The God-King looked up from his own desk. “What are they doing?” he asked the boy who sat nearby. The longer the shamans danced, the more pronounced the quiver grew. As they did, Briar started to feel a quiver under his rump. Briar would not call what they produced “music.” The shamans - three men and two women in dark brown homespun robes - shuffled, turned, and hopped, ringing the small cymbals that were fixed to their hands.
Crouched near to the shamans were two horn players, a drummer, and three players of singing bowls. There five shamans from the Skipping Mountain Goat Tribe stood before a sheer rock face on the cliff opposite Briar and his companion. He sat cross-legged on cushions with a traveling desk on his lap, but his eyes were fixed just now on the events across the river. He wore a green silk quilted tunic patterned with light green willow leaves, gold-brown quilted breeches, and the calf-high soft boots that were popular in the mountains.
MAGIC STEPS TAMORA PIERCE SKIN
He was the foreigner, his skin a light shade of bronze, his nose long and thin, his eyes a startling gray- green in this land of brown-eyed easterners. It whistled down the canyon, making the banners around them snap.īriar Moss was the older of the two, sixteen and a fully accredited mage of the Living Circle school in Emelan. Two boy-men sat on the river’s eastern bank, where an open-fronted tent gave them shelter from the chilly spring wind. "Not blood?" he whispered.OUTSIDE THE WALLS OF GARMASHING, CAPITAL OF GYONGXE He glanced atĚlzena, at her bootless foot.
MAGIC STEPS TAMORA PIERCE CRACK
A dark stain ran down the leather into the crack where sole met upper.
Nurhar reached for the other and dragged it to him. He went to sit by Alzena as the mage began to chant. "Get rid of them," Nurhar told the mage, who came out of the shelter of his spells. She felt nothing but mild disgust, now they would have to wash the coins. The healer started to turn when she heard him drop.Ělzena flung the blanket aside as she rolled, brought out her sword, and beheaded the woman. The guard was dead in the moment between the closing of the door and his taking the coin. Nurhar was fast, nearly as fast as Alzena.
The man hesitated at the doorstep, but entered when he sawĚlzena facedown on the bed, the healer counting a heap of gold coins, and the gold coin that Nurhar offered him. The man in green with the red cap," said the healer, too intent on the gold in her hand to use common sense. "There's a gold astrel in it for the guard if you can help us to Fortunate Wharf." "You brought someone as guard?" The healer nodded. Nurhar upended the bag in the healer's palm and fifteen gold astrels dropped out. Her sword lay just under the blanket at her side like a promise. She gave her head a tiny shake, and tugged the leather moneybag from her pocket.
He could be asking about her leg, though he was not. The woman knew they were illegal, and had demanded a price to match it. I'll have my fee now – three gold majas, you promised."Īlzena clenched her hands in the bedclothes. "Give the medicine five days, then remove the bandage. "All done," said the healer, tying the bandage off. She could not see the mage, hidden by his spells in the corner, but something was making her nervous.