gently with the land here-or perhaps some lingering virtue of the White Naacals had spared it from the worst of the devastation. Perhaps he had picked the memory from Draupadi's thoughts. The water here had been shallow, tricky for mariners. He could all but smell the salt, hear the snap of commands and the song of ropes as a ship neared port, coming about sharply before the arch. Water ... desire possessed him. She chanted once more, as the bronze talisman Quintus bore heated. Another of the men who had collapsed during the flight after the earthquake screamed and began to writhe. This one gasped, his face purpling, and Quintus heard the crack and snap as his bones broke."No need to trouble yourself with that," Quintus rasped at Lucilius. "Get me over there," he ordered his bearer. He picked up the Eagle before the other man could try.The very stillness of the waste and the soldiers' awe in the presence of those gleaming white robes silenced him for the moment.Draupadi shook her head. Her long black hair whipped about the lustrous cloth of her white robe. "What priests have done that was ill, others must remedy." She stepped close to him and looked into his face. "But, if you will, follow us at several paces' distance and light our way." </DIV>
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