Her first thought was that she had fallen, momentarily stunned, on the field of battle. She woke with a start, groping for the sword that should be by her side.
It wasn't there. She touched the flabby flesh of a breeding-mother who, flaccid-breasted and aquiver, shook beside her in an ecstasy of fear. Meg gagged as she stumbled to her feet. Her limbs were still weak beneath her, as if the veins that fed them had been fouled; her head was filled with tiny imps who danced and shrieked unmercifully. But—she was alive! And the mists were clearing from her brain.
Now she knew there was sobbing beside her. Strange sobbing. Not the soft, easy gulping of a breeding-mother; a harsh sound like the rasp of an adze on creet. It was Lora, Chieftain of the Warriors. Her armor crusted with blood, her great hands twisting with grief, she was rocking backward and forward, alternately weeping and cursing the Gods.
"Now accursed be the breeding-mother that gave me birth!" was her plaint. "This night shall my stars burn as cinders—"
Meg shook her shoulder roughly.
"Lora!"
The Warrior Chieftain's eyes recognized her. Lora cried prayerfully, "Search well your girdle, Meg! Have you a dagger upon you?"
"No. But, why—?"
Lora beat her tiny, thwarted breasts with clenched fists. "I live!" she choked. "I, their leader, continue to live, while they lie there, in peace and glory—"