It was the 1st Day of Harvest 336 when Perrin sat on the platform again. It had been nearly five moons since he was there for the memorial service when it seemed the entire world chanted “General Shin.”
But tonight there was a different feel in the amphitheater, much like the times he’d caught a thieving boy, forced him into a chair, and set in to yelling at him about his duty and responsibility to the world. It never worked. The boys would glare up at him with hardened eyes. Perrin had always been amazed that so few parents were upset with their children’s thieving, but now he understood why as he stared at Edge.
The majority of Edge stared back at him, suspecting that he was about to ruin their fun and profit.
It didn’t help matters much that Wibble was completely massacring the very carefully worded speech Perrin had prepared for him. How in the world did Wibble become magistrate anyway?
In the most accommodating way possible Wibble was trying to suggest to Edgers that perhaps the residents should consider the feelings of the relatives that may still be around, and that maybe messages could be sent to all parts of the world looking for relatives, and then, if no one responded, then perhaps auctions could be held, or maybe even some of the properties donated to less fortunate families, or to some of the refugees from Moorland who still didn’t have places of their own . . .
That’s when the crowd grew ugly. Perrin could feel the tension growing in the amphitheater and wished he’d had more than fifty soldiers stationed for security. Many in the audience rose to their feet, shouting.
“Wibble, are you telling us we don’t deserve what we get?”
“Why should I give up something I’ve worked for?”
“Moorland survivors? Just how much longer are we supposed to tolerate them? Let them go somewhere else!”
“This is unfair!”
Colonel Shin had tried to stay squarely in his seat like an appropriate authority, but his shock at their reaction wouldn’t let him. He shifted in his chair, trying not to leap to his feet.
His plan was perfectly reasonable. That Wibble presented it so ineptly certainly didn’t help the mood of the crowd, which was more ravenous than Perrin anticipated. The magistrate cowered under the weight of all the protests, sent a look of appeal to Colonel Shin, and Perrin was on his feet in an instant.
If he worried about another General Shin rally erupting, he didn’t need to. While most of the villagers silenced and sat down at the sight of the colonel, several men continued to stand, their arms folded in challenge.
Perrin waited ten long, agonizing seconds before speaking. “Almost a year and a half ago I saw this village pool together all their resources to save each others’ lives. Each of your homes, barns and shops were damaged. Each of your families faced food shortages. But each of you made sure no one suffered. We all lost weight last year, but as I look around I don’t see anyone starving today.”
A few snickers rippled through the crowd as Colonel Shin’s eyes paused on rotund Mr. Trum. He was one of the few who continued to stand, his folded arms resting on his great belly. He likely had many plans that Colonel Shin just may see fit to destroy, and he wasn’t about to let that happen.
“Just this morning I read a report about how much property had been ‘acquired’ during the past few nights. I’m sure those things weren’t taken by our precious sons, which leads me to believe that someone else is picking up where the boys and the Guarders have left off!”
A few people squirmed in their seats, but not as many seemed to feel as guilty as the colonel had hoped.
“I have also read a report about how many lands, houses, and shops have been snatched from the dead!” His voice boomed across the amphitheater.
A couple of the standing men sat down. A few still remained, including Trum.
Perrin took a few deep breaths to regain his composure. “I can’t help but wonder, why? Our crops will be excellent this year. We’ll have more than we expected to store. The herds have rebounded, trade’s come back, the shops are rebuilt, and people are buying goods. We have no more threat of attack from the Guarders, thievery is down, or it was—” an irritated edge entered to his tone. He shook his head in disappointment. “I’ve lived here for seventeen years now, and I’d predict that this will be one of our most prosperous years. Yet that’s not good enough for you.”
A small smile emerged above the multiple chins of Mr. Trum. “Colonel!” he called out. “It is a prosperous year and getting better. Why let others’ properties go to waste?”
“I’m not suggesting they go to waste, Trum. I’m suggesting we distribute them more fairly, more equitably,” Perrin clarified. “Many in Edge are struggling to get by. Not everyone’s well off. This is an excellent opportunity to balance some of that. I’m suggesting giving the properties—once we have no relatives wanting to claim them—to those in greatest need.”
Another man stood up. “My two daughters just spent their entire Weeding Season break taking care of our neighbors’ farm. Now you’re telling me we’re not entitled to it? After all their labor?”
