Watt-Evans, Lawrence - Annals of the Chosen 01 (63 page)

"You
don't
seem
to
be
troubled
by
the
slaughter
of
all
your
friends
and
family,"
the
Leader
retorted.
"I
think
I could
live
with
it,
if
I
avenged
them
with
your
death.
Why not
resign
now,
and
save
us
all
the
grief?"

"Arima
first,
in
your
family,"
the
ox
said,
twisting
its
head in
Breaker's
direction.

"Arima?"
Breaker
said,
blinking.

"Your
older
sister,
the
musician—her
true
name
begins Arima
sama
Tisna."

"It
does?
You
mean
Harp?"

"You
Northerners—you
don't
know
your
own
family's names!"
The
ox
shook
its
head.
"Strange,
strange
people."

"You
killed
your
own
people,
and
you
call
me
strange?" Breaker
marveled.

"And
after
her,
your
other
sisters,
one
by
one,
and
then your
father,
and
your
mother,
and
your
friends,
those
loutish
barley-farmers—I
can
kill
them
all,
one
by
one,
until
you give
up
this
mad
idea
of
defeating
me."

Breaker
stared
at
the
ox,
unable
to
frame
a
reply.

Did
the
Wizard
Lord
really
mean
what
he
said?
Would
he kill
Harp
and
Fidget
and
Spider,
and
their
mother
and
father, if
Breaker
kept
going?

But
it
was
his
duty
to
go
on,
to
destroy
the
Wizard
Lord, precisely
so
that
the
mad
Dark
Lord
would
not
kill
more
innocents.
It
was
the
role
he
had
accepted
when
he
became
the Swordsman.

He
had
been
warned
that
it
would
change
his
entire
life, set
him
apart
from
everything
he
had
known,
but
he
had never
thought
it
would
mean
his
family,
maybe
all
of
Mad Oak,
would
be
held
hostage,
perhaps
killed.

The
memory
of
the
blasted
wasteland
that
had
been Stoneslope
rose
up
before
him,
and
superimposed
itself upon
his
memories
of
Mad
Oak,
and
he
found
himself
imagining
the
desolation—the
pavilion
burned
down
to
stone
and ash,
the
houses
roofless
and
empty,
the
square
strewn
with his
friends'
bones,
Harp's
harp
broken
apart
in
the
wreckage,
the
strings
snapped
and
curled.

That
could
happen—it
wasn't
an
empty
threat
or
some story
from
centuries
ago,
it
could
actually
happen.

The
old
stories
spoke
of
how
some
of
the
Dark
Lords
had laid
waste
to
their
enemies,
in
particular
the
Dark
Lord
of Kamith
t'Daru,
but
Breaker
had
never
really
thought
about what
that
meant,
what
the
survivors
would
have
seen
and felt.
He
felt
physically
ill,
his
stomach
cramping—but
he was
not
going
to
give
in.

Because
if
he
once
yielded,
where
would
it
stop?
The Wizard
Lord
could
kill
anyone
who
displeased
him,
and then
threaten
to
kill
more
if
Breaker
and
the
others
retaliated,
and
where
would
it
stop?
It
could
only
end
in
the
Wizard
Lord's
death,
and
the
only
question
was
how
soon
that end
would
come.