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239 lines
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239 lines
11 KiB
HTML
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<title>Mythlands - Chapter 27</title>
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<h1>27</h1>
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<p>
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Alevin thought that this place of pain and misery was just how it would be in the dead lands beyond Tir Nan Og. And he would revenge the people who had
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suffered here if it took a lifetime, or his life.
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</p>
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<p>
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While Jack, Kerry and Corriwen were reunited and making plans, Alevin had led the slaughter of the Scree who worked the Temair people as slaves.
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</p>
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<p>
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He sat on a stone, bloodied and tired, at the chasm dug into the ridge, now close enough to the lake behind for its water to force through in fine sprays.
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</p>
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<p>
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"We must get all of them out of here, men women and children. Every one of these souls who've been stolen. Get them from this foul place to higher ground."
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</p>
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<p>
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He looked at wall. "When that gives, it will flood like never before. Likely flood the whole of Temair."
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</p>
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<p>
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He cursed himself again when he realised he should have gone for the dam first.
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</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>
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Mandrake marched the Scree and traitor chiefs back towards the ridge.
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</p>
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<p>
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The circling roaks had seen the carnage as Alevin's men swept into the cut.
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<p>
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<em>Kill them. Kill them all. Wipe them out</em>
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. The followers heard the mantra through the leather as the roaks relayed the events on the cleft.
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</p>
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<p>
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<em>Don't fail me now</em>
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. His head was bursting with the pressure of her fury. His eyes rolled in their sockets and his face contorted in a dreadful grimace
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</p>
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<p>
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But he kept the army moving, as fast as the Scree could march.
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</p>
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<p>
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When he arrived at the far ridge, Alevin's men had gone, and so had all the slaves.
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</p>
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<p>
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He slouched in the wagon, while the Morrigan still hissed and spat in his mind.
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</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>
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Brodick was dead, stone dead.
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</p>
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<p>
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But Declan was alive, which was just as well for them all.
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</p>
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<p>
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He dismounted and cleaned his sword with a hank of leather, then slowly began to whet the blade until it gleamed.
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</p>
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<p>
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"You thought I betrayed you," he said to Jack, without raising his eyes from his work.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I felt the book in your bag," Jack said. "Our Book of Ways. And it warned us that the traitor would have an empty sheath. Just like you."
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</p>
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<p>
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"So you tied me up?" Declan allowed a half smile. His face was still bloody. "A mistake. I would have cut your throat if I thought you were a traitor."
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</p>
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<p>
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"We don't do that," Kerry piped up. "Things are bad enough."
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</p>
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<p>
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"It wasn't Declan," Corriwen broke in. "Brodick had the book."
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</p>
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<p>
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"Then what was in his bag?"
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</p>
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<p>
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Declan got to his feet and lifted his saddlebag. He drew out a leather binding, unwrapped the drawstring and showed them. It was a book, but it wasn't the <em>Book of Ways</em>.
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</p>
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<p>
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"My wife. Eileanne. She liked to write verse. And between the pages she pressed flowers. To remember good days."
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</p>
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<p>
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Declan's voice was soft, and very sad.
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</p>
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<p>
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"I broke my knife in the head of a Scree when I returned and found her dead. And I will take a Scree head for every hair of hers that was harmed."
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</p>
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<p>
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He looked at Jack, then swept his gaze across all three. "And when I give my word, I don't break it."
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</p>
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<p>
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Jack felt a rush of shame. He had misjudged Declan.
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</p>
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<p>
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"But you did the right thing," Declan said. "I might<em> </em>really have been the traitor. And it is more important you finish the job you started. One
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life is nothing compared with fair Temair."
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</p>
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<p>
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He wrapped his little book again. "Next time, just cut the traitor's throat and don't leave him tied with just threads."
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</p>
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<p>
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"That was twenty pound nylon line," Kerry said. "You must be stronger than you look."
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</p>
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<p>
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Kerry was joking. They had seen Declan fight when the Scree troop attacked.
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</p>
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<p>
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"The real traitor is dead," Corriwen said. "Killed by his own greed."
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</p>
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<p>
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She pulled close to Jack. "But before he died, he gave me this."
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</p>
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<p>
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She drew out the heart stone and looped it around his neck.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Where it belongs," she said.