Perrin squinted at him. “Two laborers for three weeks’ time? Those wages wouldn’t be near enough to purchase any land. I had no idea property values had plummeted so drastically.”
Nervous chuckles scattered through the amphitheater.
But the man wasn’t finished. “We buried the family, too!”
“Then took their animals as thanks?”
A woman in another part of the amphitheater, petite yet livid, stood up and pointed at the man. “You know full well that hog was supposed to go to us! She had wanted me to have it!”
The first man pointed at her. “The hog? What had you ever done to deserve that hog? He told me how he bought it, raised it, fed it—
He was my friend, and his hog belongs to me!”
“You have three hogs already!” the woman shrieked. “We have only two! The colonel says it’s be to fair, and that isn’t fair!”
Before Perrin could explain that wasn’t what he meant at all, the first man’s wife stood up, her face red with rage. “You sow!” she bellowed at the petite woman.
Perrin recoiled. The only “sows” he knew of were questionable women that hung around the northeast entrance of the fort. Never had he heard that word used that way in mixed company, and certainly not out of the mouth of the cobbler’s wife.
The hog-wanting woman’s husband now joined his wife and pointed at the first man. “Put a muzzle on your own sow and give us back our hog like the colonel ordered!”
Perrin staggered, but no one noticed. It was the makings of a fight, and no Edger wanted to miss out on it as the amphitheater erupted in an explosion of noise and shouting.
Perrin threw up his hands in disgust but the only one who saw him was Mahrree on the front bench, her head slowly shaking in amazement. On either side of her Jaytsy and Peto stared, stunned.
Magistrate Wibble, who’d been wringing his hands, turned to the colonel in desperation. Wibble was all about cooperation, as his campaign speeches declared, and—like all good politicians—he didn’t have the first idea of how to establish that.
The colonel sighed and did the only thing he knew how to deal with out-of-control people. He drew Relf’s sword.
He had intended to bang it on the wooden platform to draw everyone’s attention and have the smith fix the damage to the tip later. But the movement of his arm and the clanging of the sword as it left the sheath was an ominous enough noise that everyone noticed it.
A terrified hush filled the area and everyone sat down, trying to look like as small a target as possible. Even Trum shrank on his bench, reducing him to the size of only two men.
Perrin was tempted to replace the sword in his sheath, but the effect was too powerful to dismiss. Perhaps it was good that the village, while loyal and grateful, had also been terrified of him.
“Enough!” he roared.
The crowd surrounding him inched back even more.
“What
’s happened to you? All of you? You just buried your friends and now you’re fighting over their possessions? You aren’t people, you’re vultures! Did they die fast enough for you?”
“Colonel!” Mr. Trum was on his feet again, a brave act for such a large target. “Colonel,” he said more calmly, with a touch of nervousness as the colonel firmed his grip on the sword’s hilt. “No one’s trying to take away the significance of their deaths. We’ve all lost friends, and even some family. But they’d want us to continue, don’t you think? They’d want others to have access to all they had. We’ve suffered greatly this year and a half. We could share stories about it all evening! This is a way of giving some of that back.”
“Giving?” Perrin scoffed. “Who’s doing the giving? No one. You’re just taking! The Creator expects more from you.”
Mr. Trum rolled his eyes and held out his hand dramatically. “Colonel, Colonel, with all due respect—”
Perrin braced for anything. When someone begins, With all due respect, it meant no respect was about to follow.
“—as much as I appreciate that we have a leader that still thinks about the Creator, how can you be sure this is what He expects? Maybe this is His payment to us for making us suffer?”
Perrin wished he was closer to Trum. He was sure the man couldn’t feel the full fury of his gaze from the middle of the amphitheater. “You really think, Trum, that the Creator’s going to kill off part of our population so you can have more? You have the largest fields around, the biggest herds, and now I understand you’re taking over your neighbor’s tannery? Quite a corner on the leather market you’ll have, won’t you? You haven’t suffered at all, Trum, for all the years I’ve known you. Why do you deserve more?”
Trum was unmoved. “Colonel, Colonel,” he said in a sickly sweet tone. “Where did Nature’s Laws come from?”
Perrin wasn’t expecting that odd question. He squinted. “The Creator.”
“And, dear Colonel,” the syrupy tone continued, “why did only certain families die? I have a theory: Nature’s Laws.”
“Nature’s Laws,” Perrin repeated dubiously.
