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As might a village bell in a temple of Adaon, summoning farmers urgently back from the fieldsA far bell heard, faint but clear, from over morning fields of waving yellow grain
"Brandin knew what had happened immediately through his sorcery," Baerd said, his voice like the rasp of a file"He swept back south and west, leaving Alberico a free hand in Ferraut and CertandoHe came down with the full weight of his sorcery and his army and with the rage of a father whose son has been slain, and he met the remnant of his last foes where they had waited for him by the Deisa
Once more Baerd looked over at AlessanHis face was bleak, ghostly in the moonlightHe said:
"Brandin annihilated themHe smashed them to pieces without mercy or respiteDrove them helplessly before him back into their own country south of the Deisa and he burned every field and village through which he passedHe had chanel purse spray women slain in that first march, and children, which was not a thing he'd done anywhere elseBut nowhere else had his own child diedSo many souls crossed over to Morian for the sake of the soul of Stevan of YgrathHis father overran that province in blood and fireBefore the summer was out he had leveled all the glorious towers of the city in the foothills of the mountains, the one now called StevanienOn the coast he smashed to rubble and sand the walls and the harbor barriers of the royal city by the seaAnd in the battle by the river he took the Prince who had slain his son and later that year had him tortured and mutilated and killed in Chiara
Baerd's voice was a dry whisper now under the starlight and the light of the single moonAnd with it there was still that bell warning of sorrows yet to come, tolling in Devin's mind, louder nowBaerd said:
"Brandin of Ygrath did something prada logo more than all of thisHe gathered his magic, the sorcerous power that he had, and he laid down a spell upon that land such as had never even been conceived beforeAnd with that spell he He stripped that name utterly from the minds of every man and woman who had not been born in that provinceIt was his deepest curse, his ultimate revengeHe made it as if we had never beenOur deeds, our history, our very nameAnd then he called us Lower Corte, after the bitterest of our ancient enemies among the provinces
Behind him now Devin heard a sound and realized that Catriana was weepingBaerd said, "Brandin made it come to pass that no one living could hear and then remember the name of that land, or of its royal city by the sea or even of that high, golden place of towers on the old road from the mountainsHe broke us and he ravaged usHe killed a generation, and then he stripped away our gucci new bag name
And those last words were not whispered or rasped into the autumn dark of AstibarThey were hurled forth as a denunciation, an indictment, to the trees and the night and stars, the stars that had watched this thing come to pass
The grief in that accusation clenched itself like a fist within Devin, more tightly than Baerd could ever have knownThan anyone could have knownFor no one since Marra had died really knew what memory meant to Devin d'Asoli: the way in which it had come to be the touchstone of his soul
Memory was talisman and ward for him, gateway and hearthIt was pride and love, shelter from loss: for if something could be remembered it was not wholly lostNot dead and gone foreverMarra could live; his dour, stern father hum a cradle song to himAnd because of this, because this was at the heart of what Devin was, the old vengeance of Brandin of Ygrath smashed into him dior saddle handbag that night as if it had been newly wrought, pounding through to the vulnerable center of how Devin saw and dealt with the world, and it cut him like a fresh and killing wound
With an effort he forced himself to steadiness, willing the concentration that would allow him to remember thisWhich seemed to matter more than ever nowEspecially now, with the echo of Baerd's last terrible words fading in the nightDevin looked at the blond-haired man with the leather bands across his brow and about his neck, and he waitedHe had been quick as a boy; he was a clever manHe understood what was coming; it had fallen into place
Older by far than he had been only an hour ago, Devin heard Alessan murmur from behind him, "The cradle song I heard you playing was from that last province, DevinA song of the city of towersNo one not of that place could have learned that tune in the way you told me you miu miu charm bag did
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