bensen-daniel

“How can they do this?” wailed Tepin’s brother’s wife. Her brother’s widow, now. “The ones with staffs are kneeling. The warrior priest and effigies.” Except these priests didn’t look particularly devout. Easily, casually, as if they’d done so a thousand times before, the praying men shook black kernels into the fluted opening at the top of their staffs, followed by black sand. Then some business with a long black rod and a bit of gray cloth. “The priests propitiate their effigy. The knights with swords…kill those who are left alive.” “We’ll die,” wh