“Nature eliminates those who are not as fit or capable of life. Entire families died because Nature no longer had room for them,” Trum reasoned. “And if the Creator made those laws, then the Creator must have willed them to die, so that we can have their goods. We are those that are stronger and fitter for this world. I’m sorry there are those who have less, but we must consider, Colonel, that Nature doesn’t prefer them, either. Perhaps their poverty is Nature’s way of eliminating them, too.”
“Perhaps their poverty is the result of others’ greed and selfishness,” Perrin countered.
Trum remained unmoved, the insinuation bouncing off his belly.
Bewildered that Trum couldn’t see his part in any of this, Perrin continued. “With that reasoning, then you could argue that the land tremor was Nature’s way of eliminating all of Edge. That’s what Nicko Mal thought; he was ready to let this village die like Moorland. But if Nature wanted all of Edge eliminated, then why are you still here?”
“Because of you, dear Colonel!” Trum simpered sarcastically as he spread open his arms. “That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it? Edge is here because of your rescue?”
Perrin didn’t move a muscle, except for a small one near the back of his jaw.
No one else dared move either. The crowd shifted their gaze nervously from Shin to Trum to Shin again—and to his sword—waiting for a response.
But Perrin was too incensed to trust anything that would come out of his mouth at that moment.
Trum folded his arms defiantly again. “Well Colonel, not all of us would have perished. Some of us have more ability than others to survive. Perhaps you saved those who Nature didn’t want saved at all, so Nature came back in the form of the pox to claim those that were too weak. Nature always wins.”
Perrin took a step toward the edge of the platform. “You have ‘more ability’ to survive Nature’s attacks? If Nature sent a bear to chase after the two of us, I’ll give you one guess which of us ‘Nature’ would devour, Trum!”
Trum squirmed. The small movement was accentuated through his layers, causing a rippling affect that normally would have been quite humorous. But no one in the amphitheater saw anything amusing about the first debate that platform had seen in over a decade.
“Nature has its own ways of being selective,” Perrin insisted when Trum didn’t respond. “It doesn’t need you to accelerate the process. The Creator allows Nature’s Laws to unfold. But many of those laws are intended for animals to follow, not people! We are to rise above the basic laws and live a higher law. Yes, the world’s unfair, Nature’s unfair, because the Creator is allowing us the opportunity to resolve that, as part of our Test. We can choose to bring balance. We can choose to fix those inequalities.
“I’m not here to force anyone—” he didn’t realize he was gesturing with his sword until Mahrree told him later, “—but I am here to ask you to think of the needs of others. I believe the Creator intends for us to use our surplus to help those in need. He’s giving us an opportunity to do something good for others, not take a reward just for surviving.”
He pivoted to address the entire crowd surrounding him. “All of you received others’ surplus last year. I have the records to prove it. All of you have been beggars waiting in line for the emergency stores from Idumea. Now you have the surplus, so give it to those who need it.”
“Who is to say how much is surplus, Shin?” Trum demanded, causing Perrin to spin around to face his section of the amphitheater again. “If we have another year like last, I’ll need all my resources to make it through! I decide for myself what my family doesn’t need. So far, I don’t think we have enough.”
A few brave voices chorused, “Hear, hear!”
Someone else called out, “Well if Trum doesn’t think he has enough, I certainly don’t either.”
A louder chorus of “Hear, hear!” rippled among the villagers.
“How much did you need to survive last year?” Perrin called over the din.
The people quieted.
“We lived for weeks off of dry bread, shriveled apples, and bits of meat I chose not to identify. But we survived.”
“And I never want to live like that again!” someone shouted.
“I’m not saying you will,” Perrin said. “We have far more than that, but some still don’t. Already your lives are better, so choose to make others’ lives better as well.”
“To a vote!” someone near the back began the chant. “To a vote!”
Trum sneered in challenge at the colonel and punched the air above him. “To a vote! To a vote!”
By the fifth cry, the entire amphitheater was demanding a vote.
Perrin sighed.
It was now beyond his influence. He motioned to the magistrate with his sword. With irritated emphasis, he sheathed his weapon and marched over to his seat to stand by it, his arms folded.
Wibble tried to clear his throat over the noise, but the call for a vote echoed even louder. Wibble looked to the colonel who merely held up his hands and sat down in his chair, shaking his head.
Local votes were to be overseen by the magistrates. Only if the voting ran contrary to Administrators’ decrees could he intervene.
