Chapter four“You call me notor,” said Strom Hangol ham Finral as I wheeled to a halt facing him with guards either side of me and prodding me on from the rear. “You are accused of deserting the caravan you were sworn to protect.”
He sat at a table on which rested a large double-bitted axe and a clepsydra just turned. The water dropping down was stained a pleasant pink color. Around us in the early rays of the twin suns, the caravan breakfasted preparatory to moving off. Smoke and cooking odors wafted. The day would be fine. Also, if this buffoon of a strom sitting in judgment on me couldn’t be made to see sense, it could be the day on Kregen I breathed my last. Or, at the least, suffered some horrendous punishment.
I said: “I did not desert,” and the sounds were like those of a bosk with
