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By the time the last of the white lacquer moved under the mountain shade (not inside), the flats looked like the desert had sent up the edges of an old dream. Corpses lay in combs where the scrapes had chewed men into lines. Nets lay like dead snakes. Reed mats were sprawled at wrong angles like drunk tables. Skall's causeway teams were down in pieces, honest hands still clutching rope. Oru's veil lay torn in bright air that refused to be lied to anymore.
A few from one hundred and a little of Mardek's original remnants could not be seen at all — and they were not there. They knew the horrors. They fled far at the beginning of the battle. There were like twenty of them. They saw everything from far away.
Far out, another roar wrote itself along the sky and died in a shape that made Alka's answering cry feel like the edge of a blade sliding back into its place.
"Report," Shadeclaw said without turning.