But Perrin didn’t want to. In fact, he wanted nothing more to do with Edgers. He regretted ever wielding his sword in defense of any of them. For seventeen years he sacrificed his life for their safety, on too many occasions. Because of these people he lost sleep, lost time with his wife and children, lost his savings to pay off their expenses, lost his parents and, for a time, even lost his mind.
All for them.
Yet when presented with the possibility of an extra hog, or another bushel of corn, or someone’s abandoned shop, they couldn’t imagine sacrificing anything at all, for anyone.
They were as bad as Idumea.
Perrin hated
Idumea.
He looked dully over at Mahrree on the front bench, and she stared back at him, shaking her head in disbelief.
He nodded at her once in agreement.
His children on either side of her looked around dumbfounded.
Finally the crowd began to silence itself.
“We have a call for a vote,” Wibble tried to sound as loud as the colonel. “Do we have a spokesman to articulate the nature of the vote?”
“Let Trum speak!” called someone. Several voices seconded.
Trum waved in acknowledgement and made his way up to the platform with a small grin on his face as others patted him on the back. He was wheezing as he reached the top stair and wisely didn’t look at the colonel. If he had, he most likely would have withered to the size of a regular man under the glare.
Trum gestured with his thick hands clubbing the air. “I propose we vote on the ownership of the properties left by those who died,” he announced. “All property currently in possession of others stays in that possession. All other properties not yet claimed will be done so by those living in closest proximity to the deceased.”
The people cheered in agreement.
Perrin leaped from his chair, ran toward the back of the platform and jumped off, taking the stairs in two large steps. He landed right in front of a very startled Chief Barnie and grabbed his arms.
“Get your men out there, now! To all the abandoned homes not yet claimed.”
“Why?” Barnie asked, his eyes hazy as he tried to catch up to the conclusion the colonel had already reached. For a chief of enforcement, he wasn’t very swift on his feet and was even slower in his brain. “They haven’t even voted on anything yet—”
“But they will,” Perrin shook his arms to jostle some sense into him, “and when they do, what’s going to happen next?”
The chief tried to puzzle it out, but two of his officers nodded as their faces went pale, a bit quicker on the uptake.
They heard the call for a vote come from the magistrate. “All in favor?”
“Chief, NOW! To the abandoned properties!”
Barnie nodded obediently and turned to his six men that were behind him, already heading out the back doors.
A loud chorus of “Favor!” cried out over their heads.
Perrin sat down in resignation on the steps of the platform.
“Any opposed?” shouted Wibble.
Perrin leaned forward and held his head in his hands.
A few timid voices called, “Opposed!”
“Then those in favor have—”
But the magistrate’s voice was drowned in the thunder of thousands of Edgers in a mad dash to be the first to leave the amphitheater by any exit. A few screams suggested someone had been hurt, but the flurry of people didn’t slow. A few even came over the platform and raced down the back stairs past the form of the colonel still hunched on the steps.
Perrin began to rock slowly back and forth. “Animals,” he whispered. “Just a bunch of stupid animals.” He noticed a blue uniform rush up to him, and he looked up at the owner of it.
“Sir,” Lieutenant Offra panted, “what do you want us to do? Head out to the properties as well?”
Perrin shook his head and stood up. “Jon, I don’t want any of my men mixed up in this mess. Tell your soldiers to patrol the roads, protect those who are innocent—especially children and those from Moorland—but do not get involved. We’re done sacrificing for this village.”
---
Mahrree gripped the arms of her children, not worried that they’d join the stampede but to make sure they didn’t get accidentally swept up in the current.
“This is madness! At least we already gave my mother’s house to that family from Moorland.”
Peto turned. “Wow—I’ve never seen this place empty so fast.”
“We need to get out of here,” Jaytsy said, wringing her hands.
“I want you two to head straight home,” Mahrree told them, “and secure the doors and windows with the iron rods.”
“Why?” Jaytsy asked worriedly.
“Precautionary,” Mahrree assured them. “But if someone doesn’t get a piece of property they think is owed to them, they just may come seeking revenge on the colonel’s house.”
“What about you?” Peto said.
“I’m going up to the fort to watch what’s going on from the tower, then I’ll get me an escort home. I’m going to find your father so you two head home!”
Jaytsy and Peto nodded and jogged to an exit.
