He could feel that both his hands were empty. Now, if he’d kept his long pointed stick... The mere idea of actually trying to push that stick in front of him at the chavonth gave him a dizzy feeling of extreme ill health.
From the time before dawn when the twin suns rose in the sky, Lon had been murkily convinced that this was an evil day. He’d said as much to Nath the Goader, an intemperate and ill-humored fellow at the best of times. Nath, in charge of the wild animals and worried out of his wits by the unwelcome responsibility, had merely growled in his beard and sent Lon off with a flea in his ear, or, as Kregans say, a zorca hoof up the rump. The truth of Lon’s premonitions was here, awfully here, in this savage chavonth, and the corpses, and the blood, and the shambles outside...
T
