Chapter twelveThis time the bastard was surrounded by a bevy of half-naked girls. They were Bowmaids of Loh. They had sweet round faces and soft pouting lips and were sharp as barracudas and tough as old boots. There were eight of them, four each side of his damned throne chair. Their great Lohvian longbows were half drawn in that practiced archer’s grip. They could lift, draw, let fly, in the flicker of an eyelid.
He sat in that chair leaning slightly forward, bearded chin cupped in his left hand, looking broodingly at me. He wore robes of a smoky sullen red sweeping away from artificially widened shoulders over a scale shirt. He was studded with golden adornments. His right hand, bone white like the left, rested lightly on the haft of a double-headed axe between his booted feet. All thi
