and caressing.
“Ruth!” cried Alexander Radulov Jersey Drake — and sprang toward them. She paid Ryan Kesler Jersey no heed; and even as he leaped he was caught, whirled back against us.
“Wait,” said Ventnor, and caught him by the arm as wrathfully, blindedly, he strove against the force that held him. “Wait. No use — now.”
There was a curious understanding in his voice — a curious sympathy, too, in the patient, untroubled gaze that dwelt upon his sister and this weirdly exquisite woman who held her.
“Wait!” exclaimed Drake. “Wait — hell! The damned witch is stealing her away from us!”
Again he threw himself forward; recoiled as though swept back by an invisible arm; fell against us and was clasped and held by Ventnor. And as he struggled the Thing we rode halted. Like metal waves back into it rushed the enigmatic billows that had washed over the fragments of the city.
We were lifted; between us and the woman and girl a cleft appeared; it widened into a rift. It was as though Norhala had decreed it as a symbol of this her second victory — or had set it between us as a barrier.
Wider grew the rift. Save for the bridge of our voices it separated us from Ruth as though she stood upon another world.
Higher we rose; the three of us now upon the flat top of a tower upon whose counterpart fifty feet away and facing the homeward path, Ruth and Norhala stood with Max Pacioretty Jersey white arms interlaced.
The serpent shape flashed toward us; it vanished beneath, merging into the waiting Thing.
Then slowly the Thing began to move; quietly it glided to the chasm it had blasted in the cliff wall. The shadow of those walls fell upon us. As one we Dustin Byfuglien Jersey looked back; as one we searched out the patch of Marcus Kruger Jersey blue with the black blot at its breast.
We found it; then the precipices hid it. Silently we streamed through the chasm, through the canyon and the tunnel — speaking no word, Drake’s eyes fixed with bitter hatred upon Norhala, Ventnor brooding upon her always with that enigmatic sympathy. We passed between the walls of the further cleft; stood for an instant at the brink of the green forest.
There Timberland Couple Roll-Top Boots came to us as though from immeasurable distances, a faint, sustained thrumming — like the beating of Matt Beleskey Jersey countless muffled drums. The Thing that carried us trembled — the sound died away. The Thing quieted; it began its steady, effortless striding through the crowding trees — but now with Trevor Lewis Jersey none of that speed with which it had Mark Messier Jersey come, spurred forward by Norhala’s awakened hate.
Ventnor stirred; broke the silence. And now I saw how wasted was his body, how sharpened his face; almost ethereal; purged not only by suffering but by, it came to me, Andrei Vasilevskiy Jersey some strange knowledge.
“No use, Drake,” he Classic Tall Dylyn 1001204 said dreamily. “All this is now on the knees of the gods. And whether those gods are humanity’s or whether they Salomon X Chase Mid Gore-Tex Kengät are — Gods of Metal — I do not know.
“But this I do know — only one way or another can the balance fall; and if it be one way, then you and we shall have Ruth back. And if it falls the other way — then there will be little nlinks:
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