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And then again it was the waiting, the waiting no
chronicler records in accounts of this or of any battle. You
have heard, certainly, how the news of Derek's defeat was
brought to us, of the bodies draped over the red-eyed horses
and of the soft threats of the Dragon Highlord. Of knights
so ruled by the Measure that they let the enemy speak, let
him taunt, until one among us (the elfmaiden it was), not
ruled by an old and wasted chivalry but by something more
profound and ancient - an instinct for survival underlined by
anger - wounded him with a well-placed green arrow. Of
listening to the birds who remained by night as they sang
their songs of bereavement, their songs perhaps of Heros
and of Sturm.
Again it was the waiting, until they attacked and
breached the walls.
And how can I explain to you, Bayard, what it was like
when the waiting ended, how the draconians charged from a
place beyond vision, growing in size and in number as they
covered the miles from their camp unto the foot of the
walls, sidling like crabs from the path of our arrows,
rushing through the rain of oil and pitch we set down before
them, clutching the walls with a fierce suction of the hands
and climbing like chameleons, like salamanders (for some
of them were pitch-covered, burning as they climbed) up to
the crest of the battlements, where the sound of metal on
metal, of metal on flesh, rose up around me and banished
thought
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