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Back Bleak Seasons Save as PDF
Chapters (102)
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There was an altar. Mogaba and Ochiba were involved in something ceremonial. Above the altar stood a small statue of dark stone, a four-armed woman dancing. I was too far away to make out details but I was pretty sure sure she had vampire fangs and six teats. She might be wearing a necklace of baby skulls. The Nar might give her another name but she was Kina. The worship offered by the Nar was not that described in the Jaicuri scriptures, though.

The Deceivers do not want to spill blood. That is why they are called Stranglers.

The Nar not only spilled blood on behalf of their goddess, they drank it. And it looked like they had been doing so for some time down there. Drained corpses hung to one side. Their latest sacrifice, a hapless Jaicuri, got hoisted up with those soon after I arrived.

The Nar were practical in their religion. After the grim ceremony ended they began butchering one of the bodies.

I got down and crawled out of there. I did not give one rats ass what Uncle Doj thought.

I have seen a lot with the Company, including tortures and cruelties almost beyond comprehension and inhumanities I do not have the capacity to fathom, but never had I encountered socially-sanctioned cannibalism.

I did not puke or boil over in outrage. That would be silly. I just put distance between me and that till I could speak without worrying about who might overhear. I have seen enough. Lets get out of here.

Uncle Doj responded with a thin smile and lifted eyebrow.

I have to relay this. I have to write it down. We may not survive this siege. They will. Word of what they are has to survive, too. He watched me closely. Was he wondering if the rest of us also enjoyed the occasional long pig roast as well?

Probably.

This sort of thing might go some toward explaining our ambiguous reception in these parts.

Mogaba could not read. If it did not occur to him that the dark side of the Nar was no secret anymore I could leave word in my Annals, to be salvaged by Lady or the Old Man.

They are all down there, Uncle said. So we will return by a swifter path. By which he meant we would stroll through regular passageways just like we belonged there.

Whats that noise? I asked.

Uncle gestured for silence. We stole forward.

We discovered a group of Taglian soldiers bricking up a sallyport we could have used to leave. Why were they doing that? That door could not be broken open from the outside. It still had Stormshadows spells protecting it.

Uncle pulled me back, headed another direction. Obviously he knew the citadel quite well. And I had no difficulty imagining him roaming around in there all the time, just for the hell of it. He seemed like that kind of guy.

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