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Mariah stumbled. As she pitched forward, her boots caught on her long brown skirt. She put out her hands as she fellonly to be drawn up short as a hand grabbed her hair. |
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''Ouch!" She raised her hands to her head at the excruciating pain. She caught at the wrists of the man who'd hurt her, but he batted them away. |
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"No," he said. It was, perhaps, his only English word. The same word he had used with her before. |
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She had been taken by Nahtana. |
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"Leave her alone," a faint voice piped up indignantly behind her. |
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She turned slowly, since the horrible fingers that smelled like animal grease were still wound in her hair. Even this slight a movement caused pain, but she had to look. "I'm all right," she managed to say to Will, one of two other captives from the inn. Both were soldiers. Both were ashen, filthy with livid spots on their cheeks where they'd been struck. |
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She had seen the young corporal, Whisby, lose his scalp |
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