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Back Daughter of Eden
Chapters (68)
  1. Title page
  2. Dedication
  3. Part I
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 20. 20:25 MT.
  30. Part II
  31. Twenty-six
  32. Twenty-seven
  33. Twenty-eight
  34. Twenty-nine
  35. Thirty
  36. Thirty-one
  37. Thirty-two
  38. Thirty-three
  39. Thirty-four
  40. Thirty-five
  41. Thirty-six
  42. Thirty-seven
  43. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 22. 20:05 MT.
  44. Thirty-eight
  45. Thirty-nine
  46. Forty
  47. Forty-one
  48. GAIA YOUNG. SUBJECTIVE IMPRESSIONS.MISSION DAY 25. 15:30 MT.
  49. Forty-two
  50. Forty-three
  51. Forty-four
  52. Forty-five
  53. Forty-six
  54. Forty-seven
  55. Forty-eight
  56. Forty-nine
  57. Fifty
  58. Fifty-one
  59. Fifty-two
  60. Fifty-three
  61. Fifty-four
  62. Part III
  63. Fifty-five
  64. Fifty-six
  65. Fifty-seven
  66. Fifty-eight
  67. Also by Chris Beckett
  68. Copyright page

Gela’s heart, that was a big shock. I felt sick and empty inside. All of us had imagined Strongheart and his sons here in Davidstand, figuring out how to drive the Johnfolk back into the Pool. We’d talked about it on our long walk over here. We’d comforted ourselves with the thought that, even as we trudged along, our Head Guard was working out how to get us back home again. We’d told one another, over and over, that the place we were going was the one place, more than any other, that Strongheart would keep safe.

‘He’s gone to the four hundredth Virsry at Circle Valley,’ the woman told me, watching my face with that funny pleasure people take in giving bad news. ‘He was long gone by the time we arrived here. Guards have been sent after them, of course, on fast fast bucks, but they can’t possibly have reached them yet.’

Strongheart had taken Leader Mehmet and Leader Hunter with him as well, she told me, his first and third sons. They’d be on their bucks now, up on Snowy Dark, making their way to Circle Valley to join Strongheart’s second son, Leader Harry, who was guard leader up there and was getting things ready for the Virsry. So it wasn’t just Strongheart who didn’t know. All four of the highest men in the Davidfolk Ground knew nothing at all about the Johnfolk attacking us.

A whole crowd of people had gone with them, so the woman had heard. The four hundredth Virsry was a big big thing, and, for the first time ever, the Headman of Brown River and the Head Woman of Half Sky had been invited to come to it. Strongheart had taken his two newest shelterwomen, Jane and Flowerlight – Jane was pregnant, and Flowerlight had a small baby – and Mehmet and Hunter had each brought one of their women, along with about thirty helpers and forty of the guards that we’d been thinking would be here to protect us.

‘They went off as happy as anything, apparently,’ the woman said, ‘with horns blowing and drums thumping. The high women chucked out handfuls of stumpcandy for the kids to run after. The high men chucked out trading sticks. And all the while those ringmen were coming towards us across the Pool.’