cultured voice never missed a beat.
"—All-Father, the rascal, gets away with it by blaming other gods. But I can't see where the same clever trick could do your Assan much good. 'Sees all, knows all, creates all'—that doesn't seem to leave any room for excuses, now does it?"
Kata gaped up at her. Yes. Assan save us. She is crazy.
Chapter 23
When Helga saw the first signs of a barbarian rout, she had a hard time to keep herself from cheering. As it was, she made no attempt to suppress a savage grin.
Undiplomatic, to be sure. But the hundreds of Southron cavalrymen who pounded past the huge column of the Reedbottoms and Adrian's mercenaries—heading the other way, as fast as they could drive their velipads loaded with booty—were too preoccupied with staying in their saddles to notice the expression on her face.
She was a bit surprised that many of them managed to stay mounted at all, much less at a full gallop. Some of the booty which the barbarians had seized in their ravaging forays was downright bizarre. One man was even trying to balance the brass headboard of a rich man's bed across his saddle.
All of them were overloaded, even for the heavy Southron mounts. If it weren't for the fact that Helga knew how that booty had been taken, she'd find the whole thing more amusing than anything else.
"Stupid as beasts, too," she hissed. "By the time they get back across the Wall, they'll have discarded half that stuff."
"Half, at least," responded Adrian. His own face looked sour. That wasn't because the Southron retreat was upsetting his plans, Helga knew. It was simply because Adrian wasn't really any fonder of the barbarians than she was.
Well, except for that Prelotta freak, and his mangy Reedbottoms.
Helga's own opinion of the Reedbottoms, and Prelotta, lacked any of Adrian's complexity. She understood the subtlety of his Grove-trained logic, more or less; she understood much better the cold-blooded calculations which lay behind her father's schemes. But Helga's attitude toward the southern barbarians—the Reedbottoms no less than any of the others—began with their smell, and . . .
Ended there. Stinking savages.
A knot of horsemen was approaching the
"—All-Father, the rascal, gets away with it by blaming other gods. But I can't see where the same clever trick could do your Assan much good. 'Sees all, knows all, creates all'—that doesn't seem to leave any room for excuses, now does it?"
Kata gaped up at her. Yes. Assan save us. She is crazy.
Chapter 23
When Helga saw the first signs of a barbarian rout, she had a hard time to keep herself from cheering. As it was, she made no attempt to suppress a savage grin.
Undiplomatic, to be sure. But the hundreds of Southron cavalrymen who pounded past the huge column of the Reedbottoms and Adrian's mercenaries—heading the other way, as fast as they could drive their velipads loaded with booty—were too preoccupied with staying in their saddles to notice the expression on her face.
She was a bit surprised that many of them managed to stay mounted at all, much less at a full gallop. Some of the booty which the barbarians had seized in their ravaging forays was downright bizarre. One man was even trying to balance the brass headboard of a rich man's bed across his saddle.
All of them were overloaded, even for the heavy Southron mounts. If it weren't for the fact that Helga knew how that booty had been taken, she'd find the whole thing more amusing than anything else.
"Stupid as beasts, too," she hissed. "By the time they get back across the Wall, they'll have discarded half that stuff."
"Half, at least," responded Adrian. His own face looked sour. That wasn't because the Southron retreat was upsetting his plans, Helga knew. It was simply because Adrian wasn't really any fonder of the barbarians than she was.
Well, except for that Prelotta freak, and his mangy Reedbottoms.
Helga's own opinion of the Reedbottoms, and Prelotta, lacked any of Adrian's complexity. She understood the subtlety of his Grove-trained logic, more or less; she understood much better the cold-blooded calculations which lay behind her father's schemes. But Helga's attitude toward the southern barbarians—the Reedbottoms no less than any of the others—began with their smell, and . . .
Ended there. Stinking savages.
A knot of horsemen was approaching the