Chapter tenSomething hard and jagged croaked away at me like a rusty wheel turning on a rusty axle. I opened my eyes and turned and sat up. The sky held that ivory sheen patterned with streaky cloud and vaguely lit in palest apple green and rose that said the twin suns, Zim and Genodras, were about to burst in all their glory over the horizon.
The raucous cawing sawed again at my ears.
“All right, all right, Bird of Ill Omen,” I shouted. I stood up and shook myself and whirled my arms about my head. My Val! Here I’d just drifted off to sleep on the grass like the veriest coy, the greenest young i***t afloat!
Up there that tremendous raptor sailed in hunting circles. All gold and scarlet he blazed in the light of the Suns that had not yet reached the surface of the world. I blinked. “You
