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"You thought nothing! You're just like them. You only take things! You never give! Instead, you take and take, and always with the point of a sword! What about Is-Shada? Is-Meisha? TaSpon? And all the others?" She gestured to where a few of the Mercadian soldiers were still piling corpses. "What about ChoManno?" Her voice caught, and then she recovered herself. "They paid the price for your greed."

"Orim, I don't understand…"

"No, of course not! How could you? You've never made an effort to understand anything."

"All right, that's enough!" Gerrard shouted. "A massacre occurred here today. An atrocity. I gave the order that set it off, yes, but as soon as I found out what was happening, I put an end to it. I didn't come for massacre. I came to rescue you and Weatherlight-"

"You don't even know what that ship is! You don't even know the power it has. You've spent all your life running from your Legacy, but now, when someone else finds the true worth of it, you come with swords and monsters to take it back?"

"I'm sorry for what happened here," Gerrard said contritely. He looked out over the fields of dead. "I am very sorry. But I didn't declare this war. These folk stole my ship, and I came to get it back."

"The ship is secure," said a new voice. So intent had the argument been that Gerrard and Orim had not noticed the approach of a four-armed cateran enforcer and his henchmen. The creature was crimson from his knobby head to his taloned feet. Only his fangs remained white, and they smiled gruesomely. "Per your orders."

"Thank you, Xcric," Gerrard replied coolly. "Just now, I'm in the middle of something." He turned back toward Orim.

"Yes, you are," the cateran hissed. He seized Gerrard's wrists and locked shackles over them.

Gerrard spun in sudden shock. "What is this?"

"You are under arrest, Commander," Xcric said, grinning.

Sisay reached for her sword, only to have shackles snap closed over her wrists too. A whole party of cateran enforcers surrounded them.

"Arrest? And what is the charge?"

"Murder of those in your command," Xcric said. "You ordered the Mercadian guard to attack my forces. You yourself killed two of my soldiers."

"This is ludicrous," Gerrard growled. Orim was also imprisoned now. Aboard Weatherlight, Tahngarth and Takara stood, similarly chained. "You have no authority-"

"On the contrary, the magistrate himself hired me and my band. He anticipated such treachery from you. I am empowered to imprison you and your coconspirators and press into service whatever Cho-Arrim wizards and workers are needed to convey Weatherlight back to Mercadia. Now, I am finished with you. Take him to the Jhovall corral."

Gerrard struggled against the caterans that dragged him away. "You can't take my ship! The magistrate can't renege on the deal."

Xcric smiled. "He does not renege. You bargained for troops to regain your ship. You did not bargain for the ship itself."

Guards pushed Takara and Tahngarth up beside Sisay and Orim. Together, the bridge crew of Weatherlight staggered in chains across the field of the dead.

Takara's red hair gleamed with firelight. She said bitingly, "I knew it had been too easy. Nothing here is as it seems."

Book II

Chapter 10

Gerrard stood amid a huge, jeering throng. He'd been washed. His clothes were cleaned and pressed. The rust bands had been scrubbed from his wrists. The cuts and burns and bruises of the Rushwood now lurked beneath a thick coat of powder makeup. A Mercadian coiffeur had trimmed, polished, and set his hair and beard. He had never looked cleaner or more handsome.

Gerrard was not simply a military prisoner. He was a political prize.

"Behold, people of Mercadia!" cried a stout nobleman from a nearby dais. His gold-embroidered robes gleamed against the dark shadow of Mount Mercadia, towering above. His eyes swept the huge crowd that had gathered in the lower market. A sour turn of corpulent lips showed how little he enjoyed speaking the vulgar language of the commoners. "Behold our prisonerLegendary Gerrard, giant killer!"

Boos and hisses came from the throng. The multifarious roar of the marketplace this morning had been stilled when the soldiers had returned with their prize. Now, the warring shouts united in a single purpose-the humiliation of the foreign traitor.

Even if Gerrard could have fought past the two hundred soldiers who hemmed him in, he would have had to battle a crowd of tens of thousands. His obedience was assured not by these hundreds or thousands, though, but by the daggers pressed to the shackled throats of three-Sisay, Takara, and Tahngarth. No, Gerrard would play out this perverse drama today, and his friends would live. Though unfettered, Gerrard was utterly trapped.

"Once, his fame echoed through these walls-the man who had single-handedly slain a thousand giants and two thousand cateran enforcers! So magnificent were his rumored deeds, the chief magistrate graciously provided him Mercadia's finest fighting force-the Fifth Regiment-to lead against his enemies." The nobleman smiled capaciously, his jowls glimmering like the wet pouches of a satisfied frog. "He took the Fifth Regiment to the Rushwood to rescue a friend, a comrade, who is here among us as well." He gestured expansively backward.

A crowd of soldiers parted, allowing a snow-white Jhovall to stalk slowly into the clear space beside Gerrard. Tridents prodded the beast forward. It growled low and nipped at the points that jabbed its haunches.

Aback the beast rode Orim. Just like Gerrard, she had been washed and primped for this public spectacle. Her turban was bleached to shine like a standard. Her hair had been elaborately braided with Cho-Arrim coins. Though she seemed unshackled, hidden chains bound her to the dazzling beast. Orim was a critical figure in the drama- Gerrard's crew member and friend, a convert of the Cho-Arrim, the damsel in distress that the giant killer had ridden to rescue. Her actions were as compelled as Gerrard's. Orim rode the gleaming Jhovall toward Gerrard, but her eyes only watched the daggers that pinned the throats of her friends.

"Orim," Gerrard said. His eyes were slitted against the gleam of the plains. "I'm sorry for all that has happened."

She dropped her gaze from Sisay and the others. Pain, anger, and regret warred on her face. Whatever her true feelings, her part in the play was already scripted. Orim reached up, drew the turban from coin-coifed hair, and flung it at Gerrard's feet.

"Renunciation!" the noble shouted exultantly.

A roaring cheer answered from the crowd.

"Even the woman he rescued renounces the giant killer!" the nobleman cried above the furor.

Soldiers converged on Orim, fastening shackles over her wrists while removing the hidden ones on her ankles. They dragged her from the mount and drove her before their tridents. Dust rose in puffs from her feet as Orim staggered toward Tahngarth and the others.

"And here-do you see?-here are his other proud friends!" the noble said, gesturing toward the shackled crew.

They stood there only until Orim was driven into their midst. Then, impelled by blades, they turned their backs on Gerrard and marched under guard toward the lifts that waited beyond the crowd. In moments, they and their soldiers were within one of the golden cages that would take them to the city above.

"His friends renounce him as well. They turn their backs on the giant killer. But why? What could the Legendary

Gerrard have done that was so horrible?"

In the pause, the question echoed against the mountain's base. It circulated in hisses among the crowd.

Nodding in mock indignation, the nobleman answered his own question. "There, first of all, is the matter of a massacre. The Cho-Arrim are our ancient enemies, yes, but they are still human. Gerrard did not act so. He ordered his troops to slaughter every man, woman, and child in the central villageten thousand of them!"