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‘They’re creatures of habit, Co one way today, they’ll almost certainly repeat it tomorrow’

‘We saw that fairly often back in the ravine, Narasan,’ Hook-Beak rehter this time,’ Veltan added, ‘but they still respond to the coh tells the that until the Vlagh tells them otherwise Blind obedience is part of their nature’

‘All right, then,’ Narasan continued ‘We’ve come up with several ways to delay the up here to start kicking at Gunda’s wall The bright light fro-bats The breast-works and poisoned stakes pretty enerally eliot thirteen lines of breast-works down the slope from Gunda’s wall here We don’t really have to totally eliminate these eneo home after work, we’ll be able to rush on down and reoccupy the outerht, we’ll pull back to the next breast-works Then, on the third night, we’ll pull back one ive the church soldiers almost teeks to finish their raold out there At that point, we’ll just politely tip our hats and walk away’

‘You can walk if you want to, Narasan,’ Sorgan said, ‘but I think I’bow found a certain hard practicality in Narasan’s plan If the servants of the Vlagh seeress each day, the Vlagh quite probably would see no reason to dreay The servants of the Vlagh would continue to overrun one barricade each day, and if Oestion worked as well as it should, the church armies should finish their raed to persuade Narasan and Sorgan that the voice which had haunted his sleep for the past several nights had been telling the truth Of course, the sudden appearance of old had helped quite a bit

‘Maybe if I’ht,’ he muttered as he walked on back to the forest a h he now had several friends abow still preferred solitude when the time came for him to sleep

The trees in this forest were of an unfamiliar variety, quite probably because Veltan’s Doinal hoh shelter wasn’t that important in the summer

He laid down on his bed of leaves and drifted off to sleep

‘Thou hast done well, brave hunter,’ the now-familiar voice intruded into his bow of Zelana’s Doain’

The Bridge

1

Tadan was bow’s notion that so help in the form of five church arreed, of course, but so far as Padan knew, none of the church soldiers, nor priests, nor even the brutal Regulators had seen the colorful alteration of the red sand stretching out over the Wasteland

‘It just doesn’t float,’ Padanthe wide, turbulent river toward the waterfall where hisboulders on the roof that had been cleverly designed to protect the church soldiers frobow’s archers

Narasan had accepted the idea, however, so now Padan was obliged to go along despite his doubts Padan had always felt that to be one of the drawbacks of army life Once the commander made up his mind, the officers who served under him were required to obey Back in the days when Padan, Gunda, and Narasan had been cadets in the areants who had trained the them over the head with that every time they turned around ‘Just do as you’re told’ had seemed to pop up thirty or forty times a day It made a certain amount of sense, of course, but if the co, half the are the river Vash had carved on down through the ether ‘The plans have changed, gentle new has co rocks on that lorious leader wants us to help those halfwit church soldiers down there instead of hindering thee so that they’ll come down in front of that ramp instead of on top of it’

‘That doesn’t make any sense, Padan,’ one of the older officers protested

‘Narasan seehtly, but then decided to let his officers knohy they were changing the overall plan ‘It would see soames,’ he said ‘We all kno the Aold, and this friend of ours is using iold as bait When those church armies finish their ramp and see , they’ll go crazy, don’t you think?’

‘I know that it loosened my head up just a little when I first saw it,’ another officer admitted

‘Let’s just hope that the church-boys feel the sarand plan" is to help the dear old churchies get up here where they can see all that glittery dirt out there Then we’re supposed to just get out of the way and let them run on down the slope beyond Gunda’s wall and tra everybody who comes their way?’ another officer added dubiously

‘That’s sort of at the core of this new "grand plan",’ Padan agreed

‘You don’t really sound very convinced, Padan,’ the first officer said

‘I don’t really have to be convinced,’ Padan declared ‘Narasan bought the idea, and that’s all we need to know Get started, gentlemen Move yourboulders ahead of that ra to take those holy nit-wits down there to realize that our boulders are as useful as the ones out in the middle of the river’ He paused ‘If some of our boulders accidentally come down on top of a few dozen church soldiers, I won’t be too upset,’ he added