Chapter fifteen
ShadowThat I speak to you in these tapes is proof I did not die.
How close to death I drew I do not know. By my immersion in the Sacred Pool of Baptism my body had been endowed with remarkable powers of recuperation and recovery from injury. But my left arm had been stripped away, mangled, practically wrenched from the socket, destroyed. That would not be repaired. It might not kill me; it would never be a sound left arm again.
Someone was shouting at me. The leem fight brought back ghosts.
“By Kaidun! D’you want the glass eye and brass sword of Beng Thrax to do it all for you! Go in, you coys, you hulus. Go in and fight for the Ruby Drang!”
For the Ruby Drang! Aye! I would fight for the Ruby Drang.
And, another voice, leading on the war hosts: “For Vallia! Valka! Val