“Peto,” Jaytsy panted as they reached the village green where they could break into a run. Well, as much of a run as Jaytsy’s skirt would allow. “We’re not going home. We’re heading to Deckett’s.”
“Why?”
“Did you hear what they were saying? About those from Moorland?”
“I heard a bit,” Peto said as he cleared a small bush his sister had to go around. He slowed to let her catch up. “Something about them not deserving—oh. I see.”
“Exactly. Stupid skirts,” she muttered as she tried to find a better way to hold them up. “Deck doesn’t know about any of this, especially that those from Moorland may be targeted. Augh!” she cried as her hem caught on a sticky shrub. “Peto, warn him! I’ll catch up.”
“Are you sure?” he called as he jogged backward. “We’re supposed to stay together—”
She yanked until her hem ripped. It was another Joriana-Kuman-Idumea dress, so it didn’t matter. “Just go! Warn him!”
By the time she made it to the Briter-fort farm, Deckett and Peto were securing the last of Deckett’s milk cows in the barn, so Jaytsy rounded up the stray chickens. Eventually all of the animals were locked up—except for the stubborn bull who was destined for the butchers and the soldiers’ table next week anyway. Deckett reluctantly picked up a pitchfork, sighed, and placed himself in front of the latched barn doors.
Peto retrieved a hatchet from the wood pile and took his position next to Deckett, while Jaytsy gaped at them.
“You’re not seriously going to use those, are you?”
“Of course not!” said Peto, insulted. “But as I’ve heard Uncle Shem tell the soldiers before, it’s the appearance of things. If you look threatening, danger often won’t give you a second glance.”
“I hope that’s true,” Deckett said, a bit unsteadily.
Jaytsy looked around for a makeshift weapon and decided on a fallen tree branch, which she swung experimentally.
Deckett’s eyes bulged. “And what do you intend to do?”
“Help you,” she said. “I’ve learned a few things over the years,” and she thrust and swiped with the branch.
Deckett shuddered and firmed his grip on his pitchfork. “No one would really attack all the way up here, would they? I mean, I’m right across from the fort! They’d have to be stupid—”
“Most of Edge is stupid right now,” Peto told him. “Trust me.”
Jaytsy nodded and was about to add her opinion, but voices coming up the road clamped her mouth shut.
Peto’s eyes grew large when he heard them too. Even though the barn was well off the main road, some voices just carry.
Peto held out his arm to push Deckett back against the wide barn doors, and he and Jaytsy also pressed themselves against the wood, trying to blend in to the faded gray.
“—and Offra,” they heard Colonel Shin say as he strode briskly to the fort, “I want four guards over here at the Briter farm. This is, after all, our farm, our cattle, our chickens, our produce, and our farmer in charge of it all. No one’s to touch him or anything else.”
Between Peto and Jaytsy, Deckett sagged in relief.
“Of course, sir,” Offra said. “I’ll get some men down here within the next few minutes.
Colonel Shin, flanked by half a dozen soldiers and now in view of his frozen children, pulled his wife alongside who struggled gamely to keep up with their rapid pace.
“And send down two more s
oldiers as well,” Shin said as they hurried up the road, “to escort my children home and to stay posted at my house.”
Jaytsy’s mouth dropped open, and Peto, scoffing loudly, broke formation. Swinging his hatchet in dismay, he called, “All right—how’d you know we were here?”
Their father stopped and turned to the three poorly-hidden defenders.
Mahrree stared in surprise. “What in the world are you doing up here? I told you to go home and bar the windows and doors!”
While the other soldiers tried not to chortle, Perrin nodded for them to continue on to the fort, and Offra broke into a jog to get the six soldiers.
The Shins ducked between the railings of the fence that ran the perimeter of the farm and picked their way through the cucumbers.
“For starters, none of you would make very good Guarders,” Perrin told them as he gingerly tried not to step on anything green. “You’re supposed to blend into your surroundings. Against that gray, the three of you stick out like weeds in dirty snow.”
Jaytsy frowned at her yellow and green dress while Peto and Deckett nodded feebly at each other’s tan shirts.
“And second,” Perrin continued, his voice gentler as he came to the barn, “I would have been disappointed if you hadn’t come here. Proper help is on the way, Mr. Briter.”
“Thank you, sir,” Deckett sighed, loosening his grip on the pitchfork.
