I read really grim stuff before bedtime - and sometimes I write really grim stuff before bedtime

By the end of the third day the Battle of Evec’s Ridge was winding down. Two fifths of those who began the fight now walked the stars. An equal toll bore fresh wounds, some incapacitated and others carrying on in pain and weakness. Pyres lit the sky each night filling the air with the sickly tang of charred death and still there were bodies lying about. Carrion birds had gathered. Banners lay trampled in the bloody mud, injured horses were killed in mercy, and not a few warriors begged for the same fate.

Now it is the turn of the younger brother of the woman who offered herself under sacred feathers to see if he can turn the craziness around. The balancing act between betraying one's kin, betraying one's people, and betraying oneself is never easy.





I believe this old version of the well-known song (not this performance, but this version) lies behind my choosing "aruh" as the word in my mythical world for "woe" or "alas!"


Aruh hne n'Iswealdh an lwaithre tosdach jelaigh!

[Alas, the Isenwild lies in the ashes of death!]

--A lament related to a later volume (but written in the 70s and typed from memory after decades)

Of the next three chapters I only know what happens in two scenes. I can only predict the largest story lines.

Sleep well, my precocious parakeets!

--the BB