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</p>
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<p>
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"So what now," Declan asked. The fire of the battle still blazed in his eyes.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Let's ask the book," Jack said.
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</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>
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Alevin reached the great dam just as Mandrake arrived on the ridge. He pulled up in wonder at its construction.
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</p>
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<p>
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The massive trees that had been felled in Sappeling Wood had been used to block the narrow ravine through which the river flowed down the valley. Other
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trunks, some of them five feet across, had been laid at a slant against the dam wall to bolster it against the enormous weight of the water behind it, the
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water that now filled the ravine to the brim for miles upstream, enough to send it leaking through the solid rock of the cut channel.
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</p>
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<p>
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Even now the pressure was buckling those enormous timbers and the whole dam groaned and creaked like a vast creature in pain. Water had risen to the very
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lip and surged over the edge in thundering arcs onto the rocks hundreds of feet below.
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</p>
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<p>
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He wondered if he had enough time to break this thing, to destroy it before the rocks gave way in the cut and flooded the salt desert beyond.
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</p>
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<p>
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And he wondered what immense damage the flood water would do to the land downstream if he succeeded.
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</p>
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<p>
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But it was no choice at all. As a child he had memorised the tales of the ancient wars with the creature they knew as the Morrigan. She had almost
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destroyed Temair then.
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</p>
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<p>
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This time she would succeed.
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</p>
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<p>
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It needed a hard heart and courage.
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</p>
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<p>
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He dismounted from the great roan and stood at the edge of the ravine. Scree bodies littered the timbers where Alevin's army had caught them napping. Even
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the people who had been enslaved had surged forward with hammers and pick-axes top take their revenge on the ogres who had so cruelly whipped and goaded
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them to work until they dropped.
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</p>
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<p>
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Not a Scree was left unbroken.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Destroy it now," Alevin finally said. "And heaven save Temair."
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</p>
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<p class='break'>* * *</p>
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<p>
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Mandrake reached the top of the ridge and looked down at the deep waters below. It was as if he stood between two black wells of hell.
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</p>
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<p>
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The pictures she allowed into his mind showed him Alevin's men, far at the end of the lake where the great dam groaned under the force the lake.
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</p>
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<p>
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There were lights all along the dam as men worked through the night to carve and hack their way through the buttresses. They could work all night and all
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day, he knew - <em>she knew -</em> but the time had arrived and the time was <em>now.</em>
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</p>
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<p>
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"Feed the storm," the voice croaked. "Fuel the whirlwind."
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</p>
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<p>
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He kept those pallid hands high above his head, while below the Scree and the renegade chiefs only heard the booming of his voice, strangely strong in the
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night. Of Mandrake, they could see nothing in the darkness, but they felt a shiver of power tremble all along the ridge where they waited on high ground,
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crouching against the buffeting wind and sleet.
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</p>
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<p>
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Mandrake spoke, and jagged forks sparked from his fingers, blue as glacier ice, stabbed at the centre of the storm and were swallowed in the maelstrom.
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</p>
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<p>
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The ground rumbled. The Scree felt it through their feet.
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</p>
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<p>
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Way down at the dam, Alevin saw a strange ripple bearing down like a tidal bore to smash into the bulwarks.
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</p>
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<p>
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Mandrake laughed.
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</p>
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<p>
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"Breach it, fools. Breach my dam now!"
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</p>
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<p>
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Thunder spoke so loud that rocks trembled and cracked.
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</p>
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<p>
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The whole swirling storm seemed to suck into itself and then explode in a vast burst of power.
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</p>
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<p>
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Stone fountained up. A deafening crack split the air.
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</p>
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<p>
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It sounded as if the world had split in two.
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</p>
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<p>
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The end face of the cleft shattered. Broken stones flew like slingshot, as big as great-horses. Boulders the size of houses tumbled in their wake.
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</p>
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<p>
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And then the water came such an immense flood that it scoured and gouged, cascading in a white roar down the cut and into the salt barrens.
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</p>
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<p>
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A hundred Scree stragglers were caught on the edge of it and were carried to their deaths like leaves in a spate-river.
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</p>
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<p>
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On the ridge Mandrake watched as the lake surged through the cleft with a monstrous roar that shivered the world, and inside his head, the very thing that
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he had woken in the Black Barrow cackled in foul triumph.
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</p>
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