Perrin tilted his head at it. “Good choice of a weapon, though, Deckett. Peto, never use a hatchet. You throw it at someone and miss, then you’ve just given the enemy a new weapon. Jaytsy, you could likely do some damage with that branch, but it looks rather brittle, so one hit is all you’d get before it broke. But Deckett, take a look at this.” He stepped back, drew his father’s sword, and Mahrree took a few protective steps out of the way.
As Deckett’s eyes bulged again, Perrin held the gleaming sword out in front of him, pointed at the young farmer’s chest. “See how long my reach is?”
Deckett swallowed and squeaked out a, “Yes, sir?”
Jaytsy squeezed his arm. “I doubt he’s trying to run you through tonight.”
“No, I’m not. Now your turn,” Perrin beckoned. “Hold out the pitchfork. No, don’t choke up on it. Slide your hands down . . . a bit more. Now, aim it right here,” and he gestured to his belly.
Shaking, but trying hard not to as he felt Jaytsy watching him, Deckett held out the pitchfork parallel to the ground. The four rusty-sharp tines were only inches away from the colonel’s stomach.
“Look at that, Deckett,” Perrin said cheerfully, which, considering their positions, seemed to Deckett completely inappropriate. “Your reach is longer than mine. Do you realize what that means?”
“No, sir, and I really don’t want to—”
“It means you have the advantage, and four sharp points instead of my just one. Think of the kind of damage you can do puncturing my lungs or gouging my gut.”
“Do I have to, sir? Think about the damage?”
Perrin chuckled and sheathed his sword again.
Deckett promptly put the tines of his pitchfork in the air.
“Deckett,” Perrin said, taking the tool out of his hands, “I’m afraid you do. First lesson in defense, since the road’s still quiet.”
Jaytsy and Mahrree exchanged a quick smile.
Peto squatted, grinning that he wasn’t being lectured for once.
“Now when you hold out the fork, lead with this hand,” Perrin repositioned Deckett’s unsteady grip, “and stabilize with this hand. Then you can thrust, like this. That’s right, son. Now—”
But Jaytsy didn’t hear anything else, because her mind was repeating what she just heard her father call Deckett: “son.”
He rarely called anyone “son.” Not with that tone of voice.
She clenched her hands into fists to keep them from shaking in too much joy. All she could think as she watched her father explain why stabbing in the chest likely will get the tines stuck in the victim’s ribs, and watched Deckett grow gray at the thought, was, Father called him “son.”
It was only a moment later that six soldiers arrived at the farm, jogging carefully through the plants to reach the barn.
Perrin nodded to Deckett that the lesson was over. “Maybe you want to help guard the house?”
Deckett shook his head. “No, sir. The structure’s not important. They can take whatever if they happened to come up here. The animals are what we’ll defend. All that I care about is alive.”
Jaytsy beamed with pride, and when she turned to look at her father, she noticed he was watching her and smiling faintly.
He turned back to Deckett. “Well said, son.”
Jaytsy was sure her chest would overheat at any moment.
Perrin pointed to two sergeants. “I want you to escort my daughter and son home, then stay posted at my house. I doubt anything will happen, but remember: we’re protecting the innocents. Protect those who don’t want any part of this.”
Mahrree kissed her children quickly, and Jaytsy sent one last look back to Deckett as she started for home.
He nodded once to her, adjusted his grip on the pitchfork as Colonel Shin had showed him, and rooted himself before the doors of his barn.
---
A minute later, as they headed again for the fort, Mahrree squeezed Perrin’s arm. “You really don’t think Deckett could ever use that pitchfork on another human, do you?”
“Of course not,” he said. “There isn’t a drop of soldiering blood in that man.”
Mahrree smiled as they entered the compound. “You sound a bit pleased by that.”
He bobbed his head back and forth, which was his usual reaction when he didn’t want to articulate his agreement.
“So I’m guessing,” Mahrree continued, “that you went through that little lesson on how farm implements can cause injury or death because you were stalling until the soldiers arrived?”
“Once again you show the insight that very few officers possess. None of those three had any hope of holding anyone off, nor do I think they’ll have to, either.”
“But it was nice to see them try,” Mahrree said as they started up the stairs to the tower.
“Now I’m questioning your insight, because Mahrree, it’s not,” he said darkly. “Not nice to see them holding weapons at all.”
“You’re right,” she murmured apologetically. “That was a stupid thing to say.”
Chapter 23 ~ “The most harmful sentences begin with, ‘I deserve . . .’ ”