Chapter elevenSharp points thrust through folds of the canvas. I felt the blasted little prickings all over my body. These little frightfuls had beaks as sharp as one of Seg’s arrow points! That made me think that Rollo the Runner at this rate of punishment might never get to Vallia and stroll through the glades of lisehn trees, from which the fine Vallian bowstaves are built.
I jumped and twitched as the beaks stuck into my flesh. But the canvas and the furs held off most of the length of the curved beaks. Mostly these birds caught and ate the small living things on the trunks, and insects hiding in the cracks of the bark. As for the xichun, they could drive the big lizards mad with their torments. And, if we weren’t out of it quickly, so they would us.
All this time my mental clepsydra
